Midnight on the Forecastle

Sapolsky on Religion

A very interesting lecture by Robert Sapolsky:

  

(via Boing Boing)

ADDENDUM: OCD and Religion.

Jeff Sharlet's "The Family" and Christianist Belief

A little while ago I finished reading Jeff Sharlet’s book, The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power.  It’s a terrific book about a subject that has been fueling my interest for a number of years now; namely, how Christian fundamentalism in America expresses itself in both the culture and politics of the nation.  Sharlet has experience in this genre and has created a fierce and exhaustive account of the organization behind the seemingly innocuous National Prayer Breakfast.  More than that, however, The Family provides needed insight into the nebulous architecture of belief that has come to typify the modern evangelical movement in this country.  According to Sharlet, the “prayer cell” model utilized by the Family is fueled by a fundamentalist conviction that the person of Jesus should be followed, period.  Therefore, evangelical belief is (as we know) utterly unmoored from its pedigree in establishment religion… but it is also disdainfully anathema to theological dialectics which dissect and interpret the meaning (and importance) of Jesus’ life and teachings.  As such, American Christendom has become (and most assuredly is) a mechanism by which power entrenches and protects itself.

In stressing obedience to Jesus above all else, obedience itself has become the hallmark of devotion – nevermind that Jesus himself was a vaguely eschatological agent of social change.  Two days ago I listened to a radio preacher speak ad nauseam about the ironclad truth of Romans 13:1 (a verse Sharlet fully explicates in the context of the fundamentalist ethos).  He [the radio preacher] left no room for interpretation: “The authorities that exist have been established by God.”  No exceptions.  No legalisms.  No moderate interpretation.  No secular influence allowed.  The only caveat: “…now, this doesn’t mean that those who possess authority will act in a Godly manner.  Only that the authority they possess comes from God!”  Whew.  This means, of course, that when in doubt… well, trusting in authority is synonymous with trusting in God.  Man is the head of the household.  The President is the head of the country.  Obedience to this (and all) authority is nothing less than a form of worship.  Hence, power entrenches and protects itself.

During the last few days I’ve been reading through the New Testament Gospels (thus far I’ve only gotten through Matthew, Mark, and half of Luke).  I’ve also been watching an old Frontline series about the history of Jesus and Christianity.  Both make this important point:

…this holy man winds up in Jerusalem and winds up executed by the authorities, probably as a trouble maker, somebody who's best off dead, rather than alive because alive who knows what may happen? He's a threat to the social order. He's best off executed.  This is how Christianity begins. It very rapidly turns into something different.

Personally, I don’t see hypocrisy in the transition of rebel into overlord.  We know it’s not unusual; that it is, in fact, the normative evolution of social institutions (even Thomas Franks wrote about this in Commodify your Dissent).  Eventually, however, forces rise up to offer a counter-revolution.  This is what is so insidious about religious fundamentalism: it counters its own revolution.  Jesus = Water.  Christianity = Coke.  Christian Fundamentalism = New Coke.  Everyone hated New Coke.

Cafeteria Citations

From an article on CNN.com:

More than half of American adults have changed religion in their lives, a huge new survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found.  And there is no discernible pattern to the change, just "a free for all," one of the lead researchers told CNN.

"You're seeing the free market at work," said Gregory Smith, a research fellow at the Pew Forum.  "If people are dissatisfied, they will leave.  And if they see something they like better, they will join it.”

Nonsense.  To ascribe the changes in American religiosity to “the free market” is intellectually lazy gibberish.  People have long been free to apostatize in this country; or to create new religions out of whole cloth.  Any theorizing about this phenomenon worth half a hot damn would take into account the liberalization of our society as a whole.  The evolution of social mores - in conjunction with the scientific maturation of humanity in general - is, I believe, largely responsible for the increased availance of our license to shift (and/or abandon altogether) religion.

Here’s a revealing little twist of phrase attributed to our intrepid research fellow at Pew (but more likely contorted into a sordid subtlety by Richard Allen Greene):

The survey supported a study released last month in that it found about 16 percent of Americans are not affiliated with any religion. The American Religious Identification Survey, from Trinity College in Connecticut, found the number to be about 15 percent.

But Smith warned against labeling those people "secular."

Why not, pray tell?

"Upwards of one-third of newly unaffiliated people say they just haven't found the right religion yet," Smith said.

Oh.  Because “secular” apparently doesn’t mean “unaffiliated," so how can it mean something similar… like “temporarily unaffiliated” or “soon to be affiliated” or “unaffiliated with cause?”  The reasoning behind this, of course, is that “secular” is a filthy, naughty, rancid little insult and we should all refrain from using it when speaking of people who are grappling with religions and/or their doctrinal differences.  Interestingly (to crib a loaded word), Wikipedia cites a CNN article from over a year ago with the following observation:

…the fluidity of religion in the country is high, with studies showing around half of American adults leave the faith tradition of their upbringing to either switch allegiances or abandon religious affiliation altogether.

So where’s the news here?  Seems to me like nothing so much as an opportunity to assure faith-heads that the “free market” is still akin to the godhead and we need not fear the secularists behind the curtain.

Perpetual Jesus Telethon

Anyone in Chicago on Sunday morning can flick on a television and see T.D. Jakes or Frederick K.C. Price on WJYS (research). WCIU-TV Sunday programming includes Bill Winston Ministries, Mass at Mercy Home, Apostolic Church, Joel Osteen, and Key of David. Also ever-present is James Robison (Life Today). Personally, I've spent many a Sunday watching programming brought into my home by Total Living Network and other relatives of the original WCPX. One can still watch sermons from the late James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Ministries, and Melissa Scott, the ex-stripper and widow of Gene Scott. And let's not forget the greasiest Prosperity Gospel televangelist of all, Mike Murdock (mikemurdock.com). This, or course, only scratches the surface of the religious programming flooding the airwaves in Chicago. (I don't have access to basic cable; these examples reflect a mere fraction of what comes through rabbit ears alone.)

The religious programming that I have free access to is all the same insofar as it is exclusively (a) Christian, (b) evangelical, (c) conservative, (d) didactic, and (e) grossly dogmatic. These programs are carried by a variety of networks and under different agreements; some are paid programming and some are not. However, taken together there is an unmistakable absence of diversity. Turning on a television in Chicago on Sunday is like walking into a public library and finding nothing but bibles. I'm guessing that it's probably worse in other parts of the country. From an old Op-Ed:

America lets radio and TV broadcasters use public airwaves worth more than half a trillion dollars for free. In return, we require that broadcasters serve the public interest.

What public interest is being served by all this religious brainwashing and dogmatic detritus? I fail to see one. In fact, I see the opposite.

Beyond Belief 2007

This is mainly a post devoted to dumping a link that, hopefully, will be clicked on and pursued by wayward souls who might drop by in pursuit of something interesting. Here it is: TSN's Beyond Belief. The second annual conference ("Enlightenment 2.0") was held about 4 months ago and has been available for viewing for awhile now. I viewed them while working, so it took me a few days of steady concentration to get through 'em… but I finally did.

On the whole I found last year's conference slightly more provocative and certainly more entertaining. Enlightenment 2.0, however, is nonetheless worth viewing. If you only have time for a few, I highly recommend the presentations of Scott Atran and David Sloan Wilson. Seriously. Treat yourself.

It was explained to me once that scientists generally refrain from engaging in debate with flat-earth types, creationists, and other purveyors of pseudoscience for the following reason: argument is anathema to scientific discourse. A legitimate scientist is usually inclined to let his or her work stand on its own merit and speak for itself. Charles Darwin, for example, famously allowed Thomas Huxley to fight his battles for him – in no small measure because he feared that if he too closely associated his own personality with his work on evolution, it [the work] would be rejected on an ad hominem basis. Today's scientists – if the Beyond Belief seminar is any indication – seem conflicted between affection for the modern "bulldogs" of their cause (i.e., Harris, Dawkins, Dennett) and adherence to strict vocational standards of objectivity and critical analysis. It would be a mistake to underestimate how entertaining it is to watch them attempt to reconcile these qualities.

Creationism and Global Warming

There’s a terrific essay by J. Michael Plavcan titled “The Invisible Bible: The Logic of Creation Science,” in the book Scientists Confront Creationism: Intelligent Design and Beyond.  Specifically, Plavcan does a wonderful service by describing the ideational paradigms that support the idea of “creation science.”  As I was reading it, I was struck by the similarities between the way creationists view science with respect to evolution (and isotopic dating) and the way conservatives view science with respect to global warming.  They both seem nearly identical in the that they both do the following:

• contribute no new data to the discussion but confine themselves to attacking existing scientific postulates;
• consistently use old scientific data which has since been corrected, updated or discarded by those within the scientific field – or has otherwise been exposed to the self-correcting rigors of the broader scientific community - to make their case;
• regard evidence as “not ‘scientific’ but rather [as] an interpretive construct that arises from a faith”;
• point to technical debates within isolated scientific disciplines as evidence that fundamental questions of fact are “in dispute”; and
• take a universalistic approach to reasoning that dictates that if one piece of data is incorrect, all data so gathered must be incorrect as well.

Most revealing, however, is the way in which the ‘cognitive dissonance’ model is useful in understanding the anti-science mindset of many conservatives with respect to global warming.  To be sure, dogmatic positions from across the political spectrum are often accused of being associated with cognitive dissonance; usually without a great deal of merit because political convictions “do not offer … clear, absolutely falsifiable, prediction[s]” and are therefore not, strictly speaking, memes of cognitive dissonance.  However, like creationists, environmental conservatives have a great deal invested in their view of the world; i.e. that market behavior, strong protections for property, and ‘enlightened self-interest’ are better suited to maintain long-term prosperity than regulation and collective responsibility.  Faced with overwhelming data which supports the idea that we are collectively responsible for hastening the destruction of the biosphere, conservatives are rightly concerned that admitting as much would be a repudiation (of sorts) of their most closely held beliefs.  Like the creationists, the anti-global warming conservatives have effectively been reduced to a small but vocal cadre of hard-liners that appear immune to reality-based efforts of suasion.  It is the last bastion of the faithful; and there is no evidence that the light of reason will ever breach it. 

UPDATE: Think Progress on Fox News and "Global Cooling".

UPDATE 2: David Keith at TED on Climate Change.

Defining Ordinary Down

The WSJ book section takes a look at Faith in the Halls of Power by D. Michael Lindsay [FYI: here's an excellent little essay by Lindsay] in an article titled, Big Shots, Born Again:

If the rise of what Lindsay calls "cosmopolitan evangelicalism" threatens anything, it may be the internal coherence of the evangelical movement--its down-home traditions and sense of itself as a religious identity for ordinary Americans. In short, some evangelicals may be "getting above their raising." Though some Christian CEOs (like Ralph Larsen of Johnson & Johnson) give away so much of their money that their colleagues find it "goofy," most "accept the material accoutrements of an affluent lifestyle," Mr. Lindsay notes. The evangelical elites he spoke to also look down their noses at the Christian kitsch of their fellow believers--like the paintings of Thomas Kinkade, whose scenes of cozy lamplit cottages hang in a lot of heartland homes.

Hysterical. Like a thunderbolt from the heavens comes this insight: high-falutin' Lord Fauntleroys puttin' on airs and acting like they're "somebodies" ain't real American Jesus-lovers. Whatever. What the WSJ takes for granted, oddly enough, is that "ordinary" and "cosmopolitan" are mutually exclusive antitheticals. To my ear, "ordinary" in this context means customary or usual or normal, rather than, say… provincial or narrow (i.e., a more accurate antithetical to "cosmopolitan" in its present usage). Contrary to what some people believe, being a worldly, free-thinking, open-minded man-about-town is "ordinary" to a great many people. In this sense, a there's no reason to think that any religion can't (or doesn't) provide "identity for ordinary Americans."

This is how hillbillies hornswoggle Blue America 'elites' into swallowing the fallacious conceit that Red America is the Real America; that hicks are plugged into a higher truth; that common sense is latently midwifed by Christ-centric homeschooling; and that superior moral "instincts" are the proprietary property of ignorant minds and blindly obedient hearts.

But that is neither here nor there. I mainly just wanted to point out that it isn't only "evangelical elites" who "look down their noses at … the paintings of Thomas Kinkade." Which brings me to this wildly amusing snippet of gossipy dirt from Kincaid's Wikipedia entry:

The Los Angeles Times report that some of Kinkade's former colleagues, employees, and even collectors of his work say that he has a long history of cursing and heckling other artists and performers. The Times further reports that he openly groped a woman's breasts at a South Bend, Indiana sales event, and mentioned his proclivity for ritual territory marking through urination. Kinkade denied some of the Times's allegations, but accepted and apologized for others.

In 2006 John Dandois, Media Arts Group executive, recounted a story that on one occasion ("about six years ago") Kinkade became drunk at a Siegfried and Roy magic show in Las Vegas and began shouting "Codpiece! Codpiece!" at the performers. Eventually he was calmed by his mother. Dandois also said of Kinkade, "Thom would be fine, he would be drinking, and then all of a sudden, you couldn't tell where the boundary was, and then he became very incoherent, and he would start cussing and doing a lot of weird stuff."