Mother Teresa Doubts

"...for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great, that I look and do not see, — Listen and do not hear..." -Mother Teresa in a letter to Rev. Michael van der Peet, her "spiritual confidant"

See "Mother Teresa's Crisis Of Faith" by David Van Biema (Time Magazine, August 23rd, 2007)

God's invisible hand, at it again...

"Science is littered with once-mysterious facts first imputed to God and later found out to be explicable solely through natural processes."

(From Jerry Coyne's review of Michael J. Behe's new book, "The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism")

In the scientific community, to be both a biologist and a creationist is exceptionally rare. Still, there are some—one might call them "Tenacious B's"—who lend their scientific credibility to the failing fight for institutionalized recognition of Intelligent Design; Michael Behe is of this type. The reviewer—scientist, Jerry Coyne—does a great job summerizing/dismantling Behe's arguments, and helps to clarify some common misconceptions regarding evolution.

Read "The Great Mutator: A Review by Jerry Coyne"

Other quotes from the review...

"It is more accurate, then, to call mutations "indifferent" rather than "random": the chance of a mutation happening is indifferent to whether it would be helpful or harmful."

"The explanation of seeming design by solely materialistic processes was Darwin's greatest achievement, and a major source of discomfort for those holding the view that nature was designed by God."

Petty Friday: The Creation Museum and Hogwarts

May 28th marked the opening of the long-awaited (6,000 years to be exact) Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky. The $27 million venture—an achievement of the Answers in Genesis ministry—boasts 60,000 square feet of walk-through history featuring realistic scenery, exotic animals, fossils, life-size models, "computer-generated visual effects," and animatronic dinosaurs (made to graze amongst prehistoric boys and girls, and presumably board Noah’s Ark before the flood) designed by the same Universal Studios exhibit director who did Jaws and King Kong. These attractions and more were all created in the spirit of "bringing the pages of the bible to life" and proving the literal truth of Genesis. Finally the world as it really is, and was!

Also soon to emerge is "The Wizarding World Of Harry Potter" [Potter fans froth], a J.K. Rowling-approved theme park promising to be "the world's first immersive Harry Potter themed environment."

'Potter-world' may cream the Creation Museum in first-year attendance (an upset that should have biting significance for fundamentalists) but at least the CM concerns itself with historical 'truth.'

***

(Potter fans, read: I may have used Hogwarts as a device here, the park isn't set to open til 2009. I'm sorry if I misled you. It's in Orlando, Florida, so you can start camping out now)

www.creationmuseum.org
Edward Rothstein, "Adam and Eve in the Land of the Dinosaurs" The New York Times May 24th, 2007

"Source of life..." he continued.

Yesterday, in a speech delivered at my younger brother’s college graduation ceremony in Tacoma, Washington, I noticed the school’s President attempting to lead his audience in prayer. Not a typical prayer, mind you—though it did assume the unmistakable tone and diction of invocation—but this was more of a politically correct sort of modern-day adaptation of something resembling a prayer. The interesting bit was the preface he gave before embarking. He said something to the effect of: “Today, we have many ways of defining the powers that be. Some call those powers God. Others say that they can be found in the extraordinary and breathtaking constructs of nature. And some say those powers are evident in the best of human kind… Now, let us take a moment and reflect...”

“Source of life…” he continued, leading into the most diplomatic and amorphous of ‘prayers.’

‘Source of life?’ I thought. Ha! Only when someone is bending over backwards to be p.c. do phrases like ‘source of life’ come into play in this context (find and replace ‘God’ with ‘Source of life’—that’s cute). But this was a manifestation of something that I’ve been thinking about lately:

What is the proper/acceptable role of prayer/spirituality in a society that is clearly shying from religious ideals and moving gradually toward that of the non-theist?

In this case, the adapted prayer, which effectively transcended denomination and avoided reference to any given faith altogether, was actually inclusive of non-believers. I imagine there was a small minority of attendees who were miffed that the school President didn’t recognize God, the one true ‘God,’ but the general feeling was a good one and a nostalgic one. As people bowed their heads, shut their eyes, or became otherwise silent and attentive, it was clear that the ears of 8,000 people were somehow tuned to the distinct and familiar tone of religious oration, and though I am an atheist and took the speaker to be (maybe) non-religious too, I appreciated the opportunity to reflect and take part in what felt like a viable kind of shared spirituality—something that Atheists typically do value despite characterizations to the contrary.

Dawkin's 'Scale of Belief'

Not only is Richard Dawkin's proposed 'Scale Of Belief' well constructed and useful, I think it apt to couple it with Bertrand Russell's 'Celestial Teapot' analogy. So many of the commonly used 'god-analogies' created and employed by non-believers (unicorns, flying spaghetti monster, etc.) are at worst condescending, and at best aesthetically unpleasing. Russell's teapot analogy, on the other hand, is elegant and serves its purpose better than most.

The parable goes: Somewhere between Earth and Mars there is a perfect china teapot in an elliptical orbit around the sun.

The point of this analogy is to show that while this claim may be difficult to disprove (like certain claims about God), the person making the claim would undoubtedly have a difficult time garnering support for such a belief. And while it would hardly be worth anyone's time to try and disprove this propostion (which probability seems to build a strong case against) the burden of proof would nonetheless rest on the claim-staker, were it of any consequence.

Claims about God, while similarly far-fetched, are considered to be of ultimate consequence. Still, it is not the responsibility of scientists or philosophers, or Safeway cashiers to disprove them, just as it is not anyone's responsibility to disprove the infinite number fathomable possibilities.

With Russell's analogy in mind, here is Dawkin's 'Scale of Belief.'

1. Strong theist. 100 per cent probability of God. In the words of C.G. Jung, "I do not believe, I know."

2. Very high probability but short of 100 per cent. De facto theist. "I cannot know for certain, but I strongly believe in God and live my life on the assumption that he is there."

3. Higher than 50 per cent but not very high. Technically agnostic but leaning toward theism. "I am very uncertain, but I am inclined to believe in God."

4. Exactly 50 per cent. Completely impartial agnostic. "God's existence and non-existence are exactly equiprobable."

5. Lower than 50 per cent but not very low. Technically agnostic but leaning towards atheism. "I don't know whether God exists but I'm inclined to be skeptical."

6. Very low probability, but short of zero. De facto atheist. "I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there."

7. Strong atheist. "I know there is no God, with the same conviction Jung 'knows' there is one."

Dawkins says, "I'd be surprised to meet many people in category 7, but I include it for symmetry with category 1, which is well populated."

Petty Friday

Recomended reading...

Here are some recent articles that give a feel for the rising temperature of religious debate the world over.


'Through a glass, darkly', by Jeff Sharlet, is an energetic insider's account of the zealous "Maximalist" movement. Think of it as a sort of backpacking-through-the-outback-of-American-Fundementalism with Jeff Sharlet as your undercover guide. Highly recomended.

'In the beginning' is a special report, from The Economist on the heated debate over creation and evolution gone global.

'We'd be better off without religion', by Ruth Glendhill, offers needed perspective on a debate that took place in London on March 28th, at which, the motion was "We'd be better off without religion."

Additionally, The DNA of Religious Faith, by David P. Barash, is a long, somewhat tedious article (with the sort of religious analogies that grate, save that one about the teapot), featuring some great overview, a few pearls of Atheist wisdom and some insight into a newly-charted dimension of the religious debate.

Religion... Benign? Nope.

In response to Bryan’s last post, I’m attempting to address the general question: “Is religion really a contributor to the ails of the world?”  The implied answer, I’m taking to be “No— religion is benign and the real factors are things like poverty, envy, greed, lust for power, limited space, etc.—the cornucopia of inequity and cause-for-conflict in the world. 

While these are all token contributors, religion—in countless cases throughout history—has provided the framework for war, and it continues to play a specified role. 

With respect to current events, I might ask, “What is the root cause of what we are reluctant to call ‘Religious War’ in the middle-east, preferring euphemisms like ‘Sectarian Violence’ and ‘War On Terror.’”  Surly those previously mentioned factors play a significant role in these disputes—and the root issues are confounded by rapid changes brought on by globalization—but the primary justification for bloodshed in the middle-east is inarguably faith-based. 

Take the Iraq War for example. The opposition (as we have been forced to learn) finds cause for war in the founding doctrines of Islam, which are intrinsically at odds with any non-conforming value system, explicitly promoting hostility and violence—and martyrdom—in pursuit of its ends. (***While it's worth mentioning that the majority of Muslims are indeed tolerant, this is an unlikely bi-product of the lessons found in the Koran***)

Similarly, the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict is a religious battle that happens to be a dispute over territory (substitute “holy land”).

George Bush too, confers God on matters of war.

Religion then, from all sides, is used as a core justification for war, and in this sense, any suggestion that either conflict is not so much about religion, but instead "land" or “terror” or “hatred of our way of life” is a dangerous way of skirting the obvious.

The issue, as I see it, is that we have a normative way of insulating religious claims from the necessary degrees of scrutiny that govern all other ideas, including those immeasurably less consequential. Ignoring the role religion plays in today's conflicts, is yet another way of shielding all faiths from accountability for their beliefs.

Atheism (***originally posted on myspace***)

I read a bite-sized article recently called 10 MYTHS — AND 10 TRUTHS — ABOUT ATHEISM, by Sam Harris - and while it's not an ideal introduction to the ideas of Atheism (more of an entry-point, really) my immediate reaction upon reading it was to wanna post it as a MySpace bulletin; I decided a blog might be a better choice of context, though. After all, I have a diverse group of friends ranging from Christians and Quakers, to Deists, Agnostics and Atheists -- plus probably some new-agey crystal-worshiping types -- and while I know none of them would be offended by my posting an informative bit about Atheism, I thought this might be more constructive.

These are my thoughts: Why is it that religion is such an impossibly sensitive topic—among friends, even? I mean it's the one fundamental belief that we all have (or don't have), upon which arguably all of our meaningful decisions are somehow based, and yet the subject seems almost pathologically avoided in the presence of opposing viewpoints. Granted, I do have a few religious friends with whom I've managed to have meaningful discussions, and I don't want to marginalize them. But on the whole, there seems to be a threshold of emotion that you don't have to cross to know is there. In a sense, I feel obliged to the same terms of privacy that apply to one's sex-life, the difference being that belief and non-belief have everything to do with what motivates those around me. For this reason, I'd like to promote some online dialogue because in my experience, any disputing of religion (outside the context of mediated debate) is unpleasant; it either becomes uncomfortable, or loses any sort of focus, to the extent that I'd sooner propose the party topic "What STD's does everyone have?" than challenge the merits of religion in mixed company. It's just too steeped in emotion.

So why bring this anxiety to MySpace, Matt? What gives? I'm here to have fun and forget about things. And aren't you being kind of "psycho" about all this? Well, that's for you to know and me to find out -- I certainly don't mean to offend. Really, I'd just like to open the lines of communication in this here blog, so consider this an invite to share some information regarding Belief vs. Non-Belief; an article, a story, a reaction… anything is welcome.

I'll start with this.