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Moral Reasoning and Public Discourse

Tue, 15 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Moral Reasoning and Public Discourse

This from the latest CCNet. Peter Foster reviewed the book, The Righteous Mind, in the Post several months back. It may be worth looking at. My interest in this confirmation bias thing, has to do with what is at root, responsible for the way we all hold to a specific worldview and often devote ourselves too zealously to such. Peter noted that it was about an emotional or moral commitment to something and then science was employed to validate this commitment. The rational was like a small rider on the back of the emotional/moral.

The Tribal Mind: Moral Reasoning and Public Discourse

The American, 26 April 2012

Arnold Kling

Moral reasoning is often used to intensify partisan loyalty. In that respect, it can actually harm public discourse. In this essay, I examine the problem of moral reasoning and offer three proposals for mitigating its damaging effects.

The first is to take opposing points of view at face value, rather than attempt to analyze them away reductively. A second proposal is to police your own side, meaning that one should attempt, contrary to instinct, to examine more critically the views of one's allies than the views of one's opponents. The third proposal is to “scramble the teams” by creating situations in which people of differing political views must work together to achieve a goal requiring cooperative effort.

This essay is inspired in large part by reading Jonathan Haidt's new book, The Righteous Mind. It also draws on a number of other works that look at the role of moral reasoning for both the individual and society.

What I take away from Haidt is the hypothesis that our capacity to think about moral and social problems evolved from an ability to rationalize our actions. Thus, our capacity to rationalize our moral and political beliefs is much greater than we realize. Conversely, our capacity for detached reasoning about moral and political issues is much less than we realize. The fact that we rationalize more readily than we reason helps to sustain political polarization.

Political polarization is unfortunate for at least two reasons. First, there are some issues, notably the unsustainable fiscal path of the budget of the United States going forward, which require compromise. Second, the environment for political discourse is very unpleasant. Rather than try to engage in constructive argument, partisans make the most uncharitable interpretations possible, of what their opponents intend.

Elevating the Debate

In the remainder of this essay, I propose some techniques to check this tendency toward extreme partisanship. I think that adoption of these would improve the atmosphere for political debate.

•Take opposing points of view at face value.

It is more comfortable to treat opposing points of view reductively. That is, rather than deal with a different viewpoint, we prefer to explain it away. “They just want power.” “They just serve special interests.” “They don't believe in science.” “They are socialists.”

Taking opposing points of view at face value means that we try to pass the ideological Turing test. Could my characterization of another ideology allow me to pass as a proponent of that ideology? Could an opponent's characterization of my ideology allow that person to pass as someone like me?

•Police your own side.

In political debates, we put a lot of energy into pointing out the errors of our opponents. When somebody writes an op-ed exposing the “myths” that surround an issue, the purpose is to debunk the other side, almost never to question one's own allies. Basically, the “myth-busting” process works like this. You create a straw-man caricature of the other side's point of view. You knock down that straw man. Your allies applaud your brilliant insight. Your opponents dismiss what you have to say. Both sides come away with their partisan views reinforced.

Accusing the other side of an intellectual foul seems like a much better idea than it really is.

First of all, chances are that you are not correctly interpreting the position that you are criticizing. Remember, we have poor empathy for ideological opponents. There is a high probability that we are attacking a straw man rather than a real position.

Second, even if we are correct, the other side may not be persuaded.

Finally, even if we are correct on this one point, there probably are other arguments that the other side can use to bolster its case. As much as we may take pleasure in "not letting them get away with saying X," in the grand scheme of things, we probably are not changing anyone's mind.

Imagine instead an environment in which we primarily tried to expose intellectual error on our own side. In street basketball terms, you “call your own fouls.” The onus of calling liberals' intellectual fouls would fall on liberals. The onus of calling conservatives' intellectual fouls would fall on conservatives.

Policing your own side would require a conscious effort to reverse the tendency toward confirmation bias. We would have to search as hard for holes in our allies' arguments as if they were opponents' arguments. If the goal is to improve public discourse by removing improper arguments, we are much more likely to succeed by having each side call its own fouls than by having people call fouls on the other side.

Street basketball with teams calling fouls on one another would probably degenerate into unsettled arguments. That is, it would start to resemble politics.

•Scramble the teams.

Many years ago, some men in our neighborhood started a pickup softball game on Sundays. We quickly realized that if we formed regular teams, antagonisms would fester. Instead, each week we formed new teams on a different basis, such as odd-numbered birthdays vs. even-numbered birthdays. Scrambling the teams kept the games friendly.

Full essay

Book of Revelation; Put in Scriptures By Mistake

Tue, 15 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Book of Revelation, Bible’s nightmarish finale, put in scriptures by mistake: author

Charles Lewis Apr 27, 2012 – 7:26 PM ET | Last Updated: Apr 27, 2012 8:35 PM ET

The Book of Revelation, the last book of the Christian Bible and therefore the final word to the followers of Jesus, is like a cinematic explosion of blood, violence and redemption. It may be the scariest book ever written that has a really happy ending. There is a reason why so many creators of literature, film, and popular music — from Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now to Iron Maiden’s The Number of the Beast — have plumbed the book’s depths for artistic inspiration.

Whereas most of the rest of the New Testament is as gentle as a lamb, with its talk of faith, hope and love, the Book of Revelation has been read for nearly 1,700 years as a nightmarish warning to sinners, heretics and non-believers about the reign of terror to come for those who reject Christ.

BOOK OF REVELATION IN POPULAR CULTURE

1. The 16 novels of the Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. Partly based on Revelation, it tells the story of the End Times, in which true believers of Christ are raptured into heaven and everyone else is screwed

2. Failed end-of-the-world predictor Harold Camping relied on the book of Revelation for his prophecy

3. The conclusion of Uncle Tom’s Cabin: “Read the signs of the times … Who may abide the day of His appearing?

“For that day shall burn like an oven.”

4. The Battle Hymn of the Republic famously sums up the messianic vision of the Civil War era: “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord; He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword; His truth is marching on

5. Such films as On The Beach (1959), Fail Safe (1964), Dr. Strangelove (1964) and even the Mad Max movies all are inspired by the Book of Revelation.

6. Marilyn Manson’s 1996 album Antichrist Superstar, Iron Maiden’s 1982 album The Number of the Beast, and any number of other rock albums.

It has been used as a threat by all manner of fundamentalists to damn sinners into the “Lake of Fire” — as was recently done by an Alberta preacher and political candidate who warned that gays would burn for their ways. It has been an inspiration to modern-day Satanic worshipers who use “666,” the number assigned to the beast in Revelation — “it had two horns like a lamb and spoke like a dragon” — to evoke the Antichrist. Christian authors have plumbed its dark images to warn those who do not believe that they will be left out of the new heavenly Jerusalem.

The world’s two billion Christians read it as a holy book — laying out the trials and tribulations they will face as they wait for the Second Coming of Jesus.

Even for those who take it as more of a metaphor than a literal final battle between good and evil, few dispute that it belongs as the capstone to the New Testament.

But Elaine Pagels, a well-known author of biblical history, as well as a professor of religion at Princeton University, says putting the Revelation in the New Testament was a mistake, the result of a misunderstanding. In her latest book, “Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, & Politics in the Book of Revelation,” she says the Book of Revelation was not a Christian book, but a warning issued 90 years after the death of Jesus, from a refugee of war-torn Jerusalem named John of Patmos, that Jewish followers of Jesus better not form a new religion, let alone consort with pagan followers of Christ who dare to eat non-kosher food.

“He was fighting a war on two fronts,” explained Prof. Pagels in an interview. “There’s the Roman Empire, which he can’t stand because it destroyed Jerusalem and committed the abomination of leveling the Temple. But I also believe he is writing against those Jewish followers of Jesus who are trying to accommodate the pagan followers of Christ.

“The language used is right out of the Exodus [in the Old Testament]. He wants God’s people of Israel, to be holy and pure. He doesn’t want them eating non-kosher food. He is saying, ‘We have to go back to the original covenant God made with Moses on Mt. Sinai.’ ”

Her contention is that those who pushed for its inclusion in the New Testament, when the New Testament was finally settled in the fourth century, also wanted a way to warn even faithful Christians that those who did not toe the line of orthodoxy would also face an eternity of unimaginable horrors.

The composition of the New Testament came about after long debate, and was settled over many years during Church councils. The Book of Revelation attracted more debate than most, not because some Church fathers thought it was too Jewish, but because, as a piece of writing, it was just too weird.

“In the decades after he wrote it some people said, This is crazy. A heretic wrote this. But others thought it had to be a prophet.” Prof. Pagels said.

It was Athanasius, the bishop of Alexandria, Prof. Pagels said, that saw the book as a powerful tool to warn faithful Christians not to stray from orthodoxy. In the end, Athanasius got his wish.

No doubt the language of Revelation would scare any would-be dissenter straight: “[From a bottomless pit] … came locusts on the earth … They were allowed to torture them for five months, but not to kill them, and their torture was like the torture of a scorpion when it stings someone. And in those days people will seek death but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will flee from them.”

Or this: “[The heads of the horses were like lions’ heads, and fire and smoke and sulfur came out of their mouths. By these three plagues a third of humankind was killed, by the fire and smoke and sulfur coming out of their mouths. For the power of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails; their tails are like serpents, having heads; and with them they inflict harm.”]

Prof. Pagels’ thesis that Revelation was a Jewish book meant for Jews, undermines the very idea of a separate Christian religion. If the Church fathers had understood the book properly, says Prof. Pagels, they would have had to admit that the entire Christian enterprise was flawed.

It is a notion many Christian scholars will find hard to accept.

“I’d be surprised too at the idea of the Book of Revelation being a Jewish document calling for a rejection of Christianity as a separate movement,” said Jesuit priest Brian Daley, a professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.

“It seems to me so central to Christian theology. It does borrow from the Old Testament and this whole notion of a secret revelation made known to a seer and with images of dramatic events taking place in heaven that reveal the future. I always say Walt Disney would do the best job of presenting it. It’s like an opera. “But it seems to me what the Book of Revelation is presenting is the person of the risen Jesus as majestic, and the final solution to history’s problems in gathering around him both Israel and new converts.”

Prof. Pagels said it is hard to fully grasp why the book was taken so seriously given that so little is known about John of Patmos and that it even survived more than 250 years to be considered for the last book of the Bible. (Many Christians believe it was written by St. John, one of Christ’s disciples and author of the Gospel of John — but on this point debates about the authorship goes right back to the early Church.)

Ultimately, she said, it is not hard to imagine why Revelation eventually gained wide acceptance — even if the author’s intent was lost over the years.

“I started to read and think about that when I started this book. John the only writer that we know included in the New Testament claims of dictation from Jesus; that he is writing true prophecy and no one can alter the words without altering God’s words.”

Prof. Pagels is not a great fan of the Book of Revelation, saying there is too much heartache that has been left in its wake. It has been used by all sides in hundreds of bloody wars to justify all manner of causes, no matter how perverted.

“Maybe if I were somebody who lived in wartime, like the Civil War, I might think the book spoke very powerfully to me. But I didn’t and so I tend not to love it.”

National Post

• Email: clewis@nationalpost.com

Low-oxygen study offers hope for anti-cancer drug

Tue, 15 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Low-oxygen study offers hope for anti-cancer drug

Don Butler, Postmedia News · May 7, 2012 | Last Updated: May 7, 2012 3:01 AM ET

OTTAWA - A team of University of Ottawa researchers has solved the mystery of how our bodies adapt to low-oxygen environments, raising the prospect that life-threatening conditions such as cancer, stroke and heart disease could someday be successfully treated using a simple, antibiotic-like drug.

The team's findings were published Sunday in Nature, the world's leading scientific journal.

"It's a tremendously important discovery in understanding how life without oxygen works," said Dr. Stephen Lee, a professor in the university's Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, whose laboratory did the groundbreaking research.

Scientists have known for decades that in the presence of oxygen, cells make proteins - the building blocks of life - using a process called protein synthesis. But how they do so in conditions of limited oxygen had remained a mystery.

Dr. Lee's team found there's an oxygen-regulated switch in the protein synthesis machinery, a "very novel and unexpected way of synthesizing proteins," Dr. Lee said. "It's very different."

The discovery explains, for the first time, how mountain climbers and highland Tibetans are able to adapt and function in environments that would kill or sicken most people.

The implications for cancer treatment, though still speculative, are potentially huge. Dr. Lee's team discovered that cancer cells proliferate by using the same protein synthesis machinery the body employs to deal with low levels of oxygen.

Cancer cells "utilize that way of producing proteins without oxygen, even if oxygen is present," Dr. Lee said. "They hijack that system and that drives their proliferation."

If the cancer cells use the low-oxygen machinery to spread, he said, "we can develop an antibiotic against that protein synthesis machinery. It's as easy as that. And it's working very well."

The comparison to antibiotics is apt, Dr. Lee said. Drugs such as penicillin and tetracycline kill bacteria by preventing them from synthesizing proteins. A future cancer drug would "work in a similar fashion," Dr. Lee said, using the low-oxygen machinery to block protein synthesis in cancer cells.

That should make it "very easy to kill cancer cells," he said. "We're doing it right now in the lab. We just need to develop a drug now, which is not trivial, but it's not that difficult, either."

The sort of cancer treatment imagined by Dr. Lee would be a radical departure from the current approach, which relies on toxic doses of chemotherapy and radiation.

“The major dogma right now is that we have to attack cancer cells using very specific drugs that target very specific molecules” said Dr. Lee.

“If we are right, this is the first systemic difference between a normal and a cancer cell. Rather than targeting some molecule, we would just strip the cancer apart by preventing it from making the building blocks”.

Dr. Lee had not originally planned to include the reference to cancer treatment in the Nature article “because we thought it was too speculative and Nature is a very conservative journal. But they really asked us to point the possibility out”.

“They liked it. I like it. We have data that suggests we’re right. We just need to prove it more and convince some chemists to start working on it”.

The Better Angels of Our Nature - Summary

Mon, 14 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

The Better Angels of Our Nature - Summary

For any interested, here is a summary of Steven Pinker’s book The Better Angels Of Our Nature, on the amazing decline in violence over human history. We are living in the best of all times in history. Pinker’s details on the cruelty of people toward one another in the past for the most minor things, fosters great appreciation that we live today and not at any other time in history

This trend of decreasing violence is a key element to a grand narrative of humanity..Violence Vanquished

We believe our world is riddled with terror and war, but we may be living in the most peaceable era in human existence. Why brutality is declining and empathy is on the rise.

By: STEVEN PINKER

On the day this article appears, you will read about a shocking act of violence. Somewhere in the world there will be a terrorist bombing, a senseless murder, a bloody insurrection. It's impossible to learn about these catastrophes without thinking, "What is the world coming to?"

With all its wars, murder and genocide, history might suggest that the taste for blood is human nature. Not so, argues Harvard Prof. Steven Pinker. He talks to WSJ's Gary Rosen about the decline in violence in recent decades and his new book, "The Better Angels of Our Nature."

But a better question may be, "How bad was the world in the past?"

Believe it or not, the world of the past was much worse. Violence has been in decline for thousands of years, and today we may be living in the most peaceable era in the existence of our species.

The decline, to be sure, has not been smooth. It has not brought violence down to zero, and it is not guaranteed to continue. But it is a persistent historical development, visible on scales from millennia to years, from the waging of wars to the spanking of children.

This claim, I know, invites skepticism, incredulity, and sometimes anger. We tend to estimate the probability of an event from the ease with which we can recall examples, and scenes of carnage are more likely to be beamed into our homes and burned into our memories than footage of people dying of old age. There will always be enough violent deaths to fill the evening news, so people's impressions of violence will be disconnected from its actual likelihood.

Evidence of our bloody history is not hard to find. Consider the genocides in the Old Testament and the crucifixions in the New, the gory mutilations in Shakespeare's tragedies and Grimm's fairy tales, the British monarchs who beheaded their relatives and the American founders who dueled with their rivals.

Today the decline in these brutal practices can be quantified. A look at the numbers shows that over the course of our history, humankind has been blessed with six major declines of violence.

The first was a process of pacification: the transition from the anarchy of the hunting, gathering and horticultural societies in which our species spent most of its evolutionary history to the first agricultural civilizations, with cities and governments, starting about 5,000 years ago.

For centuries, social theorists like Hobbes and Rousseau speculated from their armchairs about what life was like in a "state of nature." Nowadays we can do better. Forensic archeology—a kind of "CSI: Paleolithic"—can estimate rates of violence from the proportion of skeletons in ancient sites with bashed-in skulls, decapitations or arrowheads embedded in bones. And ethnographers can tally the causes of death in tribal peoples that have recently lived outside of state control.

These investigations show that, on average, about 15% of people in prestate eras died violently, compared to about 3% of the citizens of the earliest states. Tribal violence commonly subsides when a state or empire imposes control over a territory, leading to the various "paxes" (Romana, Islamica, Brittanica and so on) that are familiar to readers of history.

It's not that the first kings had a benevolent interest in the welfare of their citizens. Just as a farmer tries to prevent his livestock from killing one another, so a ruler will try to keep his subjects from cycles of raiding and feuding. From his point of view, such squabbling is a dead loss—forgone opportunities to extract taxes, tributes, soldiers and slaves.

The second decline of violence was a civilizing process that is best documented in Europe. Historical records show that between the late Middle Ages and the 20th century, European countries saw a 10- to 50-fold decline in their rates of homicide.

The numbers are consistent with narrative histories of the brutality of life in the Middle Ages, when highwaymen made travel a risk to life and limb and dinners were commonly enlivened by dagger attacks. So many people had their noses cut off that medieval medical textbooks speculated about techniques for growing them back.

Historians attribute this decline to the consolidation of a patchwork of feudal territories into large kingdoms with centralized authority and an infrastructure of commerce. Criminal justice was nationalized, and zero-sum plunder gave way to positive-sum trade. People increasingly controlled their impulses and sought to cooperate with their neighbors.

The third transition, sometimes called the Humanitarian Revolution, took off with the Enlightenment. Governments and churches had long maintained order by punishing nonconformists with mutilation, torture and gruesome forms of execution, such as burning, breaking, disembowelment, impalement and sawing in half. The 18th century saw the widespread abolition of judicial torture, including the famous prohibition of "cruel and unusual punishment" in the eighth amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

At the same time, many nations began to whittle down their list of capital crimes from the hundreds (including poaching, sodomy, witchcraft and counterfeiting) to just murder and treason. A growing wave of countries abolished blood sports, dueling, witch hunts, religious persecution, absolute despotism and slavery.

The fourth major transition is the respite from major interstate war that we have seen since the end of World War II. Historians sometimes refer to it as the Long Peace.

Today we take it for granted that Italy and Austria will not come to blows, nor will Britain and Russia. But centuries ago, the great powers were almost always at war, and until quite recently, Western European countries tended to initiate two or three new wars every year. The cliché that the 20th century was "the most violent in history" ignores the second half of the century (and may not even be true of the first half, if one calculates violent deaths as a proportion of the world's population).

Though it's tempting to attribute the Long Peace to nuclear deterrence, non-nuclear developed states have stopped fighting each other as well. Political scientists point instead to the growth of democracy, trade and international organizations—all of which, the statistical evidence shows, reduce the likelihood of conflict. They also credit the rising valuation of human life over national grandeur—a hard-won lesson of two world wars.

The fifth trend, which I call the New Peace, involves war in the world as a whole, including developing nations. Since 1946, several organizations have tracked the number of armed conflicts and their human toll world-wide. The bad news is that for several decades, the decline of interstate wars was accompanied by a bulge of civil wars, as newly independent countries were led by inept governments, challenged by insurgencies and armed by the cold war superpowers.

The less bad news is that civil wars tend to kill far fewer people than wars between states. And the best news is that, since the peak of the cold war in the 1970s and '80s, organized conflicts of all kinds—civil wars, genocides, repression by autocratic governments, terrorist attacks—have declined throughout the world, and their death tolls have declined even more precipitously.

The rate of documented direct deaths from political violence (war, terrorism, genocide and warlord militias) in the past decade is an unprecedented few hundredths of a percentage point. Even if we multiplied that rate to account for unrecorded deaths and the victims of war-caused disease and famine, it would not exceed 1%.

The most immediate cause of this New Peace was the demise of communism, which ended the proxy wars in the developing world stoked by the superpowers and also discredited genocidal ideologies that had justified the sacrifice of vast numbers of eggs to make a utopian omelet. Another contributor was the expansion of international peacekeeping forces, which really do keep the peace—not always, but far more often than when adversaries are left to fight to the bitter end.

Finally, the postwar era has seen a cascade of "rights revolutions"—a growing revulsion against aggression on smaller scales. In the developed world, the civil rights movement obliterated lynchings and lethal pogroms, and the women's-rights movement has helped to shrink the incidence of rape and the beating and killing of wives and girlfriends.

In recent decades, the movement for children's rights has significantly reduced rates of spanking, bullying, paddling in schools, and physical and sexual abuse. And the campaign for gay rights has forced governments in the developed world to repeal laws criminalizing homosexuality and has had some success in reducing hate crimes against gay people.

Why has violence declined so dramatically for so long? Is it because violence has literally been bred out of us, leaving us more peaceful by nature?

This seems unlikely. Evolution has a speed limit measured in generations, and many of these declines have unfolded over decades or even years. Toddlers continue to kick, bite and hit; little boys continue to play-fight; people of all ages continue to snipe and bicker, and most of them continue to harbor violent fantasies and to enjoy violent entertainment.

It's more likely that human nature has always comprised inclinations toward violence and inclinations that counteract them—such as self-control, empathy, fairness and reason—what Abraham Lincoln called "the better angels of our nature." Violence has declined because historical circumstances have increasingly favored our better angels.

The most obvious of these pacifying forces has been the state, with its monopoly on the legitimate use of force. A disinterested judiciary and police can defuse the temptation of exploitative attack, inhibit the impulse for revenge and circumvent the self-serving biases that make all parties to a dispute believe that they are on the side of the angels.

We see evidence of the pacifying effects of government in the way that rates of killing declined following the expansion and consolidation of states in tribal societies and in medieval Europe. We can watch the movie in reverse when violence erupts in zones of anarchy, such as the Wild West, failed states and neighborhoods controlled by mafias and street gangs, who can't call 911 or file a lawsuit to resolve their disputes but have to administer their own rough justice.

Another pacifying force has been commerce, a game in which everybody can win. As technological progress allows the exchange of goods and ideas over longer distances and among larger groups of trading partners, other people become more valuable alive than dead. They switch from being targets of demonization and dehumanization to potential partners in reciprocal altruism.

For example, though the relationship today between America and China is far from warm, we are unlikely to declare war on them or vice versa. Morality aside, they make too much of our stuff, and we owe them too much money.

A third peacemaker has been cosmopolitanism—the expansion of people's parochial little worlds through literacy, mobility, education, science, history, journalism and mass media. These forms of virtual reality can prompt people to take the perspective of people unlike themselves and to expand their circle of sympathy to embrace them.

These technologies have also powered an expansion of rationality and objectivity in human affairs. People are now less likely to privilege their own interests over those of others. They reflect more on the way they live and consider how they could be better off. Violence is often reframed as a problem to be solved rather than as a contest to be won. We devote ever more of our brainpower to guiding our better angels. It is probably no coincidence that the Humanitarian Revolution came on the heels of the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment, that the Long Peace and rights revolutions coincided with the electronic global village.

Whatever its causes, the implications of the historical decline of violence are profound. So much depends on whether we see our era as a nightmare of crime, terrorism, genocide and war or as a period that, in the light of the historical and statistical facts, is blessed by unprecedented levels of peaceful coexistence.

Bearers of good news are often advised to keep their mouths shut, lest they lull people into complacency. But this prescription may be backward. The discovery that fewer people are victims of violence can thwart cynicism among compassion-fatigued news readers who might otherwise think that the dangerous parts of the world are irredeemable hell holes. A better understanding of what drove the numbers down can steer us toward doing things that make people better off rather than congratulating ourselves on how moral we are.

As one becomes aware of the historical decline of violence, the world begins to look different. The past seems less innocent, the present less sinister. One starts to appreciate the small gifts of coexistence that would have seemed utopian to our ancestors: the interracial family playing in the park, the comedian who lands a zinger on the commander in chief, the countries that quietly back away from a crisis instead of escalating to war.

For all the tribulations in our lives, for all the troubles that remain in the world, the decline of violence is an accomplishment that we can savor—and an impetus to cherish the forces of civilization and enlightenment that made it possible.

—Mr. Pinker is the Harvard College Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. This essay is adapted from his new book, "The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined," published by Viking.

Discussion on Creativity and Love and its Effects

Mon, 14 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Discussion on Creativity and Love and its Effects

Exchanges Between Friends

Here our friends have slightly differing opinions of love and creativity and how it all works together in our world today.

Herb Sorensen

I am in 100% agreement with the long term trend and optimism happening in the world, although, I have pointed out to my family repeatedly that this trajectory, though true in Stalinist Russia, may only be true in a longer term perspective than your own life may encompass. In such circumstances, run like hell! The only optimistic future you will have will be one of your own making. This is true for everyone, to an extent. To really participate in the positive future, you must transcend the possibly minimal progress that society may carry you along in. Disengage from the tentacles of the crowd and move yourself at an accelerating pace.

This also illustrates why the LOVE you so regularly extol is so grating to me. Run, Forrest, run. It's the regression of the religious nuts again! Sorry about that. But the progress really comes from creativity, the conception of that which does not yet exist, and the assembly of the future that you yourself can potentially impact in the most progressive - and positive way. Humility requires that you bow before the heaving crowd and their judgments of your contributions, by their responsive contributions to you.

Sorry to be so crass, but creativity means wealth to society, and it is creativity that drives society forward, not some mumbo jumbo celebration of a philosophical concept, LOVE, that I think could arise in a group so steeped in religion that they celebrate their own, while damning the rest (of religionists.) To me, creativity trumps your love, every time. At least for a pragmatist.

Herb

The Christian, agnostic pragmatist - and continuing for decades.

Bob Brinsmead

Herb, you indicate to me that you are hung up on this Love thing. No wonder, because our English language kind of confuses it with emotional love, romantic love, erotic love, philial love, etc. The Greeks had a whole stack of words on all these human manifestations. I often get this impression that when people talk about this highest human attribute, it somehow comes through as some mushy stuff that sometimes makes me feel like I want to puke.

I suggest that you keep the Agape of the NT as something that is really the same thing as the OT word sadak - justice. It is all about creating a "land" (note the word "creating") where everyone can thrive - with a full stomach, free of disease, free of oppression of any kind, creating justice where all have the opportunity to share in the prosperity, a land of "shalom" where the city is full of boys and girls playing in the streets, a vision of an ever improving human condition where a man could even expect to live as long as a 100 year old tree (when the average life span was only about 30 years) and at a time when life (as compared to life today) was dirty, smelly and short. Jesus spent most of his ministry attending to people's physical needs and psychological needs. He did not preach about pie in the sky when you die bye and bye. OT sadak or NT agape calls us to the vision of creating and contributing in the creation of conditions where people can live more productive, more satisfying lives - The video I sent to Wendell to share with you guys was an amazing presentation by a statistician showing that human happiness, well-being, longevity was all directly linked to the wealth of any given society. The richer a nation was, the better off people were educationally, socially, health wise, and the longer they lived. How then can we best contribute to human well being? Creating more wealth is going to be very fundamental.

This vision of a life like this on this earth as our Promised Land - in potential rather than in something fully realized - calls us all to participate in concern and in caring, sharing with others by way of improving the human condition even as Jesus worked to improve the human condition. This is what it means to love people. This is what it means to fight for true justice. This is what it means to be human.

Now this improvement of the human condition is a broad field calling each of us to make a contribution on so many fronts. Some make a contribution on the medical front, or on the scientific front, or the literary front, and don't forget the entertainment front. I remember reading about some famous baseball player (forget his name coz I'm not into baseball, terrible game compared to cricket!) and this guy made such a beautiful statement when he said, " believe that God put me on this earth to play baseball." What has that got to do with love? you may ask, and I reply, This has got everything to do with love, Silly! This fellow knew he had a special gift to make his contribution to humanity by playing baseball. People need to enjoy playing as much as working. We are most human when we play. You may make your contribution inventing a cure for prostate cancer. You may make a contribution Herb - you are making your contribution to human welfare - in your sharpening up the science of retailing, Ellen is making her contribution being some sort of nurse or carer (have I got that right?). Some like Wendell help by getting involved; by working at improving human ideas and improving the way people think - because false beliefs and wrong worldviews can make this world look much more dark and more unhappy than it ought to be. I am sure he does other down to earth stuff just like I do when I work at creating a botanical garden of fruit from all over the world. That's all loving service to humanity. Loving service is not sitting up on a high pole like that Simon fellow who waited up there to hear the word of the Lord so he could pass that Word down to the people. Finally he heard a voice saying, Simon, come down and die. " Where are you, Lord, he cried, and the Lord answered him, "Down here with the people."

So there is no need to pit creativity, whether of ideas, science, technology, medicine, entertainment, art, literature, and just plain wealth against love. All these human achievements, if done in a truly human way, could be seen as love. So go to, get involved making your corner of the world better for yourself, and if you do that, it will be to the benefit of all of us. That is what love is Herb - and don't suggest it is some mushy, airy-fairy dropout pie in the sky stuff. So do what you are doing with gusto and fun, and never stop believing that the best is yet to come. That's love!

Why did I take so long to say all this? Just to prove that you and Wendell could be pushing the same cart, or singing different parts in the one great Oratorio. I'm laughing.

Herb Sorensen

Take note Bob: "our English language kind of confuses it with emotional love, romantic love, erotic love, philial love, etc." Trying to redefine the word for another meaning than the one common to our English language is a part of the problem, and mixing it all up with religion is another.

Again, I am certainly in agreement 100% with your dissertation on the variety of ways that one can creatively contribute to society. But the contribution even of a ball-player ultimately is noted by society, by the millions he is rewarded with, or not. I have never doubted that some people make incredible contributions to society, and never get recognition for it. But it comes back to my long ago comments about J Paul Getty and mother Theresa. In the end, Mother Theresa got massive recognition for what was in reality symbolism, and the reality wasn't very pretty. Getty took his in cash, and other "recognition" often was expressed in contempt. However, the reality was massive and concrete contributions to the actual welfare of his fellow citizens, beyond the imagination of Mother Theresa, whose self-flagellation/abnegation was a greater goal than any real contribution to society. (How very leftist!)

I'm simply not going to waste any time in trying explain how capitalism and markets are the fulfillment of agape. I'll be happy to take the damning and contempt of the leftists along with moving the cart of the human race forward. I don't really see you and Wendell as disagreeing with this, just that you want to communicate it on maybe a little higher plane. So down here with the people is where we are. Bottom line is that jobs for my family are more important than agape. Oh, right! That is agape. No point in trying to recover a word so fraught as love. Next thing you'll be telling me is that gay really means happy. And let's see where that gets us. Words mean what the people hearing them think they mean, not what those who speak them can explain.

Wendell Krossa

Herb, just one more on the word love grating on your psyche. When people stopped torturing, enslaving, brutalizing, and killing one another it was all due to love emerging in humanity on a wider scale than ever before. I am simply rehashing here what secularist Steven Pinker has detailed with masses of historical evidence. He points out that the emergence of widespread empathy (another term for compassion or love) was the turning point that allowed all subsequent human success to emerge. Love is the very reason you can be successful doing what you do today. And this widespread empathy emerged and developed in relation to the emergence of more widespread reading a few centuries ago. So this emergence of modern empathy is the turning point in a massive shift from violence to more peaceful existence. Now go chew on that. :

Love is the very foundation of our humane societies, the impulse behind all successful human endeavor (cooperation, etc.). Maybe you prefer another term. So be it.

Herb Sorensen

It's just that I find the constant extolling of it cloying. Especially attributing the betterment of humanity to it. It's free enterprise and prosperity that better society - then they have time to get all philosophical and "loving." Good on 'em. But making it the driving force seems like a typical religious error to me.

Bob Brinsmead

Herb's whole profession is about relating to other people. Money becomes a medium of relating - you do something, make something or give something to a person and in return he gives you something in return. It is a reciprocal act of giving and receiving, entered into freely without any coercion. Suppose there were no people around for you to trade with? If you are left all on your own, trading with yourself, it is what we Aussies would call economic wanking - of no benefit at all to anyone. A successful businessman is generally successful because he provides excellent service, he thinks what his client or customers need and provides that for them better than anyone else. So he that is greatest among you is greatest at serving. Of course this can be corrupted by cheating, lying, manipulating, grasping etc. but that is a perversion of the human art of trading. Good business people are good at what they do, they provide good service for people, and of course it comes back to them in doing well for themselves too - but when the system works at it should you only do well for yourself by doing well for others. Good business people are generally very people friendly. Love is not about doing super human things but doing very ordinary things in the arena of human existence. It is not about opting out of this world but just being genuinely human in this world. Love of this kind can be present even when we don't like a person. We are not obligated to like a person. But whether we like a person or not, we are obligated to give him a fair go (an Australianism). It is called love.

The Handbook

Sun, 06 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

The Handbook

Exchanges Between Friends

The following discussion is taken from emails and covers differing ideas about such things as Near Death Experiences, what is presented to us in the Bible, and the validity of Global Warming.

Wendell Krossa (April 23, 2012)

The authors of The Handbook of Near-Death Experiences try to deal with the issue of ‘scientific’ evidence. They refer to a conversation with Ken Ring on veridical evidence (people actually seeing things in an operating room and reporting this later which is then verified by emergency room staff). The problem is that there has not been a single case of veridical proof under controlled conditions. Sam Parnia’s study has run into this problem. They placed pictures on the top of lighting fixtures so people out of their body could see them and later report to the researchers. So far this has not worked.

Ken Ring responds to this problem, as he says, tongue-in-cheek, “the NDE is governed by The Trickster who wants to tease us but never give us the straight dope, so people are left to twist in the wind of ambiguity”. He refers to Ray Moody’s comment that there is an imp in the parapsychological closet, with a sense of humor.

The authors feel that to concede a trickster is at work is to concede to passivity and powerlessness. They quote Einstein who said, “God is subtle but he is not malicious...(which, he explained, meant) Nature hides her secret because of her essential loftiness, but not by means of ruse”. They then advocate for perseverance and patience. And more power to them. Our curiosity ought to be honored and given full rein. Never quit asking and exploring and discovering.

A problem that may have to be considered here is that we are dealing with something outside of the physical, outside of the realm of normal proof, of normal science. It is something that appears to largely take place outside of the physical body and brain, though there are some connections. This is outside the realm of scientific observation and proof.

We have the millions of people who have had these experiences and told us about them. That is the supreme benefit of these experiences: human experience, the most real and perhaps the only real thing that exists, and despite consequences, people are willing to tell the rest of us about their experiences (despite risk of personal stigma from family and medical staff). Personal testimony is enough for anyone ready to accept it. For others, nothing will change their mind, even if God were to appear and speak. So good proof has been given and is available. This testimony is backed by a lot of veridical evidence in non-controlled situations, and it is backed, most importantly, by evidence of changed lives, changed for the better.

I follow these arguments with some bemusement, as I believe science should continue to do its job, but recognize its limitations. It cannot tell us so many things that we consider important to know. Why something? Why conscious humanity? What is the purpose and meaning of it all?

Bob Brinsmead (April 23, 2012)

This all reminds me of the problem of the resurrection - it cannot be proved by any scientific or historical evidence. We don't even have the evidence of any first hand witnesses because the stories we have are those written long after the witnesses were dead. Then the records are contradictory and in some respects the accounts given in the four Gospels are mutually exclusive – and the accounts contradict Paul who says that the fleshly body (that has all the basic characteristics of an animal body) is not the resurrected spirit-body anyhow. How is it that only a small group of inside friends/believers say they saw something, but no one else witnessed anything?

This is a bit like Joseph Smith having a very small group of believing witnesses (with a conflict of interest, indeed) testify for Smith's integrity, but no one else can say it is true except the inside group of dedicated believers. At least if the matter came to a court of law to be established, then any eyewitnesses would be subject to rigorous cross examination. We don't even have any first-hand witnesses - only second or third hand, and second-hand reports at best.

So Christians go out into the world to declare that certain things have happened without any real proof - suppose a fellow hears this message in a far off Indian tribe, how on earth can he ever verify the scientific and historical evidence of the resurrection of Jesus -- woa, if he believes, it is not because it has been proved to him. But then to make matters all the more difficult, the evangelizer not only declares something that is beyond the hearer's ability to verify, but proceeds to tell him that he is going to be punished and eternally damned unless he believes all of the claims that are made. And if you want to think of something more difficult, consider that he is told that the execution of this obscure Galilean Jew (that some scholars argue never existed) was God's way of paying the penalty of the hearer's sins and the sins of everyone else.

How could he ever verify such a thing? Then he might also be told that this man was born without parents having sex, and then spent a whole lifetime on earth without sinning in word thought or deed. It must stand to common reason, that it is not possible to have access to any proof of claims like this - they are matters of faith and if they were provable, they would not be articles of faith. You don't need faith to believe that son of Sam committed those murders or that the germ theory is valid.

Wendell Krossa (April 25, 2012)

This then raises the issue of what is faith/belief and what role does it play in the overall scheme of things? What is its point? It appears to hide something and demand belief without evidence. How does this make one a better person? Is it character building? How does it relate to other forms of human knowing? Is it just a religious invention?

I have the fortune of knowing some people who have had NDEs. Good, credible people, one of whom is a brother in law. When I draw out comment on this experience, it is quite fascinating. I have asked, for instance, about the clarity of consciousness and the response from both is that it was not a dream or hallucination, but very clear consciousness. It was real and not fantasy. So I take that testimony on faith. And yes, I am better off for having taken it by faith.

Bob Brinsmead (April 25, 2012)

Wendell, I suggest you have another look at my essays on the Difference Between History and Its Interpretation - and the point made about the place of reason in this matter of faith and interpretation. I argue that the evidence for faith must be reasonable and based on a reasonable or credible evidence. We should be able to give sensible, reasonable and credible reasons why we believe the way we do - that it is consistent with a sound worldview and consistent with all the available evidence.

Even this contemporary Pope wrote a famous paper in which he featured the subject of debate between a Christian(Catholic) philosopher and a Muslim one. The Christian argued that faith must be reasonable and that God does not ask us to believe unreasonable things; whereas in the Islamic view God can require us believe, even when believing does not appear to be reasonable. Anyhow, his paper provoked the Moslems to riot and a few people got killed over what was a good paper by the Pope.

For instance, if you take the traditional Christian view of the atonement or the Virgin birth, there are so many aspects to these doctrines that assault our common sense and our human consciousness. - perhaps in a way that would not have assaulted a more primitive human consciousness. The very annunciation of the virgin birth has become a very unworthy portrayal of God in the light of a more advanced human consciousness.

The depiction of God given in the virgin birth annunciation is of one who does not respect the dignity of human freedom and human choice. Neither Mary nor Joseph are given any say in the matter. God just commodores a female body like a military dictatorship commandeering anything needed for a war. In these stories, God sounds more like a big white slave owner/master who one days announces to his pretty female slave, "Mary, I am coming down to your hut to have sex with you tonight" - a context in which the slave-girl has no say in the matter whatsoever. As for poor old Joseph, "Too bad mate!." It's a bit like our government's Land Resumption Rights. The government can take over your house and property either to build a road or a sewage plant - and you don't have any choice in the matter.

Wendell Krossa (April 26)

This gets to some good stuff Bob. How we use our contemporary consciousness to evaluate so much in human thought. This relates to issues of authority and truth, or basic standards for evaluating what is human and true. The ramifications of this are immense. How to articulate it as some sort of principle- perhaps what we have been using for years, what does it mean to be human? This goes beyond just ethical issues.

We have recently been going over some examples of this in rethinking such things as the core Christian belief in blood payment (really just pagan human sacrifice). Or the issue of devotion to God as in the example of Abraham willing to sacrifice his son. As one writer said, imagine some guy in your neighborhood telling someone to kill their child. He would be arrested on the spot as some pervert or criminal.

The progress of consciousness demands this continual re-evaluation of all humanity has believed over the past. Is it really human/humane? This embodies sensible, reasonable, credible

I would suggest that religiously trained minds could use some sort of tool in this regard, to help in re-evaluating religiously shaped systems of thought. It would be interesting to try to come up with some sort of brief story, or explanation that would prompt thought along this line. That much of what has been passed down as truth is in fact quite notably inhumane stuff, and when evaluated in the light of contemporary human consciousness or sensibilities, its inhumanity will become starkly exposed.

Apply this, for instance, to the payback thinking behind much religious myth. A list of Biblical stories/incidents re-evaluated in light of contemporary human rights would offer an interesting example of this. Many have done just this in sites all over the web.

I said “religiously trained minds” because that is how many people stop using reason and their sense of common humanity. Because a system is claimed to be from God, then there is the felt obligation by adherents to defend that system no matter how inhumane its elements may be. To view those elements for what they really are may be a difficult shift in thinking for many to make. Bob’s example of the virgin birth is a good illustration of how to review these old myths and present them in their true colors.

Tim Smith (April 26, 2012)

This collision of history and interpretation; history and faith; history and reason -- its been framed many ways -- is precisely the allure, the driving force that I see behind Bob’s tremendously insightful archive of writings, especially everything since “The Status of Jesus and The Status of The Law”. It’s what drew us all together -- it essentially formed the JBAS.

So Bob, I need to make sure I’m getting your basic point… [nothing new huh?]

It seems you are shooting down the idea of Wendell trying to make the case that JBA experienced an NDE! Are you theorizing a JBA NDE Wendell? Testimonial evidence is 2nd or 3rd hand accounts that say, “He died. He came back from the dead. I saw him and talked to him and ate with him. Then he returned to the land of the dead.”

However, as best we can tell, JBA experienced a DE, not an NDE. Evidence for DE’s (i.e…, graves) are abundant the world over. So even though the evidence for this particular DE is skimpy at best, we can believe it, even in the absence of a grave (…which adds all the more to the Talpiot tomb find, huh?…). The dispute arises not from the DE, but the resurrection. JBA had nothing to do with the resurrection. He provided no interpretation of his DE. Had he done so, then we could perhaps call it an NDE…

And that gets me around to Bob’s basic point, which I understand to be that the resurrection itself is merely interpretation of the DE of JBA. 100% interpretation. Am I correct, Bob?

As to the NDE… how does that compare in this context? I’m not sure I get it. Evidence for the [modern] NDE is almost as abundant as the DE, with the life-saving technology available today. But instead of a small group of insider/believers, such as the case of Joshua Ben Adam or Joseph Smith, we have millions of people worldwide listening to first-hand accounts on television, or reading those first-hand accounts in books, and then choosing to believe or not. There are millions in both camps.

Wendell Krossa (April 27, 2012)

This comment of Bob on virgin birth as Celestial rapist has to be one of the most stunning of all discoveries in light of what real love appears to be about. That authentic Deity is non-coercive. The ultimate power of the universe is non-coercive. It is Love- a Love that does not threaten, coerce, overwhelm, force, punish, dictate, and on and on. How contrary to all human perception over history about what elite power-holding means. That the ultimate Power of the Universe is a Love that respects individual freedom and choice supremely. Co-creates. Shares all things without restriction or limit. Nothing threatening or coercive about such Love.

The point being- if this (non-coercive) is true of the ultimate reality that we try to align our beliefs and behavior with, then what does this say about treatment of one another? I am referring to the normal human impulse to discover if there be some grand purpose for human life and the endeavor to try to live according to that purpose (this has been behind much of the religious impulse over history). And again, it does not mean people never exercise force in relation to one another (common sense qualifiers come to mind- e.g. restraining violence from others).

After distancing myself respectfully with qualifiers to maintain my slipperiness, let me advocate a bit in support of Jesus having some sort of NDE. The big question- how does someone just out of the historical blue suddenly start advocating for something that no one else has ever so clearly set forth as a proper human perspective and approach to life? Unconditional forgiveness toward all offenders, unconditional acceptance of all people, unconditional generosity toward all, especially enemies. Yes, the OT prophets spoke somewhat of this but nowhere so clearly (unless Bob can enlighten us if he knows of somewhere it was presented) as in HJ or JBA(historical Jesus).

The only other source we find where unconditional relating is understood and presented so graphically as in Jesus, is in NDEs. Note the NDEs we have put up by people having committed suicide, or the man who was a government assassin and killed innocent people in war bombings. Yet they claim they were embraced with overwhelming unconditional love. There was no judgment for their actions, no condemnation, no threat of punishment. Only this incomprehensible unconditional, and overwhelming and flooding love. As Ring says, they came back stammering hyperbole about it in attempting to describe the indescribable. It was so much better than anything they could possibly imagine. And they saw this applied to all people, no matter who they were or what they had done.

In the case of Jesus- if he had such an experience, then it had to have been earlier in his life. He did not likely get such an experience at the beginning of his public teaching (the desert experience?). When he started teaching he already presented a well thought out message of unconditional. It was a coherent presentation around a set of stories/parables and precepts. All focused on unconditional relating. Unless of course he had it during the desert experience and as an exceptionally quick learner, then quickly incorporated it into a clearly presented message. Most NDErs say it takes time to incorporate this profound experience into their lives.

I cannot see how anyone could grasp God as Jesus did, as unconditional love, and understand this was how to relate to all persons, aside from having such a profound experience. This may have been what Nolan was suggesting though he expressed it more weakly. This unique theme comes out in the Jesus story and again significantly in the past 30 years. What is this all about? What is humanity to take or learn from this?

Henry Hasse (April 27, 2012)

Well, if Joshua became a serious student of the prophets, and I think he was, because he did not find answers to his questions on the "kingdom" for here and now from John's apocalyptic teaching on the banks of the Jordan River (Repent and get washed up because the judgment is near!), then surely Isaiah 55:7-8 must have hit his consciousness out of the park! To "freely pardon even the wicked" sounds pretty unconditional to me. "My ways are not your ways!"

For every word of a loving Father Joshua found in the prophets, he found 367 more that the prophet claimed were also God's but which spoke of punishment, destruction, and payback justice (man's ways). He soon learned to distinguish which were really from a loving Father and which were merely a prophet giving God a bad rap!

All of Israel's troubles, invasions, captivities were fruits of their own planting. Just like us. So don't blame God or anyone else for our troubles. Look in the mirror. Meditate as long as it takes to see our ways, then look even deeper to find the Father's mercy and acceptance waiting for us. It has been there all along patiently waiting for us to finally notice. Finding it can really make our day and also make it possible to head out to accept and love others in the same way. The Father's way.

The scriptures are loaded with payback justice. Joshua did not only find "an eye for an eye" to throw out. He found many, many more, as should we. We need to get the "inspired by God" out of our heads, as well as, "It must be holy because look how many thousands of years the Spirit has caused it to last." So speak those who wish to control us with their authority. A loving Father cannot even THINK such things, much less say them!

Julia Tyack (April 28, 2012)

Yes Wendell, You have said that in a way that illuminates what divine love is against the backdrop of the myth that is the foundation of Christianity.

This illustration is so ingrained in Western psyche, it is a powerful tool when turned around. To open it up like you have using Bob's phrase does hit a striking note.

Herb Sorensen (April 29, 2012)

"virgin birth as Celestial rapist"

This smacks of radical feminism to me. In fact, there is very little of anything that cannot be expressed in unflattering terms. And I don't have a problem with that, per se. Looking at things radically can provide insight, in the same way that any caricature elucidates something. However, caricatures are rarely fair.

Wendell Krossa (April 29, 2012)

It’s usefully expressive in the same way that “camel through the eye of a needle” is exaggerating to make a sharper contrast or caricature. It’s about intending to shock and thereby provoke thought and consideration that might not arise otherwise. After millennia of indoctrination in these barbaric myths and subjection to priestly claims that they are from God and therefore to be held in honor and even worshipped, people lose the ability to properly evaluate things. Their critical senses become dulled. They carry their blood-soaked Bibles off to church to worship a monster, seemingly unaware of what they are actually doing and advocating. So some good old shock therapy is in order. To shake things up and get people thinking critically again.

Look again at the story of Abraham and the demand that he sacrifice his innocent son. Look again at the view that the death of Jesus was a human blood sacrifice to pay for the wrongs of others. And on and on...People actually worship this.

Bob Brinsmead (April 29, 2012)

Yes, point well made here. There is a time to use hyperbole - Jesus often exaggerates even to the extreme to make you think. I refer to the shocking cartoon I sent Wendell which has to be understood in our political context of our stupid government putting a horrendous carbon tax on us. The carbon tax was the price the leader of the Greens, Bob Brown, demanded of our PM if she was to stay in power. The cartoon is vulgar, confronting, almost pornographic - especially when Bob Brown is openly gay. But I found the cartoon so funny yet true to reality, that I laughed myself to tears...hours later, if I want to laugh, I just start thinking about this outrageously rude cartoon and it nearly puts me on the floor laughing. The cartoonist is an absolute genius that he could do this to me.

Some time back, my brother John and I were attending a court hearing/ Inquiry where people were put through the ritual again and again of swearing on the Bible - as if to promise that what they would say would be as true as the book that was put into their hands by the Court. My brother John quipped that if what the witnesses were saying was no more accurate than some of the stuff in that holy book, their testimony would not be very reliable.

Herb Sorensen (April 29, 2012)

Comments below.

On Sat, Apr 28, 2012 at 10:52 AM, Wendell Krossa wrote:

Its usefully expressive in the same way that “camel through the eye of a needle” is exaggerating to make a sharper contrast or caricature. It’s about intending to shock and thereby provoke thought and consideration that might not arise otherwise. Agreed. No harm in that, unless your new-found wisdom is considered dispositive truth, then you are essentially "hoist on your own petard!"

After millennia of indoctrination in these barbaric myths and subjection to priestly claims that they are from God and therefore to be held in honor and even worshipped, people lose the ability to properly evaluate things. Their critical senses become dulled, and they carry their blood-soaked Bibles off to church to worship a monster, seemingly unaware of what they are actually doing and advocating. So some good old shock therapy is in order, to shake up things and get people thinking critically again.

Pretty doubtful, but then we haven't agreed on the mindset of the typical parishioner for a very long time. Although I agree that such exists, it is NOT mainstream, thriving Christianity. You seem to be permanently stuck in "Jonathan Edwards" mode, and unless the world will match your caricature, you become irrelevant.

So representation itself is an evil? You've got to be kidding, given the many millions who weekly "worship" at sporting events all over the world. Vicarious living is deeply embedded in the human condition, and can provide useful catharsis. Go ahead and create your ridiculing caricatures of sporting fans. At least it will keep your face damp. ;-)

Wendell Krossa (April 29, 2012)

“Typical parishioner”? Mainstream Christianity? Two billion people claim to be adherents of mainstream Christianity, and one billion people are Islamic. That’s almost half of humanity claiming to adhere to (or worship) the Abrahamic belief system and its God (the ‘monster’) I was referring to, to “shake up” some on this list:).

A monster is something not human, but quite opposite to being human. Something that threatens to devour you and destroy you, a human. Something with big ugly teeth and a snarl to scare the sh...., ah, spit out of you. The Christian God pretty much fits the bill. It is, as Campbell noted, something that you go out in your story to confront, face down, conquer, and then return with some insight learned to benefit others. Like, don’t be afraid of that big bad wolf, he’s all bark and no bite. Speaking more plainly, such a God never existed except in the fear-ridden minds of believers, all three billion typical mainstream parishioners. And if you take survey results on how many still believe in hell and the blood sacrifice of Jesus then you can rack up some numbers on what is mainstream Christianity. Not all that 2 billion but a significant portion thereof. And so as to not let you scamper away out from under this mainstream thing- I know a lot of people (for what anecdotal is worth in representing the larger population) who will still give the nod to Christian myth. They have left the Christian system yet still wonder about the truth of what they have left. They make jokes about hedging their bets just in case there is such a thing as hell. That reveals to me the power of that mythology, even in the consciousness of the many that have left the “mainstream” variety of it. I would consider them still mainstream believers in the myth.

“Unless the world matches”- well, you see there was this obscure Palestinian secular sage who came up with this strikingly counter-conventional insight about unconditional treatment of others, an insight buried by the surrounding world (mostly by his followers and the religious system they built) but an insight so humane that it became a brilliant light to dispel the darkness of religious consciousness. It’s an insight so powerful that it has always intrigued people even outside the Christian system. And its influence will continue to spread to liberate and enlighten human consciousness and lead humanity into an unlimited future. But it’s an insight that challenges the entire mainstream Christian edifice and threatens to bring it all crashing down. It’s an insight so valuable that one need not worry about the world matching it. Just sell all you have in order to obtain it for yourself, and try to live it, and let the chips fall where they may. Who knows what will be mainstream a thousand years from now.

Bob Brinsmead (April 29, 2012) 9.00 am

I have not gone so far as using the term "celestial rapist" in expressing my reservations about the NT account, for it has to be taken in the context of that age of a very patriarchal and hierarchical society , so I use the illustration of the slave owner who has absolute ownership of his slaves. In this context the dignity of individual freedom and decision making is not considered, because that concept of human rights does not exist. With reference to the totally unacceptable supposed behaviour of "God" in the virgin birth, it extends also to long accepted ideas of the divine-human relationship. Like the old hymn that says, "My will is not my own, till it a master find....Force me to render up my sword and I'll a conqueror be." The concept of severe self-denigration has a long Christian tradition, supposedly founded on Paul's "O wretched man that I am," and John's "Without Me you can do nothing..." etc. In a lot of holiness piety, the point is pushed that humans are to become just the glove that Jesus wears.

I regard all this stuff as inhuman and humanly degrading to the dignity and the freedom of being human. That's why I expressed my revulsion against all this human denigration, including centuries of Christian denigration of women, the way I did in a Verdict issue Christian Atheism- suggesting that many people would psychologically benefit from getting God off their backs and out of their lives.

So yes, I agree on the point with Herb that celestial rapist talk may even prevent getting the needed point across. Even the Greek and Romans myths about the virgin birth of Alexander and Caesar Augustus and all the others, do not put it across in terms of celestial rape, but mostly they put it across in terms of God doing what he chooses to do with a woman to fulfill his own purposes, and quite apart from any true exercise of human freedom in the matter. That is the point, so it is best not to detract from that point by pushing the analogy too far. It is even true that the New Testament has Mary surrender/accept the reality in humble and grateful submission to the will of God, and in Christian tradition she is lauded for her response... OK, but I still point out that her acceptance of God's plan for her body was given in the context of an announcement that did not offer her a say in the matter. It is all pretty well much like all the other virgin birth stories that were a dime a dozen in that era. I don't know any pagan myth that describes the process as a celestial rape.

In the matter of History and how we should interpret it, I could recommend a recent publication by Richard C. Carrier called ‘Proving History - Bayes' Theorem and the Quest for the Historical Jesus’. This book is a very challenging read. The bias of the author is toward a mild atheism but that should not bias us in dealing with what he presents as challenging historical uncertainties. He urges us to treat historical investigation in the same way as a true scientist deals with scientific problems. He makes some terrific observations about the tendency in all of us as humans to what is called "confirmation bias" - that is, we tend to look for evidence that supports our bias, and the stronger we believe something to be true, the stronger our confirmation bias can become. He points out how the scientific approach, truly applied, leads us in the opposite direction of looking at all the evidence that might disprove our theory. A true scientist does not try to prove his theory, but he tries every way he can to disprove it, and the theory only stands when every effort to disprove it has been exhausted. Applied to the current Global Warming debate, the issue becomes delightfully funny. Anyway, reading this book made me think of Herb and his scepticism about history - he would find a lot of ammunition to fire at all of us if he got his hands on this very challenging book.

At the core of this Abrahamic story/faith which is a starting point of the three great monotheistic religions, there is held up to us the ideal example of such loyalty/dedication/priority/love that puts God before everything else. Now if that is to be tested, no greater test could be given to Abraham than the test to be willing to kill his own son out of devotion to God.

This comes down to the concept of the two great commandments - the first is said to be the love of God, and the second is said to be love of fellow man. Once any faith, be it Jewish, Christian or Moslem accepts the first commandment must take precedence over the second, then doing inhumane things in the name of God or out of a sense of the obligation that the service of God takes precedence over everything else, becomes not just a possibility but it seems an inevitable probability. Out of a mistaken conviction to put God first, Saul of Tarsus persecuted the Christians, some devout people killed Jesus ("we have a law, and by our law he ought to die" ) Calvin consented to the burning of Servetus; Atta flew that plane into the NY tower, and people can be neglected, abused, bombed or slaughtered under the conviction that God comes first. Of course, in all these cases, God is just an idol set up in the human mind, and these inhuman acts are done out of a devotion to an abstract belief in something - let any of us become devoted to a cause that is more important than people - it does not make any difference whether the cause is communism, capitalism, hedonism, planet Salvationism, environmentalism - any of these things can be elevated as a first great commandment that takes precedence over people. The only protection from this error is to conflate the first great commandment into the second, and I have argued that this is exactly what Jesus did and what a God incarnate faith should end up doing.

As for this yarn about Abraham, any father who tried to do such a thing back then or now is a deluded and dangerous fool whom society must restrain. I can't see any wisdom in setting up a deluded and dangerous fool as a kind of starting point for the three great monotheistic religions. This is the sort of thing that brings religion into disrepute.

Wendell Krossa (April 29, 2012)

Yes, in the end it comes to different strokes for different folks. What might upset one may liberate another. Where I find value in a sometimes stronger presentation (more sharp language and contrast, or caricature as Herb noted) is in the potential to liberate by poking fun at, or by presenting the true nature and grotesqueness of something. The religious God as ‘monster’ works for me but may not for others. It works like this- too many things have been protected under the canopy of the sacred, and people have been indoctrinated to fear them and not dare challenge them. They are things that are claimed to be “from God”. The result can be mental and emotional slavery which can be the worst kind. So someone attacking something sacred and putting it in its place (presenting it for what it really is) can potentially liberate others from that enslavement. Charles Templeton did such for me in his book Farewell to God. And Billy Connelly in his pokes at religion does the same also.

It can be helpful for someone to take on something sacred and expose it, and for others to see that person was not struck down by lightning. But again, this does not work for everyone. So some carefulness is in order according to audience one is presenting to.

Part of what is going on here involves what Campbell called disintegration. He was speaking of the shamanic experience and its stages of disintegration, going out, reintegration, and return with a message to benefit others. We grow up with a worldview, find it inadequate, and that worldview then begins to disintegrate and we need to find a new one to integrate ourselves around. This can be a traumatic thing, especially for people who invest their identity in their worldview (Zurcher- The Mutable Self- don’t place your identity in some ideology, belief system, occupation, nationality, ethnicity, or other static thing. Remain a self in change, open to the new).

Some people prefer softer and slower and less radical forms of disintegration. Others prefer sharp rupture, tossing out wholesale, cleaning house, with Billy Connelly as guide to their disintegration. Others, not so much. Again, different strokes for different folks.

But this is a fascinating thing- this human story and its stages. Again, not all will go through it, or go through it in the same way. Some people receive a worldview quite young and never change anything. They feel safe and secure holding that which was handed down to them. I remember a pastor friend in Louisiana boasting to me that he had learned the gospel as a young person and ever since he had, never changed a thing. When he found out I was reading Verdict, he blanched, winced the holy wince in the presence of heresy, and warned me of the darkness that was in that material. Me, I felt it was all about light and liberty. I was enjoying the slide down the slippery slope to hell. See ya later pastor Hal.

But Campbell has offered some good context to this thing of human life. That we go out into life, we face monsters and overcome them, we learn lessons, and we return with a message or insights to benefit others. The shamanic experience is similar- going out, disintegration, reintegration around something new, and return to bless others. Again, this is just one way of viewing the human story. And the biggest monster I ever faced and had to conquer was the Christian God.

On confirmation bias and the endeavor to disprove. They even have a tool for this termed Null hypothesis. It is part of any good research methodology course, but apparently rarely applied in actual science. It is to serve as a check to make sure one’s research is on course and considering all alternatives. I shouldn’t say rarely applied, as I don’t know the frequency with which this tool is actually used in credible research. Certainly, in global warming studies it seems rarely to be countenanced.

So emotion does rule research. We feel a certain way about varied issues in life and gather insights to explain things to ourselves and this becomes our worldview. We then continue to look for ‘evidence’ that supports our worldview and our feelings about life and reality. And we ignore or downplay, dismiss or distort contrary evidence that appears to challenge that which we believe in. How do we devise tools that help check this confirmation bias? Some already exist such as null hypothesis. What others may help? More importantly, how are people challenged at a deeper level, in their emotional life, to rethink things at all times, and to remain open to the new and radically different. This may have to do with deep emotional needs and subconscious things.

Herb Sorensen (April 29, 2012)

With our being impressed with our great advances in thinking, it is easy to overlook the real contribution of the Abrahamic view of God, to the human race. It's not just that monotheism made God ineffable, but it made him distinct from and unlike "us." Great benefits accrued from moving God out of the human race, and beginning the recognition that God was orderly and trustworthy, characteristics vouchsafed at Sinai, and almost certainly responsible for the superiority of Jewishness over most of the rest of the race.

In hierarchical societies where might made right, having a benevolent God that transcended human experience was a great advance. It laid the foundation for natural law over caprice, and that law continues to vouchsafe the prosperity and benevolence of society, which we all celebrate.

As for the definitive God, I'm not impressed with favorable comparisons of ourselves to the ancients.

Bob Brinsmead (April 29, 2012)

Yes Herb, you make a valid point - and I too like the Abrahamic promise as important as the Exodus vision - the calling of Abraham was not an act of divine favoritism, like some sort of Calvinistic election, but was to be for the benefit of all nations - so, "in you shall all the families of the earth be blessed." Great stuff! I just reserve the right and the responsibility to do what Thomas Jefferson did, and that is, to pick out the diamonds from the dunghill. There are a lot of diamonds in them thar hills! Richard Dawkins with his nose like a Labrador dogs has no difficulty finding and highlighting some of the OT that ought to make any Christian cringe - let's be honest, it is just bloody terrible stuff to be encountered. There is an Atheist group who makes converts just by urging people to read the OT - that is what happens when you try to tar it all with the same brush of divine inspiration, or worse, treat it all as God-breathed infallibility. I don't think most "believers" even read the OT, or they would puke - some of it is so inhumanly bad. Yet it can rise to the most sublime heights - I just don't treat it all the same.

Julia Tyack (April 29, 2012

I had a patient in today that Bob would remember. It was Ron Tooth from the Paxton era- he asked what discussion was going on at present and said he only kept three previous publications when he got rid of all the other theology books. The most important of these keepsakes is Verdict on Christian Atheism as it gave him his freedom.

A reporter who wrote the book "What the Dog Saw" does a section on ‘confirmation bias’ and the human propensity towards this bias. It is like someone wants to know if there are any white swans. He has only ever seen black swans. So the enquirer travels the world visiting all the spots where black swans are reported. He doesn't seek reports of white swans because he knows there are black swans and his psyche keeps confirming what he knows

Herb Sorensen (April 30, 2012)

Bob,

Well, agreed for sure. But I do think, as you allude, that the kind of "inspiration" attributed to ALL of the Bible is honored more in the breach of practice than in the reality. I'm guessing here, but my experience suggests that well less than 5% of Christian "practitioners" have anything more than a smattering of awareness of the Bible. My own awareness is probably pretty superficial, compared to yours, even though I read the entire thing, cover to cover, for probably 30 years (Up until maybe 5 years ago).

When it comes to diamonds and dunghills, that is pretty much the human experience. There are at least a pair of reasons for this. First, the search for "diamonds" is largely a cognitive exercise - of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness to the flesh. And second, we are all peculiarly adapted for survival, and believing some things that "ain't so" can actually improve survival. See things like "Predictably Irrational," "Blink," and a great deal more.

On that score, there is a reality TV show on two people surviving under primitive wilderness conditions. One of them picked up some great pieces of elephant dung and was explaining to his partner how this dung could be parsed for seeds the elephant has ingested but not digested, and the seeds could provide good nutrition. Seems disgusting, the Seri Indians of Baja California practiced this, and probably other primitives. In any event the dried dung also was a good source of fibrous fire starter.

Back to the mental thing though. It is clear that a huge amount of thinking is somatic, not brain based. Intellectually brilliant people are always in danger of seeing the world through the prism of intellectual brilliance. There is no particular evidence that this promotes survival and prosperity. A whole lot of bodily emotions have driven people over the ages to migrate to greener pastures. Brains didn't hurt, but I question any great correlation with the results of prosperity. It isn't the lack of brains that brings intolerant oppressors to government, all over the world.

Bob Brinsmead (April 30, 2012)

I just want to express this thing simply by saying that when we read the Bible we should put our brains into gear and not put up with anything that is inhuman, cruel, unjust, unreasonable or obviously mythical. For instance, is there a person on this list who actually thinks that God made the sun stand still in answer to Joshua's prayer in order that he could be given more time to slaughter more human beings in his holy war. It seems clear to me that if we asked such a thing of Jesus, he would say as he did to a similar prayer from the disciples, "You don't know what spirit you are of! When Jesus was crucified, there was supposed to be an eclipse of the sun for three hours." Normally, such a thing is physically impossible and more importantly, not a single authority or observer anywhere on earth ever commented on such a phenomenon although there were many keen observers of the sun and the planets in those days- nothing is impossible, but such an event is extremely unlikely - just as it was extremely unlikely that Herod ordered the killing of the babies at Bethlehem. The Jews protested unjust actions to the Romans and the Romans are known to have acted on serious complaints time and time again, but there is no record of such a thing in history. Josephus chronicled the crimes of Herod in great detail, yet makes never a mention of what would have been one of the most monstrous acts of his reign. The total silence of any confirmation about the three hour eclipse of the sun or the slaughter of the infants is quite deafening. Now the real point I want to get at is this: is faith supposed to be reasonable, does it engage the brain or anesthetize the brain? Or does God expect us to unreasonably believe? Modern scholarship has amply demonstrated that it is not always possible to both believe and be reasonable with some things in the NT.

Herb Sorensen (April 30, 2012)

Just think if there was an AGW crowd 2000 years ago. Such stories they would tell! People don't change, and blaming God for what they do, actually makes a lot of sense. When you realize than man has "created" God in his own image. I'm pretty doubtful about what anyone knows about God. If what you know is helpful to YOU, good on ya mate!

Victor Urbanowicz (May 1, 2012)

Bob, Your remarks would not turn a hair in the scripture classes taught at United Theological Seminary in New Brighton, Minnesota, USA. (Lots of Unitarians train there.) Northrop Frye pointed out that the slaughter-of-the-innocents tale is remarkably parallel to the one in Exodus about Pharaoh killing all the Hebrew baby boys: baby Moses got away and so did baby Jesus--divine favor. When Jesus raised the daughter of Jairus, that was a parallel to Elijah raising the widow's son. Both Jesus and Elisha met the funeral procession at the gate of the city (the dead had to be buried outside the walls). However, the inspired writer of the gospel had failed to do his/her homework: the town where Jesus allegedly raised the dead girl did not have a wall, ever. But the story does reflect that Jesus (and/or the gospel's author) regarded women as equal to men.

Bob Brinsmead (May 1, 2012)

Sometimes I think that in answer to the question, Do you think you can believe this or that...? the safest thing to say in reply is, "Not if I can help it...!" The love of a belief, a theory, an idea, a worldview is the root of all evil. It is no good to allow ourselves to be driven by a confirmation bias that sends us off looking for anything and everything that will support our belief..." Far better to see if we can find evidence that it is not true, and then only believe it because no facts can be marshaled to overthrow it. So we believe it because that is the only rational and honest response. If something that I once believed to be true is found wanting or is shown to be wrong, I have no problem discarding it, saying "I was wrong about that" and moving on. James Lovelock did just this only last month in respect to his AGW alarmism, and I salute him for it. He made me smile and embrace him warmly when he said, "About 20 years ago we thought we knew it all, but now we know that we don't... the science behind all this AGW is pretty weak, etc." Well they are not his exact words, but they meant something like that.

Tim Smith (May 1, 2012)

If “…the love of a belief… is the root of all evil.”

What then would we call “…the love of being a ‘believer’.”?

Maybe this is just another way of expressing the confirmation bias mentioned, but it surely seems to drive the hearts of people where I live.

On the AGW front, I can’t decide if the alarmists are steaming ahead or backing up. Every time one side seems to fire the lethal shot, the other returns the favor. As the famous children’s song lyric goes,

“This is the song that never ends;

It just goes on and on my friends;

Some people started singing it not knowing what it was;

And they’ll continue singing it forever just because… “

Repeat forever…

Bob Brinsmead (May 2, 2012)

In the recent Benny Peiser Newsletter (GWPF) there was an excellent, yes really excellent DVD/Utube presentation on the greatest sentence ever, "The love of theory is the root of all evil." Maybe Wendell can send it on to the rest of you. the GWPF publishes the world's best newsletter to keep you up-to-date on all aspects of the global warming/environmental debate. Watch out for this tricky new socialist manifesto about to be unfurled to the world at Rio Conference No. 2 coming up soon. It is the same old stuff of the UN gunning for world government, instead of using global warming scare, they have gone back to the Club of Rome's and Ehrlich's line about running out of resources - if they get their way, they will issue ration cards for owning a motor card and a central authority will ration out the world's resources – it’s the real Animal Farm stuff all over again. Of course they can't win, it’s a joke really, because it is not possible to chain up, lock up, bottle up the innovative free human spirit which these lunatics thinks is the real cancer of the earth, instead of its salvation.

Victor Urbanowicz (May 2, 2012)

I'm not worried about the innovative human spirit. I live in the USA, where we have a noodle who believes that there's no point to conservation because th' Lawrd give us dominion over everthin and besides he gonna come agin way before all them resources git used up. We have lots of those noodles, actually, but I'm thinking of James Watt, whom Reagan made Secretary of the Interior. We have people who think the Constitution gives them a right to own an SUV. We have people who believe the UN flies black helicopters surveying us preparatory to taking away our liberties. Actually, that last one is true, Brinsmead. I am in one right now and you'd better stop defaming the UN because I can see you down there.

Wendell Krossa (May 2, 2012)

And this gets to a root assumption that is a horrible distortion of reality and life. That resources are limited. That life is a zero sum game and some winning means others losing, hence the demand that the 1% be forced to share more with the rest. This is primitive and pagan thinking at its worst. Anthropologists term it “limited good” thinking. Hence the public shaming and forced sharing among tribal groups. I saw this first hand among the Manobo of Mindanao. For anyone to get ahead, they had to leave the tribal areas and go to the lowlands. The social constraints on getting ahead were too strong among the tribal groups. If you tried to get ahead and improve your situation, others around you would shame you into sharing everything and that killed motivation to do more.

So it is critical to get this right- that the real nature of reality and life is unlimited generosity. The new natural gas revolution, among other things, ought to silence the doubters, but as their case is built on emotional/moral grounds (and distortions of facts, rationality is not likely to be part of their equations.

Despite these constraints and distortions, as Bob noted, you cannot constrain the human spirit ultimately. It keeps bursting free to create more and to lead humanity on into a better future. But what a battle is now looming with ecosocialism. It realizes that warming alarmism has failed and that movement is collapsing (green technologies have failed spectacularly as have carbon tax plans) so it is shifting its emphasis now. It does not give up because it is not about rational science but emotional commitment and an anti-material, anti-human morality.

My interest in all this has to do with my experience as a grad student taking all of Bill Rees’s courses at the School of Community and Regional Planning at the University of British Columbia back in the early 90s. Those were the very years that Bill was developing his Ecological Footprint model which has become arguably the most influential environmental ideological tool of all. And though Bill is not as publicly known as Al Gore, Hansen, or Suzuki, he is perhaps the most influential environmental theorist around. He travels all over the earth scaring people with his apocalyptic visions, socialist/extreme green responses, and anecdotal tales of imminent collapse. Even the University of Sydney is all into this sustainability research with plans for local governments to adopt its proposals. Many of your home jurisdictions have bought into this footprint thinking.

I believe it was the Danish Environmental Assessment Institute under Bjorn Lomberg’s guidance that did one of the best critical reviews of the Ecological Footprint and the fallacious assumptions it was built on, such as limited resources. It is, at core, anti-material and anti-human.

I had a two-year plus back and forth debate with Bill about his basic assumptions as anti-science, and some of you (Bob, Herb) joined that for a while till Bill got tired of my refusal to convert. Bill never responded to the strong factual evidence that resources are not running out but continue to multiply with applied human ingenuity. You cannot exhaust infinite generosity. For more detail, I have a number of essays with lots of facts on these issues on my site under Unlimited Resources. See also excellent discussions on this by writers like Huber and Mills in ‘Bottomless Well’.

Henry Hasse (May 3, 2012)

There’s a news talk radio show from Tampa, FL, Schnitt Show, WFLA AM 570, that has a growing list of 600 plus articles that question the global warming scare.

http://www.schnittshow.com/pages/globalwarming.html

Bob Brinsmead (May 3, 2012)

Yeah, apocalyptic is all the same ---whether Christian, Marxist, environmentalist...ends up thinking the faster we destroy this place the better, or dismantle industrial civilization quick as we can. I wish some of these good folks would go out into the bush (an Aussie term meaning out in the sticks) and live without soap and toilet paper for a while...I reckon they would be cured in a couple of weeks to appreciate the comforts of civilization. In Australia, the inner city latte or Chardonnay or doctor's wives groups are the worst...they live furthest you can get from nature red in tooth and claw, and fantasize too much about butterflies and sunsets - they are the ones who need my remedy of becoming hunter/gatherers and do the life of the noble savage ...and maybe if they can find those mushrooms out there it would bring them to the gates of Eden a bit quicker. They have never lived like I do...feeling the pulse of the seasons, never sleeping on a windy night, sensitive to cold nights like the plants I nurture, railing against hail and storms, battling the wicked old witch and fighting her with fungicides, herbicides, miacids and using all kinds of killing machines loaded with killing chemicals to kill off her arsenal of endless pathogens and parasites - all of which are bloody natural. I rail against the stupid philosophy and phony science of organically grown produce when the whole soil and air in which everything grows is a chemical cocktail. Plants produce more carcinogens and cocktails of harmful chemicals ( they're called phytochemicals) than the human laboratories have every produced. I get up on my soap box and tell that wicked old witch that I am the ultimate boss around here and not her blind chaotic randomness that can kill more innocents than Adolf and Joe and Mao and Pol Pot could every accomplish. Of course, man's ultimate destiny is to have all things under his feet (Psalm 8: Genesis 1), and we might as well get a bit of practice at it now. Ya, still listening Vic....?

NDE Clips Re-run

Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

NDE Clips Re-run

Here is a re-run of a good presentation of NDEs. It was helpful to note the point that there is no neuro-physiological explanation for these experiences. They are beyond science.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlwyU0_M88o&feature=g-vrec&context=G230a623RVAAAAAAAADA

This second part of an interview with Pim Van Lommel covers some of his explanatory concepts. Interesting- the point of hyper-lucidity. It was more real than this conscious existence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFxc67bLrW0&feature=related

Responses To The Royal Society's 'People And The Planet'

Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Matt Ridley Responds To The Royal Society's 'People And The Planet'

Thursday, 26 April 2012 09:58 Matt Ridley

John Sulston's committee argues that the more people there are and the richer they are, the more resources they consume. True. But it does not follow that the damage they do to the planet is greater. In important ways it gets less.

Why are many ecological and conservation problems worst in poor countries? Haiti is 98% deforested, and parts of Africa are seeing the devastation of wildlife populations, whereas in Europe and North America, forests cover is increasing, rivers and lakes are getting cleaner and deer numbers are rising. It is now more than 150 years since a native European bird species went globally extinct.

Some of that is because rich countries export their problems. But more of it is because economic development leads to a switch to using resources that no other species needs or wants (iron ore, oil, uranium, radio frequencies), instead of taking resources from living nature. Above a certain average level, income correlates negatively with many kinds of ecological damage as countries can afford to devote money to conservation. (China just passed that level and is reforesting again.)

Contrast Haiti, which relies on biomass (wood) for cooking and industry, with its much (literally) greener neighbour the Dominican Republic, which subsidises propane for cooking to save forest. Contrast the spasm of megafaunal extinction caused by early hunter-gatherers in America with the resurgence of deer, wolves, beaver and bald eagles there today made possible by the fact that people don't need to eat them or wear their skins.

Above all, economic growth leads to a more sparing use of the most important of all resources - land. As Helmut Haberl has shown, fertilizer and irrigation can vastly increase the productivity of ecosystems in rich countries sometimes more than compensating for the theft of calories for human consumption and thus not just sparing land for wildlife, but potentially enhancing wild ecosystems. It is entirely possible that this century will see ecological restoration gradually get the upper hand over ecological destruction, but only if people move to cities, further intensify farm yields, use oil instead of biofuels, un-dam rivers to replace hydro with gas or nuclear, build with steel and glass rather than timber and so forth. Seven billion people going back to nature would be a disaster for nature. Remember: no non-renewable resource has yet run out, whereas several renewable ones have: great auks, for example.

Of course, if human populations were smaller there would be less impact on the planet's resources. But since voluntary mass suicide does not appeal to people, the key question is: what level of economic activity leads to lowest birth rates? The surprising answer from all continents over 200 years is: the higher the better - though of course other factors also matter. As babies stop dying, people have fewer of them.

The Guardian, 26 April 2012

10.39am: I've just received the thoughts of Chris Goodall, author of Ten Technologies to Save the Planet, Green Party candidate and host of the Carbon Commentary blog:

What an astonishingly weak, cliché ridden report this is (the Royal Society’s report noted below). Who let the miserabilists into Carlton House Terrace? 'Consumption' to blame for all our problems? Growth is evil? But in the UK and other similar countries, water use is down, travel and car ownership down, metals use down, cement use down, calorie consumption and meat eating is falling.
We're going to run out of minerals, they imply? Total rubbish. With the exception of copper, there is easily enough to last infinitely. 5% of earth's crust is iron, for goodness sake, and 7% aluminium. 'Rare earths' are more abundant in the crust than copper.
We want people to be rich if we are stop stressing the planet, not poor. A rich economy with technological advances is needed for radical decarbonisation. I do wish scientists would stop using their hatred of capitalism as an argument for cutting consumption.

Mark Lynas, the author of The God Species, which explores the issue of "planetary boundaries", has now blogged on the Royal Society report. Here's a taster:

Whilst using a lot of dark language about increasing numbers of humans globally, the report nowhere acknowledges that the current median level of total worldwide fertility has fallen dramatically from 5.6 in the 1970s to only 2.4 today. In other words we are already close to natural replacement levels in terms of total fertility – the reason that the absolute population will continue to grow to 9 billion or more is that more children are living long enough to have their own children. To my mind a reduction in infant mortality and an increase in life expectancy are self-evidently good and desirable – and their impact on world population levels should be celebrated, not bemoaned.

Secondly, the report seems to be largely predicated on a neo-Malthusian version of economics, where resource use is a zero-sum game, and therefore the rich need to get poorer if there is to be any increase in consumption for the poorest...In actual fact the stock of natural resources (natural capital) change both because of consumption patterns and technology...
To conclude: I would love to see a much more positive approach from scientists on these issues, one acknowledging human development as a much more positive prospect, and treating environmental resources not as a fixed quantity but as a dynamic part of a rapidly-changing (and in many ways improving) world. This does not mean denying biophysical limits ('planetary boundaries') insofar as they can be scientifically determined, but it does mean taking a radically-different, and much more human-centred, approach to tackling them.

One More on Unconditional

Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

One More on Unconditional

Exchanges Between Friends

Wendell Krossa (April 10, 2012)

A Jewish writer recounted recently his rewrite of the Haggadah, whose core is the retelling of the Exodus (this was among other Passover materials). This brought to mind Bob’s recent comments about Paul following the OT pattern of reference to some historical act of God as a standard for how we should then act. I wondered- is it possible to live according to an ideal like unconditional without some supreme standard that is held to shape the meaning of such an ideal?

I thought of Albert Nolan’s suggestion that Jesus went out to live compassion because he had a personal experience of God as compassion (NDE?). Can we put all this theism-related supremacy aside and still reach for an ideal like unconditional?

Or do we need some transcendent ideal to properly shape the best ideals? Does it take an aim for the stars, not just a lamppost, to get more fully off the ground?

These types of discussion groups reflect a broader debate over ideal and practical (unconditional and real life). You can Google all sorts of related topics- unconditional forgiveness, acceptance, unconditional love, and so on- and find nonreligious, religious, psychological, family, and other approaches to this debate. It interests many people.

One of the first responses is- is unconditional practical in real life? Hence, the need to offer common sense qualifiers. Unconditional forgiveness and acceptance does not mean opening prison doors and letting psychopaths free. Some people cannot control their worst desires and we have the obligation to protect the innocent from such people.

But unconditional is highly applicable to, for instance, a country that now imprisons more people than any nation on earth. Did Martha Stewart really have to be sent to prison? Is she really a threat to anyone? And there are many more just like her. Why not just fine them if it is felt necessary?

And to the person who responded to me about his students- does unconditional mean giving everyone a good grade irrespective of effort? No. So all sorts of qualifiers can be made.

Where I find it highly applicable is in overturning many elements of old narratives with their ideas of barriers between people, some insiders to be rewarded and some outsiders to be punished. Some accepted, some not. And once these primitive separations and barriers are removed, what will that mean in real life? That’s where the surprises and offensiveness comes in.

So how does unconditional get into real life? What about proactive war to go after terrorists who threaten a population far away? The responsibility to protect one’s population.

But more than anything unconditional needs to go after a deeply ingrained human perspective, that of payback and then let’s see how that will impact societies. I see this not so much in terms of religion or no religion but in terms of a striking new way of viewing humanity. No barriers, no divisions, no separation, no insider/outsider, and so on. How will this manifest in real life?

And I see this unconditional thing as central to what the Historical Jesus (HJ) was all about. And central to the great Christian perversion of Jesus with payback. That distortion of Jesus expresses the common human problem with this new outlook, that it is too upsetting, too disturbing to the natural order, too revolutionary, so bury it with traditional payback.

I see it in such things as the Jesus’ stories about the tower that fell and the man born blind, even though there is research showing these are not authentic to the original Jesus tradition. No matter, they express the same unconditional spirit, so whoever included them got his central message clear.

But the entire movement and institution that we know as Christianity, in its rejection of the radical message of unconditional in HJ, well that is just how so much of humanity reacts to such a shockingly upsetting viewpoint. We have payback so ingrained in our consciousness- wrongs committed, offended parties, justifiable retaliation and punishment- that it seems just crazy and stupid to react any other way. Unconditional is profoundly upsetting not just to the religious priesthood but to all life. Yet at the same time it is the very key to our genuine liberation and progress in that it frees us from the worst of inherited animal-like drives, drives that have darkened our consciousness and poisoned our social life with ongoing violence and misery.

And just to add- Henry, you are seeing something in Ezra that is interesting. Some sort of pivot point in history. Is that the reaction of the priesthood to the prophet’s new claim that God did not want sacrifice but mercy? Ezra was around the Axial time when Armstrong argues that compassion was emerging in all the major religious traditions across the world. This may be something of what the prophets were expressing, unconditional compassion. Was Ezra part of the priestly reaction to that? Just as Jesus’ followers reacted to his message with traditional payback and buried it in a great institution.

So with every historical attempt to introduce unconditional into human consciousness. Traditional payback thinking reacts to this as impractical, unworkable, unjust, and so attempts to dismiss and bury it again.

But it is essential to human progress toward the better future we all want. Essential to ending violence among humans. Essential to full liberation of consciousness and life.

Wrestling with unconditional is about a profound change in the depths of human consciousness. It is a breakthrough (in terms of dominant human perspectives and narratives over history) recognition that no one is excluded from the family. Every person is equally forgiven, accepted, loved, and the recipient of all the generosity that is given to all others.

This challenges us to entirely new ways of relating to others, to everyone. There are no enemies to retaliate against.

And this unconditional humanity puts wrong behavior in a new light. It challenges such basic responses as punishment for wrong done. But this does not mean an automatic opening of the prison doors. There are some people who need restraint as they cannot or will not restrain their own worst impulses. Others need forceful resistance to prevent harm to others (e.g. terrorists). The Libertarian philosophy recommends this same approach to others but does not elaborate on the thinking behind such treatment of others.

The importance of unconditional humanity is that it gets to the thinking behind all, to the core human perspective, to the makeup of the ideas shaping consciousness. It changes this for the better and this may lead to all sorts of societal changes but does not automatically translate into such things as no more imprisonment or no more differentiation among people in terms of reward for work output.

Bob Brinsmead (April 10, 2012)

The Unconditional applies in the same way as human equality - what we have called the Horizontal dimension. It does not mean that the student is equal to the teacher in qualifications or in authority. Ditto parents and children. If someone thought he could easily take his shotgun and shoot this Horizontal thing out of the air he was greatly mistaken and did not listen carefully enough to what we were talking about...Are not all humans equal before the law! Does not a just society aspire to equal opportunity for all? And what about the preamble to the American Declaration of Independence? All humans are of equal value. We enslave none, nor are we enslaved by any. To be truly human means rejecting discrimination on the grounds of race, gender, age, religion, education etc.

Now this is a very different way of reasoning than exhibited in Anselm's Why God Became Man. In this he argued that sin is an infinite offence because it is an offence against an infinite Majesty. Here was a feudal world in which stealing from the king would be regarded as a much more serious offence than stealing from a serf. We don't accept this hierarchism. Luther too was greatly mistaken when he suggested that a sin against faith (God) was worse than a sin against love (i.e. wronging fellow man). There is no such thing as loving down to someone or loving up to someone. There are no inferiors or superiors where love and personal human relationships are concerned. And in this domain, love by its very nature is unconditional or it is merely what Jesus called the righteousness of loving those who love us or inviting to dinner those who invite us to dinner. Payback love!

A good example of unconditional love is the mother who continues to love her criminal son even to the gallows. What is the source of a love like that? Scripture rises to its most sublime excellence when is says that God is love, love is of God and that God lives in everyone who loves. So if the mother can love her son unceasingly, and that love is from God who lives in her, then I have to conclude that this mother's love points a way to that great Source, the unconditional love of God.

Wendell Krossa (April 11, 2012)

One thing that may help in understanding the applicability of unconditional is to consider what Pinker (Better Angels) terms “loss of productive capacity” that comes from violence. How this has hindered human progress. Not just the obvious loss of productive capacity from war (destroyed infrastructure and buildings) but the loss from all sorts of interpersonal fighting and conflict. People refusing to resolve differences and squabbles, suing one another. Offence taken and retaliation sought and given. Getting even. And the resultant loss of productive capacity. The slowing of human progress. Some perception of all this helps to understand the importance of this human ideal to human liberation and progress.

And then getting a good grasp of what this thing of unconditional is really about. Getting a life-changing vision of it. The brilliance of it. How shockingly all-inclusive it actually is. None, absolutely none excluded. Your bad behavior doesn’t exclude you and your good behavior doesn’t include you.

I would suggest that to help visualize the profundity of what this unconditional thing really is, that NDE accounts offer perhaps the best contemporary insights into what the ancients would call the ‘glory’ of this unconditional love. They help make it intensely personal and vivid. It is something that entirely overturns any sort of payback thinking that we may still hold in our minds.

It absolutely removes any remaining fear, any anxiety, any worry about one’s own standing or status in the great overall scheme of things. It releases from any guilt or fear over one’s life, however messed up or successful one perceives that to be. It removes all fear of death in the religious sense- fear of judgment or condemnation or punishment.

It opens consciousness to a shockingly liberating vision of infinite love, even though from our perspective it is still hard to grasp, being only the beginning of infinity.

But I like to think this wonder of unconditional humanity is what HJ saw and tried to bring into life. He got some sense of the wonder of this and that’s what caused so much scandal and upset to payback thinking.

So we do what we can to get this vision of unconditional clear and then wrestle with how to bring it to life in all our unique situations. And to paraphrase an old preacher (Martin Lloyd-Jones- physician to the Queen) if you really present it as it is, you will offend good people and be charged with impractical extremism. If you don’t get a reaction from conventional payback perspectives then you probably are not presenting it in all its full scandal.

A proper grasp of this consciousness-changing ideal will result lead to the liberation that engages life as party, celebration. It will produce fear-free existence (it blows apocalyptic out of the water, apocalyptic being an ultimate payback scenario). And it will lead to a greater embrace of life. It will result in all sorts of outrageous surprises in life. Like the vineyard owner generous to workers. Or all invited to town parties, especially the outcasts and criminals. The breaking of all sorts of social barriers. Not punishing people caught in criminal situations, such as the woman caught in adultery (and yes, situations like this have faded off the books in our age), or not seeking to get even, and on and on.

As Bob once said, a grasp of the generosity behind all will set one free from stinginess and lead to generosity toward others.

Bob Brinsmead (April 10, 2012)

The US is one of the most religious nations on earth - certainly the most Christian nation.

It has the largest prison population on earth.

Our law enforcement agencies in Australia are a bunch of softies compared with those in the US

In my article on the Prison System published by Verdict about 20 years ago argued that the Christian doctrine of justice/punishment/atonement had a lot to do with our concepts of punishment and the prison system.

England used to have a Debtors' Prison. People who could not pay their debts were put in prison until they paid the debt. We now laugh at how foolish this kind of system was if for no other reason that seldom could a debt be paid if the offending party was kept in prison where he was economically unproductive.

One of my most admired prisoners is now Conrad Black. What a useless waste to keep a man like that in prison - unless it to help other prisoners in human development as Black has done.

Prisons are largely a festering and breeding ground for more crime.

Those in favour of even harsher penalties are often Christians on the Right. Why is this?

Henry Hasse (April 10, 2012)

Ouch! But I think you are right on, Bob. And of course the media is sure to stir in this pot of hate whenever some prisoners are released early for good behavior.

The Egg

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

The Egg

A Poem - By Andy Weir

You were on your way home when you died.

It was a car accident. Nothing particularly remarkable, but fatal nonetheless. You left behind a wife and two children.

It was a painless death. The EMTs tried their best to save you, but to no avail. Your body was so utterly shattered you were better off, trust me.

And that’s when you met me.

“What… what happened?” You asked. “Where am I?”

“You died,” I said, matter-of-factly. No point in mincing words.

“There was a… a truck and it was skidding…”

“Yup,” I said.

“I… I died?”

“Yup. But don’t feel bad about it. Everyone dies,” I said.

You looked around. There was nothingness. Just you and me. “What is this place?” You asked. “Is this the afterlife?”

“More or less,” I said.

“Are you god?” You asked.

“Yup,” I replied. “I’m God.”

“My kids… my wife,” you said.

“What about them?”

“Will they be all right?”

“That’s what I like to see,” I said. “You just died and your main concern is for your family. That’s good stuff right there.”

You looked at me with fascination. To you, I didn’t look like God. I just looked like some man. Or possibly a woman. Some vague authority figure, maybe. More of a grammar school teacher than the almighty.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “They’ll be fine. Your kids will remember you as perfect in every way. They didn’t have time to grow contempt for you. Your wife will cry on the outside, but will be secretly relieved. To be fair, your marriage was falling apart. If it’s any consolation, she’ll feel very guilty for feeling relieved.”

“Oh,” you said. “So what happens now? Do I go to heaven or hell or something?”

“Neither,” I said. “You’ll be reincarnated.”

“Ah,” you said. “So the Hindus were right,”

“All religions are right in their own way,” I said. “Walk with me.”

You followed along as we strode through the void. “Where are we going?”

“Nowhere in particular,” I said. “It’s just nice to walk while we talk.”

“So what’s the point, then?” You asked. “When I get reborn, I’ll just be a blank slate, right? A baby. So all my experiences and everything I did in this life won’t matter.”

“Not so!” I said. “You have within you all the knowledge and experiences of all your past lives. You just don’t remember them right now.”

I stopped walking and took you by the shoulders. “Your soul is more magnificent, beautiful, and gigantic than you can possibly imagine. A human mind can only contain a tiny fraction of what you are. It’s like sticking your finger in a glass of water to see if it’s hot or cold. You put a tiny part of yourself into the vessel, and when you bring it back out, you’ve gained all the experiences it had.

“You’ve been in a human for the last 48 years, so you haven’t stretched out yet and felt the rest of your immense consciousness. If we hung out here for long enough, you’d start remembering everything. But there’s no point to doing that between each life.”

“How many times have I been reincarnated, then?”

“Oh lots. Lots and lots. An in to lots of different lives.” I said. “This time around, you’ll be a Chinese peasant girl in 540 AD.”

“Wait, what?” You stammered. “You’re sending me back in time?”

“Well, I guess technically. Time, as you know it, only exists in your universe. Things are different where I come from.”

“Where you come from?” You said.

“Oh sure,” I explained “I come from somewhere. Somewhere else. And there are others like me. I know you’ll want to know what it’s like there, but honestly you wouldn’t understand.”

“Oh,” you said, a little let down. “But wait. If I get reincarnated to other places in time, I could have interacted with myself at some point.”

“Sure. Happens all the time. And with both lives only aware of their own lifespan you don’t even know it’s happening.”

“So what’s the point of it all?”

“Seriously?” I asked. “Seriously? You’re asking me for the meaning of life? Isn’t that a little stereotypical?”

“Well it’s a reasonable question,” you persisted.

I looked you in the eye. “The meaning of life, the reason I made this whole universe, is for you to mature.”

“You mean mankind? You want us to mature?”

“No, just you. I made this whole universe for you. With each new life you grow and mature and become a larger and greater intellect.”

“Just me? What about everyone else?”

“There is no one else,” I said. “In this universe, there’s just you and me.”

You stared blankly at me. “But all the people on earth…”

“All you. Different incarnations of you.”

“Wait. I’m everyone!?”

“Now you’re getting it,” I said, with a congratulatory slap on the back.

“I’m every human being who ever lived?”

“Or who will ever live, yes.”

“I’m Abraham Lincoln?”

“And you’re John Wilkes Booth, too,” I added.

“I’m Hitler?” You said, appalled.

“And you’re the millions he killed.”

“I’m Jesus?”

“And you’re everyone who followed him.”

You fell silent.

“Every time you victimized someone,” I said, “you were victimizing yourself. Every act of kindness you’ve done, you’ve done to yourself. Every happy and sad moment ever experienced by any human was, or will be, experienced by you.”

You thought for a long time.

“Why?” You asked me. “Why do all this?”

“Because someday, you will become like me. Because that’s what you are. You’re one of my kind. You’re my child.”

“Whoa,” you said, incredulous. “You mean I’m a god?”

“No. Not yet. You’re a fetus. You’re still growing. Once you’ve lived every human life throughout all time, you will have grown enough to be born.”

“So the whole universe,” you said, “it’s just…”

“An egg.” I answered. “Now it’s time for you to move on to your next life.”

And I sent you on your way.