Approximations

The Other-Abled ("Disabled") as a Sacrament of Our Humanity

2012-01-02T07:44:00.003-05:00

As a result of cultural obsession with the “perfect body” and both externally and self-imposed idealized standards of how we should look, we often experience an affective alienation from our own bodies. We develop and retain an image of how we “should” look to others, measure ourselves against this standard, feel the disparities between the ideal and the reality, and, in the end, we recognize and dread our inability to attain to or retain our idealized perfect form. In the end, we lose a sense of “at-homeness” in our own bodies; we feel that our bodies are such an imperfect refraction of ourselves that we feel out of place in our flesh, an aversion to our bodies.

Dualistic anthropologies, like those traditionally upheld in Christianity, assert that the “real you” is not the outward body but an immaterial essence, often called a “soul,” that resides within the body. Such matter (body) and spirit dualism can no longer be scientifically or theologically defended. We are our bodies; our bodies our us. Our body-selves have real bearing on who we are, and dualistic anthropological assumptions only serve to foster and encourage our sense of alienation from and criminalization of our bodies, our material natures.

Susan Wendell a philosopher and herself an other-abled person, maintains that “the oppression of disabled people is linked to the more generalized cultural oppression of the body and, more concretely, of physicality...” Ellison, in summarizing Wendell states,

Our culture idealizes the body not only in terms of ideal physical appearance, but also in terms of responsiveness and control of body functions. Because so few persons measure up to the idealized standard of either beauty or bodily performance, people generally feel alienated and displaced from their bodies (p. 42).

Ellison (p. 43) goes on to assert, “ The cultural preoccupation with bodily perfection oppresses disabled persons, but it also alienates all persons from their experience of embodiment and heightens their fear of bodily change.”

Against the norms of a culture that values idealized beauty and autonomy, an other-abled person symbolizes all that is dreaded: mortality, loss of autonomy, and disparity with body-image ideals. The other-abled lack autonomy. The other-abled person is vulnerable—she is dependent on the care of others; hence, she is at odds with a culture that moralizes and esteems autonomy and self-reliance as a cardinal virtue. And, to the degree that the other-abled person misses the mark of autonomy, to that degree is she even moralized into marginalization.

Ellison posits,

Cultural myths of radical autonomy reinforce the oppression of the disabled. The disabled represent those who have not managed to control the neediness of their bodies. Therefore they appear not only as different, but as wrong... [The hatred of the disabled] is rooted in their lack of autonomy, along with their visible embeddedness in nature and the body (p. 43).

The other-abled remind us of who all of us are. Humanity is actualized not in radical autonomy but in immersive vulnerability and dependence on intra and inter-community relationships. None of us stands alone; no one stands with her own bootstraps. Instead of seeing disability as a sign of moral failure, weakness, and instead of seeing our existence in dualistic differentiation from our bodies, we should view the other-abled as a symbol of our shared human condition. We are all body-dependent, we are all dependent on one another. Mutualistic dependency is the ideal, not the aberration. As Ellison proposes, maybe the other-abled should be viewed as a sacrament of our human reality: at-homeness in and identification with our body-selves, dependent on a complex web of relationships.

Our moralized normalcy of able-bodied autonomy, idealized beauty, and aversion to the body not only encourages the oppression and marginalization of the other-abled, but it engenders alienation from our bodies while diminishing our shared humanity. A sacramental vision of the other-abled reminds us of our shared interdependence, vulnerability, weakness, and embeddedness in the flesh, our bodies. “...we live in, and because of, our bodies... [and] We live because of, not in spite of our embodied connections” (p. 44).

Ellison, Marvin M. Erotic Justice: A Liberating Ethic of Sexuality. Louiseville: John Knox Press, 1996.

Wendell, Susan. “Toward a Feminist Theory of Disability.” Hypatia: A Feminist Journal of Philosophy 4:2 (Summer, 1989) in Ellison, Marvin M. Erotic Justice (see above).

Chance Encounter & Confessional Identity

2011-12-30T09:46:00.001-05:00

We were both working through the philosophy and religion section at the bookstore. We courteously attempted to give one another space despite the fact that the same books were sharing our glaze. I knew by our similar perusals in philosophy and theology that we could probably enjoy a conversation, but I decided to avoid starting one. Then he reached over and pointed to a Timothy Keller book defending theism and said, “This is a good one.” Needless to say, I did not buy a book last night; instead, I had the honor of meeting and chatting with who appears to be Ethiopia’s most prolific Christian author: Tesfaye Robele.

Encountering thinkers like Tesfaye can be quite a rewarding experience. We intelligently discussed middle knowledge, process thought, open theism, Whitehead, Molina, Pinnock, and Boyd, and in so doing, we probably annoyed more than a few people within earshot. When I enter into a conversation with someone that I know I disagree with, I try to negate myself; I try to take in what the other person is saying and to put my agendas aside. This for me is a spiritual-humanitarian discipline, and I find it enables me to humbly and genuinely encounter the mind and perspectives of another. Tesfaye’s gentle and attentive manner suggested to me that he was doing similarly. But, why is it good to rub shoulders with those who differ in perspective? Why—it enables me to feel and perceive the limitations of my own thinking, perspectives, and presentation.

Tesfaye asked me, “Are you a Christian?” I hesitated. He had already shared with me his background and education, and I knew that answering in the affirmative would have been diplomatically easier. In many ways I do identify as Christian. Culturally and theologically, I am profoundly influenced by the full spectrum of Christianity, but, in my estimation, I would not qualify as Christian in the way he meant. I mean, I have a multi-spiritual identity, I advocate for religious pluralism, I am atheistically agnostic about the existence of the God of classical theology, and I take issue with many fundamental Christian doctrines and ethics. I answered in the negative and went on to give a four-point, two-sentence outline of my religious identity: “I was once Orthodox Jewish, and then I identified with Messianic Judaism. Later I became atheist, and I find aspects of process theology appealing.” I could have spent a lot more time qualifying any one of the points above, but I decided that this would suffice.

When I said the above my heart sank. I felt the powerlessness of an absent identity confession. In hind-sight I would have felt better asserting a positive identity, “I am [fill-in-the-blank].” I would have felt better offering a compelling, positive identity. Tesfaye then asked me, “Why do you find appealing about process theology?” I am taking away several benefits from this conversation, but this question might be the best. Aside from my ongoing attempt to construct confessional identities (a repeated theme in my writing), I am seeing that I will feel better about my thinking if I have ready, coherent answers to questions like, “Why aren’t you a Christian?,” “Why do you find process theology appealing?,” and, “Why don’t you believe in God?”

So, for example, “Why do you find process theology appealing?” Let me practice:

-- promotion and acceptance of religious pluralism
-- discursive methodology
-- absence of dogma
-- ability to look its own impossibility in the face
-- acceptance of naturalistic science
-- use of dysteleological evolution
-- placement of moral reasoning in the realm of humanity

Now, will I remember this the next time I am asked in person?

Psychological-Referential Revelation and Ethical Development

2011-12-17T07:46:00.007-05:00

Before I propose what to many will be a new model of understanding Scripture, I will present the two following difficult-to-accept passages from the Qur'an and the Hebrew Bible. I chose them for their similarly regressive sex-gender ethics.

When Appropriate to Beat One's Wife

I am often reluctant to criticize material in the Qur’an for two reasons. First, I do not want to contribute to xenophobia. Muslims in America are a minority, and they are more often than not misrepresented especially by Evangelical Christians. I prefer to work against misconceptions rather than to feed into them even if this means avoiding legitimate criticisms of Islam and its sources. Second, there is a lot of good, a quantitatively overwhelming amount of good, to be lauded in the Qur'an and in Islamic traditions. The presence of such good does not negate the presence of qualitatively negative material, but I fear that focus on negatives will likely fuel xenophobic minds eager to find fault within Islam for the wrong reasons.

The Qur'an is often more progressive than the Pentateuch on sex-gender ethics. Unlike the Pentateuch, the Qur'an grants women the right to private property, the right to individual earning, a status beyond that of male property, etc. This contrasts with the Pentateuch which treats women (wives) as the property of their husbands, does not grant women property rights (with the exception of an absent a male heir, Numbers 35), and does not allow women the right to individual earnings. This being said, what amounts to likely the most regressive passage in the Qur'an, relates to the husband-wife relationship in the passage the follows:

Men are the maintainers of women, with what Allah has made some of them (men) to excel others and with what they spend out of their wealth. So the good women are obedient, guarding the unseen as Allah has guarded. And (as to) those on whose part you fear desertion (rebellion, Pickthal & Khalifa), admonish them, and leave them them alone in the beds (banish them to beds apart, Pickthal) and chastise (scourge, Pickthal / beat, Khalifa) the. So, if they obey you, seek not a way against them. Surely Allah is ever Exalted. Great. 4:34 (Maulana Muhammad Ali)

There is a multitude of views on this passage among Qur'anic scholars, and there is considerable debate regarding the permissibility of beating the “disobedient” or disagreeable spouse. Muhammad is reported variously as having stated that the beating Allah referred to was “as with a feather” and “...in such a manner that it should not leave an impression” (TR. 10:11). Progressive Muslim thinkers today have even found creative (itjihad) manners in which to make this into an absolute ban on physical “chastisement” or beating.

This passage should cause the reader outrage on multiple levels, but I am focusing on the permissibility or the prescription for wife beating. To think that the husband is permitted or prescribed the option, even if as a last resort, of beating his spouse is outrageous and barbaric. In the West, we have been powerfully affected by the Victorian era and feminism. We see marriage as a consenting partnership between two adults who practice mutual respect and who allow the other room for differentiation and autonomy. At least in theory, we encourage disagreement between spouses—we allow for differences of style, interest, decisions, etc. This passage flies against the last three hundred years of cultural amelioration for women in the West.

Retail of Daughters in Moses

At the early outset of the Sinai revelation in the book of Exodus, the following passage marks the second pericope of caustic civil-social law, preceded by regulations on indentured servant hood:

And if a man sell his daughter to be a maid-servant, she shall not go out as the men-servants do. If she please not her master, who hath appointed her to himself, then shall he let her be redeemed; to sell her unto a foreign people he shall have no power, seeing he hath dealt deceitfully with her. And if he espouse her unto his son, he shall deal with her after the manner of daughters. If he take him another woman, her food, her raiment, and her oils, shall he not diminish. And if he do not these three unto her, then shall she go out for nothing, without money. Exodus 21:7-11

Some (Wright & Copan) have noted the protections afforded here to the retailed daughter. She is not permitted to be swapped between the buyer and his son. Likewise, the buyer cannot sell her to a foreign people—he can only sell her (“let her be redeemed”) to someone within the nation. Likewise, if the daughter in her concubinage is not granted the rights of food, clothing, and oils (possible reference to sex), she apparently has the right to leave without being sold off (“without money”).

For every possible progress this passage might pose against its historical-cultural context, this passage remains a dinosaur of regressive sex-gender ethics. If a man today put his minor daughter to work, let alone sold her into concubinage, he would be deemed a criminal. Christians who believe that the Bible is an inerrant expression of God's mind have a problem here. Psalm 19:7 declares, “The Torah of the Lord is perfect...” Torah here refers to the Pentateuch, most likely, from which this passage is drawn. How can a perfect Torah (law) contain such regressive allowances?

It should be clear that sexual ethics change. What was once progressive polity is now regressive. When Scripture, though, is deemed inerrant, the reader today will most often ignore offensive passages. Because such passages are incongruous with the reader's values, their import and significance is often glanced over and missed. They are not revisited later as most do not even see the issues. What these passages, and others, testify to, though, is how culture changes. Where arranged marriage and patriarchy were once normative, consent and romantic love are deemed necessary conditions to marriage, and marriage is esteemed a cooperative, mutualistic endeavor. Cultural values change.

New Paradigms for Scriptural Authority and Contingency

Cultural values change. What does this mean relative to Scriptures? What roles can Scriptures play in setting and crafting ethics?

Influenced largely by process theology and thought, new paradigms for understanding the God-world relationship have been developed that have opened the door for reinterpreting how divine revelation works. One such model is Knight's (2004) psychological-referential model of revelatory experience. He maintains,

Any authentic experience of God that occurs through this divinely given “natural” tendency always...takes on a form that is appropriate to a particular cultural and psychological environment. Because of this it can never be absolute. It has a genuine referential component, recognizable in principle through the “puzzle-solving” character of the theological language to which it gives rise. It also, however, inevitably has a culturally conditioned instrumental component that makes the link between experience and referential doctrine a complex one (pp 56-57).

In Knight's model, revelatory experience is conditioned by its context. This is not enormously different thus far; however, Knight goes on to assert that the contextual-cultural conditioning makes revelatory experiences relative. To Knight, such experiences are not absolute. In turn, the later interpreter of revelation needs to understand the conditional and contextual nature of the revelation. Revelation is packaged and limited by the horizons of its context. It does not unilaterally interrupt and shatter the intellectual, ethical, or theological horizons and limits of its recipients. Hence, the reader is given responsibility to think on her own. She is not given license to set her mind on the altar of another person's ethical and theological conclusions—the process is alive.

Knight goes on to assert:

...there is in this understanding no a priori reason for believing that genuine revelatory experience can occur only among members of some particular religious grouping. ...a number of factors suggest rather strongly a pluralistic...understanding of the faiths of the world (p. 57).

I love this last conclusion. If revelation is psychological-referential, then it can come in diverse packages among diverse peoples. Revelation might then not be limited to he Jewish and Christian Scriptures, we can also look the the wonderful thoughts and betterment offered in the Qur'an. Likewise, the ultimate circumambient reality, God if you will, is not limited to working with prophets of old. We, today, are just as capable of trailblazing, of crafting new horizons and demolishing old idols as those we unfortunately and all too often deem as sacrosanct. We can today add the scathing and salient denouncements of prophet Dawkins to the weighty and progressive calls to justice from the Hebrew prophets. We can listen to Muhammad and Moses, disagree with them when wrong, and build upon their shoulders.

Works Cited

Copan, Paul. Is God a Moral Monster: Making Sense of the Old Testament God. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2011

Knight, Christopher C. Theistic Naturalism and the Word Made Flesh. In: In Whom We Live, Move, and Have our Being: Panentheistic Reflections on God's Presence in a Scientific World. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004

Knight, Christopher, C. Wrestling with the Divine: Religion, Science, and Revelation. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001

Wright, Christopher J. H. Old Testament Ethics for the People of God. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2004

Objections to the Virgin Birth, Part 1

2011-12-09T06:15:00.006-05:00

Theodicy and Antinaturalism

Theodicy is the term used for the manners and theological-philosophical systems by which one levels or balances blame for moral and natural evil in the world with the assumed goodness and omnipotence of God.

“If God is good and all powerful, why doesn't God intervene and end suffering?”

“If God is all powerful and good, why does God permit natural and moral evil to prevail?”

Beginning with classical theistic models in which God is indeed both all good and all powerful, there are no good solutions to these questions, and theodicy rightly becomes a high moral ground for atheism. The God of classical theism stands wholly outside of creation, able to intervene as desired but withholding goodness and reprieve at every moment. In classical Christian soteriology, God does intervene to enact redemptive events. The classical models have God, in Jesus, “coming down” to dwell with humanity, entering the womb of Mary through a miraculous interruption of the created order. Deus ex machina. Just as humanity was about to propel itself off the precipice of depravity, God interrupted the human narrative, stooped down to the estate of a Jewish peasant, and was born of a virgin.

Classical Christian theology bequeaths substance language to theological discourse. It is hence difficult to speak of God-world relations without using a substance rhetoric that depicts God as substance in distinction to the world/creation as another substance. Despite my objections to substance language, I am using it.

Theodicy and Incarnation

Theologian Knight (2004) asserts, “...there is a widespread sense that the doctrine of the incarnation can be safeguarded only through a strong antinaturalist stance” (57). What is an antinaturalist stance? Antinaturalism is a position that gives countenance to breaks in the natural order of cause-effect. With regard to the virgin birth, antinaturalism is a description of the deus-ex-machina interruption of natural events to cause the virgin birth. The virgin birth is a preternatural event; it breaks from the normal course of cause-effect by removing the necessity of the natural human sperm meeting the human egg.

A God that interrupts the natural order to affect the virgin birth is considered antinaturalist. The same antinaturalist God who is capable of interrupting the natural order is the same God who is also the enigma and moral monster of theodicy. The fact that God can interrupt and doesn't, this is the effective fuel of atheistic theodicy. This is where classical theism collapses into monarchial-patriarchal models of God the seemingly arbitrary agent and giver. God the monarch-patriarch coercively delivers the seed; creation passively and irresistibly receives it as a vessel of God's bidding (Hartshorne, p. 60). God is absolute Power and unchanging Potentate, capable of intervening as demonstrated in the virgin birth but withholding good things from his children. The virgin birth then is a philosophical argument in favor of the failure of classical theism and theodicy.

Alternate Models of Incarnation

There are models of incarnation that maintain the integrity of naturalism and close the door on classical theism and its failed theodicy.

Knight (2004) states:

The divine aspect of the person of Jesus represents...is not something essential alien to the world—a supernatural intrusion—but rather a coming to fullness of something present in the world from the beginning (p. 58).

Knight goes on to develop models of incarnation that depict a “bottom-up” movement for the incarnation in which the incarnation is the coming into maturity, the blossoming into flower, of something already present within the natural order. Though I will not be developing his position here, he presents what he calls pan-sacramental naturalism in which God, as in the Anglican understanding of the eucharist, metaphorically works in, with, below the natural order and is limited thereby by either kenotic self limitation or ontological necessity.

Aruther Peacocke, the late and esteemed theologian and biochemist who wrote extensively on the relationship between science and faith, opines as follows:

[The incarnation] uniquely exemplifies [the] emergence-from-continuity that characterizes the entire process whereby God is “informing” the world... [W]e can now interpret “incarnation” not involving a “descent” into the world by a God conceived as “above” (and outside) it—as so many Christian hymns wokuld have us believe—but as the manifestation of what, or rather of the One who, is alread in the world though not recognized or known (which is what the first chapter of John actually says). The human person Jesus is then to be seen, by virtue of his human response and openness to God, as the locus, the ikon, in and through whom is made explicit the nature and character of the God who has never ceased to be present, continuously creating and bringing divine purposes to fruition in the order of energy-matter-space-time (pp. 37-38).

Peacocke's God-world model presents God in mutual dependence on the cosmos: panentheism. His panentheism is wholly naturalistic—God works persuasively within the natural order, not interrupting the laws of nature or the chain of cause-effect. Resorting to substance language, God's power is limited by the space required for the cosmos. That is, the freedom of the natural order and of human moral agents is a limit to God's power. In his model, God cannot interrupt, God can work at the level of persuasion and creation can chose to cooperate, or not.

For Peacocke then, incarnation is a coming into being, a germination of what is already present in the natural order. God does not cause incarnation unilaterally, God woos, persuades, and draws into being, into incarnation. Incarnation is realized by a bottom up process. What practical implications does this hold for doctrine of incarnation? I appreciate Peacocke's words below.

We have come to Jesus the Christ as the distinctive manifestation of a possibility always inherently there for human beings by virtue of their potential nature. This makes what he was relevant to what we might be, for it entails that what we have affirmed about is Jesus is not, in principle, impossible for all humanity (38).

It should be noted that this model of incarnation and God-world interaction provides a fruitful venue for further thought about the integrity of science, the place of faith, questions of theodicy, etc. In my next posts on this topic I will address the passages of Scripture that are either used to support the virgin birth or that do actually teach it. It will be found that the “Old Testament” does not teach the virgin birth, and the “New Testament” went too far with the idea.

Works Cited

Hartshorne, Charles. Omnipotence and Other Theological Mistakes. State University of New York, 1984: Albany.

Knight, Christopher C. “Theistic Naturalism and the Word Made Flesh” in In Whom We Live and Move and Have our Being: Panentheistic Reflections on God's Presence in a Scientific World. Eerdmans, 2004: Grand Rapids

Peacocke, Arthur. All That Is: A Naturalistic Faith for the Twenty-First Century. Fortress Press, 2007: Minneapolis.

Truth and Remythologizing God

2011-12-05T05:55:00.001-05:00

Nietzsche answers his own question:

What then is truth? A mobile army of metaphors, metonymics, anthropomorphisms: in short, a sum of human relations which become poetically and rhetorically intensified, metamorphosed, adorned, and after long usage, seem to a nation fixed, canonic and binding; truths are illusions of which one has forgotten that they are illusions; worn-out metaphors which have become powerless to affect the senses, coins which have their obverse effaced and now are no longer of account but merely as metal (p. 143).

We forget that we construct the worlds and the meanings that we dwell in. We forget that what were once current life currencies have lost their socially-established value and have become mere pieces of metal. Nietzsche raises a challenge to theology. We mustn't passively rely on the seemingly “fixed, canonic, and binding” illusions of “worn-out metaphors” which have lost power and currency. Instead, “the constructive character of theology must be acknowledged,” and with awareness that the social world which we inhabit has changed and is changing, we must “think experimentally, [we] must risk novel constructions” (McFague, p. 6).

Implicit in Nietzsche's statement is the need to deconstruct metaphors. The avant-garde of the conservatives have already engaged theology in deconstruction. For example, models of God like “Father” or “Monarchical Patriarch” are being appreciated for their metaphorical value. “God does not literally posses male gonads, does he?” However, deconstruction is insufficient. We need new metaphors, ones that address the environmental, economic, and erotic exigencies of today. I appreciate the following remarks from McFague:

One of the serious deficiencies in contemporary theology is that though theologians have attempted to interpret the faith in new concepts appropriate for our time, the basic metaphors and models have remained relatively constant: they are triumphalist, monarchical, patriarchal. Much deconstruction of the traditional imagery has taken place, but little construction. If, however, metaphor and concept are, as I believe, inextricably and symbiotically related in theology, there is no way to do theology for our time with outmoded or oppressive metaphors and models. The refusal to deal with the constructive task results in either a return to anachronistic models—a conservative retreat—or a move away from all images toward abstract language (xi).

McFague goes on to assert that the task of today is to “remythologize” the relationship between God and the world. On the level of the literal, most of theology is fiction, illusion; however, the fictional and illusory become truth when lived and experienced through the dynamism of myth. Models of God that need to be developed and extrapolated for today include the “death-of-God” and God as Mother, Participant, Goddess, Sensual, and Liberator (vs. Savior).

McFague, Sally, Models of God. Fortress Press, 1987: Philadelphia.

Nietzsche, Friederich, “On Truth and Falsity in Their Ultramoral Sense,” 1873 in Works 2:180.

I believe...

2011-12-04T14:59:00.002-05:00

“I believe in order that I may understand.”

This famous statement by Anselm is understood and used by many to show that one “must first force one's mind to accept blindly a host of incomprehensible doctrines” (Armstrong, 132). That is, one must lend full intellectual assent to a set of dogma or doctrines, however unsupported, before one can understand how credible they actually are. Fault then is on the individual who rebelliously refuses to forgo reason and accept belief.

This interpretation of Anselm misses an essential meaning of “believe.” The Latin verb for “I believe” is credo which literally reads “heart to put,” that is, to apply oneself to something as in a discipline or course of action. Anselm's statement might better be read as “I involve myself in order that I may understand.” Armstrong summarizes Anselm's meaning well, “...religious truth [makes] no sense without practically expressed commitment” (p. 132).

Etymologically, the words for “belief” and “faith” in Hebrew, Greek, and in English are rooted in the meanings of action, fidelity, faithfulness and less in the notion of intellectual assent. “I believe” meant “I am engaged/committed/loyal.” To believe something is to live something, to embrace a truth that dwells at the level of mythos and not always accessible to logos or reason (Armstrong, p. 115). Allow me to borrow from Armstrong's example with the doctrine of the Trinity:

The Trinity reminded Christians not to think about God as a simple personality and that what we call “God” is inaccessible to rational analysis. It was a meditative device to counter the idolatrous tendency of people like Arius, who had seen God as a mere being... (p. 115).

Trinity was an activity rather than an abstract metaphysical doctrine. It is probably because most Western Christians have not been instructed in this exercise that the Trinity remains pointless, incomprehensible, and even absurd” (p. 117).

Though no doubt there was a metaphysical component to the Trinity, Armstrong emphasizes the practical, discipline of the Trinity as a meditative or sacred pathway away from logos/reason into mythos and truths not necessarily identifiable by logos/reason. According to Armstrong, Arius' error was making God into “mere being” and a subject of rational analysis.

For me God is a call to action—an expansion of vision, a set of circles that encompasses more and more of the world around me. I believe in God as a discipline, a sacred pathway and as a vehicle for meaning making. God for me is not the monarch of metaphysics but a dimension of my own existence.

The Direction of this Blog

2011-12-01T19:00:00.007-05:00

My blog is taking a new direction. Central themes of free inquiry, skepticism, science, biblical studies, etc. remain; however, I am no longer calling myself an atheist. I have not abandoned atheism as I still find atheism a viable and appealing perspective. Instead, as I explained in this post: Houses to Dwell In, my perspectives are better represented with a spectrum. I work with and mull over multiple perspectives, and I find it much too intellectually, creatively, and ethically unsatisfying in the long run to limit myself to just one paradigm or point of view. You might say that I am paradigmatically promiscuous as I cannot stay with just one partnering paradigm for long.

It should be noted that this new direction is not really new. It is neither out of step from the composite nature of the blog nor out of spirit with the blog’s name, Approximations. In the history of this blog’s development, I have expressed divergent views on several topics—I do not present a monolithic perspective here. Early on I was more agnostically theistic later to become more atheistic. Because this blog represents me, older posts will remain as examples of the good, the bad, and the approximations in between. I am not afraid to be wrong.

Atheism remains an intellectual and ethical paradigm for me. As I have previously explained, atheism is not a comprehensive world view in itself (see Atheism an Incomplete Worldview). Atheism, for me, is most comprehensive and compelling when it leaves the realm of the negative (e.g., a denial of god/gods) into the realm of the affirmative (e.g., humanism, naturalism, monism, etc.). I remain decidedly committed to several affirmations that are often found in conjunction with atheism such as humanism and anthropological monism. I am, though, also embracing aspects of the following meta-paradigms: process thought, process theism, and panentheism. Interestingly enough, none of these paradigms is inherently exclusive of atheism, and more may be developed on this at some point.

The goal of this post is not to defend any given position, and I might never take a defensive approach to any of the above. I will, though, present a range of perspectives that represent my own thinking on the topics that I address. I have not taken much time in the last few months to work on this blog, so this is a first attempt in a while. I am reformatting the margins and my links, so be patient with my progress. My tabs above will be developed more soon including updates to by biography as needed (we're having a baby in less than eight weeks).

Mutability of Torah, Example One

2011-06-12T15:00:00.005-04:00

For our first example of the mutability of the Torah, we turn to a unique subset of the ancient Israelite priestly tradition, Leviticus chapters 17 – 26 which is often dubbed "the Holiness Code" for its preoccupation with holiness. The opening passage of the Holiness Code reads as follows:

1 And the LORD spoke unto Moses, saying: 2 Speak unto Aaron, and unto his sons, and unto all the children of Israel, and say unto them: This is the thing which the LORD hath commanded, saying: 3 What man soever there be of the house of Israel, that killeth an ox, or lamb, or goat, in the camp, or that killeth it without the camp, 4 and hath not brought it unto the door of the tent of meeting, to present it as an offering unto the LORD before the tabernacle of the LORD, blood shall be imputed unto that man; he hath shed blood; and that man shall be cut off from among his people. 5 To the end that the children of Israel may bring their sacrifices, which they sacrifice in the open field, even that they may bring them unto the LORD, unto the door of the tent of meeting, unto the priest, and sacrifice them for sacrifices of peace-offerings unto the LORD. 6 And the priest shall dash the blood against the altar of the LORD at the door of the tent of meeting, and make the fat smoke for a sweet savour unto the LORD. 7 And they shall no more sacrifice their sacrifices unto the satyrs, after whom they go astray. This shall be a statute for ever unto them throughout their generations. 8 And thou shalt say unto them: Whatsoever man there be of the house of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among them, that offereth a burnt-offering or sacrifice, 9 and bringeth it not unto the door of the tent of meeting, to sacrifice it unto the LORD, even that man shall be cut off from his people.

For emphasis let me draw out the two verses that I am focused on:

3 What man soever there be of the house of Israel, that killeth an ox, or lamb, or goat, in the camp, or that killeth it without the camp, 4 and hath not brought it unto the door of the tent of meeting, to present it as an offering unto the LORD before the tabernacle of the LORD, blood shall be imputed unto that man; he hath shed blood; and that man shall be cut off from among his people.

In this passage the faithful are forbidden to slaughter a domestic animal that is not first brought as a sacrificial offering to the Lord. The person who slaughters an ox, a lamb, or a goat for eating without first brining it sacrificially to the tent of meeting or tabernacle is imputed blood guilt. The text reads, “blood shall be imputed unto that man.” Fox (1995) notes regarding this verse, “Such slaughtering seems to be equated with the murder of a human being” (p. 591). Keil and Delitzsch (1891) assert that the phrase “he hath shed blood,” shows that “ such slaughtering was to be recokoned as the shedding of blood, or blood-guiltiness, and punished with extermination” (p. 592). Of note, this passage states, “This shall be a statute for ever unto them throughout their generations.” The “for ever” aspect of this passage is noteworthy not only because Messianics often emphasize passages that state that a given precept such as the Passover or the Sabbath is mean to be kept “for ever” but also because of the clear reversal of the is commandment in the passage that follows:

Deuteronomy 12:13-16 reads as follows:

13 Take heed to thyself that thou offer not thy burnt-offerings in every place that thou seest; 14 but in the place which the LORD shall choose in one of thy tribes, there thou shalt offer thy burnt-offerings, and there thou shalt do all that I command thee. 15 Notwithstanding thou mayest kill and eat flesh within all thy gates, after all the desire of thy soul, according to the blessing of the LORD thy God which He hath given thee; the unclean and the clean may eat thereof, as of the gazelle, and as of the hart. 16 Only ye shall not eat the blood; thou shalt pour it out upon the earth as water.

While this passage maintains the requirement of bringing sacrificial offerings to an authorized shrine (more on this in a moment), it loosens the presumably earlier legislation that required all animals to be slaughtered as offerings. In this passage the Israelite is permitted to slaughter his meat “within all thy gates, after the desire of thy soul.” He no longer is required to bring his animals to be offered first to the Lord (YHWH), but he is permitted to slaughter them whenever and wherever. Here what was once deemed a capital offense is now permitted as one pleases. What was once punishable by death is now an innocent pleasure.

It is worth noting that ancient Israel initially had many cultic locations and shrines. This eventually changed in the late seventh century under the reforms of Josiah when the Law of the Lord was presumably found by one Hilkiah the high priest. Where one was in the past able to bring his ox to a local shrine in the village, later one had to travel several days to make it to the singular national shrine in the Temple of Jerusalem. Faley (1970 ) explains this well:

Originally, the slaughter of clean animals, even for profane use, was considered a sacrificial act. The shedding of blood, as an act of dominion over life itself, was the exercise of a divine prerogative and could not be viewed as legitimate unless the life was first restored to God. For this reason, all such killings were reserved for a place of cult (I Sm 14:32-35). This requirement apparently presented no great difficultly as long as local sanctuaries were allowed, but with the centralization of cult under Josiah (621), such a law became impossible (78).

In the above example, the “eternal-statute” legislation demanding that all animals killed for food be brought first as a sacrifice with its severe penalty (i.e., death) is repealed with the permissibility of slaughter wherever one pleases.

Works Cited

Faley, Roland J. “Leviticus” in The Jerome Biblical Commentary. Champan: London, 1970

Fox, Everett. The Five Books of Moses. Schocken Books: New York, 1995.

Keil, C. F. & Delitzsch, F. Commentary on the Old Testament, vol 1. Translated, Hendrickson Publishers: Massachusetts, 1996.

Mutability of Torah, Introduction

2011-06-12T14:25:00.003-04:00

As some of you already know, I attempt to dialogue with believers of various stripes. However successfully what transpires is as “dialogue” is open to question, but one of the religious groups that I discuss the Bible and theology with the most is “Messianics.” Though there is a great deal of theological and practical diversity among those who identify with the Messianics or Messianic “Judaism,” a rather common idea maintained by those I speak with is that of the immutability of the Law of God. Methodological problems aside (please see my post entitled “Messianic Negation of Torah”), the Law of God for the Messianic believer is found and expressed most authoritatively, exhaustively, and prescriptively in the five books of Moses which is often called variously the Chumash, the Pentateuch, and the Torah. For the Messianic believer that I have in mind, the Torah is God’s unchanging, immutable law or instruction. The Messianic will likely point out the following passage attributed to Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount:

Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:17-19).

With this passage the Messianic will pin to Jesus to the idea of the immutability of the Torah (the law referred to in this passage). However, this idea of the immutability of the Torah is by no means unique to Messianic believers, it is a fundamental axiom of rabbinic Judaism. Rambam, a much celebrated twelfth-century rabbi and Jewish thinker, formulated the essential 13 principles of Jewish faith. Number nine of these principals is as follows:

I believe with that the Torah will not be changed, and that there will never be another given by God (see http://www.ou.org/torah/rambam.htm).

The rabbis assert that the veracity of a prophet or a teacher is to be judged by this principle. The prophet or the teacher that asserts that God has eternally cancelled out a single precept of the Torah is a false prophet. And, in their misinformed zeal for the veneer of Torah piety, Messianics likewise take up the same rubric. In a recent discussion, a Messianic pastor asserted the following, “Scripture tells us that any teacher/prophet that is anti-Torah is a false teacher/prophet.” If asked for Scriptural support, this individual would likely hearken to passages such as Deuteronomy 13 which the rabbis likewise use to maintain this rubric of Torah immutability.

Though these posts that follow may not be of much relevance to many of my readers, they are directed to this specific subset of believers who identify variously as “Messianic” (though some eschew this term but maintain the idea that the Torah is immutable). It is my plan to provide a half dozen examples of where the Torah displays legal mutability with examples from within the text of the Torah and from the prophets. Truth be told, this is really an “in-house” discussion, and it might not be of immediate concern to many.

Is There a God? -- Is There Mind?

2011-05-27T20:29:00.002-04:00

One of the more profound proposals in Dawkins’ The God Delusion is the following:

“…any creative intelligence, of sufficient complexity to design anything, comes into existence only as the end product of an extended process of gradual evolution” (p. 31, italics original).

From our observable experience, the only beings that are capable of design are those that are embodied and have neurological faculties such as physical brains. Without neurological physiology, design does not exist; without a body and a brain, the mind ceases to exist. Mind, though not reducible to mere matter is, no doubt, an emergent product of matter. In our experience as humans, in our empirical study of the cosmos, no exceptions to the mind-matter continuum can be pinned down, none. Anyone that presumes that mind exists without brain cannot assert this with the backing of empiricism and the scientific method.

In my recent reading of Keith Ward’s Why There Almost Certainly is a God I came upon a divergent expansion of Dawkins’ proposal stated above. Let me quote:

“The question of God is the question of whether conscious mind can exist without any physical body… Arguments for the existence of God are arguments claiming to show that not all minds arise from matter. There is at least one mind that is prior to all matter…” (p. 19).

I apologize to the unconvinced reader not for the fact that I am presuming the following to be true, but I am sorry for the educational system and the religious leaders who have fed you with lies, to believe that the soul is an immaterial part of your humanity, a part that survives beyond death. Mind and consciousness are late developments in the universe—the product of billions of years of physical cosmic processes that have resulted in the raw materials for life and the product of millions of years of biological evolution that led to the development of physical brains and higher-level thought and self-awareness. You have mind, you are reading, you are thinking and self-aware not as the result of a direct divine fiat miracle but because of the dysteleological process of evolution that brought the unlikelihood of you into conscious being.

We know, we observe, we can experience no mind or consciousness that is not a part of and the result of this process of naturalistic evolution. To assert that there is a God is to assert that mind, one mind is an exception to the rule. One mind (though indeed God would be more than mind though not less than) is an exception to the process of conscious existence. This is what it means to propose that there is a God outside of time and matter, it is to posit the existence of mind before matter and outside of the necessary process to produce mind from matter: evolution.

Now, this does not mean there isn’t a God or a Mind; however, if there is such a Mind, it is highly unlikely that it is an exception to every other reality that we know and experience. This Mind must itself be emergent, a product of evolution. In this regard I am an unquestionable theist through the paradigm of radically emergent theism in which God is a property that emerges from self-aware minds or from the noosphere. This is the only God that I can relate to, one that is herself made from the same fabric, the same matter, that produces Mind and consciousness. This is a God, who like myself, is not static but in process, changing. This is a God who can become what we want her to be. And, unlike the wooden ideologies of fundamentalism, she can become whatever we want her to be. Her fullness is contingent on a humanity that takes the reigns of its own potential, a humanity that will not wait for the intervention of a Sovereign God who is himself an exception to existence and morality, who is unaccountable to reality and ethics, and who will never show.

Houses to Dwell In

2011-05-07T08:00:00.005-04:00

Process philosopher David Wheeler, in speaking of faith and faith communities, notes the following

…faith’s home is to some extent a function of the contingencies of one’s birth, upbringing, and historical-cultural location, and to some extent a function of one’s own temperament and choices. Fundamentalisms of every ilk ignore this truism… [C]oncrete faith communities , no matter how great their vitality and their efficacy in producing concord and well-being for their believers, do not exhaust the possibilities of encounter with the Real, nor do they exclude the possibility of other faith communities and traditions… [T]he Sacred Presence, or the Real, or whatever we way wish to call it, is always vaster and more subtle than all our categories and concepts (pps 104-105).

Though Wheeler’s observations are about faith communities, I am applying his immediate meanings beyond faith communities to secular philosophies such as atheism and humanism and then even to methodological paradigms such as naturalism. As a post-modernist, Wheeler points out that the dwelling place, the home of faith and philosophy is to some extent contingent on historical-cultural location and temperament. My placement of scientific methodologies such as methodological naturalism or humanist ethical systems on this chart does not put them on par with any of the religious examples given. As I will explain, these categories are instead very personal for me.

Dawkins’s belief scale is the basis of numbers one (1) through seven (7) at the base of my chart. This scale is a categorization from #1 Strong Theist through #7 Strong Atheist. The strong theist and strong atheist “know” their positions are correct. Every stage in between the polarities of strong theism and strong atheism is essentially a form of agnosticism. It might come as a surprise to some that Dawkins identifies at #6, as a de-facto atheist who knows that he cannot absolutely prove there is no god but who feels he can reasonably conclude there isn’t one and lives accordingly. Dawkins’ belief scale is the most objective aspect of my graphic, the remainder ventures into much more subjective categories about how I think.

The examples given under each category are deeply personal for me—they are not meant to be ontological. I am not asserting, for example, that Liberation Theology is inherently or by its nature Weak Theist, nor am I asserting that Evangelicalism is by its nature De-facto Theist. I am asserting that for me these examples represent perspectives within the category listed. I am saying that I can take on a given religion or theology within De-facto theism and run with it. I am able to and find myself often thinking like a Rabbinic Jew or like an Evangelical, taking such perspectives within the category of De-facto Theism.

Perspectival Empathy

On Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator tests I score INFP. My incline toward P (perception) versus J (judging) gifts me with the ability to understand and enter into multiple perspectives. In my personal development I find myself able to defend and think like any given point listed above. As recently suggested by a friend from church, I call this perspective or perspectival empathy. I say this not to boast because this is not in and of itself a badge of honor as it also burdens me with an inner discursive community of voices, representative voices that speak up and defend their holdings and claims as I navigate through the mysteries of existence.

In my thinking process, I recognize the contingencies of the perspectives I take. I realize that there are highly contingent histories and aspects my historical-cultural location and my temperament that influence how I think. Unlike the fundamentalist who denies such contingencies, I accept them. Hence, I see each of the perspectives listed here as way points, as houses to dwell in, to work with the quote initially given by Wheeler. No single point exhausts who I am or who I enjoy being. No single way point is a stopping ground for me, summing up the thoughts I am capable of thinking or defending.

Right and left brain distinctions in which the left brain is inclined toward logic, reason, and math and the right brain is inclined toward creativity, music, and art no longer carry weight in neuroscience. However, I find this distinction valuable as a metaphor. I feel as though my left brain thinks scientifically and rationally and is atheistic. On the other hand my right brain, my creative brain, swims in a world of theology and subjectivity and is theistic (or panentheistic, see note below). I do not feel as though any given category on Dawkins’ belief scale exhausts who I am and the thoughts I am capable of thinking. In some ways I could jettison the entire scale, which would not be too difficult, but I have found that I am able to use it as a metaphor to describe how I think and how I feel. I am a rational atheist with deeply mystical, creative anchoring in God. Yes, this is a contradiction, but I am okay with this. It works for me.

Note on Panentheism and Weak Theist

The items in the #3 Weak Theist category are there because they represent non-interventionist theism for me. Many have argued that theism is defined by the existence of a God outside of the cosmos whose intervention in the natural order is by means of interrupting natural law, i.e., by performing a miracle. Though for others some of the examples listed might better be categorized as de-facto theist, these paradigms for me are essentially non-interventionist in which God acts by means of natural law and in which God is likely ontologically incapable of contravening natural law. God in these models works naturalistically, entirely in step with natural law not by coercion but by persuasion. To the degree that one’s panentheism allows for an interventionist God, to that degree does panentheism become a form of theism. However, any appeal that panentheism has for me as a philosophical model or as a means of reconciling the questions of theodicy, fall into non-interventionist camps which might even be called non-theistic.

אֱלהִים עֵץ וָאָבֶן / Gods of Wood and Stone…and Paper and Ink

2011-03-31T08:57:00.007-04:00

The Bible chides those who construct their gods of wood and stone. In describing the vanity of creating an image, an idol the author of Deutero-Isaiah states the following:

The smith maketh an axe, and worketh in the coals, and fashioneth it with hammers, and worketh it with his strong arm; yea, he is hungry, and his strength faileth; he drinketh no water, and is faint. The carpenter stretcheth out a line; he marketh it out with a pencil; he fitteth it with planes, and he marketh it out with the compasses, and maketh it after the figure of a man, according to the beauty of a man, to dwell in the house. He heweth him down cedars, and taketh the ilex and the oak, and strengtheneth for himself one among the trees of the forest; he planteth a bay-tree, and the rain doth nourish it. Then a man useth it for fuel; and he taketh thereof, and warmeth himself; yea, he kindleth it, and baketh bread; yea, he maketh a god, and worshippeth it; he maketh it a graven image, and falleth down thereto. He burneth the half thereof in the fire; with the half thereof he eateth flesh; he roasteth roast, and is satisfied; yea, he warmeth himself, and saith: 'Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire'; And the residue thereof he maketh a god, even his graven image; he falleth down unto it and worshippeth, and prayeth unto it, and saith: 'Deliver me, for thou art my god.' They know not, neither do they understand; for their eyes are bedaubed, that they cannot see, and their hearts, that they cannot understand. And none considereth in his heart, neither is there knowledge nor understanding to say: 'I have burned the half of it in the fire; yea, also I have baked bread upon the coals thereof; I have roasted flesh and eaten it; and shall I make the residue thereof an abomination? Shall I fall down to the stock of a tree?' He striveth after ashes, a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say: 'Is there not a lie in my right hand?' (Isaiah 44:12-20).

Hence, the idol’s maker plants the tree and oversees its maturation only later to draw from the same raw material, the wood, for both fuel as fire wood (a symbol of vanity or transience, Hebrew “chavel”) and a god from which he implores deliverance. The author here illustrates what he thus sees as the irrationality of idol worship: the same raw materials used for fire become the deity receiving worship.

They know not, neither do they understand…He striveth after ashes…[with] a lie in [his] right hand

Though far less concrete, this metaphor can be extrapolated to describe modern-day fundamentalism. The Christian fundamentalist* is characterized by a reliance on a wooden biblical literalism. She believes that she can define, though not necessarily formulate, God by the Bible. The word “definition” is itself a loan-word with etymological roots in Latin through French. Its root word is Latin finitus meaning “limit” or “boundary.” Hence, to define something is to set boundaries, to circumscribe, to set limits. In fact, the 14th century French use of definicion can literally be defined as “a setting of boundaries.” Through the Bible, the Christian fundamentalist feels that she can circumscribe God for what God is and what God isn’t. She constructs her “image” of God from the Bible. Developing this metaphor further, the Christian fundamentalist begins her process of circumscribing or constructing God with paper and ink—the Bible.

Driven by the belief that her reading of the Bible is guided by the Holy Spirit, she extracts her raw materials from the Bible, from the paper and ink with which she encounters the Bible, weakened as it is in translation. Putting aside questions of exegesis and hermeneutics versus devotional encounter, she constructs her image not from wood, but from words encountered on paper and written with ink. Though her resulting definition and image of God is not a concrete idol that is physically enshrined, her construct is nonetheless an image and an idol, a recipient of worship. The fundamentalist Christian is hence left with an image, a construct, a circumscription of her own creation, pieced together through what generally is an uncritical use of the biblical texts, and a recipient of her devotion and worship.

To make this more concrete, construct a mental picture of an idol of wood versus an idol of folded pages torn from the Bible, Bible origami. How is what the fundamentalist Christian does different than what the maker of the wood idol? Are not both likewise shot through with irreparable though humanly-necessary subjectivity? Of course the fundamentalist will argue, “The Bible is God’s self revelation.” Though, really, unless everyone that reads the Bible comes to the same construct of God, this point is utterly meaningless.

*I am referring specifically to fundamentalists of Protestant-Evangelical heritage and the epistemological implications of the doctrine of the priesthood of the [individual] believer

Hostile Honesty and Dishonest Apologetics

2011-03-26T11:26:00.003-04:00

A hostile witness can be a wonderful learning tool. Back when I was in the throes of confusion, toggling between evolution and young-earth creationism, one of the issues that I had a hard time settling was who to trust. If my theology was correct, and humanity was sinful, at enmity with God, and bent on raising its fist to God, I weened, “How can I trust the ‘data’ the ‘raw facts’ that mainstream evolutionary science produces? How do I know that the information is not being perverted and the real truth concealed to justify rejection of God’s authority?” With such thoughts I would often settle my doubts about young-earth creationism by calling into question the integrity of secular science.

However, when I encountered University of Chicago and Harvard educated, PhD Kurt Wise who argued his dissertation under Stephen J Gould, I found a young-earth creationist that was qualified in his field (paleobiology) and honest with the data. Unlike other creationist brainwashing machines (Institute for Creation Research, Answers in Genesis, Kent Hovind, et. al.), Wise admitted when the field data was in favor of mainstream evolutionary science and where it challenged young-earth creationism. And, humbly, Wise admitted a lot of evidence in favor of evolutionary models. In The God Delusion, Dawkins, I was later to learn, even gives honorable mention to Wise for his honesty with the data, calling him an “honest creationist.”

Todd Charles Wood is another young-earth creationist that I respect for his qualifications (PhD in biochemistry) and honesty. Like Wise, he does not attempt to hide data or twist it to favor his young-earth models. He rather honestly concedes that the evidence overwhelmingly favors mainstream evolutionary models, and he honestly concedes that his reasons for maintaining belief in young-earth creationism rest solely with his reading of the early chapters of Genesis. Honest indeed—he does not feign the data to favor his faith in fatuous fables such as the Fall and the Flood.

Earlier this year Wood wrote a series of posts on his blog critiquing Reasons to Believe (RTB) – another creationist ministry. Unlike Wood and Wise, RTB along with Hugh Ross and Fuz Rana are old-earth or progressive creationists. Progressive creationists reject biological evolution, but they accept the standard geological natural history of the Earth. They maintain that each new species that arises on earth is a distinct special creation by God (including the some thirty now extinct species of elephants – not a very efficient God). I attended one of Fuz Rana’s seminars in early 2005 with my ex-wife where he promoted his book Adam and the RTB model of human origins. In the RTB model, modern humans or homo sapiens sapiens are the only hominids created in the image of God. The first homo sapiens sapiens were Adam and Eve, and all other hominids were soulless animals without an eternal, immaterial spirit. The sickening dualism aside, their model is hinged on the discontinuity between homo sapiens sapiens and earlier hominids and primates. Hence, they attempt to discredit the chimp genome project which uncovers an over 98% genetic commonality (even among pseudo-genes and “junk DNA”) between chimpanzees and modern humans.

Wood wrote these following eight articles to illustrate the inconsistencies and non-responsiveness to the current, relevant data that RTB exhibits in order to maintain their model. Wood proceeds with a great deal of respect. For example, where RTB and Rana seem to intentionally ignore relevant information that would utterly falsify their model, Wood gives them the benefit of the doubt (though he admits it is not always easy). Wood himself cannot explain the > 98% genetic similarity between humans and chimpanzees within his young-earth creationist model, but he at least is willing to honestly concede that the data is what it is. If anyone would like to have an expose in the dishonest antics often taken up by Christian apologists, I recommend these articles. They are also a terrific introduction into the current data on human evolution and our shared primate ancestry.

RTB and the Chimp Genome Part 1

RTB and the Chimp Genome Part 2

RTB and the Chimp Genome Part 3

RTB and the Chimp Genome Part 4

RTB and the Chimp Genome Part 5

RTB and the Chimp Genome Part 6

RTB and the Chimp Genome Part 7

RTB and the Chimp Genome Part 8

This Atheist Believes in God (and Does Theology)

2011-03-21T06:31:00.004-04:00

Looking back temporally from where we as a species stand today, we can identify at least three significant starting points or origins in our universe: the origins of the physical, the origins of life, and the origins of mind (consciousness). The origin of the physical universe, in this present iteration, encompasses all matter and energy. The origin of life encompasses only those domains where life actually emerges. The origin of mind and consciousness extends only to the domain of thought—the noosphere, which may in fact encompass only our planet. Hence, with each new origin, with each new emergence, the features become less universal and far more local. The human creations of philosophy, politics, piety, and ethics belong to the realm of human thought, the noosphere. The concept of God is likewise an emergent property of the noosphere (Morowitz, p. 134). The emergence of mind, the emergence of consciousness, the emergence of the noosphere are the emergence of God.

Samuel Alexander, Jewish philosopher and influence on Alfred North Whitehead, stated in 1918,

As actual, God does not possess the quality of deity but is the universe as tending toward that quality… Thus there is no infinite being with the quality of deity; but there is an actual infinite, the whole universe, with a nisus toward deity; and this is the God of the religious consciousness, though that consciousness habitually forecasts the divinity of its object as actually realized in an individual form (1920).

God hence is not a realized being, one that possesses independent personality and volition; rather, God is a naturalistically emergent property of the universe, specifically of the noosphere. And, only insofar that human consciousness exists does God (or do gods and goddesses) exist. Deity is dependent on and co-existent with the noosphere. This is what theologian Phillip Clayton calls radically emergent theism in which “God” is concomitant with human consciousness, is a quality that the universe comes to have increasingly over time, dwells in the noosphere, and is the universe expressing self awareness (2008, p. 95; 2004, p. 90).

Theology as Anthropology

Theology then, it should be pointed out, is not the study of an ethereal being. Theology is a form of anthropology. As humans are the biosphere’s master symbol makers, the study of theology is the study of ideas, symbols, and arch-types that are variously expressed in human culture(s). But, it ought to be asked, does the God of the noosphere influence humanity? The answer is most certainly yes. Though God only exists in the human mind, God concepts (memeplexes) assert tremendous influences on human thinking and culture in top-down causation. There can be no question that God is the inspiration behind many of the most incredible human accomplishments—both the good and the bad. Hence, God is active in history as an idea, a variously expressed memeplex that influences the direction individuals, groups, and nations.

Worshipping the Divine

Allow me to close this post with the following words from Morowitz (2004):

Ethics, morality, and religion have their home in the noosphere. Since the mind has volitional properties, some aspects of the local universe are under our influence. Prayer may be directed inward to our volitional selves, or public prayer may be directed to the public noosphere. We may stand in awe of the God of immanance; we may struggle to understand the mind of the God of emergence; and we may put our bodies on the line to fulfill the potential of the God of transdencence for the world of humans. … But transcendence shows no evidence of going beyond the human mind… Transcendence is the divine in us. To choose good, not evil, is our responsibility (pps 134-136).

This last quote touches on the properties of the divine and human religiosity that remain meaningful for me as a non-theist. When I say a prayer, it is not being offered up to a capable potentate ready to respond to my request and grant me my wishes. I worship “God” not as a miracle-maker; I revel in “God” as an outgrowth of culture and community. I take on a “God-perspective” as a powerful means to otherness, to see myself from a third-person set of eyes. This “God” though is utterly naturalistic, an emergent product of the universe and the human symbol-making capacity. I may be playing with fire, but fire, if this metaphor works, was a major step in hominid evolution.

Works Cited:

Alexander, Samuel. Space, Time, and Deity: the Gifford Lectures. London: Macmillan, 1920.

Clayton, Phillip. Adventures in Spirit: God, World, and Divine Action. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2008.

Clayton, Phillip. “Panentheism in Metaphysical and Scientific Perspective” in In Whom We Live and Move and Have our Being: Panentheistic Reflections on God’s Presence in a Scientific World. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004

Morowitz, Harold J. “The Trinitarian World of Neo-Panentheism: on Panentheism and Epistemology” in In Whom We Live and Move and Have our Being: Panentheistic Reflections on God’s Presence in a Scientific World. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004

Destroying the Idols of Local Truth

2011-03-20T11:13:00.004-04:00

Moral philosopher Immanuel Kant’s first formulation was that of normative behavior. He posited,

“Always act according to that maxim whose universality as a law you can at the same time will.”

Stated otherwise, behave as though the decisions you make would be acceptable to you if made by everyone, everywhere. Hence, if buying ones wares is a behavior that you can universally will or abide, then do not exempt yourself by theft. This is sometimes called the “universalizability test.” When the “universalizability test” is applied to epistemology, we find that the only way of knowing, the only paradigm that can stand is naturalism or methodological naturalism.

Religious Fundamentalism—Local Truth Systems/Privatized Truth

How does a religious fundamentalist know—what is her epistemology? Using the example of theistic religions, the Christian or Muslim fundamentalist knows by the same means that everyone else does—by use of the senses. However, fundamentalist epistemology diverges when it comes to authority and subjectivity. The fundamentalist’s primary epistemological commitment is to remain faithful to the “faith/truth once given” generally in the form of apodictic revelation like the Bible or the Quran. Fundamentalist truth is static, and the fundamentalist is not able to abide or abet revisions to dogma (Clayton, p. 33). Hence, fundamentalism is characterized by “tenacity, authority, a closure of inquiry, and an absence of growth” (Anderson, 3030).

Fundamentalism privatizes truth. It appeals to the authority of scripture or to subjective experiences. It is closed to criticism, walling itself up into privatized, localized truth systems, and the fundamentalist exempts her dogma, her truth from criticism, sheltering her beliefs in a veil of ignorance. She maintains her local shrine and protects it from criticism.

Science—Global Perspectives

Unlike privatized, localized truth systems, science seeks to find the realities, the truths that cut through and transcend subjective contexts. Science is a process, a way of knowing, and an epistemological commitment. By definition scientific knowledge is empirical, fluid, and continually open to revision. It does not cluster around sacrosanct ideas, it does not enshrine and wall in the sacred; rather, it exposes all ideas to criticism and to the rubric of empiricism and naturalism.

Dogmatic Epistemologies are Immoral

When we apply Kant’s first formulation, the “universalizability test,” to fundamentalist epistemology, we find it immoral. The scientist and scientific epistemology seek to “discover a single underlying framework that belongs to every possible observer” (Clayton, p 41). This single framework is naturalism—the paradigm that everyone can share in regardless of birth or life position. The fundamentalist seeks to create and defend a local truth system, a shrine, a set of impassible truth and unalterable knowledge that is exempt from the same criteria she would apply to other truth systems.

Would the fundamentalist Christian, for example, abide and abet the Muslim believer in making the same gratuitous assumptions and defenses of the Quran that she makes for her own view of the Bible? No, she exempts her local truth shrine from criticism, from the universal acid of naturalism, that she would gladly apply to her neighbor’s local truth shrine. If there ever were an idolatry, it is that of local truth systems, that of fundamentalism.

In light of Kant’s first formulation, the only responsible and ethically consistent epistemology is that of methodological naturalism and/or science. Every other epistemology is local, non-universal, and exempts itself from the stream of progress.

Works Cited

Anderson, Douglas. "Pierce's Common Sense Marriage of Religion and Science" in The Cambridge Companion to Pierce. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Clayton, Phillip. Adventures in the Spirit: God, World, Divine Action. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2008.

Ecclesiastes and Agnostic Destinies

2011-03-14T06:23:00.003-04:00

For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them; as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath (רוּחַ); so that man hath no pre-eminence above a beast; for all is vanity. All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all return to dust. Who knoweth the spirit (רוּחַ) of man whether it goeth upward, and the spirit (רוּחַ) of the beast whether it goeth downward to the earth? Wherefore I perceived that there is nothing better, than that a man should rejoice in his works; for that is his portion; for who shall bring him to see what shall be after him? (Ecclesiastes 3:19-22)

The above passage is rich in reflective material.

Unlike other passages in the Bible that delineate a body-soul dualism in which the soul, the animus, survives death in a disembodied state (see Revelation 6:9; Luke 16:22; et. al.), this passage softens or even eliminates dualism. It does this by comparing the mortality of humanity to that of beasts—placing humanity on a similar footing with the rest of the animal kingdom.

It is worth noting the bias in most English translations at this point. The same Hebrew word translated “breath” and “spirit” is the Hebrew word רוּחַ transliterated as ruakh. This word carries the meanings of breath, air, spirit, etc. Because English readers tend to anthropomorphize “spirit” to refer to the disembodied soul, the immaterial “true you” that survives death, it is uncommon for most English translations to translate ruakh as “spirit” with reference to non-human animals. Hence, “spirit” is generally reserved as the translation for ruakh only when it refers to humanity or God. Notice in the first occurrence of ruakh above the translators used the word breath, and it is only when the ruakh is described leaving the body that it is applied in parallel to non-human animals and humans. Hence, it is worth noting that “they all have one breath” in verse 19 is actually referring to the spirit/ruakh shared between metabolic biological life on Earth.

After meditating on the “one spirit” that equalizes humanity with the rest of the animal kingdom, we learn that we all have the same fate. The mortality of the beast is comparable to the mortality of the person. This passage might suggest a dualism with the upward mobility of the human ruakh contrasted with the downward, “to the earth,” direction of the non-human ruakh, but this is posed as a question. The author is actually presenting himself as agnostic on this matter—unsure of whether there is a difference between the destiny of humanity and animals. Rather than despairing of hope and purpose in the absence of existence or awareness beyond the grave, the author concludes that “there is nothing better, than that a man should rejoice in his works; for that is his portion…”

Naturally, most fundamentalist scholars and apologists will neutralize this passage’s message. They will posit progressive revelation so that the author was unable to know about the promise of the resurrection. Or, they might state that this was written in despair and with appropriate genre consideration, that this passage is not authoritative. In making these hermeneutical maneuvers they may maintain the integrity of their dogma and belief systems, but they lose the texture of the Bible and they mute biblical authors who disagree with their status quo. This passage is incredibly agnostic about human purpose and destiny. It does not hold out the hope of eternal life which is no surprise considering that a maturely articulated life-after-death schema was not present in the religion of Israel until during and after the Babylonian Exile (see Daniel 12:2 for an example of a passage heavily influenced by Zoastrainism).

However, as a non-theist who does not believe our purpose is contingent on the dictates of gods or other such external authorities nor on the eternal destinies that our minds fancy, I find a lot in common with this passage. I realize that there is futility, a vanity that permeates my existence. Yet, I enjoy life. I work hard; I enjoy the fruits of my labors. According to the Preacher (the author of Ecclesiastes, see 1:1), I am participating in the best of life. Do I agree with this conclusion? I do in part, but enough has been said for this post.

Killing in the Name of the Wrong God

2011-03-05T12:26:00.004-05:00

In the book of Leviticus, the children of Israel are commanded not to offer or sacrifice their children to Molekh, presumably a Canaanite deity. One text reads,

…thou shalt not give any of thy seed to set them apart to Molech…(Lev 18:21)

This prohibition is restated and further developed in Leviticus 20:1-5 where the death penalty is prescribed for the one who so offers his seed or offspring to the Canaanite god. Armed with modern, egalitarian sensibilities of the value of human life, many readers find the idea of human sacrifice, let alone sacrificing one’s child[ren], to be unduly abhorrent. Of course YHWH, the god of the Hebrews, would proscribe or prohibit human sacrifice, the thinking goes. How could a good God call for the killing of another human, let alone innocents? However, as this post will develop, the prohibition against child sacrifice here is not rooted in the value of human life but in the seemingly minor ritual detail of what god the sacrifice is being made to.

Deuteronomy 7:1-2 instructs the children of Israel to commit genocide, to wipe out seven nations from existence:

When the LORD thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and shall cast out many nations before thee, the Hittite, and the Girgashite, and the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite, seven nations greater and mightier than thou; and when the LORD thy God shall deliver them up before thee, and thou shalt smite them; then thou shalt utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them.

Now it is highly noteworthy that the words translated “utterly destroy” (transliteration: ha’chareim t’chareym) here are often translated as “devote [to destruction].” Without addressing all uses of cherem, it is worth noting that this word is loaded with cultic or ritual meaning. An example of its cultic or ritual use is to be found in Leviticus 27:28:

…no devoted thing (cherem), that a man may devote (ya’charim) unto the LORD of all that he hath, whether of man or beast, or of the field of his possession, shall be sold or redeemed; every devoted thing (cherem) is most holy unto the LORD.

In this passage a person voluntarily devotes or makes cherem something unto YHWH (“the LORD”). He is not permitted to redeem it or to sell it, it must be given over as “most holy” to YHWH. An example of this in action would be a man devoting his fatted ox as an offering to YHWH. Once dedicating or devoting an object, thus making it cherem, it must be offered to YHWH. A similar use is found in I Samuel 15:21 where the devoted items are offered in sacrifice as burnt offerings to YHWH.

Returning to the prohibition against human sacrifice to Molekh, we learn from Deuteronomy 7 (see also Deuteronomy 20:16-17), that it is not the human sacrifice component that is the root issue. It is not that YHWH values human life for its own sake. Elsewhere YHWH requires the genocidal devotion or offering (cherem) of entire people groups—men, women, children, and animals. What moral take away is there from this? We learn that killing is not always a bad thing—what is important is whose name one is killing in.

Most Bible believing and Bible reading Christians obviously will not accept this ethical conclusion. They, like much of the world, have moved ahead in our moral amelioration to accept the dignity of human life. However, it bothers me that so many of these same Christians will claim the Bible as their ultimate moral compass and final authority. Hypocritically they herald the Bible as their guide but they accept humanistic value systems which they, in turn, ascribe to God.

Atheism – An Incomplete Worldview

2011-03-01T08:28:00.007-05:00

I am an atheist. What does that tell you about me? Can you infer from my statement that I am a Republican or a Marxist? Am I a moral libertine or straight-laced? Do I eat meat? Do I oppose abortion or am I pro-choice? Am I religiously literate or illiterate? Am I aggressively opposed to all forms of religion or do I encourage the practice of [non-theistic] religio-cultural ritual? It should be clear that by identifying as an atheist, a person does not immediately inhere to any given worldview or value system.

Philosophy professor and atheist Keith Parsons observes the following:

From the mere fact that one is an atheist very little else can be inferred.
Atheists can be political fascists, conservatives, libertarians, liberals,
communitarians, anarchists, or radicals. Their philosophical views can be
pragmatist, empiricist, rationalist, idealist, existentialist, postmodernist,
feminist, or almost anything else. … Atheism--whether it is taken as the claim
that belief in God is false, incoherent, or unjustified--just does not have
sufficient content to constitute a worldview. (p. 53).

Parson’s words above are immensely important. Atheism, in and of itself, is an incomplete and a negative world view. By negative I mean that it is a denial rather than an affirmation. It simply asserts that there is no God (and for many, like me, that there is no supernatural). It is important to note this because many fundamentalists jump to unfounded conclusions about atheism by associating it with just about everything they identify as evil and sinful.

My Worldview

I have had this conversation on numerous occasions with @Fizlowski—I do not like to identify myself merely as an atheist because atheism is a negative identification, a statement of what I am not. I do not like to identify by what I am not. I don’t call myself a non-female or unislamic. I prefer to assert what I am.

What am I? In reference to my view of the cosmos, I am a naturalist and a metaphysical monist. I assert that the material universe (or universes), the cosmos, in all of its grandeur, beauty, and hostility, is probably all there is—undifferentiated monism. Additionally, I am a humanist. I assert that human values and ethics are best developed in process with one eye on our evolutionary past and future and the other on the well-being and happiness of humanity.

I also participate in an independent, liberal religious community with ties to the UU denomination. In this community I enjoy the ritual of Sunday morning church attendance—something I enjoy due to my Christian upbringing. Because I enjoy religion and the study of religion and religious texts, I also identify as a religious naturalist. Religion for me is a human cultural creation, and I take out of it what I enjoy. I eat the date and spit out the seed. Not all of my atheist friends appreciate this aspect of my identity, but it is who I am. (For further information on religious naturalism consider reading Without God Everything is Holy by Chet Rayamo). I might develop this more in future posts.

So, in sum, I am a secular humanist, a religious naturalist, and a metaphysical monist. From this one should be able to infer that I am an atheist or an atheist agnostic.

Parsons, Keith. "Atheism: Twilight or Dawn" in Steward, Robert. ed. The Future of Atheism. Fortress Press: Minneapolis, 2008.

Magic Behind Closed Doors

2011-02-27T05:54:00.002-05:00

Yesterday I was privileged to attend a Parenting Beyond Belief workshop presented by Dale McGowan—2008 Harvard Humanist of the Year, executive director of Foundation Beyond Belief, and author of secular humanist parenting books (Raising Freethinkers & Parenting Beyond Belief)—and hosted by Center for Inquiry-Michigan (CFI-MI). In addition to making a number of meaningful connections with other secular humanist parents and thinkers, I also left with nearly a dozen inspirations for new blog posts. One such inspiration relates to the following nearly verbatim quote from Dale McGowan:

If you don’t talk about it [to your children], it’s magic…

McGowan’s point was to express the mystery and intrigue that parentally censored or avoided topics can capture and convoke for children. A child growing up in a secular family, not knowing or understanding what happens behind closed church doors, whose parents treat the topic of religion and religious literacy as a taboo, is at a higher risk for “teen epiphany” in her adolescent identity diffusion years. Lacking religious literacy, she is confronted by a peer religionist who presents a message of certainty, teleology, and community centered on a given set of dogmas. Already inclined to differentiate her identity from her parents, she grasps on to this message, thinking, “Surely this is what I have been missing, this is the purpose I was made for…” And, unfortunately, as McGowan points out, “teen epiphany” conversions are the most likely to land a person into fundamentalist and hence dangerous categories of religious identity. This adolescent’s secular parents who may or may not be engaged, principled secularists are suddenly taken aback by their daughter’s fundamentalist conversion and ask, “How can this be? We never encouraged or even discussed religion as a family.”

Example from my Personal Life

During my adolescent years I had a number of “teen epiphanies.” I won’t focus on each one, but one of significance was my introduction to Pentecostalism—the largely Evangelical movement that is notably characterized by glossolalia (“speaking in tongues”) and focus on the “sign gifts” (see I Corinthians 12ff). This particular epiphany is noteworthy for me as it marked my first step away from my familial religious identity and was precipitated by a wonderment of the magic behind closed doors.

Before my encounter I knew that Pentecostals “spoke in tongues” and participated in supernaturally-inspired activities, but I never saw these at work, I only knew of them through hearsay. In turn, I sustained a particular fascination with “speaking in tongues” and with what I perceived to be a special connection, a unique closeness to God that fomented one’s being “carried in the Spirit” to perform such supernatural activities as glossolalia, etc. Though I never saw behind the closed doors, I constructed a highly-idealized mental image of what occurred there only I was a spectator and not a participant to the “magic.”

When I was fifteen I was confronted by a religionist whose father was a Pentecostal-Charismatic pastor. We talked about the “baptism by the Spirit” with “speaking in tongues” as its outward sign for nearly two hours. Alone in a cabin in the North Woods of Wisconsin, he prayed over me both with glossolalia and in English. The sound of his glossolalia captivated me. He then told me to “speak out in faith, let the Holy Spirit form your words, let go of your tongue.” I spoke out in faith and with a rush of adrenaline, which I “knew” was the Holy Spirit, I was overwhelmed with a sense of transcendence. The words or sounds I spoke, however, were not English or any language that I knew. I was “speaking in tongues”—the shaman had cast his spell, and I swooned under the influence of his magic.

Years later, though while still a Christian, I learned that glossolalia could be explained without any reference to the supernatural—it was a naturalistic phenomenon. I spent several years in the Pentecostal denomination the Assemblies of God before my doubts about glossalia got the best of me. But, had it not been for the spell of Pentecostalism cast onto a young and empty mind, I would never have succumbed. I do not fault my parents or anyone for this time in my life, but I know that the magic behind closed doors, the doors of Pentecostal churches, made my draw much stronger and my stay much longer.

Religious Literacy for My Children

Religious literacy—awareness of other peoples’ faith systems—is critically important for anyone desiring to understand the world and human cultures. It is also important as a means to fostering independence of thought and autonomy of decision in children raised by freethinking parents while also allowing them to avoid the ignorant pitfalls of “teen epiphany.”

I currently have little control over my oldest three children’s religious literacy (or lack thereof). They are being indoctrinated in a fundamentalist school and in a fundamentalist church. When I see them they ask me questions about evolution, homosexuality and gay marriage, morality, and God. I know their minds are probing beyond the corridors of backwaters fundamentalism into the verdant intellectual waters beyond. With my youngest religious literacy will be little challenge. His parents are well informed in various religious traditions, we discuss religion frequently in the home, and we attend a liberal church (if it can be called this) that intentionally promotes religious literacy in various traditions.

"Ever Learning - Never Able to Come to a Knowledge of the Truth"

2011-02-04T13:18:00.002-05:00

Recently, a fundamentalist Christian replied on his Facebook wall to my statement that human morality can be understood better when viewed under the influence of mammalian socio-biological evolution and apart from God. He replied with the following:

Peter, Peter...ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the
truth. Professing yourself to be wise, you became a fool...being darkened in
your understanding, alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance
that is in you, because of the hardening of your heart; who having become
callous gave yourself up to lust, to work all uncleanness with greediness.

In this reply the writer does not provide a meaningful treatment of my assertions; instead, he strings together a slew of Pauline allusions to damn me for being who I am. There is a specific reference in this post that I would like to work with. This reference is II Timothy 3:7, which reads:

Ever learning, and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth.

The language and highly developed ecclesiastical organization of the Pastoral Epistles, of which II Timothy is a representative book, betray their non-Pauline authorship. Nevertheless, for ease of reference, I will refer to II Timothy’s author as Paul. When Paul describes the ungodly as “…ever learning” but unable to arrive at “a knowledge of the truth,” he is referring to truth as local truth—his limited, irreproducible grasp of the furthermost extremity of the Universes’ hem as subjectively appropriated for sectarian benefit. To paraphrase, Paul is saying, “They keep learning but are unable to arrive at my conclusions, which are what really matter anyways.” The they, in this paraphrase, are those with other sectarian conclusions that differ from his.

Local Truth Systems

Local truth systems are the highly-localized, irreproducible, invite-only ways of thinking and knowing that characterize non-scientific epistemologies. For example, Christian local truth systems are irreproducible without the arbitrary words of a blood-thirsty, homophobic, jealously-insecure, misogynic tribal god who used to go by the name of Yahweh before his followers universalized him into ineffability. Add to the words of the tribal numen the subjective cultural baggage with which Christians so often eisegetically load the Bible, and you end up with an idiotic hodge-podge of bias, rage, and arbitrariness all attributed the aforementioned monstrosity Yahweh.

How, for example, would one arrive at a knowledge of vicarious atonement, the sinfulness of pork, or the perversion of same-gender love and marriage if the local truth system called Christianity did not assert it? How would one arrive at the conclusion of seven-day creation or the Noahic flood if there was no Bible? The answers to these questions should be clearly negative—these conclusions are irreproducible.

Escaping Local Truth Systems

Though fraught with human failings, science is the best way of knowing that humanity has devised. Regardless of one’s cultural moorings, unhindered science is universal. The scientist in India, the scientist in China, the scientist in Turkey, the scientist in Argentina, and the scientist in Canada can all collaborate using a universally accepted rubric of empiricism, peer review, and reproducibility. With no prior commitments other than the assumption that the natural world maintains functional integrity, scientific learning advances. It finds no seven-day creation, it finds no Flood, it finds no Adam and Eve…it is not limited in its outcomes by local truth systems.

My accuser, in throwing this verse at me, notes that I have moved beyond him in learning to embrace the world of what can be known outside of the tribal horizons of local truth systems.

Partner Swapping in the Pentateuch

2011-01-30T15:32:00.002-05:00

Equating modern, socially-constructed ethical norms with those of the Bible, most fundamentalists fail to realize the extent to which they impose their own values on the biblical texts. The seventh commandment of the Ten Commandments reads,

Thou shalt not commit adultery.

The modern Evangelical fundamentalist reads this as follows:

Wives do not cheat on your husbands, and husbands do not cheat on your wives.

However, this is not how adultery is understood in the Pentateuch and throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. In the Pentateuch the sexual roles of man and woman are profoundly sexist. A woman is the property of the man—her father or her husband—and subordinate, lacking equal entitlement. The command against coveting (Exodus 20:17 and Deuteronomy 5:21) parallels “wife/woman” to “field” indicating the two key possessions that are to be respected and honored as a man’s possession. Where a man is permitted to have more than one wife (e.g. Exodus 21:7ff and Deuteronomy 21:15ff), for a woman to have more than one husband would be adultery. Old Testament scholar Brueggemann (p. 192) states the following:

…adultery [in the Old Testament] committed by a man is not adultery if with an unmarried woman. The act is only adultery if it is committed with the wife of another man, whereby the affront is fundamentally against the husband of the woman, for in the act the relationship of the other man is disrupted, and he is subject to social shaming (Lev. 20:10; Jer. 5:8; 7:9; 9:2; 29:23) … In the cases of Leviticus 21:9 and Deuteronomy 22:21, the violation of the “father’s house” is at stake, so that even the woman’s action is defined by the impact upon male prestige (italics mine).

Similarly, Everett Fox in his Schocken Bible: Volume I states,

The definition [of adultery] used here is the classic biblical one: a married woman and a man, married or not (p. 950).

The woman, be she a daughter or a wife, is male capital, male property. Hence, the “sin” of adultery in the male-dominated, patriarchal world of the Hebrew Scriptures relates to the shame and property theft that appropriation of another man’s female capital or property entail. If there is no shame brought to a man, if there is no theft of another landed Israelite’s female capital, then there is no adultery. A man is hence enabled to take on other women. He can take females as booty of war (Deut 20:14), from his deceased brother’s wife (Deut 25:5-10), purchased from a poor father (Exodus 21:7ff), or at his own volition (Deut 21:15).

Fortunately, Occidental cultures have largely moved away from the understanding that women are property. Despite biblical injunctions against practical egalitarian gender rights, women in the West can vote, they can hold jobs and earn a private income, they can own property, and they can think for themselves. Women are no longer seen as the property of their husbands; they are seen as equal partners (not a “weaker vessel”) in marriage. Thank the gods (or whoever you wish to thank) not even Evangelicals accept the sexual ethics of the Bible in this regard (though they indiscriminately accept patriarchally-based prohibitions against homosexuality). Moving on, though, I think there is an enormous loophole in the Mosaic Law worth flushing out: partner or couple swapping.

Noting as we have above that adultery is a sin against the married woman’s husband because it brings shame and is considered a form of theft, a significant loop hole can be found in the Mosaic Law. What if a man willingly allows his wife, his property, to be appropriated by another man? What if two landed Israelite men decide to trade wives and forgo the shame and the theft that others might feel in the same situation? If two men willingly give up their honor and property rights, is it still adultery for their wives, with their knowledge, to sleep with another man?

Now, before some of my fundamentalist readers jump to the conclusion that I am advocating partner swapping, I would like to say that if you wish to make that conclusion, it is probably a reflection more of your own desires than anything I am trying to say. My goal is simply to show what a wholesale acceptance of “every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” approach would lead to: women as male capital and possibly an allowance for consensual partner swapping.

My personal take on relationship structures, etc. is not germane to this post. I would like to show fundamentalists how removed from the Bible their sexual ethics actually are. So many fundamentalists say, “Without the Bible, or God, we would have no ethics.” Poppycock: you have an ethical system that makes adultery a gender-neutral sin and you accept this in spite of the Bible. Think on this. Contrary to the claims of fundamentalists, the Bible is anything but a clear and unambiguous moral guide or ethical casebook.

Brueggmann, Walter. Reverberations of Faith: A Theological Handbook of Old Testament Themes. Louisville: Westminister John Knox Press, 2002

Fox, Everett. The Five Books of Moses. New York: Schocken Books, 1995.

Godly Immorality

2011-01-28T06:20:00.001-05:00

Ruth* is sixty five and works administrative support at my company. Nearly one month ago she fell and injured her knee. Since then she has been either in a wheel chair or on crutches. Before her fall she would make herself two pots of tea every day; now that she cannot carry her teapot and other tea-making components across the office, I make her two pots of tea a day. I volunteered to make her tea and to do whatever else I could when she showed up with her injury. Every morning at about 7:30AM and again at 10:15AM I do what I can to break away from my desk to brew her tea and bring her hot porcelain pot back to her desk. Others in the office chuckle at me and my willingness to help, but I enjoy helping Ruth.

Helping people in need is part of who I am. I do not expect reward or recognition for doing this—it is rewarding enough to be able to help. I do not believe in God.

Good for God—Example from Colossians 3

In the book of Colossians, Paul enjoins his readers to live righteously, “…not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but in singleness of heart, fearing God.” “Eyeservice as menspleasers” entails good deeds done for the sake of temporal recognition. Paul desires his readers to perform their good deeds, to live righteously with the fear of God, and so he continues:

And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men; Knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ. But he that doeth wrong shall receive for the wrong which he hath done: and there is no respect of persons (Colossians 3:22-25).

In an economy of divinely meted reward and punishment, Paul notes that the fear of God and the pleasure of God are appropriate sources of motivation. For Paul, a person is to “do well” because it is God who sees all and rewards and punishes accordingly. Motivation by the fear of God is contrasted with “eyeservice” or “menpleas[ing]” which is performed for people who cannot see all deeds done both in public and in private.

Moral Retardation

I cannot emphasize strongly enough how morally and ethically retarding God-based moralities can be. Good deeds, however defined, performed with a reward motivation, immediate or delayed, are ranked at the lowest level of moral development (see Kolhberg’s stages of moral development). If a divine punitive economy is the framework, the backbone, the foundation for your morality, I would posit that you not only are operating at the lowest level motivator for morality and, if you are fully consistent with this motivation, that you are not a moral person. If you could live one day outside of God’s fictive knowledge and awareness, would you behave any differently? Have you not thought through or matured in your own moral actions sufficiently to be good without oversight and accountability? I am not saying that accountability is necessarily bad, but it is not grounds for mature morality and ethical systems.

The Godless Atheist and the Pious Catholic

I would like to present a singular story with two moral agents: one a godless atheist and the other a pious Catholic. Both are faced with an opportunity to save a toddler in front of a moving train but at risk to their own lives. In fact, in the seconds they have to assess the situation, they note that it looks entirely inevitable that saving the toddler will cost their own lives. The pious Catholic “knows” that, if she dies, she will awake in the presence of God in heaven and eternal bliss. The godless atheist knows that his death will be final, there will be nothing more to know or experience. Who has more to sacrifice by saving the toddler? Whose act of saving the toddler is more moral, why?

*name changed

Primal [Diet] Piety

2011-01-25T06:21:00.001-05:00

For a period of over seven years, Seventh-day Adventism had a significant influence on my life. Though I never became a member of a Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) church or agreed with some of the SDA distinctive doctrines, some of my closest non-family associates and friends were SDA. A distinguishing characteristic of SDA's is their endorsement of a vegetarian "Genesis" diet. Genesis 1:29, the fundamental passage for Genesis diets reads:

And God said: 'Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed--to you it shall be for food…

Following the unified narrative of Genesis chapters one through nine (the seven-day creation through the end of Noah's Flood), a progression is seen. In Genesis 1, before Adam and Eve are cursed with death, before they eat of the tree of knowledge, God gives explicit allowance for a plant-based diet. After the Fall, when Adam and Eve are expelled from Paradise and given mortality, Genesis chapter 5 expresses that human longevity is in the hundreds of years with some like Methuselah living into their 900's. As Noah disembarks from the Ark, God establishes a covenant with him and his progeny. However, in this covenant allowance is given for the eating of meat. Note the following (Genesis 9:3-4):

Every moving thing that liveth shall be for food for you; as the green herb have I given you all. Only flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.

Notice reference is made to the allowance in Genesis 1 for the "green herb" (1:30). Now humanity is given dispensation to eat animals, to eat meat. The Seventh-day Adventists and others note that human longevity suddenly drops after the introduction of meat into the human diet. Where Noah lived yet into his 900's, his near progeny, the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob all only lived into their mid-100's. It is thought that the introduction of animal flesh into the human diet sped up the aging process because humans were not made to eat animals; they were made to eat a plant-based, Genesis-1 diet.

Due to the environment that I grew up in with mainstream media promoting low-fat diets and vegetarianism being idealized to minimize the risk of heart disease, it was no hurdle for me to be easily influenced by the Seventh-day Adventists and their "biblical vegetarianism" as reasoned above. I bought into this, and my first forays into healthy living were characterized with lacto-ovo vegetarianism with occasional accidental or intentional veganism. I lost a lot of weight. I felt healthy. I ran roughly thirty miles a week, and I began to lift weights at the gym. I lost a lot of weight.

Just over two years into my preference for vegetarianism, a preference bolstered by my kosher-only diet, and I was a bit of a health nut. My then three-year old daughter was having dietary problems, and we were able to source them to gluten intolerance. She needed to avoid grains, especially whole wheat—the cornerstone staple of the SDA Genesis-1 diet. This discovery was attended with a lot of books and articles on health, and through my research into raw-food diets I began to encounter paleo and primal diets that emphasized the human evolutionary diet of our hominid ancestors. I came to terms with the fact that the Agricultural Revolution was a late change in human diets, and the human body has not evolved to handle the increased sugars, starches, and grains along with the decreased bio-availability of vitamins and minerals. I came to the realization that not only my daughter but that I also had gluten intolerance. I discovered that gluten intolerance is common, especially in ethnic population groups that encountered wheat, barely, and oat (gluten-containing grains) later and at further distances from the epi-center of the Agricultural Revelation—the Fertile Crescent hence leaving them less time to evolve to gluten.

This model put my young-earth creationist timeline of Creation-Fall-Flood-Disbursement off kilter. In my young-earth model, humans were created recently with a proclivity for grains, fruits, and vegetables. The evolutionary implications of gluten intolerance made more sense to me than the Creation-Fall-Flood model. I learned further that meat-based, paleo or primal diets are extremely healthy and health-promoting. How could this be? These discoveries fit well into the mainstream scientific, evolutionary model in which humans evolved and in which meat was a cornerstone of human diets until very late in our history. These discoveries did not fit the expectations of the Genesis-1 diet.

There seemed to be few believers in my circles that I could discuss these implications with. Few seemed interested in learning about meat-based, primal or paleo diets, and none wanted to learn about how such diets offered better dietary benefits than the Genesis-1 diet. I felt as though I had circumscribed a significant body of knowledge that betrayed reconciliation with Genesis and that fit well into human evolution. This lead to some of my earliest realizations that human evolution was true.

Paleo/primal diets and gluten intolerance played a significant role in my migration away from young-earth creationism and toward my re-acceptance of evolution. Diets that emphasize minimal grains such as primal and paleo diets are still very much a part of how I try to live and eat healthy (when I try). Now as I have recently (last week) resumed a very low to no gluten diet, a diet that some would call primal, I am feeling better and am experiencing some needed weight loss.

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A Snapshot of My Experience with Demons

2011-01-22T15:52:00.002-05:00

I am seventeen. My girlfriend's brother is in rehab in a multi-level, suburban Chicago building that is also home to mental patients. The words of Jesus in Mark 16:17 permeate my thinking,

And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues…

I live in a demon saturated, demon haunted world. I know that there are demons present, I can feel them. Walking up to the building, I am a soldier in the army of Jesus Christ. I place my hand on the brick, and out loud I pray:

Father God, I pray Thy Spirit of deliverance upon this building, to fill in every room, every heart and to bring all knees to the ground in prostration before Thee. So shall the Light of Thy Presence chase away all the demonic forces and all the darkness that fills the souls of those here. In the name of Jesus I pray these things, in the name of Jesus I cast out the demons here—I throw them to the swine, to the outer places and bind them, in the name of Jesus, I bind them to their place of torment, never again to trouble the souls of the weak and the hurting. I ask for this *now* in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, amen.

My heart races, I feel the presence and power of God moving through me. I repeat a similar prayer with even more passion and even more authority, "In the name of Jesus I command the demons to flee…"

It is after visiting hours, we hop back in my girlfriend's car and drive away talking about how Jesus healed, cast out demons, and performed miracles in the Gospels. Jesus promised us, "He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father" (John 14:12), and I believed this with all my heart.

>>> fast forward over fifteen years

I was recently asked by a person who knows I am a naturalistic atheist why I don't believe in demons. He asked me what evidence I have against demons. His question amused me beyond words; I wouldn't have felt much different if I had been asked what evidence I had against fairies or imps. As a person who used to live a world haunted and overrun by demons, who used to see himself as a warrior in God's army, I used to live with the "reality" of demons. I could potentially describe my personal theological narrative from a demon-saturated world to Orthodox Judaism and its world of unclean spirits and then back to Evangelical Christianity with a rather "matured" view of demons as signs of dispensational transition whose activity was now silent, like God, waiting to yet up the ante just before Jesus returned. But, I won't go into all of the biographical details at the moment.

Demons do not exist. Notice, there are no mental health diagnostics in the Gospels. The world of the Gospel writers was also a demon-haunted world. It was a world in which demons were invoked to explain mental and physical illness. Now, frankly, to ascribe a demon to a person like my birth mom who has schizophrenia is an insult to the patient and to our intelligence. We know now that mental health matters can be treated through naturalistic means such as therapy and/or medication. To enter back into the world of the Gospels, the world which I once had tried to reconstruct for myself, would be a step back into the Dark Ages. It would be to ignore the last two hundred years of learning about mental health and its naturalistic, physical origins.

Though a bit disconnected from the above, let me lay out a clearly bulleted reason for my rejection of belief in demons:

There is nothing observable that requires demons to exist or is best explained by the existence of demons
Demon theory has been made obsolete by modern medicine
Demon theory holds people into the bondage of ignorance
There is no evidence of the supernatural and demons are supernatural

Instructional Manual for Life from Exchristian.net

2011-01-20T20:06:00.002-05:00

I feel like this captures many aspects of my story well. From exchristian.net:

Paul & Social Mobility

2011-01-15T08:58:00.004-05:00

As much as modern Christians may disavow slavery and racism, American Christianity has a clear historical connection with slavery and other ethnic injustices in America. Though this post will not explore these historical connections, I would like to touch on the Apostle Paul's advice regarding slaves.

Paul states in I Corinthians 7:17-24 reads:

But as God hath distributed to every man, as the Lord hath called every one, so
let him walk. And so ordain I in all churches. Is any man called being
circumcised? let him not become uncircumcised. Is any called in uncircumcision?
let him not be circumcised. Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is
nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God. Let every man abide in the
same calling wherein he was called. Art thou called [being] a servant? care not
for it: but if thou mayest be made free, use [it] rather. For he that is called
in the Lord, [being] a servant, is the Lord's freeman: likewise also he that is
called, [being] free, is Christ's servant. Ye are bought with a price; be not ye
the servants of men. Brethren, let every man, wherein he is called, therein
abide with God.

In I Corinthians 7, Paul attempts to dissuade the Corinthians from changing their social status in regard to marriage, conversion (Gentiles becoming Jews), and slavery. Paul clarifies that his instructions regarding marriage relate to, "the present distress" (7:26) and so it can be implied that Paul's instructions are limited to the "distress" of his generation. Don't forget that Paul is the earliest writer of the New Testament corpus, and he expected Jesus to return in his lifetime. In the above pericope, Paul instructs his readers to "abide in his [social] calling." Though this passage does not entirely imply that it is wrong to consider buying or obtaining freedom from slavery, it does nothing to ameliorate the practice or station of slaves in his readers.

In Colossians 3:22, it is stated:

Servants, obey in all things [your] masters according to the flesh; not with
eyeservice, as menpleasers; but in singleness of heart, fearing God.

Here the author of Colossians (a pseudo-Pauline reworking of Ephesians), maintains that the servant-slave must work for his master as though working for God. This instruction does nothing to address the status of slaves, and it became, in the Christian South, a basis of a code of slave ethics taught by the slave holder to the slave. A similar verse in the more-likely Pauline work of Ephesians 6:5 reiterates this theme.

Deuteronomy 23:15-16 offers the following imperative regarding a slave that escapes from a master:

Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which is escaped from his
master unto thee: He shall dwell with thee, [even] among you, in that place
which he shall choose in one of thy gates, where it liketh him best: thou shalt
not oppress him.

It is interesting that despite the humanness of this passage that Paul in book of Philemon, returns the escaped slave Onesimus to his master. Paul had an opportune moment to apply a biblical precept and demonstrate a biblical aversion to slavery. However, there is no such biblical aversion to slavery. Abolition was not served by Paul and his soft approach to slavery. His social ethics discourage social mobility and directly encourage the slave to stay where she is—serving the master as though serving God.

(original posted on http://disevangelists.blogspot.com/ on February 9th)

Atheistic Gratitude for the Bible

2011-01-08T12:06:00.001-05:00

Recently, a fundamentalist Christian friend of mine stated the following (paraphrased):

Remember, the Bible helped you form your opinions about right and wrong. It gave you morals and ethical guidelines.

I find it odd that a fundamentalist would feel it necessary to remind me of this. Yes, the Bible has had a profound impact on me and my thinking in just about every arena of life, not just morality. It was through biblical studies that I realized how important objectivity and hermeneutics are. It was from the launch pad of my own cultural framework—filtered as it was through the Bible—that I began to understand people in other religious traditions. The Bible, as I was taught to understand it, ingrained in me many of my notions of morality and fidelity in relationships. It made me aware of the value of pluralism against the backdrop of heterogeneous ritual moralities. Yes, the Bible has profoundly impacted my life and my thinking, and the above examples merely scratch the surface of it all.

However, in addition to all of the above, the Bible has also had the most profound influence on my disbelief in the supernatural and a supernatural God. It was through biblical studies that I was able to quantify God—pinning down God and God's values to be studied. The Bible's God, I learned was the inspiration behind retrograde moralities such as those that prescribed the death penalty for cooking an egg on the Sabbath or loving another person of the same gender. If it had not been for the limits that the Bible places on God, the quantification that it allowed, I might never have had the tools or the raw material to assess and reject God.

So, I do not deny that the Bible has had and is having a profound impact on my thinking. I do not deny that the Bible has helped me think beyond myself and beyond my immediate cultural limitations. Yes, these are all aspects of my biblical studies that I am grateful for. However, this does not mean that I am in any way limited by the Bible. I am not limited to the arbitrary standards that the Bible prescribes relative to sexuality, diet, table fellowship, or entrance into the pearly gates. I have broken away from local truth systems, I am no longer a slave to cultural-historical frameworks anchored in the Bible

Justin Martyr and the Virgin-born, Dying, Rising Man-Gods

2011-01-02T22:49:00.003-05:00

Second century Christian apologist Justin Martyr penned the work Dialogue with Trypho the Jew in which he sets forth numerous Hellenistic and Jewish objections to Christianity. Many of the objections addressed are placed into the mouth of a literary persona named Trypho, a Jewish objector to Christianity. Structured with Trypho as the objector, Justin provides his literary opponent with rebuttal. As valuable as Justin's replies can be esteemed as an attestation to early Christian (c. 130 CE) thinking and practice, the objections raised by Trypho provide an equally valuable insight into perceived Jewish and pagan thinking about Christianity.

In both Dialogue with Trypho the Jew and elsewhere, Justin records that Jews and pagans alike accused Christianity of borrowing or even plagiarizing from antecedent myths and legends. One such example is as follows:

For when they tell that Bacchus, son of Jupiter, was begotten by [Jupiter's] intercourse with Semele, and that he was the discoverer of the vine; and when they relate, that being torn in pieces, and having died, he rose again, and ascended to heaven; and when they introduce wine into his mysteries, do I not perceive that [the devil] has imitated the prophecy announced by the patriarch Jacob, and recorded by Moses? And when they tell that Hercules was strong, and travelled over all the world, and was begotten by Jove of Alcmene, and ascended to heaven when he died, do I not perceive that the Scripture which speaks of Christ, 'strong as a giant to run his race,' has been in like manner imitated? And when he [the devil] brings forward sculapius as the raiser of the dead and healer of all diseases, may I not say that in this matter likewise he has imitated the prophecies about Christ? (Chapter LXIX, Roberts-Donaldson English Translation)

Justin here outlines items of the Christian Jesus narrative that find parallel in preceding legends. These include the following:

divine conception
healing the sick
raising the dead
violent death
resurrection
ascension to heaven
use of wine ["in his mysteries"]

Justin argues that "the devil" created the false narratives of these false deities. Justin then uses the Hebrew Bible in a rather associative, non-literal way to bolster his claims for Jesus. However, if all of the other divinely-conceived, healing, dying, rising, and ascending gods were phonies, how do we, today, know that Jesus in the Gospels is not just another divinely-conceived, healing, dying, rising, and ascending man-god—the product of a process of apotheosis and legend making? Frankly, we do not, and we need to apply the same naturalistic bias to all of these myths and so render them improbable and evidence of the common human tendency toward worshiping archetypes.

Does this of necessity devalue the Gospels? Does this mean that we should jettison the entire collection of writings in the New Testament and throw the baby out with the bathwater? If the Gospels and the New Testament literature can be taken critically and appreciated for what they are, then we need to keep them. We need to maintain them as part of our cultural heritage and an attestation to earlier ways of thought. However, if they become sheltered from criticism, placed on the pedestal of absolute inspiration and inerrancy, then not only do we do them and their writers a disservice, but we chose ignorance and outmoded ways of thought in lieu of learning and progress.

Robert Price Regarding Jesus in Jewish Context

2010-12-30T20:58:00.003-05:00

In the present ecumenical climate, in which, thankfully, Jews and Christians are working to overcome their long hostility, there is a tendency among Christian and Jewish scholars alike to maximize the connection between the two faiths (something amenable to the Christian apologetical agenda, since this trend minimizes possible influences on early Christianity from Hellenistic Mystery Religions or Gnosticism). An important part of this interfaith program is to make Jesus as conventional a Jew as possible. In my opinion, such a move is more of a construction of Christology than a sketch of the historical Jesus. That is, it is an attempt to come up with a Christian "Jesus Christ" that will prove more useful for ecumenical dialogue. The a priori character of the whole endeavor is evident from the way such scholars simply assume that the gospel stories and sayings must be interpreted in Jewish categories even when there are as good or better paradigms available to make sense of the sayings, for example, Cynic or Gnostic. As long as there is a Jewish parallel available, even when forced, these scholars will automatically prefer it. This is theological reasoning, not historical criticism (Price, p. 247, italics mine).

My favorite biblical scholar and atheist, Robert Price here does an excellent job exposing what is at the heart of the "Jewish roots" of Jesus movement—an attempt at ecumenism (commendable as that may be) and a veiled attempt to set forth "Jewish roots" as the way to reveal the historical Jesus. As Price points out, there are often better Cynic, Gnostic, or Mystery Religion parallels to the platitudes and the actions of Jesus in the gospels than the Jewish ones a priori esteemed to the exclusion of all others. As healthy as the ecumenism between Christianity and Judaism has been, a peace has been forged at the expense of serious Jesus scholarship among those unwilling to consider that Jesus is a recapitulation of the dying-rising man-gods of ancient lore.

Price, Robert. The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man. Prometheus Books, New York: 2003.

Believing Truly is Seeing

2010-12-26T14:11:00.002-05:00

St. Augustine of Hippo wrote,

Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.

As I write this I think to the conversations I have and have had with fundamentalists. Frequently it is asserted that the reason that I do not accept their beliefs or see the world as they see it is that I am rebellious or willful in my desire not to accept their worldviews. "You do not believe because you do not want to." "You choose not to believe." I guess that for many my non-belief may seem to be of this stature, for indeed, I am sure, in their experiences, there is sufficient "reason" to believe. Let me explain.

The eminent psychologist of child development Jean Piaget used the concept of schema to describe a way of thinking. A schema is a category (or bucket) of knowledge and the process by which this knowledge was constructed or obtained. It should be noted that a schema can be the construal of both subjective and/or objective knowledge with the emphasis being on the personal, individual construction of this knowledge.

As one goes through life, schemas are developed to understand and explain sensory experience. A child encounters blackberries at the forest edge and is encouraged to pick and eat them. However, when the same child happens across an unknown berry, she is cautioned strongly against eating them. Hence, the child's "berry schema" is developed and expanded to include the concepts of both edible and dangerous berries. When the same child encounters another forest edible, let's say a red clover, she might very well accommodate her existing "berry schema" into a "forest-edible schema" or, she might assimilate the "berry schema" and so identify red clovers as berries. I have seen this in real life.

We all use schemas to work with the world around us. And, like the neurons in our brains, the pathways that are used the most become the strongest and the most capable of assimilating new knowledge. As a result, two people might look at the same information and come away with very different schema-based conclusions. The creationist sees in the feathered dinosaur a fraud but not a missing link between dinosaurs and birds.

When a fundamentalist approaches a holy book with schemas of inspiration and inerrancy, she will find grand patterns and sublime connections reaching and branching into more and more complex intricacies. She will "see" what she believes. Her faith will become sight as she bemoans, "Why can't others see what I see?" However, her reality is constructed and contingent—the result of her chosen schemas. When challenged with morally repulsive content or scientific and historical error in the Quran, the fundamentalist will most likely not be able to see it. Instead, she will assimilate the information into existing schemas creating a forced harmony betwixt the discordant.

The fundamentalist is bound to the prison of her schemas until she accepts a critical posture to herself and to her ways of thinking, her schemas. She must face that which is discordant and allow her schemas to be accommodated to new information. Until she does this, her world will continue to develop into an intricate balance of self-deceptive complexity and concordance. However, she will only further burry her head in the sand of her own making.

Science as a methodology relies on universalizing means—peer review and reproducibility. Science is the best methodology humans have derived to correct our schemas and to free our thinking from schematic prisons.

God of Discontinuity

2010-12-26T07:36:00.004-05:00

In my last post I touched on how the vision of holiness in the Mosaic Law was one of demographic or ethnic segregation. The Mosaic Law through the application of arbitrary rubrics of table fellowship, genital mutilation, intermarriage restrictions, and ritual purity sought to segregate (make holy) the children of Israel thus creating a discontinuity between the covenant people and the rest of humanity. The particularistic vision of the Mosaic Law is expanded somewhat in the Hebrew Prophets such that foreigners are said to one day universally succumb to the arbitrary standards of inclusion mandated in the Pentateuch (e.g., Isaiah 2:1-4; 56:1-6) in the death of pluralism and cultural diversity.

In addition to the demographic discontinuities fostered in the Mosaic Law and the Hebrew Prophets, the Bible also promotes a profound dichotomy between humanity and the cosmos. In a famous passage, the psalmist states:

What is man, that Thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that Thou thinkest of him? Yet Thou hast made him but little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor. Thou hast made him to have dominion over the works of Thy hands; Thou hast put all things under his feet: sheep and oxen, all of them, yea, and the beasts of the field; the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea; whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas (Psalm 8:5-9).

In a clear reiteration of the "image of God" and the "dominion mandate" themes of the exilic priestly pericope of Genesis chapter one and likewise of the earlier Yahwist passages Genesis two and three, the psalmist here affirms that man is crowned with dominion over creation including all the animals. The late theologian turned "geologian" Thomas Berry, in speaking of how our Western, Judeo-Christian, consumeristic culture has lost its sense of connection to the natural world, speaks of our ancestors' sense of continuity with nature:

To alter this primordial sense of continuity throughout the universe seems to have been the basic purpose of biblical revelation. Within the biblical context, the continuity of divine presence with the natural world was altered by establishing the divine as a transcendent personality creating a world entirely distinct from itself. In addition, the continuity of the divine with the human was altered by the establishment of a covenant relationship based on a juridic model. The continuity between the human community and the natural world was altered by identifying the human as a spiritual being in contrast to all other beings. Only the human really belonged to the sacred community of the redeemed. The previous sense of a multi-species community was diminished (p. 51, italics mine).

The biblical texts are not solely to blame for the great divorce between humanity and the natural world. With the agricultural revolution, humanity was already expressing a growing separation from the rest of nature, but the Bible canonizes this aspect of our cultural development—it takes what is otherwise malleable and dogmatizes it. As part of this discontinuity, the Judeo-Christian tradition envisions human nature, the natural man in Pauline rhetoric, as evil and sensual, something to be combated against. In reality, human nature is as much capable of selflessness and benevolence as it is of selfishness and violence—both polarities of our nature are rooted in our evolutionary past, both are part of our connection to nature.

With emphasis on personal, spiritual redemption, the Judeo-Christian tradition dichotomizes humanity and the natural world. This often results in knee-jerk rejection of the idea that humans are animals and have non-human animal ancestry, an ancestry shared with all of life on Earth. This sense of discontinuity hence works to enslave human minds in ignorance—teaching them to deny the important sociological and biological implications of evolution. Likewise, it results in "God-Hates-Green" ethics that teach against environmental ethics (see: God Hates Green) and concern for the long-term biological health and biodiversity of Earth's biosphere.

In contrast with ethical systems based on a God of discontinuity, humanity needs to foster a globally-responsible ethic, one that takes into consideration the long-term health of humanity as part of the biosphere. We need monistic ethical systems that disdain the dichotomies of our ancestors such as are encoded and cultivated in the biblical texts.

Berry, Thomas. Evening Thoughts: Reflecting on Earth as Sacred Community. Sierra Club Books, San Francisco: 2006.

Holiness as Racism

2010-12-24T11:51:00.002-05:00

What is holiness?

The definition of the term holiness varies based on what portion of the Bible one looks to for an answer. My focus in this post will be to outline what holiness means in the Pentateuch (the Mosaic Law) and the Prophets of the Hebrew Bible. I will not exhaustively define this term, but I hope to show its ugliest aspect: ethnic segregation.

The Hebrew word for "holy" is qadash and it carries the primary meaning of "to [be] set apart" or "distinguished." Hence, a holy item is one that is set apart from customary or normative use. In Hebrew use, one might call any item or person set apart for a particular use "holy"—the word, it should be noted, did not carry the immediate notion of being sanctimonious or sacred unless used in ritual context.

Written by an anonymous author, the Letter of Aristeas was most likely written in the 100's BCE by a Hellenistic Jewish author. He writes at length about the Mosaic Law, and provides this succinct summary of its purpose:

In his wisdom the legislator, in a comprehensive survey of each particular part, and being endowed by God for the knowledge of universal truths, surrounded us [the Jewish people] with unbroken palisades and iron walls to prevent our mixing with any of the other peoples in any matter, being thus kept pure in body and soul…(Letter of Aristeas, 139).

The author of this treatise clearly understands one of the purposes of the Mosaic Law to be that of preventing the comingling of the covenant people with other ethnicities. Remember that an ethnicity is a racial designation but it is far more than just a reference to genetic background. Ethnicities are defined by more than race—they are also defined by religion, culture, behavior, profession, socio-economic status, sexual orientation, gender, et. al, and I am using the term "ethnicity" in this sense. The author of the above quote sees the goal of separating the Jewish-Israelite ethos from other others as one of the goals of the Mosaic Law.

Deuteronomy 14:1-2 reads:

Ye are the children of the LORD your God… For thou art a holy people unto the LORD thy God, and the LORD hath chosen thee to be his own treasure out of all peoples that are upon the face of the land.

In this passage we see the idea of holiness relative to the ethos of the covenant people Israel. The passage then goes on to highlight specific table habits that will foster and cultivate the segregation of the covenant people from outsiders. Notice that this chapter even allows outsiders to violate its stipulations (14:21). Holiness in this passage, and throughout the Mosaic Law, is hence not defined by good deeds but through the pursuit of separation and segregation from the heterogeneous, the outsiders, the non-Israelites or, later, the non-Jew.

Though written far after the supposed time of Moses, Deuteronomy 12 further outlines the relationship between the land-conquesting children of Israel and the first-nation Canaanites and other peoples of the Levant. Notice the following:

These are the statutes and the ordinances, which ye shall observe to do in the land which the LORD, the God of thy fathers, hath given thee to possess it, all the days that ye live upon the earth. Ye shall surely destroy all the places, wherein the nations that ye are to dispossess served their gods, upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every leafy tree. And ye shall break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and burn their Asherim with fire; and ye shall hew down the graven images of their gods; and ye shall destroy their name out of that place…. When the LORD thy God shall cut off the nations from before thee, whither thou goest in to dispossess them, and thou dispossessest them, and dwellest in their land; take heed to thyself that thou be not ensnared to follow them, after that they are destroyed from before thee; and that thou inquire not after their gods, saying: 'How used these nations to serve their gods? even so will I do likewise' (12:1-3, 29-30).

Hence, not only were the children of Israel to remain separate from the heathen and heterogenous, they were to destroy them ("…thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth" Deut 20:16) and all aspects and remnants of their cultures. Talk about ethnic cleansing and genocide! Destroy them—all of them—and then wipe out centuries of their cultural evolution so that it does not taint your ethos! Though the Mosaic Law does not get much worse than this, there are other explicit passages commanding ethnic segregation. Consider Deuteronomy 23:4

An Ammonite or a Moabite shall not enter into the assembly of the LORD; even to the tenth generation shall none of them enter into the assembly of the LORD for ever…

The passage continues by offering similar restrictions on Egyptians and Edomites. Naturally, as any racial thinking would, the Mosaic Law justifies its racism. It demonizes and criminalizes the first-nation peoples into child sacrificers and inhospitable ingrates. The critical mind today should think twice than to accept the Mosaic Law's self-exonerations for racism….we have moved beyond this.

A Virgin Without Her Virtue - What is the Word of the Lord?

2010-12-18T09:51:00.002-05:00

Compare this video to Deuteronomy 22:13-24

Wisdom Regarding Religious Traditions from an Atheist

2010-12-14T10:59:00.002-05:00

...treat Christianity just like you would any other mythic or cultural
tradition. All [...] reflect the struggle of our ancestors to determine
what is good and what is real and how to live in community with each other.
All contain a mixture of wisdom and foolishness and downright immorality.
Take what seems timeless and wise and move on. (from Creating Love and Light by Valerie Tarico)

This is how I have come to relate to my Christian traditions and upbringing. They are part of my culture, and I freely hold on to that which helps and works and jettison that which is harmful or does not work for me.

Getting Lost – Letting Go of Certainty

2010-12-04T09:48:00.005-05:00

This entry is far from original. Others have made use of a similar illustration; this is my iteration. It is a true story.

I am ten, and it is the middle of July boy's camp in the Northwoods of Wisconsin. In my relentless pursuit of all things amphibian and reptilian, my curiosity veers me away from Blair Lake and into a sphagnum moss covered old lake bed. I immediately notice a number of elusive wood frogs that jump away from me. They distract me as I enter further into a forest of ten-foot tall tamarack pines situated in deep sphagnum moss. One hundred feet into this unique bog forest ecosystem, I turn around to look back at where I came from. I am alarmed. Every direction I turn looks identical to the next—a forest of lichen covered, ten-foot tall tamarack pines shading a forest floor of sphagnum moss peppered with green ferns.

Entoloma Mushroom in Sphagnum Moss

Though surrounded in an environment rich with the raw ingredients for imagination with its Carboniferous-looking mosses and ferns, I am overtaken with anxiety. With each step the sphagnum moss completely engulfs my foot and leg up to my knee only to return to form moments after my foot exits; hence, I leave no footprints. The thought takes hold of my mind that I might be wandering in the wrong direction, entering into the hundreds of miles of state forest surrounding the camp. My heart races with the thought that I might be spending the night alone in the woods—deep in a bog forest with a thick sun-blocking canopy. I walk back the direction I think I came from.

Two minutes later, nothing has changed. Though I was sure I had turned back the way I started, every direction I look is the same. Ahead of me I hear something. It is the sound of a vehicle driving over a gravel road—now I have a bearing. Three minutes later I see the terrain changing, and I emerge onto a familiar gravel road. A vehicle passes, and I try to look calm and together though I am overtaken by relief. Turning to look back and down the slope into the forest I left, I realize how amazingly near I was to the road the entire time. In fact, I realize that the forest was interrupted by roads on at least three sides and Blair Lake on the other—there was little chance of me being lost there for long. The next day I return to the same area to catch wood frogs, and in the years to come I returned there nearly every summer.

I have discovered that life is of this nature. To learn, to really know, I must forgo knowing and certainty—I must be willing to allow myself to get lost and then to find myself. Human learning is of this nature. The scientific advancement of human knowledge could not and did not occur until the dogmatic certainties of previous generations (e.g., the Earth is the center of the solar system, Noah's Flood created fossils, the Earth is 6000 years old, etc.) were laid aside. Once the "known" is forsaken, learning can happen. Once one allows the anxieties of being lost and lost certainties to experience, then she is ready to learn.

Dogmatic certitudes will be the death of humanity. Scientific epistemologies with its always contingent approach to the world will be our species' salvation. Let go of your dogmatic certainties. Let go of what you know with absolute confidence. Embrace the contingency of what you know. Get Lost.

Shabbos Dinner is on Me

2010-12-03T18:27:00.001-05:00

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Robert Price on Naturalistic Historical-Critical "Bias"

2010-11-22T04:37:00.001-05:00

"Those who claim that only a naturalistic bias prevents critics from accepting the Biblical miracle stories as factual have to explain why they themselves are by no means willing to accept all the wonders of nonbiblical scriptures and legends. It is obvious that they are trying to substitute for historical method the old doctrine of the inerrancy of the Bible. Their real gripe is not that critics hold a theoretical bias, that of naturalism, but rather that they fail to hold one, namely belief in the historical infallibility of the Christian Bible (21).

Incredible Shrinking Son of Man. Price, Robert. New York: Prometheus Press, 2003.

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Torahphobic Torah Talmid

2010-11-17T07:56:00.005-05:00

Recently I have been accused of being Torahphobic. The intent of the accuser(s) was to suggest that I am biased against “Torah.” A buzz word in media today is “Islamophobia.” I hear this word disparaged all of the time on Christian and conservative talk radio. I had to laugh once when I heard Janet Parshall, host of conservative Christian radio station Moody Radio’s In the Market with Janet Parshall, state that “Islamphobic” is a “made-up word.” Huh, I guess she would have a problem then with every word she speaks for being likewise made up.

Though her word choice might suggest otherwise, no doubt Parshall did not mean that the word was “made up” but that the concept of Islamophobia is fabricated or fictional. I would like to challenge Parshall to walk about most anywhere in America dressed as a conspicuous minority—say with a hijab on (as her very own Bible would have her cover her head I Cor 11:1-16). Have her do so for an hour in rural America or a day in a metropolitan suburb. In her white, majority culture Christian cultural identity, she has no idea, no concept of what if feels like to be a conspicuous minority, and, in her asinine myopia, she shrugs the concept off as an idea that somehow threatens her as a Christian. If she were trying to be funny, she succeeded.

However, this post is not about Janet Parshall and her fundamentalist intolerance; it is about my being called a Torahphobe. If I can again defer to the very-real concept of Islamophobia, I would like to illustrate how the accusation that I am a Torahphobe is heavily flawed. Islamophobia is characterized largely by an uneven-handed treatment of Islam. It is characterized by the common human tendency to be graceful, forgiving, and even-handed with one’s own in-group but to be intolerant, unforgiving, and overly general and critical of an out-group. There is plenty more that can be added to this, but I will stop here.

Torahphobia, as used by my accuser(s), assumes a misleading definition of “Torah.” Though the first five books of the Bible, the Pentateuch or the Chumash, are often called “Torah,” the concept of Torah in Jewish use is expansive. Jews consider the entire legal process, anchored in the Pentateuch and in the Peoplehood of Am Yisrael (the Jewish people) to be Torah. When my accuser(s) call me Torahphobic, they are defining Torah in a non-Jewish, Christian, Protestant, minimalist manner that rejects the Jewish legal process and Jewish peoplehood. Ironically, I accept the integrity of the Jewish legal process, but my accuser(s) do not. For them Torah is biblical texts, specifically the Pentateuch.

I have read the Pentateuch through over thirteen times. At least five of those reads were done in Hebrew with rabbinic Jewish commentaries to accompany and elucidate the read. Each read also lead me to look heavily into historical critical commentaries both from conservative and “liberal” commentators. I have a sustained fascination with the Hebrew text of the Pentateuch, and there is no body of literature that I study more than the Hebrew text of the Pentateuch. I am particularly caught up in the legal minutia and law codes present in the Pentateuch, and I think about them at a nearly compulsive level. Yet, I find the Pentateuch to contain ethical atrocities that any modern person should first of all recognize and then reject.

Who is the person that is “Torahphobic?” Using the definition of Torah that my accuser(s) assume, the Torahphobe is the one who is afraid to recognize the swine carcass in the Holy of Holies. The Torahphobe is the one who refuses to study the Pentateuch and to understand. The Torahphobe denies the swine carcasses and pretends they are holy cows who should not be touched.

Let Man be True and God a Liar: Judging God by "His Word"

2010-11-16T08:20:00.004-05:00

Earlier this year I posited,

“…if one wants to disprove absolute naturalism, one could attempt [to use] the
Bible. All such would take is to show one instance of interruption—one
moment where a biblical writer expresses something beyond the cognitive horizons
of his life situation. As a lifelong student of religion and the Bible, I
am quite certain that it is impossible to do this” (see Ontologically
Naturalistic Christian Scripture, August 1 2010).

Prior to this statement I quoted the following powerful comment from process theologian Griffin:

Modern biblical criticism has removed…any reason for thinking that the writing
of the Bible involved any interruption of the normal thinking process of its
authors (p. 23).

Just in case it was forgotten, I wanted to reassert the above. If anyone wants to demonstrate a single instance where a biblical writer expresses awareness beyond the mundane, “beyond the cognitive horizons of his life situation,” please feel free to do so. An important criterion for such an endeavor is to show that understanding a given passage as cognitively transcendent and supernaturally non-mundane actually makes better sense of the passage than any would-be naturalistic understandings.

So, there you have it. Show one exegetically sound reading of any passage showing that the author expressed ideas and facts beyond the intellectual, cultural, moral, and theological scope of his life situation. One is all it takes.

My Girls on a Lazy Sunday After Church

2010-11-14T14:21:00.002-05:00

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Design Argument

2010-11-13T08:00:00.001-05:00

I cannot believe that the beauty and complexity we perceive in God happened by chance. Design requires a designer. Therefore humans exist.

...Fizzlowski

Devil in the Details: Ichthyopterygia (Creatures that Defy Creationism)

2010-11-09T06:27:00.003-05:00

When you look at the above picture, what do you see? Are you looking at a fish or a porpoise? Though the above organism shares a lot of morphological similarities with a porpoise, it is not a mammal. If it was a porpoise or a dolphin, the tail fin would be aligned horizontally as with all aquatic mammals which swim by undulating up and down movements of the body and any tail structures. If the organism in this picture exhibited horizontal tail alignment, it would be safe to conclude its mammalian land ancestry. But, its tail fin is vertically aligned.

Is this organism a fish? Fish do exhibit vertical tail alignment, and this organism does have a vertical tail. Yet, this organism lacks gills. Look closely and nose slats are apparent on the beak. The absence of gills in an organism that appears to be highly adapted to aquatic living and the presence of nose slats militate heavily against this being a fish. What other features can we examine? Though this picture does not illustrate these features, we know that this organism had a three-chambered heart, gave birth to live young after a gestational period in an internal egg sack, and may have even had endothermic, temperature regulatory characteristics.

What kind of organism is this? This is a reptile and it belongs to the reptilian suborder ichthyopterygia. Several dozen species of this suborder have been classified form the fossil record including the above pictured ichthyosaurus, one of the earliest classified representatives. Much like the later whales, the common ancestor(s) of this suborder descended from land ancestors who returned to the water. In this case, evolutionary pressures caused reptilian exaptations to be restructured into highly fish-like structures and morphologies. Yet, the distinctly though possibly disadvantageous reptilian features such as air breathing remain.

The ichthyosaurus, as a representative for its suborder, presents numerous challenges to creationism. First, if God created everything ex nihilio, then why make creatures that boast traits demanding an explanation beyond, "God did it." These traits include the obvious terrestrial ancestry. A God who creates false histories is a liar. Second, if the ichthyopterygia present in the fossil record were buried in the Flood, which is the uniform young-earth creationist explanation for the rock layers in which they are found, why are they not found with whales and dolphins which share not only incredible degrees of morphological similarity but also share profoundly overlapping ecological niches. The same depositional pressures which would have favored the deposition of ichthyopterygia in Jurassic layers would have likewise captured cetaceans such as whales and dolphins.

Really, I have only tiped the iceberg with the above questions. The ichthyopterygia are loaded with characteristics that demand an evolutionary ancestry and that defy creationism. Yet, my point in bringing them up is that they represent one of the ways in which creationism failed me as an explanatory model for the observational data from biology. And, I am speaking about more than just the ichthyopterygia—I am referring to each and every species and subspecies that I have ever encountered both in print and with my own hands. There are too many devilish details that defy creationist explanation so many that, "…if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written" (John 21:25).

Picture Credit:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ichthyosaurus_BW.jpg

Top Five Challenges to "Creationist Geology" from a Creationist

2010-11-05T11:02:00.003-04:00

I highly recommend the following article:

The New Creationism Blog
Top-Five Challenges for Creationist Geology

In the above article young-earth creationist and author Paul Garner discloses the "top five" challenges from the empirical geological world to creationism. Can you guess which two of these challenges sunk Noah's Flood for me as a viable paradigm to explain Earth's geology?

My Experience with Prayer: Planning an Escape Route

2010-11-04T19:38:00.003-04:00

There was a long season of my life, about ten years, when , under the influence of the writings and teachings of the revivalist Charles Finney and his modern-day endorser Keith Green, I made daily prayer a matter of intense discipline. I enjoyed, yes thoroughly enjoyed, at least an hour a day of early morning prayer on my knees. I followed the ACTS outline: Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication, and I felt it incumbent on me to spend as much time as possible on adoration and thanksgiving so that God would not deem me an annoyance—always asking for things. But, even in my supplications and petitions I asked not for my wants or needs but rather for the advancement of God's glory and the conversion of individual souls: co-workers, family, friends.

When I was "baptized in the Spirit" in my sophomore year of high school and discovered glossolalia or "speaking in tongues," my prayer life changed and became more infused with zeal and sincerity. With my bedroom in the basement, I added dancing and singing to my prayers. I would literally "dance before the Lord" with all my might, singing praise songs and signing out in tongues. No one could hear me as it would be early morning and I was at a distance with my family upstairs and me in the basement, dancing on the concrete floor. I would dance. I would cry tears of joy, tears of repentance, and tears of supplication. I was sincere; I was zealous; I was the real thing. I looked forward daily to these times with God—they were very much a part of me.

Never, in all my time supplicating and seeking God, did I ever experience an answer to prayer. Yes, there were events that I attributed to God's providence or even to the miraculous, but nothing that now in retrospect I see as God's doing. I have never experienced an answer to prayer. During these early years of my faith, in my zeal I faulted myself for unanswered prayer. I often thought upon John 14:14, "If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it." I reasoned that if God was not answering my prayers, then the fault is not God's but mine: my disobedience or lack of faith. This rationale was fueled by I John 3:23 which conveniently states, "And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight." Hence, if God was not giving me what I asked, I knew it must be because I was being disobedient in some arena, some secret sin.

When my Father was sick and dying with cancer in August 2003, we gathered together a group of believers around him. I anointed him with oil and called upon God's promises to heal the sick in response to the prayer of faith. I felt that any doubt in my heart that God would not heal my Father would jeopardize my prayer's efficacy. I fasted that day, and I confessed extra long that morning of any sin, real or imagined, that the "Holy Spirit" would convict me of. I expected God to show. My dad died thirty days later. God did not show.

God does not answer prayer. Prayer may have a place—it might console a person or be a practice that quiets the heart from the bustle of daily routines, but it is not efficacious in the real world. I have never seen an undisputable answer to prayer. For the Evangelical and the Christian believer, God has an eternal regress—an escape route that will always exempt God from answering prayer. This excape route is you. You are why God is not answering your prayers, and, despite how pure you might think you are, there will never be an answer to prayer that cannot be attributable to other than God. God does not answer prayer.

Late October Araneus Diadematus

2010-11-01T09:27:00.005-04:00

Introduced from Europe, the Araneus diadematus is often labeled the European Garden Spider. The female pictured above is nearly five times larger than the male of her species. She is plump with eggs, and before her death this fall, she will likely lay several thousand eggs into an egg sack larger than her 1" diameter abdomen. Of her eggs, any that survive to hatch in the spring will be fornunate. Any that survive the first twenty-four hours after hatching will be even more fornutate, and any that survive into sexual maturity will be less than 1% of the original brood. This female garden spider lives outside my front door, on my front porch. On evenings when it is warm enough, she creates for herself a new web. The last few nights have been too cold, and she has remained in this same position. Last night there was a frost which will be deadly to many smaller invertebrates though I expect her to have survived and to survive through the middle of November.

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Old [Yet Heavily Myelinated] Pathways

2010-11-01T05:51:00.002-04:00

Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein (Jeremiah 6:16).

It is October 8th, 2003, and I am hunched over a book. "This is really interesting," I think out loud, "I can't wait to tell Dad." The thought of sharing with Dad while reclined on the back porch in the warmth of a early fall evening sunset lingers for a moment. Suddenly my mental pathway comes to an abrupt end. I remember that Dad died a week ago.

Thoughts of this nature were common in the months following my Father's death. An idea or a thought salient to Dad or to our relationship would rush into my awareness. I would emotively embrace the thought with the warmly comforting image of having a moment to share it with him. Then, I would suddenly recall that Dad was dead, and the stark reality that I would not be able to share another moment with him would coldly overtake me. Though this was a common occurrence in the immediate aftermath of Dad's death. I found that my well-worn mental pathways were slowly being replaced. Months later the pathways, still present and well-worn, were replaced by similar, more mentally satisfying routes—pathways with destinations. Seven years later I have all but replaced these pathways; however, I have experienced the loss of two additional pathways.

Mom died January 15, 2009. I am not surprised this time around; I expected my mind to default to its seasoned pathways. This time around I have less dead-ended pathways, but they occur every day. Less than a week after her passing, I should call Mom to visit with her. The mental pathway came to a dead end. Sometimes my mind lingers on the old path despite the dead end, and I find these thoughts peaceful; however, life goes on and so must I.

I was raised in a Christian household with close connections to my family's church community. For much of my life I was surrounded by people of faith. The models in my life exhibited faith behaviors which were reinforced either by the community or by the internal satisfaction of the performer. These pathways were blazed early for me, and when I decided to wholly "commit my life to Christ" just after 7^th grade, I widened and branched the pathways into all areas of my mental life—intellectual and emotional. Few areas of my thinking were not traversed by a God-faith pathway. God and faith became my identity as I broached adolescence, and I became a compulsive God-faith addict.

Leaving belief in an interventionist, personal God was not an overnight decision for me. The last five years have been formative for my skepticism; it was a gradual process. Through my ongoing critical studies of the Bible, biblical languages, science, and comparative religions, I became increasingly aware of how fragile my faith system was. I won't detail the path of my discoveries here at the moment, but I gradually found the foundations of faith crumbling. On occasion I would admit to myself that I was a closet atheist, but I would maintain outward faith. Episodes of disbelief would often be met with episodes of even stronger commitment to irrational beliefs—with increasing emphasis on the virtue of belief in the irrational. This process of learning how to not believe was critical for me. Without it, I would not have been able to openly acknowledge my disbelief.

Disbelief is like the loss of a parent for me; it is not easy. My mental pathways default to the reassurance of providence or to the efficacy of prayer as I sometimes find myself conducting an internal God dialogue within myself. My God-faith pathways are still present, and as far as I understand brain physiology, neurotransmitters that fall into disuse eventually loose myelin and become less functional. As mentioned, the process of recognizing the absence of God (or the nonexistence of God) was gradual, and so it made the process easier, but it is not easy.

One may ask, "If disbelief is difficult, then why not just believe?" Before I answer this question let me explain that the difficulty of disbelief is not intellectual, it is purely emotive. I do not intellectually pretend that I am convinced there is no God.

Second, I choose to disbelieve because it is hard. Yes, I disbelieve because it is the more difficult option for my emotive pathways; it is the option that challenges me and propels my mind into higher levels of understanding, awareness, and transcendence. In fact, I find the implied answer to this question to be an unjustified plea for ignorance. It is akin to the student asking her teacher, "This stuff is hard, why do I have to learn it?" I learn because it is hard. I press forward because the alternative is ignorance and superstition. I am done with the old, dead-end paths.

posted originally at http://disevangelists.blogspot.com/2009/01/seasoned-pathways.html

The Smiling Sun: A Reflection on Human Spirituality

2010-10-31T09:00:00.004-04:00

Child psychologists, such as the Swiss scholar Jean Piaget, tell us that children instinctively give animate, personal characteristics to inanimate objects—draw a face on the sun, for example. Anthropologists tell us that all pre-scientific people are animistic in their religious beliefs, investing every tree, brook, and celestial body with personhood. What could be more natural? What metaphor is more ready at hand than the thing we know best: our self. For all of its grandeur and refinement, the idea of a transcendent Person who acts in the world is only the final manifestation of a primitive animism. A divine Person is not the Heraclitean mystery seen through a glass darkly, but a reflection of one's self in a mirror brightly (p. 20).

The above profundity draws a line connecting the most elementary stages of child development with Paleolithic human spirituality down to belief in the singular and refined immaterial monotheistic God of today. But, where the child attributes personhood to the sun and the earlier hominid to a brook, what is the theist today attributing personhood to?

Obviously, the [Western] theist today is not investing inanimate objects with divine personhood; instead, the theist today finds more abstract realities, real or perceived, with the divine animus. These realities include ignorance, mystery, fear, coincidence, personal feelings of transcendence and other such biological operations of the brain, etc.

Raymo, Chet. When God is Gone Everything is Holy: The Making of a Religious Naturalist. Sorin Books: Notre Dame, 2008.

A More Authentic Experience? -- Allowing Experience to Change Your Worldview

2010-10-17T05:17:00.004-04:00

In the book of Acts, the Apostle Peter finds himself presented with a vision while on the roof of one Simon the Tanner in Joppa. Though presumably a kosher Jew, Peter is shown a vision of unkosher animals and asked three times, "Rise, Peter; kill, and eat," to which he replies thrice, "Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean." On the heels of this vision a group of pious gentiles arrive asking Peter to go with him to home of Cornelius, a gentile god-fearer and a Roman centurion.

The Apostle Peter states, "Ye know how that it is an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to keep company, or come unto one of another nation…" and so expresses that Torah holiness creates an ethnic segregation intended to prevent the domestic and table intermingling of Jew and non-Jew. The Apostle, despite his biblical scruples, enters the home of Cornelius and lays out the early Christian kerygma of Jesus's death and resurrection. To the Apostle's surprise, the text states, "…the Holy Spirit fell on them which heard the word." Relaying the surprise of Peter and the Jewish Christian men who had joined him, the text states, "And they of the circumcision which believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost."

Why were they astonished? The text seeks to establish the Jewish pedigree of the Apostle and the Jewish Christians who joined them. Knowing that covenantal participation and fellowship with God was contingent on circumcision and Torah observance, they did not expect God to bestow a seal of approval on a group of gentiles. Note the Apostle Paul's description of the Torah perspective on non-Jews:

Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands; That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world (Ephesians 2:11-12).

Yet, despite the Torah preclusion of the non-Jew, the book of Acts presents God reaching out and expressing acceptance of non-Jews. Peter and his Jewish companions witness the sealing of gentiles through the "gift of the Holy Spirit." Peter's experience hence becomes the basis for his theology. From this singular experience, Peter discards his acceptance of biblical (the Hebrew Bible) boundary lines. He allows his experience to be an authority over the Bible and so reformulates his theology such that he forgoes with biblical boundary lines which before had defined the boundaries of who was in and who was out of the community and the covenants of God.

Paradigmatic?

Christian fundamentalists today, including Evangelicals, are quick to assert boundary lines so boldly defined christocentrically around one's dogmatic affirmations of Jesus. If one believes in Jesus as the Son of God, second Person of the Triune godhead, one's Personal Savior, etc., then one is saved. Gays, Muslims, Jews, and a myriad of others are not included in the Christian fundamentalist circle. "The Bible tells me so…" the fundamentalist will parrot ad naseum, "We must maintain biblical orthodoxy."

But, what if the Acts 10 is meant to be paradigmatic? What if it is meant to teach the Christian that experience is to hold sway? The Apostle Peter allowed his experience, an experience that crashed through biblical lines of exclusion, to change his theology and worldview? What if the Christian experience with those outside her circle is meant to change, yes change and alter, her worldview? What if, by excluding and demonizing the outsider, the fundamentalist Christian is failing to understand the limits of human potential and violating the biblical paradigm expressed with the Apostle Peter? If so, then the Christian should come to know and understand that the experience of the those outside her boundary lines: the Muslim, the Jew, the gay, the atheist, etc. are meant to change how she thinks, to extend her boundary lines.

The Christian who denies her experience the opportunity to trump the Bible is not following the example of the Apostle Peter. She is being unbiblical.

More False Dichotomies

2010-10-13T17:30:00.001-04:00

True or False: This is the day that evolved from slime; we will be bitter and
waste our time.

This quippish remark was made recently by a friend of mine. This might become an enduring repeat for me as an example of a false dichotomy in the creation-evolution controversy.

Let me start off by attempting to interpret what this pseudo-aphorism is trying to relay. The reference to slime is apparently an allusion to the unscientific concept of “primordial slime” or the so-called “pre-biotic soup” of amino acids in which life supposedly found its inception. Hence, “slime” is a synecdoche for evolution. As such, “slime” suggests “molecules to man” evolution from the most “simple” to the emergent complexity that we call humanity today.

The references to bitterness and time wasting is apparently then correlated with the theory of evolution. The author is hence positing that acceptance of the theory of evolution leads to bitterness and time wasting. The structure of this pseudo-aphorism is derived from Psalm 118: “This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.” This restating of Psalm 118 around the theory of evolution makes the suggestion that belief in creation versus acceptance of the theory of evolution results in lack of industry (time wasting) and bitterness. The implicit message of this quip is hence: If one accepts creation (“This is the day that the Lord has made”), then one is motivated not to be bitter or wasteful of time where one who accepts evolution “from slime” one is more likely to be bitter and wasteful of time.

Bitterness and lack of industry (wasting time) do not correlate with acceptance of methodological naturalism and the theory of evolution. Industry, as the opposite of time wasting, correlates with a number of variables including early childhood experiences, education, and a sense of ownership. There is an undeniable correlation between the degree of education one has and the likelihood that one will accept the theory of evolution. There is a similar correlation between education and industry. So, instead of there being a negative correlation between industriousness and accepting the theory of evolution, the correlation is in the reverse: acceptance of evolution correlates with higher levels of industriousness.

Now, as far as bitterness goes, we all know that there are bitter peoples in every political and religious group. For myself, I often feel bitter toward fundamentalist Christians not because of evolution but because of the socially-constructed false realities that they brainwashed me with. And, most of the bitter people I have known in my life have been political conservatives and fundamentalists.

Another dichotomy worth noting is that the theory of evolution is not opposed to the belief that God is the creator. One can accept evolution and believe that God providentially guided or set in place the process of evolution. If one wants to set aside science and methodological naturalism and allow for miracles, one can suppose, as the Old-Earth Creationists do, that God may have even intervened in the process with varying frequency.

The dichotomies of the initially-stated quip are hence shown to be false. If anything, the lack of education among many fundamentalists should be noted. Most of the people on welfare in America, I would venture to guess, reject evolution and accept conservative models of creationism.

So, as an alternative, I might state the following:

This is the moment that is shared, it’s in our hands to make it squared.

Feel free to offer your own alternatives.

Creation from Nothing

2010-10-12T18:53:00.003-04:00

One of the cardinal doctrines of historical Judaism, Christianity and Islam is that God created all that exists—both visible and invisible—from nothing. This doctrine is called creation ex nihilio (from nothing). The primary implication of this doctrine is that God literally produced all things as an act of will. A secondary implication of this doctrine is that God therefore has complete power over all of creation.

The primary "proof text" for creation ex nihilio is Genesis 1:1 which in traditional English translations reads.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

From as early as the late second Temple era (c. 50 BCE) it can be documented that Jewish readers began to find in this verse the basis for the assertion that God created all things from nothing. This doctrine became the heritage of Christians and of Muslims in the generations that followed. However, Genesis 1:1-2 do not support the idea that God created all things from nothing—in fact, they express the opposite: that God created from pre-existing chaos.

The Cosmic Battle Motif

Nahum Sarna, in describing the available ancient Near Eastern creation accounts states,

"…polytheistic accounts of creation always begin with the predominance of the powers of nature, and invariably describe in detail a titanic struggle between two opposing forces" (21).

This statement from Sarna is of immense importance. Variously the forces of watery chaos are presented as the primordial state and are personified as a dragon or deity against which the hero-creator god gains victory. This mytheme is not only present in Genesis 1:1-3 but is also expressed variably in the cosmic ordeal between Yahweh and Levianthan, Rahab, Tannin, and Yam (see Isaiah 27:1; 51:9-10; Job 26:12-13).

Into the cultural context the cosmic battle between the forces of nature or chaos against the hero-god enters Genesis 1:1-3. The ancient readers of this text would have immediately recognized the thematic correlation with the primordial chaos and the various gods of chaos (e.g., Tiamat, Rahab, Leviathan, etc.) against whom God (Elohim) enters as the hero and victor.

Corrected Translation

Jewish scholar of Hebrew and Bible translator Everett Fox, in accordance with the majority understanding of this verse in Hebrew scholarship today, translates Genesis 1:1-2 as follows:

At the beginning of God's creating of the heavens and the earth, when the earth was wild and waste, darkness was over the face of the Ocean, rushing-spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters…

Everett comments on the above passage, "Gen. 1 describes God's bringing order out of chaos, not creation from nothingness" (p. 13). Note also that he capitalizes "Ocean," adding the following comment: "The primeval waters, a common (and usually divine) image in ancient Near Eastern mythology" (p. 13). Everett here makes it clear that the ancient reading of this text saw not creation from nothing but rather the act of creation as the bringing of order out of chaos. This understanding militates heavily against the classical theistic doctrine of creation ex nihilio

Conclusion

Though brief, this post is intended to at least introduce the reader to this important study. Genesis 1:1 does not teach creation from nothing. If Christians and others desire to be true to the text of the Bible, they need to become current with what Hebrew linguists and what the ancient Near Eastern literature are telling us.

Everett, Fox. The Shocken Bible: Volume I: the Five Books of Moses. Random House: New York, 1995.

Sarna, Nahum M. Understanding Genesis: the Heritage of Biblical Israel. Melton Research Center, New York, 1966.

Biblical Inerrancy: A First-Line of Defense

2010-10-10T19:29:00.005-04:00

Inerrant the Wind: the Evangelical Crisis of Biblical Authority, 2009 is a modified republishing of Robert M Price's 1981 doctoral dissertation at Drew University. In it Price presents the sociological development of the pluriform debate over biblical inerrancy and biblical authority in Evangelical Christianity from the modernist-fundamentalist controversy until today (appendices).

In discussing the general non-use and frequent disdain for higher criticism among Evangelical defenders of inerrancy, he observes that "[i]nerrantist apologetics abound…[as] exercises in rationalizing a position taken on other grounds (p. 47). He goes on to state the following:

[Inerrantist apologetics] construe the authority of the Bible in such a way that historical criticism would be proscribed from the outset. If [the Bible] were held to be totally inerrant, then criticism would be pointless. No Bible believer would be tempted to use [higher criticism] to elucidate scripture any more than he would find a Sanskrit-to-English dictionary to use for this purpose. Thus inerrancy was intended as a bulwark to defend the Bible's authority, not as a reason for believing in biblical authority in the first place (p. 48).

Here Price notes that inerrancy is a self-defense mechanism, a means by which the believer in inerrancy can dismiss with higher criticism. Time and time again in dialogue with fundamentalists, I find that believers use self-defense mechanisms that allow them to dismiss of evidence that his incompatible with their world views. Instead of facing the facts, the fundamentalist will deem the information that I present or the sources that I recommend as though they were demonic or as though it was lacking in virtue to even consider them—thus making their faith and their worldviews too sacred to even face the outside world and realities beyond.

Last year I recommend Why Darwin Matters by Michael Shermer to a friend. This is an excellent book that is friendly to religion as the author goes to lengths to explain why the theory of evolution is compatible with Christian and theistic beliefs. She agreed to read it, but she refused to bring the book into her house. From what I recall, she preferred to keep the book in her garage or outside the house because she feared demonic influence, etc.

This is what I am talking about—the defense mechanisms that prevent those who need information to the contrary the most from encountering it. Such behaviors and beliefs, including the doctrine of biblical inerrancy, are dangerous and damning.

Sabbath Driving: the Messianic Slippery Slope to Gay Butt Sex

2010-10-08T22:18:00.002-04:00

Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day there shall be to you a holy day, a sabbath of solemn rest to the LORD; whosoever doeth any work therein shall be put to death. Ye shall kindle no fire throughout your habitations upon the sabbath day (Exodus 25:2-3).

And if a man lie with mankind, as with womankind, both of them have committed abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them (Leviticus 20:13).

What do the two above verses have in common? How does the prohibition against fire on the Sabbath day relate to homo erotic behavior? Let me explain.

As a former Messianic Christian I identified with the "one-law" Messianics and sabbatarian Christians who believe that the Law of Moses is incumbent on Christians in whole or in part. I used to keep the Sabbath from Friday sundown until Saturday sundown, but unlike most of my former co-religionists yet in agreement with observant Jewry I understood the verses quoted above to be a prohibition against fire for cooking, for heating, for enjoyment, and for starting and running an internal combustion engine in a vehicle. This resulted in many obstacles for me as it precluded worship with others unless I was willing to compromise and drive my car or travel by other means (e.g., by foot or bike).

Oh, and I was criticized. I was called "too Jewish" and a "legalist" who missed the "spirit of the law." I was told that the Law of Moses wasn't referring to cars because they were not invented yet. I was given a long stream of rationalizations that exonerated the majority who drive on the Sabbath while relativizing the prohibition against fire into a command against chopping down trees, gathering heavy logs, and other such burdensome labor related to making a fire. Yet, I stood by the text and with the observant Jewish community—legalist or not.

Now, exegetically sound, or not, a series of arguments have been raised regarding the prohibition against male-male sex in Leviticus 20:13 from gay Jews and Christians and their sympathizers. These arguments often point out that the concepts of sexual orientation and gay marriage were not available at the time Leviticus 20:13 was penned and that the only male-male forms of sex known placed patriarchal priorities at risk. It is argued that we no longer look to the Law of Moses for how to sell or daughters into concubinage (Exodus 21) or for patriarchal family structures, so we likewise should not apply Leviticus 20:13 (and Leviticus 18:22) to non-heterosexual orientation or marriage.

How do sabbatarian Christians and Messianics reply to the above rationale? Well, they shoot it down. They argue that it is makes the Torah too relative and that it does not matter if the concept of sexual orientation was not yet invented because the text prohibits a specific behavior. Ultimately, they show no tolerance for the same rationalizations and exonerations that they use on themselves regarding driving on Sabbath though both behaviors (male-male sex and fire on Sabbath) carry the same punitive weight in the Torah: the death penalty. They tolerate their trivialization of the Torah regarding Shabbat but then use the Torah as a blunt weapon to criticize LGBT peoples.

Is it just me or is this not utterly hypocritical?

People often speak of gateway behaviors. Pot is a gateway to stronger and more dangerous drugs. Social drinking is a gateway behavior to alcoholism. Conservatives often speak of the slippery slope. They reason, if you compromise on one behavior what is to stop you from compromising further down the road? If you compromise with respect to one doctrine, what is to keep you from eventual atheism or heresy? Using this same concept of gateway behaviors I am satirically calling Sabbath driving a gateway sin. If one accepts the arbitrary voice of authority that is the Torah as a source for morality, one is obliged to accept the conclusion that fire on the Sabbath is a sin. If you compromise on this item, they why do you not accept other peoples' compromises and sins?

And, as a disclaimer, homosexuality is not a sin it is an orientation.

Biblical Cosmologies, Part 3: Pentateuchal Portraits – Genesis 1b

2010-10-06T07:30:00.000-04:00

An essential aspect of exegesis is recognition of a text’s sitz im leben. Sitz im leben can be loosely defined as “context.” The term is German for “situation in life” or “life setting.” In exegetical endeavors the modern reader of ancient texts is apt to read modern-day questions, issues, perspectives, etc. into the text. A reading that retrojects modern-day exigencies into an ancient text is eisegesis—interpretation reflective of the reader’s own ideas or biases rather than true to the authentic reading of the text. Eisegetical readings abuse texts by stealing or covering up the meanings most authentic to an ancient text.

Disciplined consideration for a text’s sitz im leben is one means through which the modern-day reader can avoid abusing the text. Attempts to construct scientific ideas on the basis of Genesis 1 are certainly eisegetical abuses. Such uses of Genesis exhibit little or no consideration for its sitz im leben and hence for how the ancient Hebrew reader would have understood the text. Additionally, through eisegetical excess, such scientific ideas are not based on the text itself; rather, they are based on a select, idiosyncratic, highly-contingent *interpretation* of the text. Through jettisoning an authentic sitz im leben, such readings are guilty of eisegesis.

Genesis 1 is composed in the rhetoric of soft polemical diatribe. It is written against the backdrop of antecedent polytheistic cosmogonies. The exigency of the composer was not that of 21st century Creationism in any of its flavors. Rather, the composer sought to provide a morally and religiously monotheistic, non-idolatrous reworking of existing myths for the desired goal of religious purity and functional etiology. To posit any other goal is to eisegetically abuse the text in the interest of modern exigencies.

Genesis 1:6-8

ו וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים, יְהִי רָקִיעַ בְּתוֹךְ הַמָּיִם, וִיהִי מַבְדִּיל, בֵּין מַיִם לָמָיִם. ז וַיַּעַשׂ אֱלֹהִים, אֶת-הָרָקִיעַ, וַיַּבְדֵּל בֵּין הַמַּיִם אֲשֶׁר מִתַּחַת לָרָקִיעַ, וּבֵין הַמַּיִם אֲשֶׁר מֵעַל לָרָקִיעַ; וַיְהִי-כֵן. ח וַיִּקְרָא אֱלֹהִים לָרָקִיעַ, שָׁמָיִם; וַיְהִי-עֶרֶב וַיְהִי-בֹקֶר, יוֹם שֵׁנִי.

6 And spoke Elohim, let there be firmament-rakia in the midst of the waters, and
let it separate the waters from the waters. 7 And made Elohim the
firmament-rakia to divide between the waters from below the firmmanet-rakia and
between the waters which [were] from above the firmmanet-rakia—and it was so. 8
And called Elohim to the firmament-rakia, “heavens.” And there was evening and
there was breaking, day two.

The reader will recall that the ancient Sumerian-Babylonian cosmology, like that in Genesis 1, began with the victory of the hero-god over the waters of chaos depicted in the dragon Tiamat. The hero-god of the Sumerian-Babylonian cosmology divides the dragon of chaos in two. Each half is used to hold water-symbolic of primordial chaos-at bay. Likewise, in Genesis, Elohim gains victory over the primordial waters, no doubt through an unmentioned combat with the watery chaos dragon. Such a combat is not specifically mentioned in this text, though other biblical portraits of creation do depict such a combat. Consider Psalm 74:12-14 for an example:

"You divided the sea by your strength; by your power you cleaved the
sea-monster in two, and broke the dragon's heads above the waters; you
crushed the many-headed Leviathan…"

Through conspicuous refusal to mention the dragon deity (other than the reference to T’hom-Tiamat in vs. 2), the author of Genesis 1 realizes that the reader, in her sitz im leben, is more than likely familiar with antecedent cosmologies. As a result, the author assumes that the reader will inject her meanings into the hegemony that Elohim gains over the waters.

With new-found hegemony over the original aqueous chaos, Elohim divides the waters. In so dividing the waters, the text specifies the purpose for the firmament-rakia: to hold the waters (chaos) in place. The author identifies the localities of the waters: above the firmament-rakia and below the same. To the ancient reader the hegemony of Elohim over chaos is described through the construal of the firmament-rakia. This same reader understood the firmament-rakia as a solid structure that vaulted the observed heavens.

Verse eight identifies the firmament-rakia as heavens-shamayim. In so doing, the author and reader understand that the solid structure of the firmament-rakia is also called heavens-shamayim. It is unnecessary and eisegetical to read modern ideas of heavens as “open space” into this passage.

The Christian Gospel and Politics

2010-10-05T05:52:00.002-04:00

I listen to a lot of conservative Christian and political talk radio, and I also read a lot of conservative Christian and some conservative political books and materials. If nothing else, I feel that repeated connection with those to the right of me helps me maintain relevance. I often notice incongruous platforms between conservative Evangelical theologies and their often associated conservative politics. One such disjuncture is that between the Christian message of mercy for the undeserving and the conservative ideal of "trickle-down economics." Many an Evangelical will gloat in her "I'm not perfect, just forgiven" theology while refusing to extend such a mercy to the many upon whom "the system" bestows the favors of structural injustices. Such an Evangelical will speak of God's mercy and then blame the minority for his apathy and psychology of servility when she herself is part of the systems of alienation that prevent the minority from socio-economic fecundity.

The general Evangelical Christian protection of oppressive conservative political and economic platforms contrasts heavily with the Pauline gospel of increasing inclusivity. Pauline theology, which heavily influenced the content of the four canonical Gospels, was initially focused on the inclusion of non-Jews into the benefits of covenant—benefits from which non-Jews were alienated by birth and foreskin. Galatians 3:13-14 reads:

Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree: That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

According to Paul, Jesus died as one "cursed of the law," i.e., as one outside of the Torah and the covenants, in order to redeem, to include those likewise outside of the Torah and the covenants—the Gentiles. Hence, Paul's gospel is one of inclusion, bringing the formerly alienated Gentiles into the "family of God." This message was revolutionary—upsetting the social order of Jew-Gentile separation along with the Torah order that fortified such distinctions.

Along the lines of Moltmann, whom I quoted last night, the following comments are worth noting:

Christian identity can be understood only as an act of identification with the crucified Christ, to the extent to which one has accepted the proclamation that in [Jesus] God has identified himself with the godless and those abandoned of God (p. 19).

According to Paul, the Christian is to identify with the crucified Christ (Gal 2:20). Moltmann asserts that identification with the crucified Christ is acceptance of the kerygma, the message that God in Jesus identifies with the alienated. Moltmann goes on to state,

Christian identification with the crucified Christ means solidarity with the sufferings of the poor and the misery both of the oppressed and the oppressors… By alienating the believer from the compulsions and automatic assumptions of an alienated world, Christian identification with the crucified necessarily brings him into solidarity with the alienated of this world, with the dehumanized and the inhuman. But this solidarity becomes radical only if it imitates the identification of the crucified Christ with the abandoned, accepts the suffering of creative love, and is not led astray by its own dreams of omnipotence and an illusory future (p.25).

So much can be drawn from the above. However, I find this to be a slap in the face against modern Sara-Palin Evangelicals. Would that said Evangelicals identify more with the crucified, dehumanized, and inhuman Christ!

Science Vs. God

2010-10-04T18:38:00.002-04:00

A contributor to my blog recently made the following accusation against me:

Science is your god. The LORD is my God. You will continue to defend your god; I will continue to earnestly contend for the faith once delivered to me, and defend the truth of God's Word. You have faith in man; I have faith in God. We are poles apart.....and dialogue is not fun anymore.

In the above comment it is clear that the writer esteems the use of scientific logic and reason to be antagonistic and dichotomous to "biblical faith." This writer hence presents scientific ways of knowing and "biblical faith" in polarity, as alternatives to one another. This accusation reminds me of the following quote from the esteemed German theologian Jurgen Moltmann:

For Christian faith to bring about its own decay by withdrawal into the ghetto without self-criticism, is a parallel to its decay through [unbelief]. And the decline into pusillanimous faith [through not confronting the real world] and superstition is a parallel to the decline into unbelief. How close this parallel is, is shown by the way debates within Christianity become polarized into false alternatives (pp. 21-22).

In the context of the above passage, Moltmann is discussing the stagnancy of Christianity as evidenced through the rise of "superstitious faith" which, instead of confronting the issues, shields itself into self-contained worlds of "just-so" constructs. These constructs, Moltmann asserts, are falsely dichotomous, and he includes faith vs. science in his listing of such polarities. Is it not obvious that faith has become pusillanimous when it refuses to think and then shrouds itself with "just-so" or ad hoc models that are intellectually and scientifically barren?

The writer of the opening accusation then goes on to assert:

I am convinced that your objective is to discourage me, rob me of my faith in God and the Bible, and drag me into the atheistic bleakness and darkness in which you find yourself. I am no longer impressed with your intellectualism and learning, for it led to a dead end......a place I have no interest in going.

The polarity of this person's faith with its fortification by false alternatives is a clear attestation its intellectual bankruptcy. One can accept all of the data that I have submitted about fundamentalism, about the Bible's retrograde moralities, about the unscientific and false models of biblical cosmology, evolution, etc. and still believe in the God of the Bible. The fact that there is such a polarity between these positions is an attestation to the ghetto mindedness of Evangelicals.

Multmann, Jurgen. The Crucified God. SCM Press: Philadelpha, 1974.

Biblical Cosmologies, Part 2: Pentateuchal Portraits – Genesis 1a

2010-10-02T08:39:00.003-04:00

The reader will notice that the term “biblical cosmology” is not used in the singular in my titles. The author finds that it is tenuous to assume that the biblical authors all envisioned an identical model of the cosmos. Though the models of the cosmos found in the biblical texts contain commonalities, not every portrait is comprehensive. Some portraits focus on only one constituent of the cosmos while others reflect on a more complete construal. Hence, the author will focus on the explicit cosmological aspects of a given passage before addressing implicit connections.

For the reasons described above, the author has chosen to deal individually with texts that describe the cosmos. Though a systematic, biblical study could be done of “biblical cosmology” with fruitful results similar to those in this study, the author prefers to focus on each portrait individually. Patterns will emerge through systematic reflection on each portrait, and the author aspires to make connections so as to benefit the cognition of the reader.

The Genesis 1 creation narrative contains numerous convergences with pre-biblical Sumerian-Babylonian and Canaanite creation traditions. Some of these parallels are of the utmost importance as the exigency of Genesis 1 is likely found in these polytheistic creation myths. Genesis 1 is polemically directed to combat polytheistic cosmogonies through literary reworking and anesthetization of existing polytheistic creation myths.

Leeming (52) explains the Sumerian-Babylonian creation myth contained in Enuma Elish as the victory of order over chaos. In Enuma Elish, the hero-god Marduk combats the dragon goddess Tiamat who represents the chaotic waters of primordial existence. Marduk crushes Tiamat—dividing her dead body in half. Tiamat who was the dragon of primordial watery chaos becomes the vehicle to establish the separation of the chaotic waters. Part of her corpse was used to hold the chaotic waters above at bay while the other half is transformed into the terrestrial abode of humanity and the threshold against the waters below upon which the earth floats.

Contrary to popular assertions of creation ex nihilo, Genesis 1 follows the lead of the ancient cosmologies with the assumption pre-existent primordial water (Beltz, 35). Notice, at no point is there a specific creation of water in Genesis 1. Water is assumed to exist. The Hebrew T’hom (“without form”) of Genesis 1:2 linguistically and thematically correlates with the Sumerian-Babylonian Tiamat. Though sanitized of reference to gods and goddesses, Elohim ("God") in Genesis 1 combats the primordial, watery chaos to achieve victory. Creation itself is initiated through separating order out of chaos (darkness and water).

The first act of Elohim in the Genesis 1 creation myth is the separation of light from darkness. This act is followed on day two with the creation of the firmament (Hebrew rakia). The Hebrew word for “firmament” (rakia-- רָקִיעַ) is derived from the root raka. This root means to “spread out by beating” (BDB) or “to beat, stamp, beat out, spread out, stretch” (TWOT). It carries the idea of beating out a solid malleable material such as a metal.

Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB) define rakia- רָקִיעַ (“firmament”) as follows:

…the firmament of heaven, spread out like a hemisphere above the earth (from the
root [raka]), like a splendid and pellucid sapphire (Ex. 24:10, compare Dan.
12:3), to which the stars were supposed to be fixed, and over which the Hebrews
believed there was a heavenly ocean (Gen. 1:17; 7:11; Ps. 104:3; 148:4…

When read against the backdrop of the ancient cosmologies and the literary-etymological etiology of the term rakia- רָקִיעַthe picture of the cosmos portrayed in Genesis 1 becomes a reciprocation of the pre-scientific cosmologies of the ancients—a flat earth with domed heavens.

The next post will develop build upon the Genesis 1 references to the firmament.

Beltz, Walter. God and the Gods: Myths of the Bible, trans. Peter Heinegg. Middlesex: Penguin, 1983.

Leeming, David. Jealous Gods, Chosen People: Mythology of the Middle East. New York: Oxford, 2004.

Biblical Cosmologies, Part 1

2010-09-30T03:01:00.000-04:00

Surah 2:22 of the Qur’an states,

[Your Lord]…Who made the earth a resting place for you and the heaven a structure…

This passage evidences the pre-scientific cosmology of the Qur’an. It envisions vaulted or domed heavens that consist of a solid structure. Such a picture of the cosmos is common amongst the ancients, and it is readily incorporated by the Qur’an and the biblical authors.

Oddly, if I were writing an article about the scientific absurdities of the Qur’an, many of my Christian readers would take little prodding to convince them of the idea that the Qur’an is lacking with regard to scientific realities. I do ask that my readers consider why it is that they are so willing to accept criticism about a book that nearly one billion religious adherents herald as the precious Word of God while they might be unwilling to countenance the idea that the Bible contains similar, if not more archaic, models of the cosmos.

In the next series of posts, I will develop several biblical portraits of the cosmos. It will become evident to the receptive reader that the biblical portraits of the cosmos are in disagreement and contradiction with the physical or material realities of the universe. How the incongruence between the Bible and science is understood by the reader is her own decision. I have taken this contradiction (and others) as grounds for rejecting the plenary inspiration of the Bible; however, I realize that there are educated, Evangelical [and Jewish] scholars who acknowledge such difficulties yet have developed exegetical paradigms by which to justify the biblical authors’ use of pre-scientific understandings. It must be noted that I have only encountered a handful of Evangelical scholars that are willing to deal with this difficulty. At the end of this series I hope to mention who they are and refer readers to their works about biblical cosmologies.

Hermeneutical Humility vs. Egoistic Eisegesis

2010-09-29T11:13:00.000-04:00

Fundamentalist approaches to Scripture carry a fundamental egoistic component: they assume that the modern reader can assert a “God’s-eye” understanding of a given passage. The following is my response from a dialogue that I had with a fundamentalist creationist in 2007 in which he asserted that the proper reference point for understanding Genesis 1, and all Scripture for that matter, is God. In the following I attempt to show how such a “God-as-referent” approach equivocates God with the modern reader and looses the only basis for objectively-inclined study of Scripture: historical-critical hermeneutics.

In your posts you are asking for the reader to allow God to be the
scientist or referent of Genesis 1. In so doing I find that you are removing the
real-world anchor, the hermeneutical key, which is context. I see three primary
points of reference in Genesis 1 [and Scripture in general]: the modern reader,
the historical reader, and the ancient reader. The modern reader is any
contemporary reader that carries her biases to the text—we all do this. The
historical reader no longer exists, but through reading her reflections on
Genesis 1 [or any passage], we are given a glimpse into her interpretative
thinking about the text. The ancient reader is the reader that received the
Genesis 1 narrative in context. Our goal is to read the text as the ancient
reader. To posit that God is the referent is actually to camouflage the arrogant
assertion that one stands in for God to only now uncover meanings that are
relevant to the modern, individual egoistic reader (you or me).

Yes, the modern reader will never exhaust the possible meanings and
contexts that the ancient reader had at her disposal. This is unfortunate, but
it is the reality that every exegete faces with *every* text—ancient or not. I
do not assert that I have exhausted the hermeneutical means that were available
for the ancient reader, but I am trying to arrive at such a reading. Thus far
the reading that I am presenting does a much better job addressing historical
exigencies than the “God-referent” reading that you propose. Your reading
addresses modern-day exigencies. My reading grounds Genesis 1 in history and
deals with ancient exigencies.

Different readers read different
answers or questions into Genesis 1 [and any Scripture]. An Ethiopian will
likely find different meanings than a Laplander; a fisherman than a farmer; a
white collar than a blue collar, etc. This is important. When the individual
reader asserts that her biases allow her to construct the "God-approved" reading
of the Bible, this is bigotry....leading to such abuses of the Bible as
creationism. The *only* referent or point of reference that the reader can use
is that nestled in context: the sitz im leben. The process of contextualizing is
recreating the mind and interpretative framework that the original reader would
have relied on.

In this regard, special creationism as a scientific construct, fails at the
very foundation of its inception: the Bible. If the Bible contains the records
of numinous encounters, then the Author of the Bible is not a creationist. In
other words: God is not a creationist. If God is not a creationist, then the
entire creationist endeavor is simply intellectual backwaters, social backlash,
and repressive brainwashing. I think that creationism is all of the above. It
fails on the level of biblical interpretation. Need anything else be said?

Returning to the Cosmos - Reintroduction

2010-09-29T08:17:00.001-04:00

Though it has been nearly three years since I last addressed this topic on my blog, the study of biblical depictions of the cosmos has remained a foremost area of study and thought. My discovery in late 2003 and early 2004 that the Bible depicts pre-scientific and incorrect models of the cosmos dealt a death blow to my faith in biblical inerrancy. Prior to this discovery I had always given the Bible the benefit of the doubt, trusting it despite the growing incongruence I was finding between my “biblical” and fundamentalist categories of veracity. I reasoned, “If the Bible depicted a cosmos consisting of an assumed flat earth with a solidly-domed cosmos over which the “waters above” were held at bay (one of the biblical models), and I could disqualify this model in the here-and-now, then why should I try to hammer out other inconsistencies such as internal contradictions and “old-earth” natural history?” The Bible became increasingly human, and my worldview became increasingly orphaned from the assumptions of biblical inspiration.

Really, if I had not been taught to expect an infallible record in the Bible by fundamentalist creationists, this discovery would have been far less likely to bring such a crisis of faith on me. I waivered for the next three to four years between ignoring the evidence and variously accepting its implications. Often in the same day or during the course of a week I would toggle between fundamentalism, atheism, and agnosticism. Again, to the fault of creationists, the thought of liberal models of religion never even crossed my mind. To me, as to the fundamentalist, the Bible was infallible and thus inspired or errant and thus uninspired.

Those who have followed this blog for any amount of time will recognize these posts—I posted them in the spring and summer of 2007, but I never completed the series. You are welcome to visit the originals and read the comments from others who have engaged me on this discussion; however, you will find no replies to the contrary that contribute anything but ad hoc and infertile propositions that detract from human ingenuity and knowledge of the natural world. I will re-post the first in the series tomorrow.

Asher (and cousins) at the Helm

2010-09-26T06:32:00.000-04:00

Messianic Negation of Torah

2010-09-26T06:26:00.001-04:00

Emerging almost entirely within a Protestant-Evangelical context, Messianic Judaism or Christianity (hereafter Messianic or Messianism), in its diversity of expressions, generally begins and operates with distinctively Christian Protestant assumptions and definitions. "One Law" or "One Torah" Messianics esteem the Torah, understood as the Pentateuch or the five books of Moses, as incumbent on Christians today. Using a post-Princeton, Protestant-Evangelical iteration of the doctrine sola scriptura Messianics operate, however artificially, with definitions and concepts inorganic to the very document which they esteem to be authoritative and so express a most basic form of anti-Semitism.

The Torah in Judaism is not just a document—it is not just the Pentateuch. For Jews of all sects and of all time, Torah is a process. The Torah as the Pentateuch is an authorized text and also an authorizing text—granting teaching and interpretive authority to the covenantal community who carries the torch from one generation to the next. To deny the covenantal continuity from the biblical era to the Jews of today is to deny the ethnic and pious experience of generations from the priest and the prophet to the scribe to the legal scholar to the rabbis. Such a denial is to deny the religiosity and piety of generations of Jewish people heralding from a diversity of historical-cultural locations yet within a unified and unfettered stream of transmission. Such a denial is itself the basest form of anti-Semitism.

As already indicated, Torah is more than Pentateuch. Deuteronomy 17:8ff, in commissioning the existence of a centralized authority structure, presents the priests and judges as authorized agents of interpretation. Regarding their verdicts in matters of legality and tort, Deuteronomy 17:11 states,

According to the torah (הַתּוֹרָה) which they shall teach thee, and according to the judgment which they shall tell thee, thou shalt do; thou shalt not turn aside from the sentence (הַמִּשְׁפָּט) which they shall declare unto thee, to the right hand, nor to the left.

The didactic role of the priests (cf Deut 33:10) and the judges is authorized here. The people are to learn torah/instruction from within the covenantal context—not alone in a supposed vacuum of private interpretation. Malachi 2:7 expresses a similar legal priority:

For the priest's lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth; for he is the messenger of the LORD of hosts.

Torah/instruction is not to be sought from a book, from the Pentateuch but from a person. This chain of command, if you will, ensures the integrity of covenantal continuity and the passing of the torch not of a dead letter but of a living tradition. Messianics today attempt to keep Torah as a document. They import concepts of scriptural authority onto the text, concepts which deny the experience of the Jewish people and attempt to artificially construct the Pentateuch into a document that can stand alone, without authoritative interpretation. As a result of their confused amalgam between the Pentateuch and Protestant piety, the end result is an insult to Judaism and an impossible matrix of observance with such fundamental differences of observance as to preclude enduring community. Yet, frankly, to accept the authenticity of Jewish religiosity from the biblical era to today would necessarily negate their identity today.

Much has not been said here. I have left a lot undefined and undefended, and I hope that more will be fleshed out in any replies or in further posts. I group this topically in post-modernism as it expresses the importance of historical-cultural location awareness.

Arbitrary Morality: Another Unifying Characteristic of Fundamentalists

2010-09-20T09:16:00.001-04:00

Disambiguation: Ritual and Ethical Morality

Before I continue, let me briefly disambiguate between ritual and ethical morality. Ritual morality is a meme of ceremonial observance that is shared by a community. The ritual can be based on any number or combination of sources: long-standing tradition, a scripture, an authority figure, etc. Examples of ritual morality include fasting on Yom Kippur for Jews, making saalat five times a day for Muslims, Sunday partaking of the Eucharist for Catholics, daily devotions for pietist Evangelicals, and innumerable others both in and outside of explicitly religious contexts.

There can be little question that memes of ritual morality can become the cement of deep-seated cohesiveness for a community. This cohesiveness, though morally neutral, can incite the participant into acts of kindness and other “good works” while just as likely engendering hostilities, prejudices, fear, and hatred toward those outside the ceremonial circle.

Ritual morality contrasts with ethical or social morality. Social morality is found in the memes and standards that govern interpersonal behaviors between members of an in-group. It should be noted that social morality is expressly exhibited in social vertebrates such as non-human primates, dolphins, naked mole rats, canines, and prairie dogs—it is not a uniquely human phenomenon.

Arbitrary [Ethical] Morality: A Defining Aspect of Fundamentalism

All ritual morality contains components of arbitrariness and is hence a form of arbitrary morality. However, the arbitrary morality that is present in fundamentalism is not that which is ritual or ceremonial; instead, arbitrary morality is what happens when ethical or social morality has lost a real-world anchor in reason, culture, or experience and is instead compromised by other influences including, but not limited to ritual morality or “voices of authority.”

Yesterday’s Question as a Litmus of Fundamentalism

Yesterday I used the following question as a test, a sample of arbitrary morality:

If the Bible was silent on the matter of homosexuality, would you consider
it intrinsically sinful?

The responses received were interesting. Seth’s reply, in particular, displays an extreme, puritanical fundamentalism that is willing to assert that even such heinous acts as rape and pedophilia would be deemed morality acceptable or neutral without presumed biblical prohibitions against them. Never mind, as Fizlowski points out, the Bible does not explicitly prohibit pedophilia. It is also worth nothing that institutionalized rape is legislated in Deuteronomy 21:10ff in which the female captive of war is forced of her Hebrew captor’s will into a marriage that she has no authority to refuse. Of course believers in biblical inerrancy will go about rationalizing the obvious injustice of this word from God—a process which itself is an act of moral injustice.

Though Seth was able to concede that he would be able to accept homosexuality apart from the Bible and despite his insulting and hateful association between consensual homosexuality and the crime rape, Tandi did not appear to be able to even address this question apart from an arbitrary authority structure. Tandi, though, does attempt to work in the modern and post-modern concepts of pluralism, but seems herself to be unable to reason apart from it.

Arrested Development

Tandi’s apparent inability to think apart from arbitrary morality, Seth’s immature, from a moral development standpoint, inability to segregate rape from sexual orientation, and Seth’s apparent inability to see the wrongfulness of rape and pedophilia are examples of one of the harms done by arbitrary morality. Just like creationism and ID attempt to wedge doubts and gaps into the methodological naturalism of the scientific method in order to create regions where human learning and ingenuity must come to a screeching stop, so arbitrary morality arrests the human mind from thinking beyond the boundaries of arbitrary social standards and so compromises moral reasoning.

Compromised Moral Reasoning

Arrested moral reasoning and the inability to question arbitrary standards, even when they engender injustice, are what makes arbitrary morality so dangerous. Arbitrary morality is what drives the terrorist and the crusader. It is dangerous and is part of what makes fundamentalism so dangerous in the world today. It exempts morality from standards of justice, truth, and compassion.

In addition to the previous qualities which I delineated to define and identify fundamentalists, I now add arbitrary morality.

A Question to Measure Arbitrary Morality

2010-09-19T11:38:00.000-04:00

Arbitrary morality is an ethical standard that is arbitrarily based on the voice of authority. The authority can be a holy book, a prophet, a scholar, etc. Arbitrary morality often becomes a discussion stopper when dialoguing with fundamentalists about ethical issues such as, "If God told you to kill someone, would you do it?" Naturally this question invokes memories of the binding of Isaac and becomes a defense of Abraham who did what was right not because killing his son was a good and righteous thing to do but because, so argues the fundamentalist, "God told him to do it."

The following question is a good test of arbitrary morality. The Christian right has been launching its battle against constitutional rights for LGBT minorities for some time. Those aligned with the Christian right, i.e., fundamentalist Christians, argue that homosexuality is wrong because the Bible condemns it (Lev 18:22, Romans 1, etc.). For those who consider homosexuality wrong, let me propose the following question:

If the Bible was silent on the matter of homosexuality, would you consider it intrinsically sinful?

What is Fundamentalism?

2010-09-17T05:59:00.001-04:00

Emergence in Protestant Context

"Fundamentalism" as a term describing a religious platform first came into vogue in a specifically Protestant Christian context. The later half of the 1800's witnessed the early maturation and widespread scholarly acceptance of the theory of evolution and the higher criticism of the Bible. In Protestant churches the acceptance and theological incorporation of evolution and higher criticism lead to an official splintering of the churches, especially in America, into two camps: the modernist and the fundamentalist.

As the term modernist implies, the modernist churches which today generally are represented in the mainline Protestant denominations (e.g., Evangelical Lutheran, Presbyterian Church USA, American Baptists, Episcopal, etc.), responded more favorably to advances in scholarship. They became less focused on doctrinal purity, more accommodating of other religious perspectives, and placed an emphasis on social responsibility and social justice. Their critics accused the modernists of having a "social gospel" which sought to ameliorate conditions in the world today, not save souls for heaven tomorrow.

Fundamentalist Christianity reacted to modern scholarship with disdain and suspicion—entrenching itself deep into sociological demarcations characterized by doctrinal purity. Initially fundamentalist churches refused to even partner with modernist churches in outreach (a situation that changed in the post-1950's era of "Neo-Evangelicalism" which has further bifurcated the American Protestants into the categories "Fundamentalist" and "Evangelical"). Fundamentalists churches, in order to maintain the doctrinal purity of their pews and pulpits, asserted the enduring truths of the following:

infallibility of Scripture
deity of Christ
virgin birth
vicarious atonement
physical return of Christ (implied acceptance of miracles)

These five fundamentals were hence held forth as the necessary conditions of fellowship within and ecumenicism between Protestant churches. Ironically, the Catholic and Orthodox churches never went through the sociological rift engendered by the modernist controversies. However, for Protestants, the lines were drawn, and for the fundamentalists, who bore the torch of doctrinal purity in a world of increasing skepticism, they knew that vigilance was necessary to combat the incursions of the modernist disease into their churches and seminaries. How odd is it, I must note, that fundamentalist-minded Christians today have customized modernist ways of thinking and apology and are now seeking to combat post-modernism (another issue)!

Use Today for Protestants

The term "fundamentalist" was used initially in the Protestant Christian arena. When I apply this term today to Protestant Christians of any persuasion I am actually using it in the way that their forbearers honorifically applied it to themselves as keepers of the fundamentals. If one had called a conservative Baptist a fundamentalist in 1910, she would have taken the designation as a compliment, and there are indeed still churches and Protestant groups that consider the term a badge of honor. My three oldest children, for example, attend a fundamentalist Baptist church school which prides itself for its undiluted stance for the fundamentals of "biblical faith."

Use Outside of Protestantism

I have read various accounts of how the term "fundamentalism" came into application in non-Protestant contexts; however, it is clear that the term is now used to describe dogmatic demographics in far broader uses. This use, due to its broader accommodation to non-Christian religions, has taken on meanings different than doctrinal purity, Muslims, for example, maintain belief in the absolute inerrancy and plenary inspiration of the Quran and the prophethood of Muhammad as defining aspects of what it means to be a Muslim. If such a doctrinal demarcation is at the root of Islam, are not then all Muslims fundamentalist? The answer is no, and let me humbly try to apply the term "fundamentalism" beyond the limited context of doctrinal and dogmatic affirmation.

Fundamentalism, in its broader, trans-Protestant use, is characterized by the following attributes:

tribalism—resisting global consciousness
triumphalism
lack of situational awareness
indifference toward or outright rejection of scholarship and science

Any one of these three attributes would be sufficient to make one a fundamentalist.

Tribalism is a psychological position which assumes that one's in-group is superior to other in-groups. This superiority can be thought to reside in particularism of belief or conduct or even shared experience. Tribalism is a basic attribute of humanity—we all do it. It shows itself in many contexts beyond religion: politics, ethnicity, and even among adherents of scientific theories. Tribalism becomes a fundamentalism in all of the above contexts.

Tribalism is fear driven—fearful that caring for oneself and immediate others are all that one can reasonably do. Hence, it retreats, seeking refuge in a "fortified enclave" constituted by ethnicity, religion, age, class, region, profession, or lifestyle. As a result, single-issue, polarized politics; fundamentalistic, intolerant religion; and indiscriminately relativized ethics get flushed out to the fore, obscuring reality and justice.

Triumphalism is a theological assertion that one's given faith tradition or revelation "abrogates, supersedes, or cancels out all others." Regarding dogmatic or religious commitments, triumphalism is inherently anti-relativistic and anti-pluralistic. Triumphalism, with its close ties to tribalism, pits a given revelation or religious entity against the other with no hope of middle ground. It does not express a theological maturity that concedes to the legitimate existence of the other.

Fundamentalists often assert their "truths" in full confidence without situational awareness of the functions of the contingencies of their historical-cultural location, upbringing, or even personality differences. For example, the fundamentalist Christian accepts the doctrine of the absolute infallibility of the Bible and does so with full acceptance of modern definitions of history and uses of science. She does not realize how modernistic her thinking is and so imports the weight of her historical-cultural milieu into her reading of the Bible.

Indifference or rejection of scholarship is a trait of fundamentalism in its trans-Protestant use that anchors it to the original Protestant context. Though fundamentalists differ on what aspects of scholarship can be accepted, there is always, at some point, a forgoing of critical thought and scholarship—a rejection of what can be known and evidenced empirically, in favor for a dogmatism of some sort.

Summary

Though fundamentalism was originally a Protestant phenomena, it is clear that the term works well to describe other types of religiosity. Fundamentalist religious paradigms contrast with liberal religious paradigms which accept religious relativism and allow for an Ultimate Reality larger than their present horizons. However, on point, fundamentalism can be identified either in its original Protestant moorings or with broader characterization by the traits mentioned above.

Evolution and Divine Agency: Reflections from a Non-Interventionist Naturalist

2010-09-14T18:51:00.000-04:00

What do Evolutionists who are not Atheists make of the Omnipotence of God? If God did not create, what DID He do? How can they trust in His Plan of Redemption if they cannot believe He created this world? Creation and Redemption are intertwined according to Scripture.

The above question was posed recently by a fundamentalist friend of mine. This question is difficult to answer not because the concepts are difficult to grasp, but because those who ask this question are most often lacking the appropriate theological and scientific definitions and categories. Additionally, such questions are most often raised by those who are victims of the artificial polarity that Young-Earth Creationism (YEC) and Intelligent Design (ID) has infused into the minds of those embroiled against evolution.

The fundamentalist who asks these questions probably does not realize that she already uses categories of divine activity that work equally well in understanding possible relationships between God and evolution. When faced with the proposition that life as we see it today can be thoroughly explained without divine agency, this person will find said lack of divine involvement to be a statement against the existence of God. However, when presented with other physical processes that occur around her such as photosynthesis, meiosis, and the chemical process of combustion, she would feel quite comfortable accepting the absence of divine agency. She might posit that God provided for the laws and designed the processes behind these ubiquitous physical events, but she would not need to invoke the miraculous to explain the combustion of fossil fuels in her automobile engine. In fact, if she did invoke the miraculous to explain how her vehicle became mobile, we would all agree that something was quite amiss in her thinking.

We see from the above that this questioner has already categorized divine agency into the buckets of miraculous and providential. Miraculous activities, as the name suggests, are miracles or actions that suspend or contradict the laws of nature. Providential agency, in contrast, would be that which includes the laws of nature unsuspended and uninterrupted. Resurrection from the dead, the dividing of the Red Sea, the burning bush, and the giving of the Quran by the angel Gabriel would all be examples of the miraculous. Photosynthesis, meiosis, combustion, and evolution, when categorized theologically, are then to be viewed as actions of providence.

From this point whatever I write will be an act of murderous selection as I chose the from the available words and metaphors. For every metaphor I use, I will be forgoing another dozen.

Omnipotence in classical theism is seen as the sovereign power of God over all things. Omnipotence, in this model, includes the prerogative of God to stop, interrupt, or intervene at will. The classical God of omnipotence, it should be noted, is a duly wicked God. Such a God sees the natural and moral evils that plague humanity and with every moment of nonintervention is a complicit agent of evil. The omnipotent, interventionist God is not worthy of worship. On the other hand, such a God, through creating by divine fiat, is a miser who withholds autonomy and giftedness from the natural order. In this model the natural order would be expected to have functional gaps or abysmal hurdles that methodological naturalism (science) cannot explain. This God inhabits these gaps with much ado and this God’s followers love to create make-shift, just-so wedges of doubt into the integrity of the natural order into which to shove their God’s throne.

As an alternative to the model above, omnipotence can be framed not as divine prerogative but divine empowerment which is how open and process theists understand divine agency. God is omnipotent because God empowers and grants autonomy—power is shared. The autonomy with which God gifts the cosmos then is a limit to God, one that God cannot intervene or stop without compromising the essential autonomy of the natural order. Such a God is not detectable by the empirical sciences and dwells instead in the realm of metaphysical speculation and faith.

Returning to evolution, the fundamentalist accepts by faith the omnipotence of God despite the evil that then becomes attributable to the deity. Likewise, to the degree that the fundamentalist emphasizes omnipotence in the classical categories, to that degree do photosynthesis, evolution, combustion, etc dismiss of the need for an interventionist deity. When the fundamentalist moves toward acceptance of providence and omnipotence as empowerment, to that degree do natural processes become acceptable.

Oh, more can be said, but my schedule is limited of late. Maybe I will develop more, but for the time being, this is all I have.

Biblical Morality -- Women's Suffrage

2010-09-10T22:01:00.000-04:00

Ninety-two years ago this week, President Woodrow Wilson announced his support of the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution which banned all sex-based restrictions on suffrage. Today women enjoy the right to vote.

I am often annoyed by Christian fundamentalists who claim to base their morality on the Bible. Do Christians consider what bearing the Bible might have on the matter of women's suffrage? Do they not realize how far removed biblical ethics often are from their everyday "God-given" moralities and human rights?

Let me ask you--What does the Bible say about women's suffrage? Do the scriptures give women democratic rights--the right to vote and to hold authority on par with men?

A few passages to consider are Numbers 30:6, 9 / Isaiah 3:12 / I Corinthians 14:34ff / I Timothy 2:11,12

Ontologically Naturalistic Christian Scripture

2010-08-01T08:42:00.001-04:00

Science has closed the gaps. The material cosmos is naturalistically functional—there are no interruptions of the world's basic casual processes. The sun rises, chloroplasts take in sunlight, the tides turn, and the daylight ends without a single necessary supernatural interruption of world affairs. The reality of an uninterrupted state of naturalistic affairs can be shown true now and into the innumerable days and eons that precede the emergence of our fragile biosphere. There are no facts that demand the rejection of such a naturalism.

What of the Bible? Does it not evidence a divine imprint? Griffin, one of my favorite process theologians notes the following:

Modern biblical criticism has removed … any reason for thinking that the writing of the Bible involved any interruption of the normal thinking processes of its authors (p. 23).

In fact, if one wants to disprove absolute naturalism, one could attempt this with the Bible. All such would take is to show one instance of interruption—one moment where a biblical writer expresses something beyond the cognitive horizons of his life situation. As a lifelong student of religion and the Bible, I am quite certain that it is impossible to do this.

Griffin, David Ray. "Process Theology and the Christian Good News" (pp. 1-38) in Searching for an Adequate God. Cobb, John & Pinnock, Charles, eds. Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, 2000.

2010-07-17T08:10:00.000-04:00

I am back to this blog after more than a year hiatus. There has been so much put into this blog, that I would rather build upon it than make a new one. Instead of a thematically aligned blog, I am just making this my everything and anything blog. It is likely that most of my posts will relate to topics dealing with metaphysics, the Bible, and science, but you will probably also find posts about politics and the Israel-Palestine conflict. Additionally, unlike my previous approach on this blog, I am not going to stay clear of personal items such as pictures or general autobiographical content. So, there it is....don't know when I'll have time to write, but I have good intentions.

Thoughts on Translation & Interpretation

2009-01-14T17:10:00.000-05:00

Scripture must be interpreted, and this activity is always shaped by the theological and cultural context within which interpreters participate. It is simply not possible to step back from the influence of tradition in the act of interpretation or in the ascription of meaning. Interpretive communities that deny the reality of this situation and seek an interpretation unencumbered by the “distorting” influence of fallible “human traditions” are in fact enslaved by interpretive patterns that are allowed to function uncritically precisely because they are unacknowledged (Franke, 2001, p. 201).

A lot can be gleaned from the above insightful reading, and as I have been reflecting a lot recently on the epistemology of special revelation, I found this to nicely summarize my thoughts on the relationship between interpretive matrices and translations.

In my recent posts, I have made a deliberate distinction between the terms “interpretation” and “translation.” These words contain overlapping semantic ranges, and, depending on the use, are highly interchangeable. In my recent use, I have reserved the term translation for the act of moving linguistic communication from one language into another. I have similarly limited my use of the term interpretation to the act of constructing meaning from a text. I have emphasized recently in both my posts and responses that the act of moving linguistic communication from one language to another (translation) is inherently an act of constructing meaning from or applying meaning (interpretation) to a text. To state this in simpler terms: Translation is an act of interpretation.

Franke here acknowledges the indebtedness of the interpreter to her interpretive matrix. One’s interpretive matrix is inherently limited by her propriospect. Propriospect is the totality of one’s experience (and knowledge) of the world as used to communicate and to interpret the communication cues of others. Franke here asserts that it is impossible to divorce one’s propriospect from an interpretive community, and to refuse to acknowledge the ideological influences that inhere to one’s reading of the Bible is to allow the same to operate unrestricted, unacknowledged, and unregulated.

Unacknowledged matrices are unregulated matrices. The act of metacognition is to practice awareness of one’s mental processes and to self-regulate the same. Acceptance of the Bible as special revelation does not eliminate the need to pass the same through the interpretive matrices of one’s propriospect. Uncritical interpretation ensues when one is unable or unwilling to assert metacognitive awareness.

The use of the Bible by English readers is encumbered by two significant interpretive trappings. First, the use of English itself limits, obfuscates, and creates unwarranted trajectories in a reading. These limitations, obfuscations, and trajectories are created by the biases of the translator(s), and the reader must acknowledge the indebtedness of the translation to the same. Second, the reader is encumbered by her own propriospect and metacognition.

It disappoints me to observe how many Bible readers take their reading of the Bible as the infallible message of God. Ironically, in so doing, they are asserting that their propriospective matrices and the final interpretations themselves are infallible. Special revelation in the form of a written text is useless when the horizons of understanding are recognized and applied.

The Genderless King James

2009-01-10T07:15:00.000-05:00

English is largely unique for its generally genderless grammar. Neither nouns, verbs, nor adjectives in the English language are expressive of gender. This contrasts greatly with the biblical languages which are highly expressive of gender agreement between articles, nouns, verbs, and adjectives.

A non-English language that many readers may have a cursory or close familiarity with is Spanish. Spanish is an example of a language that uses gender agreement. For example, the Spanish word for book is “libro” and it is a masculine or “male” word. Articles or adjectives that modify the masculine word libro are then also masculine hence the following phrase, “un libro blanco” (a white book). The article “un” is masculine, and the adjective “blanco” is also masculine. Now introduce the Spanish word for “chair” which is the feminine or “female” word “silla.” The previous phrase becomes, “una silla blanca” (a white chair). Notice, to agree with the feminine noun “silla,” the article and the adjective had to be feminized.

The biblical languages use similar and often much more complex gender agreements in articles, nouns, adjectives, and verbs. Gender agreements assist the reader in understanding how a text is to be read; however, English translations are unable to convey this important device. We briefly exegete Psalm 12 with reference to gender agreements and then compare the KJV translation of verses 6 and 7 with a superior Spanish translation of the same.

Psalm 12 (KJV) reads:

1Help, LORD; for the godly man ceaseth; for the faithful fail from among the children of men. 2They speak vanity every one with his neighbour: with flattering lips and with a double heart do they speak. 3The LORD shall cut off all flattering lips, and the tongue that speaketh proud things: 4Who have said, With our tongue will we prevail; our lips are our own: who is lord over us? 5For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, now will I arise, saith the LORD; I will set him in safety from him that puffeth at him. 6The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. 7Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever. 8The wicked walk on every side, when the vilest men are exalted.

Many have lifted verses six and seven out of the above liturgical piece as proof texts to evidence the position that the doctrine of biblical inspiration entails the doctrine of biblical preservation. That is, if God inspired the Bible, then God will also preserve the same down to the smallest detail. We will call this position biblical preservationism. These two verses (6 and 7) are read and quoted as proof texts for this position. The relevant construction of these verses read:

The words of the LORD are pure words… Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.

Again, this is understood by biblical preservationists as a promise of God to preserve the Bible. To the extreme, it is considered impossible that even the slightest fault could then have crept into the Bible, and any maculation of the biblical text would be considered a fault on the part of God. To another extreme, some posit that this promise applies to translations (a form of “double inspiration”). In every contemporary case of this position that I have encountered of translation inspiration, it has related to the King James Version also known as the Authorized Version (AV).

In verse seven the psalmist states that God will preserve “them” twice. The verse does not disambiguate the pronoun, so the reader must look to context to identify the antecedent. Being that the pronoun is plural (“them” not “him” or “her”), the reader must find a plural antecedent. Verse six provides a likely candidate in the word “words” (“The words of the LORD”). However, other possibilities exist such as the collective nouns “poor” and “needy” in verse five. These two nouns are singular; however, they are collective groupings and might alone or together be the antecedent(s) of the “them” in verse seven. The near context would suggest, though, that the word “words” is the more likely antecedent. This would agree with the biblical preservationist reading. However, though there are structural clues in this passage as to the verse 7 “them” antecedent(s), there is a clear gender agreement determinant.

“The words (אִמְרוֹת) of the LORD” The word translated “words” is the Hebrew imrot which is a feminine plural form of Hebrew amar (“speech, word, promise”). This does not agree with the verbs for “keep” and “preserve” in verse seven which are decidedly masculine. Hence, the text, in Hebrew, requires the reader to source a masculine, plural antecedent for the “them” of verse seven. The only referents are the “poor” and “needy” of verse 5. Based on this textual cue alone, the preservation promise of verse 7 cannot refer to the Bible—it must refer to the poor and needy.

It is extremely interesting and telling to compare the King James (or any English) translations of verses six and seven with a Spanish or other language that uses grammatical gender. Notice the following translation into Spanish:

6 Las palabras (femine, plural) de Jehová, palabras limpias; Plata refinada en horno de tierra, Purificada siete veces.

7 Tú, Jehová, los(masculine, plural) guardarás; Guárdalos (masculine, plural) para siempre de aquesta generación.

For the aid of the non-Spanish reader, I have added designations of the gender into the texts. Notice that this Spanish translation provides clear gender distinctions that are not clear in English translations. The Spanish translation makes it obvious that the “words” of verse six (feminine plural) cannot be the antecedent of the “them” of verse seven (masculine plural).

In this brief analysis of Psalm 12, we have found that the biblical preservationist pericope of verses six and seven does not retain its salience to the idea of biblical preservation in the Hebrew (or Spanish). Let me comment briefly on how this relates to the King-James “word of God” position.

It should be apparent to the reader that the English language is incapable of capturing gender grammar; however, gender grammar is a very important part of reading biblical languages. It should be obvious that the King James or any English translation is inferior in its ability to capture gender grammar (not to mention other untranslated grammatical devices and nuances) by nature of English use. This makes English a very poor language in which to read biblical languages and precludes the possibility of an double-inspiration translation. Relative to gender grammar, a language like Spanish would be a better carrier of such critically important interpretive cues. Additionally, if the KJV is the English base text “word of God” for translation into foreign languages, then how is one to construct gender when translating form the sexless English to a gender-sensitive language? These are serious challenges to the King-James inspiration position.

Daniels Loves King James More than Jesus!

2009-01-07T22:41:00.000-05:00

Daniels’ internet article entitled “What is the Septuagint” (available at http://www.scionofzion.com/septuagint1.htm) makes the following assertions about the Septuagint (LXX): it was composed sometime after the New Testament, it is not referenced by the New Testament, and it should not be referred to for critical studies. According to Daniels’ website, he believes that the KJV is the inspired Word of God and should be heralded exclusively as such to the preclusion of any other translation. This post seeks to redress some of Daniels’ dishonest and misinformed supporting evidences and conclusions.

The study of the textual development of the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament reveals that the presence of textual variation or variant readings actually increases the further back one examines a manuscript. Hence, an Old Testament (OT) manuscript from 200 BCE will have more variation (viz., a greater diversity of readings) than a text from 500 CE or later. This contrasts with the cataloguing of New Testament (NT) textual diversity as the NT manuscripts (mss) actually display a decrease in variation the further back in time one sampels and a corresponding increase in variation the later from which a manuscript is sampled from. When one samples from the available 2nd Temple mss, one finds an incredibly diverse range of readings when compared to readings present in the post 10th century standardized Masoretic Text (MT).

None of the extant OT mss samplings form the 2nd Temple era match the modern MT. Instead of displaying absolute textual continuity, the mss tend to fall into categories that are generally labeled as “proto-Masoretic” or LXX. Further adding to the diversity of textual groupings, there appears to have been at least three textual families identified by geographical provenance: Egyptian, Palestinian/Judean, and Babylonian. The Babylonian is the deemed the closest to today’s MT. The Egyptian is identified with the LXX, and the Palestinian/Judean family is evidenced by readings in the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS). All of these texts are Hebrew groupings, though some of the variant readings are only preserved in translation in such sources as the Samaritan Pentateuch or the LXX.

Before scholarly acquaintance with the Samaritan Pentateuch began, it was believed that the LXX demonstrated the existence of a Hebrew text that differed from the MT. The cataloguing of the unique readings of the Samaritan Pentateuch provided Hebrew correspondences between many of the unique Greek Pentateuchal readings of the LXX. However, with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, there was an immediate proliferation of Hebrew readings that agreed with the LXX. One of these readings is that in Psalm 22:16.

“For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet” (Psalm 22:16, KJV).

Christologically, this passage is derived from the same where Jesus states, “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me? (Psalm 22:1), and many Christians have considered the reference to the piercing of hands and feet an explicit foretelling of the crucifixion. Of interest, only two mss of the modern, standardized MT contain the reading “they pierced my hands and my feet,” and these mss (of hundreds sampled) have only been identified in the last one-hundred years. Hence MT itself did not contain this Christological reading as it is translated in the KJV. The only mss that contained this reading was the LXX! The KJV translators deferred to the LXX for this translation! They jettisoned the MT text that they apparently love so much.

The Hebrew MT reading of this verse is as follows:

ורגלי ידי כארי

This reading can be translated as it is in Jewish translations as:

..like a lion, they are at my hands and my feet

Before the uncovering of the DSS (Dead Sea Scrolls), there were virtually no authoritative mss with a Hebrew basis for this reading. The only textual foundation for this reading was the LXX. However, the DSS display a preference for the “Christological reading” of “they have pierced.” Yet, again, it must be emphasized, that the KJV translators allowed the LXX to influence their translation.

The DSS not only evidence a Hebrew mss preference for the “pierced reading” they also contain Greek translations of the OT that fall within the LXX family of texts. Additionally, there are Hebrew mss among the DSS that fall both into the proto-Masoretic (Babylonian), Palestinian, and Egyptian-LXX families of textual variance. To argue that the LXX did not exist before the completion of the NT is to ignore this evidence.

The NT itself quotes frequently, though not exclusively, from the LXX textual family. Examples of this can be found by comparing, in the KJV, the readings of Isaiah 40:3 compared with Matthew 3:3 where the NT agrees with the LXX. Additional examples of the same can be found in Isaiah 61:1 and Luke 4:18; Isaiah 29:13 and Mark 7:8; et. al. in which the NT Greek quotation of the OT differs from the Hebrew in favor of the LXX reading.

The example of Psalm 22:16 is interesting as it pertains to a single-letter variation that can be easily corrected. The difference is between a yod (“jot”) and a waw (or vav). If the interpretation of Jesus that Daniels’ makes regarding the preservation of the each “jot” is correct, then Jesus’ statement is wrong, and Jesus is either a lunatic or a liar (to use popular parlance, though I prefer to not to be so polarized). The KJV prefers the LXX reading here (and elsewhere) despite the reading of the MT.

I conclude: textually critical consideration of the LXX was good enough for King James, and it is good enough for me!

No Entirely New Features Have Evolved

2008-10-20T10:54:00.000-04:00

It is true, no entirely new features have evolved, ever. I know this as a fact. And, rather than being a denial of evolution, it is one of the strongest evidences against creationism.

Every "new feature" that has evolved is a modification of previously existing features. The bat's wing is not a de novo appearance. The bat's wing is a modification of tetrapod forelimbs which are themselves modified sarcopterygian pectoral fins. An entirely new feature, appearing out of nowhwere, would be an evidence for creationism.

I am going out on a limb to make this claim. It can appear as though complex new features appear suddenly if one separates the lineage by too many years. Hence, if one takes a single-celled paramecium from the Paleozoic and compares it to an aquatic mammalian cetacean from the Cenozoic, it will be obvious that there are new features. However, the features that are "new" on the cetacean are yet modifications of previous adaptations from her ancestors.

This claim seques into the reality that there is such an interconnectedness in life that screams of common ancestry through evolution that I do not see how it can be logically and pragmatically reconciled with creationism. It would not take much to create significant discontinuities in life. For example, a centaur with a equine body and a homind abdomen and head would be discontinious with previous life. Why wouldn't a creater make discontinuities to demonstrate a fingerprint rather than making life so explicable through phylogeny and homologies?

Mantid Wastefulness and the Divine Nature in Creation (Creatures that Defy Creationism)

2008-10-13T10:38:00.001-04:00

"She's on your foot! She's on your foot! Don't move or you'll squish her," I yelled to my oldest son yesterday. A praying mantis was climbing up onto his shoe, and, fearful that he might dislodge and squish the enormous insect, I told him to remain still. The mantis climbed down, and we watched her for the next five minutes. It was about six in the evening on October 12^th, and the sun was orange with its rays extended horizontally through warm evening air.

The mantis was exposed. She sat in the mowed grass and would have been an easy meal for many a chordate. Her location inspired me to attempt to feed her. My kids and I caught a grasshopper and tossed it into the immediate field of the mantis' vision. The mantis saw the movement. She began to sway like a twig in the breeze. The grasshopper froze. I took a narrow twig and prodded the grasshopper into movement, and she moved just enough to remain in the mantis' sights. The mantis coupled her praying arms together, held close to her abdomen. Suddenly the grasshopper was held in her death grasp; she had caught her next meal.

It was a somewhat gruesome sight. The mantis began to eat the grasshopper immediately, tearing off and out large portions of the still squirming, still moving, still living prey. The grasshopper resisted for the next two minutes as the mantis grasped her in an unforgiving clench—ripping off pieces, each tear a step closer to the grasshopper's death. On two occasions the mantis looked away from her prey and stopped eating to investigate a nearby movement. I told the kids to remain still because a distracted mantis will readily drop a half-eaten, though quite alive, prey if she spies another food opportunity.

When I kept a mantis captive for a few weeks in the Fall of 2005, I was rather disturbed by its wastefulness. If more prey options were in sight, it wouldn't finish eating one insect at a time. Instead, it would capture a cricket, take a few bites, drop it, and capture another cricket to repeat the process. This would continue until there were up to a dozen crickets squirming on the bottom of her terrarium. With large portions of their midsections gone, the crickets would hang on to life for anywhere from a few hours to a day. Some would get up and walk; others would slowly move their legs or merely display life through the metabolic moving of their abdomen.

Ferocious and wasteful creatures these mantids are. As we were hunched over the mantis, I rehearsed how the mantis was incongruent with the Young-Earth Creationist model of a deathless world before the Fall. In the Young- Earth Creationist (YEC) pre-Fall world, there was no death; hence, the mechanisms of predation and defense would be superfluous. The mantis defies YEC incorporation. She displays superior predation adaptations through her developed, flesh-tearing jaws; abilities to mimic a swaying branch to avoid detection of her predatory advances; strong, large front legs for catch and grasping prey. Additionally, she is equipped with leaf-like wings and twig-like legs that prevent her from becoming someone else's meal. What functions would these adaptations play in a deathless world?

Paul tells the Romans that God's "everlasting power and divine nature" are manifest in God's creation. As a non-theist, I experience a sense of humility, awe, and grandeur when I fellowship with the mantis. However, I scarcely see the manifestation of a benevolent deity in her death grasp and wanton wastefulness, nor do I see a creature consistent with the predictions of Young-Earth Creationism. What benefit would large death claws have for the vegetarian mantis? I see the workings of natural selection and millions of years of specific refinements in the mantis. I do not see God. Paul was wrong.

Wedding Collage

2008-09-29T19:51:00.000-04:00

What Happens When You Are Married to the Swamp Thing

2008-08-10T23:52:00.000-04:00

Peter & Sara in the Crystal River During a Rain Shower

2008-07-18T08:33:00.000-04:00

Deap in the waters of Baldwin Lake...

2008-05-12T23:43:00.000-04:00

I caught this gal sun bathing on the banks of a central Michigan lake in late April. She had just positioned herself out of the water where I had seen here a few hours before. Catching turtles like this is one of my specialties.

A Critical Response to: Evolution and the Challenge of Morality by Lisle

2008-04-28T10:18:00.001-04:00

Dr. Lisle authored Evolution and the Challenge of Morality which is available in full text on the Answers in Genesis website at: http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2008/04/14/evolution-challenge-of-morality.

Dr. Lisle presents morality in rigidly-defined categories of right and wrong with the Bible as the final arbiter between the two. He posits the Bible as the only absolute source of ethics and morality. In contrast he presents evolutionary worldviews as morally nihilistic and devoid of absolute. Lisle’s contrast is presented well in his following assertion:

All things belong to God (Psalm 24:1) and thus, God has the right to make the rules. So, an absolute moral code makes sense in a biblical creation worldview. But if the Bible were not true, if human beings were merely the outworking of millions of years of mindless chemical processes, then why should we hold to a universal code of behavior? Could there really be such concepts as right and wrong if evolution were true?

Hence, on the one hand moral absolutism is sourced in the Bible as the express will of a Creator who has the ontological right to “make the rules.” On the other hand a view of morality that lacks the Bible while sourcing biological reality to “mindless chemical processes” is internally inconsistent.

Lisle’s simplistic upholding of the Bible as a source of moral absolutes assumes a degree of textual perspicuity that is untenable. He fails to acknowledge that the Bible is not a simple code of ethics and morality and that the biblical reader arrives at morals from the text by a complex process of merging embedded subjective propriospect with variegated levels of exegesis. Finally, Lisle’s pejorative view of morality apart from the Bible—specifically against the backdrop of an evolutionary worldview—demonstrates profound ignorance of the dynamics of evolution at work with socio-biology.

Despite Lisle’s promise that the Bible is an “absolute moral code,” the Bible contains context specific ethics. The Bible is anything but a clear and unambiguous ethical guide or a casebook on ethical behavior. In the Bible, morality is filtered through culturally and context specific case law embedded in concrete historical circumstances and unique social exigencies. Proper biblical exegesis must take into consideration the context of a biblical reading—asking the question of what the reading meant to the initial readers. Historical reconstruction of context is a fallible process; hence, the context that one might construct for a passage might be revolutionized in time with the discovery of new and relevant information.

Unfortunately, most biblical readers are undisciplined exegetes. They lack the tools and training to read biblical texts with hermeneutical precision. As a result, modern-day assumptions about what is right and wrong creep into their readings. Despite the clear teaching of the Bible (specifically the Old Testament), for example, that women are male capital and have less rights than men, few biblical readers realize the presence of this idea in the texts. Instead, they read their present cultural paradigms back into the text.

There is no easy way to use the Bible in ethical reflection. Exegetical discipline results in readings that are dependent on fallible historical reconstruction (e.g., Paul’s opponents in Galatians, the nature of “boiling a kid in mother’s milk”, etc.). Any ethical reflection built off of exegetical energies is even more contingent than the original reading. Popular, non-exegetical, reading of the Bible is fraught with the merger of modern morality with the ancient texts resulting in de novo readings. Ultimately, the derivation of meaning or morality from the Bible is a human process. And, unless one is willing to claim that her reading of the Bible is inerrant, her reading is as fallible as the next.

Morality makes sense from the perspective of evolution. Humans are social mammals. In social contexts we evolved morality and ethics as a means to social cohesion. Behaviors that are moral and altruistic result in greater degrees of social or tribal cohesion and hence better the chances of gene dispersal (natural selection). It is asinine to assert that ethics fail to exist apart from the Bible. Frankly, biblical ethics are as much a product of evolution as any type of workable ethical situation.

I have not answered all of the points in this article, but I have articulated my priority thoughts. There is more that can be said, and, if interest develops in the form of responses, maybe they can be brought to the fore.

Darwin

2008-02-28T00:41:00.000-05:00

And the Winner Is...

Darwin is the name for our new ferret.

Darwin was the functional name of our pet while we waited for the survey results here and on Sara's myspace account. Of course we took other factors into consideration, but the poll was helpful.

Darwin is a lot of work. He has ear mites along with an intestinal parasite that requires twice-a-day medication by mouth. Other treatments are not appropriate for the public record. He is growing, and he is growing on me. Though he is yet a kit and is fond of nipping toes and other digits, he is also quite affectionate. When he wakes up he enjoys having his belly rubbed, and when he tires out from play, he will cuddle up for a nap in one's lap.

Why was Darwin one of our options? As is already known, I am fond of Charles Darwin, one of the early advocates for the theory of biological evolution. The theory of evolution boasts explanatory abilities unrivaled by any competing model, especially the various ideologies of "biblical" creationism.

Though for years I resisted the overwhelming logic of evolution, I kept my logic subdued by my affections for King James and the pantheon Morris, Ham, RATE, and Humphreys. The maturing and refining of my applied biblical hermeneutics coupled with a developed yet growing knowledge of science eventually won over this idolatry allowing me to forgo commitments to intentional ignorance. Now the god of my affections is she who is yet a product of homid evolution and best revealed in the script of nature. As much as humanity needs her for existence, she also needs humanity.

Darwin, as one of the early popularizers of the theory of biological evolution, and as an icon representative of the intellectual liberation experienced in the shadow of this theory, is an appropriate name for my pet.

Approximations

The Other-Abled ("Disabled") as a Sacrament of Our Humanity

Top Reads of 2011

Chance Encounter & Confessional Identity

Psychological-Referential Revelation and Ethical Development

Objections to the Virgin Birth, Part 1

Truth and Remythologizing God

I believe...

The Direction of this Blog

Mutability of Torah, Example One

Mutability of Torah, Introduction

Is There a God? -- Is There Mind?

Houses to Dwell In

אֱלהִים עֵץ וָאָבֶן / Gods of Wood and Stone…and Paper and Ink

Hostile Honesty and Dishonest Apologetics

This Atheist Believes in God (and Does Theology)

Destroying the Idols of Local Truth

Ecclesiastes and Agnostic Destinies

Killing in the Name of the Wrong God

Atheism – An Incomplete Worldview

Magic Behind Closed Doors

"Ever Learning - Never Able to Come to a Knowledge of the Truth"

Partner Swapping in the Pentateuch

Godly Immorality

Primal [Diet] Piety

A Snapshot of My Experience with Demons

Instructional Manual for Life from Exchristian.net

Paul & Social Mobility

Atheistic Gratitude for the Bible

Justin Martyr and the Virgin-born, Dying, Rising Man-Gods

Robert Price Regarding Jesus in Jewish Context

Believing Truly is Seeing

God of Discontinuity

Holiness as Racism

A Virgin Without Her Virtue - What is the Word of the Lord?

Wisdom Regarding Religious Traditions from an Atheist

Getting Lost – Letting Go of Certainty

Shabbos Dinner is on Me

Robert Price on Naturalistic Historical-Critical "Bias"

Torahphobic Torah Talmid

Let Man be True and God a Liar: Judging God by "His Word"

My Girls on a Lazy Sunday After Church

Design Argument

Devil in the Details: Ichthyopterygia (Creatures that Defy Creationism)

Top Five Challenges to "Creationist Geology" from a Creationist

My Experience with Prayer: Planning an Escape Route

Late October Araneus Diadematus

Old [Yet Heavily Myelinated] Pathways

The Smiling Sun: A Reflection on Human Spirituality

A More Authentic Experience? -- Allowing Experience to Change Your Worldview

More False Dichotomies

Creation from Nothing

Biblical Inerrancy: A First-Line of Defense

Sabbath Driving: the Messianic Slippery Slope to Gay Butt Sex

Biblical Cosmologies, Part 3: Pentateuchal Portraits – Genesis 1b

The Christian Gospel and Politics

Science Vs. God

Biblical Cosmologies, Part 2: Pentateuchal Portraits – Genesis 1a

Biblical Cosmologies, Part 1

Hermeneutical Humility vs. Egoistic Eisegesis

Returning to the Cosmos - Reintroduction

Asher (and cousins) at the Helm

Messianic Negation of Torah

Arbitrary Morality: Another Unifying Characteristic of Fundamentalists

A Question to Measure Arbitrary Morality

What is Fundamentalism?

Evolution and Divine Agency: Reflections from a Non-Interventionist Naturalist

Biblical Morality -- Women's Suffrage

Ontologically Naturalistic Christian Scripture

Thoughts on Translation & Interpretation

The Genderless King James

Daniels Loves King James More than Jesus!

No Entirely New Features Have Evolved

Mantid Wastefulness and the Divine Nature in Creation (Creatures that Defy Creationism)

Wedding Collage

What Happens When You Are Married to the Swamp Thing

Peter & Sara in the Crystal River During a Rain Shower

Deap in the waters of Baldwin Lake...

A Critical Response to: Evolution and the Challenge of Morality by Lisle

Darwin