A prayer of repentance to be said after succumbing to the urge to forward a goofy email

David Ker has composed this lovely prayer of repentance to be said after succumbing to the urge to forward a goofy email:

God, I hang my head in shame.
My idiotic emails have tarnished your name.

Instead of spreading lucidity.
I have been a proclaimer of stupidity.

Words of praise to you should be my song.
Not forwarded emails that are always wrong.

Help me not to waste others’ time,
But instead reflect on the divine.

Make me a fool for Christ. I am a fool.
But let me not be the enemy’s tool.

Amen.

Please forward it to everyone you know, asking them to forward it to everyone they know if they want the prayer to be answered. :-)

Quote of the Day (John Walton)

"We should not expect the Bible to answer the questions that arise from our own time and culture. Genesis was written to Israelites and addressed human origins in light of the questions they would have had. We should not try to make modern science out of the information that we are given, but should try to understand the affirmations that the text is making in its own context."

-- John H. Walton, "The Creation of Humankind in the Ancient Near East"

Die Tote Stadt

A blog I just found out about, Entartete Musik, is blogging Korngold's opera Die Tote Stadt.

Around the Blogosphere in a Time Loop

April DeConick has concluded that the Jesus reconstructed by Norman Perrin and by the Jesus Seminar are "bankrupt". She helpfully clarifies that this doesn't lead her to a "mythicist" position, because "parallels between Jesus' myth and other ancient myths tell us nothing about whether or not he lived as a real person. It only tells us that ancient people cast their memories of Jesus into mythological narratives and schema that were part of their culture and minds."

Ben Witherington lets Martin and Barton interact on meaning and interpretation of the Bible, sharing before he's done an experience of hitchhiking to the "four corners of the earth"..

There's a debate between Bart Ehrman and James White, as well as the continuation of a discussion between James Crossley and Michael Bird.

Paul Levinson talks about the time-loop compass in LOST. IO9 has a fascinating post about whether Daniel Faraday named his rat after his mother, and whether he recognized her on the island in this past week's episode. I'm starting to wonder whether Daniel Faraday is not only the son of Eloise Hawking, but also of Charles Widmore, and thus Penny's brother. Penny looks a lot like the younger "Elly", and perhaps it will be this revelation that will persuade Penny to accompany Desmond further on his journey, perhaps even to the island.

There are videos from a course at Stanford called Darwin's Legacy, as well as other links to Darwin scholars at The Dispersal of Darwin. Gordon Glover is making video lectures by Dennis Venema available. John Pieret blogs the responses to Jerry Coyne's recent piece on religion and science in Edge.

LOST: The Polar Bear Explained

Contrary to what I've still sometimes seen on web pages and blogs, we now pretty much have all the pieces of the puzzle to make sense of the presence of polar bears on the island.

(1) Charlotte visited a site in Tunisia where a skeleton of a polar bear, wearing a Dharma Initiative logo on its collar, was unearthed.

(2) The site where the donkey wheel is that moves the island is freezing cold.

(3) When Ben moved the island, he ended up at a different time and in the Tunisian desert.

All this adds up to the Dharma Initiative having used a polar bear to move the island at some point. I don't think there are any loose ends, although the fact that Dharma rather than the Others appear to have moved the island at some point is striking. But we've been getting indications that the Dharma Initiative and the Others may just be human factions vying for the island. Neither seems to be the "original inhabitants" that have been mentioned, who are presumably Richard Alpert's own people.

Goodbye Rabbit Ears?

I was surprised to read in today's New York Times, in an article about the move to digital TV, a reference to "a public-service campaign that after Feb. 17 the rooftop antenna connected to [one's] television would no longer function properly". This is not in fact correct. When I purchased my current HDTV, I bought a new antenna that was supposed to be specific for HD/digital television reception. What I found was that it worked less well than the one I already had. It is the television itself that is the issue when it comes to digital reception, not the antenna.

Why LOST may be the best Soap Opera since the invention of the Wireless

I watched LOST tonight with a bit of a delay, as my TV is on the fritz. Fortunately I was able to record it and then watch it on the computer screen. If you haven't watched the episode yet, this post contains spoilers.

The episode "Jughead" has so much that makes LOST great in it, including moments of human joy (for instance, the birth of Desmond and Penny's son Charlie) as well as answers to mysteries (we now know that Richard is "really old", and that John Locke sets in motion the events that will eventually lead to the presence of Richard Alpert at his birth and at other points during his life). But the best moment is when John Locke, back in 1952, gets to meet Charles Widmore, who is at that point one of the Others! In another scene, the older Widmore tells Desmond that he should not get mixed up in these things, which go back many years. He also tells Desmond that Faraday's mother is in Los Angeles and is a "very private person".

It sounds like they are gearing up to reveal that Eloise Hawking is Daniel Faraday's mother. But that will create an interesting situation, since that will mean that Faraday's mother is working with Ben while Widmore has been funding her son's research. Things get still more complex when we consider that Hawking seems to consider Desmond important, and yet Ben wants to kill Penny - who is Desmond's constant, and whose death would presumably lead to Desmond's!

What makes LOST great is that it has an element of the mysterious - at times at least trying to be scientific, at times seeming perhaps supernatural - but it centers around human characters that viewers can come to care about. What gives LOST an edge over most TV series, even sci-fi ones like Star Trek, is its willingness not to try to turn every episode into a mini-story that can be enjoyed as a self-contained unity. (IO9 has a great flow chart to make such an episode yourself). We can understand why that approach is appealing: it allows a viewer to drop in almost anywhere and be able to make sense of what is going on. Before it was possible to watch not only reruns but DVDs of earlier seasons that one bought, borrowed or rented, expecting viewers to run out and get caught up was unrealistic.

Yet it did happen on daytime television. I doubt that there are many people who watch Days of our Lives in the present who have seen every episode since it began. The pitfall of such ongoing shows is their endlessness. On the one hand, the aim becomes simply to keep the show going, by finding yet another dead character who can return to life, or yet another missing twin, or pairing up the various affairs differently. On the other hand, while there is nothing inherently wrong with making things up as you go along (at some point all authors and screenwriters do that, whether before the series begins or at some later point), some plot elements never get resolved - as for instance John Black on Days of our Lives, who more than a decade later still doesn't have his memories back and not only didn't turn out to be any of the people initially suspected or in any obvious way live up to the hype surrounding his introduction. LOST has limits and will not go on forever, and that is a good thing - and particularly appropriate for a show about time travel.

Quote of the Day (Mordecai Kaplan)

"Just as science entered upon a new stage in its development when it replaced the deductive method with the inductive, so can religion parallel the progress of science by subjecting its own assumptions and processes to analysis."

-- Mordecai M. Kaplan, Judaism as a Civilization (New York: Macmillan, 1935) p. 309.

What Do You Say That I Did?

In my Sunday school class this past Sunday, we moved on from discussing who Jesus was to discussing what he did, and how it relates to the Christian experience usually placed under the heading of "salvation".

I began with the story of a child who, in church on Good Friday, asked her parents why anyone would crucify a 3-month-old baby. Apparently the church's year, celebrating Easter a few months after Christmas, was being taken somewhat too literally. My reason for telling this story is that, for some Christians, if Jesus had died at 3 months old it would apparently not have much of an impact on their understanding of what Jesus had come to accomplish. He had come to die, and between birth and death Jesus was simply "killing time" waiting to die. Any view of the cross that ignores the life that preceded it is going to be problematic.

It is not surprising that some Christians view Jesus in this way. On the one hand, since Paul had not followed Jesus in the pre-Easter period (although he may have become aware of the movement centered on him as soon as it reached Jerusalem, whether before or after Easter), and because he was writing to individuals who could be presumed to have had Christian tradition passed on to them, Paul never fills his letters with stories about Jesus' life. The cross was also the part of the story of Jesus that was potentially the most troubling, and thus the early Christians had had to make it central, and come up with an explanation that would regard the cross as a necessary and intelligible part of God's plan, and so they had found a way of interpreting it as salvific.

Another key focus in the Sunday school class was on what theologians call the "penal substitution" view of atonement. It is problematic for a number of reasons, not least of which is that it is based on a view of justice that no one would otherwise accept. If the U.S., failing to apprehend Osama bin Laden, claimed that it had nonetheless accomplished its mission because they executed some other innocent individual in his place, I doubt if anyone would be happy with this as a resolution of the matter.

It is also a view of the cross that is not found in the Bible. Sure, it can be read into it, but it cannot be found there unless one is already looking for it. For Paul, the key meaning of Jesus' death is summed up well in 2 Corinthians 5:14-15: "one died for all, and therefore all died". That's almost the exact opposite of the popular Evangelical message, "one died instead of all, so that they might not have to die". Even if we conclude that Paul's language of "dying with Christ" is just another way of talking metaphorically about denying ourselves and self-sacrifice, it nevertheless makes clear that the Christian view of "salvation" expressed here is not about Jesus doing something instead of us, but of something that involves us and happens to us and in us. Ironically, while some feel they are glorifying God by making atonement something that involves no action or effort on our part, they've also radically departed from a central component of early Christian belief.

Next week we'll begin a new topic, spending some time in the creation stories in Genesis 1-3 and discussing matters of creation, cosmology, evolution and science.

Latin Language LOST

Since there are at least as many readers of this blog interested in antiquity as in LOST, I had to share the following clip that has been made available from the upcoming LOST episode "Jughead". It features Others speaking Latin!

HT IO9

There's also a nice post from someone who doesn't resent being tricked into enjoying this sci-fi series, as long as the time-travel part stays relatively unparadoxical. I don't think anything could ruin the series for patient fans than a conclusion that involves the whole series we watched in earlier seasons never having happened!

No Explanations

This sign needs to be widely circulated. I presume it comes from a church that was concerned tourists and guides would speak in the church, disturbing worshippers. But there are so many other ways it could be contrued, not to mention its potential for use in a powerpoint about 1 Corinthians 14:35...

(HT Theophrastus and E-Kvetcher)

Quote of the Day (Mike Leaptrott)

"Lately, I've come to see faith and doubt as complimentary ingredients in our cocktail of thought. When was the last time you enjoyed a glass of lemon juice or a spoon full of sugar? We may disagree about the perfect recipe for lemonade and some of us may opt for more experimentation over more traditional mixtures, but most of us will agree that the bitter-sweet sum of these ingredients is much better than its parts."

-- Mike Leaptrott, "Faithful Doubt"

Mythical Multi-Bloggersation

The discussion of the "mythical Jesus" viewpoint that has at times been present here (I can hardly say it "began" here) has spread to AIG Busted, in the form of a post that also touches on creationism, cosmology, and (in the comments) even Japanese Role Playing Games, Justin Martyr and sons of Jupiter. so there's something there for just about everyone, no matter what your interests!

Beauty Detection Apparatus or Beauty Creation Apparatus?

In some cases, we have built devices to detect such things as radioactivity, or infrared light. In other cases, we have built devices to pick up and decode signals that we as human beings have produced. The air all around you and I is filled with music, but it may take a radio receiver to experience it. Without a radio, and without knowledge of radios, you might well be skeptical of such a claim to pervasive music.

We perceive beauty in the universe, but are we detecting something that is inherent in it, or are we in fact creating beauty through our perception?

If the former, then there is nothing inappropriate about envisaging an artistry behind the universe.

If the latter, then that places us in an interesting situation. If we ask, "What is the meaning of the universe?" we may well have to answer that we are the ones who bring meaning into it. who bestow meaning upon it. If we ask what is the source of the universe's beauty, then once more we may have to answer that we ourselves are the source, not of all that we perceive as beautiful, but of the very perception of beauty.

In the former case, we have the opportunity to explore and ponder ultimate questions. In the latter, we have a daunting responsibility as meaning-makers.

The two cases may differ significantly, but in both cases there is a lot more to be said and explored and pondered than simply analysis and evidence. In both cases there is an existential challenge that confronts us: if that is the way things are, what should we do about it, and how should we then live in light of our understanding of our place in the universe?

Encountering Jesus

This past Sunday we rounded up a discussion of Christology in the Sunday school class I teach. In response to the suggestion that belief in the "divinity" of Jesus might be essential to Christianity, I took a different tack than I usually might. Usually I would have pointed out that most or all of the earliest Christians might not have been "Christian" by this standard (on this subject I recommend the podcast on the radio show Unbelievable featuring a discussion between James Crossley and Michael Bird). This time, I asked what "divinity" meant, and then followed up with another question, one that I want to pose here and expand upon.

Most if not all Christians would affirm that their encounter with Jesus has mediated to them an experience of God. But what does it mean to say "God was in Christ"? More importantly, what would the difference be between meeting an individual who was a pre-existent divine person who had taken on human limitations, and meeting an individual who was more fully inspired or "possessed" by God than anyone else had been? Could anyone encountering such individuals distinguish which was which on the basis of their encounter?

Going further, could any historical evidence demonstrate that a person was God incarnate (as opposed to demonstrating that the individual believed he or she was God incarnate, or was thought to be by others)? Could any historical evidence demonstrate that someone was 100% divinely inspired, or that they were merely more fully open to God than others have been?

In light of our inability to settle such matters by any means that all participants in discussions of Christology would agree on, what is the appropriate response? Is it time to stop expecting Christians to adhere to creedal statements that affirm things which cannot be proven, even to the satisfaction of all Christians?

There have been a lot of discussions lately about quests for the historical Jesus (see for instance the posts by April DeConick, Bruce Chilton, Joseph Hoffman, James Crossley (more than once), Tom Verenna, Bob Macdonald, and others). Christology should not ignore the results of history, any more than Christian theologians reflecting on cosmology can afford to ignore the evidence from physics and astronomy. And when it goes beyond it, we should acknowledge that we are entering an area of great subjectivity, one that not only has been but ought to be in flux across the range of human history, culture and experience. Much confusion about the figure of Jesus has resulted precisely because Christians have confused their own Christologies with what historians can and should say about Jesus, and have often failed to acknowledge what historians cannot say on the basis of the tools and evidence of their discipline.

LOST Rules

Those who have seen tonight's episodes of LOST will probably get the pun in the title. Those who haven't ought not to read this post yet. Knowing about the future doesn't do most of us any good. Spoilers will follow. You've been warned.

After waiting so long for the new season of LOST, it is great to see it come back full steam ahead, providing answers to our questions. It is nice to have the science-fiction aspect of the series out in the open, and there is no longer any doubt that time travel is a major component. A key theme that will be explored is whether it is possible to change the past. Daniel Faraday has studied the physics of it, and seems quite persuaded that "if it didn't happen, it can't happen". Yet it dawns on him that the rules (a word that keeps coming up in LOST lately) don't apply to Desmond, who is uniquely special, perhaps because he has become unstuck in time and found a constant. And presumably Daniel's involvement with the Dharma Initiative, glimpsed in today's episode and in the clip featuring Dr. Pierre Chang made available off the show, indicates some second thoughts about the subject.

The most interesting revelation to me was the extent of Ben's connections off the island. He is not working alone, trying to get back to the island. He is part of a larger project, and behind it all appears to be Ms. Hawking. Her presence in a monk-like robe and then meeting Ben in a church suggests that there will be spiritual as well as scientific overtones to the season, as has been true of the show from the very beginning. But does the focus on getting the Oceanic Six and John Locke back to the island also indicate that there was manipulation involved in bringing them to the island in the first place? I'm almost sure of it now, that they had to be brought there, and then brought back, because something happened, and some who know the future know that that means those things have to happen. But to what end? What is the goal of the shadowy figures behind it all? Did Ms. Hawking turn the donkey wheel once in the past? Was she there when the first "incident" at the Swan station occurred and affected by it? Will "Adam and Eve" turn out to be Jack and Kate, or Desmond and Penny, or Charles Widmore and Ms. Hawking, or someone else?

What makes this point in the series exciting is that we are getting revelations and yet still have enough questions (including new ones, or old ones redefined in new ways through new information) to keep it exciting. And the most interesting hint from Cuse and Lindelhof is that we don't yet know enough about the relationship between Linus and Widmore. There are keys that they still haven't given to us yet. But the Lostmas present they did give us we'll be unwrapping for weeks to come.

A Historic Inauguration, A Historic Sermon Still To Come

I've watched the events of the last 24 hours with awe and excitement, unable to think of anything to blog that would be adequate to the occasion.

But I do want to mention that Rev. Sharon Watkins, who will be preaching at the National Prayer Service tomorrow, is not only a Butler University graduate, but as the daughter of a professor at Christian Theological Seminary, she essentially grew up on and around the Butler campus.

We have much to be proud of as a country, and plenty of people are talking about various aspects of the significance of this moment in history. As we move beyond inauguration day, a day in which groups consistently omitted from mention in the past were included in the moving address made by a man himself part of a group once excluded, I thought I'd mention the Butler connection to the first woman to lead the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), and the first woman to lead the National Prayer Service.

So Insignificant, So Special

The latest cartoon from The Ongoing Adventures of ASBO Jesus captures well how there can be different perspectives on the same evidence. I'd say that both can be true, simultaneously, as different facets of the same reality.

Doubt in Faith's Clothing

I found myself thinking today that what fundamentalists call "faith" looks surprisingly like "doubt", and what they consider "doubt" at the very least demonstrates a greater amount of "faith" than their own so-called "faith".

Let me explain. (And, by the way, I hope none of those "quotation marks" were "unnecessary")

Fundamentalists increasingly take measures to try to insulate themselves, and in particular their children, from other viewpoints, and in particular discussions of topics related to science or the academic study of the Bible. Where, in such actions, is any expression of faith that God will watch over them, or even faith that honest seeking after answers and consideration of the evidence will lead to the truth, and that that is a good thing? Where is faith that there is power in their message and the gates of hell cannot withstand it?

Instead, the behavior of many extreme fundamentalists reveals what they really have, deep down: doubt, fear, and uncertainty. If there is one thing that they seem in general to be certain of, it is that exposure to intelligent, rational discussion is something dangerous. Their faith, when they have any, is in insulation of themselves into "holy huddles" as protection against the onslaught of reason, discussion, investigation and even honesty. Is it any wonder that apocalyptic is so popular in such circles?

Honest investigation, on the other hand, involves faith. Faith that it is worth getting to know the Bible better, even if it turns out to be a far more human and far less perfect collection of writings than we had hoped. Faith that seeking after the truth is a good thing, even if it doesn't lead us to places we would have foreseen. Faith that when we change our minds as we learn, grow and mature, this is healthy and helpful.

To allow the simplistic understanding we had as children, and the childish and immature attitude that went along with it, to be shattered and transformed, involves great faith, in the sense of trust in a process of growth, in the sense of confidence in the ability of honest inquiry to lead to truth and understanding, and also in the sense of courage.

On the other hand, avoiding exposure to other views, and attempting to insulate and isolate ourselves, is as clear an expression of doubt as I can imagine.

Quotes of the Day

I couldn't choose, so here are several gems to choose from:

"Biblical inerrancy can't hold off demographic realities forever" (Bill Leonard)

"I've said it before: the surprising thing isn't that creationists are dishonest; it's that, with all the practice they've had, they aren't any better at it" (John Pieret).

"If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less" (General Eric Shinseki).

Spoiler Alert

I finally got to watch the latest episode of Battlestar Galactica. Answers and more questions. Despair and freedom. I am sure I'll have some thoughts, but for now, here are links to all the posts I turned my eyes away from over the course of the day, as I waited for the chance to see it first myself...

SF Gospel reflects on the dark night of the fleet's soul. Carmen Andres offers meandering thoughts on these meandering humans and cylons. Christopher Smith grapples with loss of faith and hope in Earth. IO9 live-blogged the episode and also has a poll on who the final cylon should have been. Galactica: Variants has a review. Barbara Nicolosi is a bit bitter. Paul Levinson has some interesting thoughts about the final cylon.

Teach Them Science

I've just been made aware of two web sites related to science education and/or the relationship between religion and evolution. The first is called Teach Them Science. The second is the Fact and Faith website, which includes a book that can be downloaded for free entitled God By Evolution.

On The Trail Of Bullgeschichte

My quest for NT Wrong took me across vast stretches of time and space. Today's quest took me to unexpected places, too, but the end is one I ought to have seen coming.

I've been discussing mythicism as well as oral tradition, both in relation to the historical figure of Jesus, on this blog in recent weeks and months. Today I had a review, written by Robert M. Price, about Eddy and Boyd's The Jesus Legend, pointed out to me by Tom Verenna. The review contains such colorful statements as "Here oral tradition has become anal tradition. Heilsgeschichte has turned into Bullgeschichte." When I went to look for the review again, I discovered that this was not the first use of the term "Bullgeschichte". By way of Higgaion and Daily Hebrew, I discovered the origin of the term.

The origin of Bullgeschichte can be traced to none other than Jim West.

Those who know Jim and his work will not find this at all surprising.

Androids and Antiquity Around the Blogosphere

IO9 asks whether androids pray to electric gods. Galactica Sitrep tells us all the places we can get access to Battlestar Galactica episodes. John Morehead will be turning his attention to Mormon myth and sacred narrative.

Ancient World Online and Horothesia share links to online ancient sources, such as the Nag Hammadi texts and the Duke Databank of Documentary Papyri.

Ken Schenck will be blogging Dunn's Jesus Remembered on Fridays. April DeConick discusses translation problems in the opening line of the Gospel of Judas. And Mike Bird begins a Revelation bonanza with a post on angel Christology.

Review of Keith Ward, The Big Questions in Science and Religion

Here's the Table of Contents for my multi-post review of Keith Ward, The Big Questions in Science and Religion (West Conshohocken: Templeton Foundation Press, 2008):

Introduction and a Quotation

Chapter 1: How Did The Universe Begin?

Chapter 2: How Will the Universe End?

Chapter 3: Is Evolution Compatible with Creation?

Chapter 4: Do the Laws of Nature Exclude Miracles?

Chapter 5: What Is The Nature Of Space And Time?

Chapter 6: Is It Still Possible To Speak of the Soul?

Chapter 7: Is Science the Only Sure Path to Truth?

Chapter 8: Can Science Provide a Wholly Naturalistic Explanation for Moral and Religious Beliefs?

Chapter 9: Has Science Made Belief in God Obsolete?

Chapter 10: Does Science Allow for Revelation and Divine Action?

Latest (Last?) Dharma Special Access Videos

The 8th (and perhaps final?) Dharma Special Access videos have been posted. The first is a sneak peek at a Hurley-centric moment in the season premiere. The second is the "faces of LOST", and I can't help but feel that the backgrounds and settings in which the photos of the cast were taken are symbolic clues.

Keith Ward, Big Questions in Science and Religion 10: Does Science Allow for Revelation and Divine Action?

The final chapter in Keith Ward's book The Big Questions in Science and Religion focuses on the question of divine action. This is, in essence, the biggest question for a religious worldview interacting with modern science: What does God do? Ward begins by emphasizing the need to address such questions from a well-informed perspective: "Unfortunately, in religion, many people who are unable to cope with the complexities of academic theology tend to think that they have a better grasp of spiritual realities than mere scholars. But that is rather like the thousands of people who think they can disprove Einstein's theory of relativity or Darwinian evolution, even though they cannot solve differential equations or do not know how to identify a gene" (p.245). Beginning with ancient ideas and traditions, Ward moves into the modern context by raising the possibility that stories of miracles may be symbolic, and that even God is, in the view of some religious believers, "a figurative symbol" (p.246). Yet even if one rethinks the nature of and our relationship to an ultimate reality, "If there is such a reality, God, it will affect the nature of the universe" (p.246). And going further, "If there is a God with a purpose for human lives, it is almost inconceivable that God should not communicate that purpose and the means to achieve it...It is extremely unlikely that God should have a goal for the universe and do nothing in particular to bring it about" (p.248-249). Without giving blind allegiance to any prophet, ancient or modern, it is conceivable that there may be individuals whose insights in the realm of religion and spirituality are exceptional and worth listening to and perhaps even following, as is true in so many other areas and aspects of life.

Ward returns to process philosophy as an approach to theological thought that avoids the notion of a God external to the universe intervening in its otherwise closed system. Yet one option that Ward does not consider is that, just as the notion of emergent properties is so important in avoiding reductionism, might it not be appropriate to envisage God in such terms, not as a supernatural substance or entity that pre-exists the universe, but as the "soul" of the universe? Just as many find it necessary to reinterpret the meaning of such language as "soul" and "mind" as emergent from physical organisms but nonetheless emphatically real, might it not be helpful to envisage God in similar terms, not as outside the universe or in the space between its physical components, but as emerging from the relationship among and between the universe's complexities? What holds Ward back is his sense that one needs an initial mind to provide the matrix for the universe's regularities (p.259). Ultimately, I find such metaphors helpful as well, and since none of this language is literal description, there is no need for me to quarrel between the two sets of symbols, although Ward, having acknowledged that we do not know what the most fundamental nature of physical reality is, seems determined to go beyond the evidence in asserting that "Ontological primacy must be given to consciousness and its contents" (p.259). Consciousnesses remains something of a mystery, but this need not lead us to deny the possibility of its explanation in terms of emergent properties.

Ward acknowledges that he can only offer "an inconclusive conclusion" (p.269). But he does make some very important points on the final pages of his book. First, "The major philosophers of most world faiths...stress the unknowability of the Diving Essence, as the infinite reality underlying all the appearances of finite worlds. This is not some modern revisionist idea of God. It is the classical idea, which is as far from any anthropomorphic conception as you could get" (p.269). Second, he emphasizes that an individual's personal religious experience cannot be independently verified by another person, and thus, while arguments from personal experience will not necessarily be considered convincing, this is not a matter that science can settle (p.270). Finally, science cannot test for intention, purpose, and meaning, and neither are such things incompatible with science. Ultimately, Ward "ends" in an open-ended fashion, stating that the question of whether the world cries out to be explained entirely in materialistic terms, or points beyond itself to a Primordial Consciousness as source and ground of all things, "remains the biggest question of all" (p.271).

What strikes me again and again is how the universe seems to contain such order, beauty and transcendence that it seems to point beyond itself, and such regularity, chaos, law, and intelligibility that it seems to require explanation in scientific terms. For me, it is the desire to do justice to both these aspects of our existence, the simultaneously explicability and mysteriousness of the universe, that keeps me exploring both science and spirituality, both reason and religion, as ways to get to know it and myself better.

Ward's book has been an enjoyable read, offering a fascinating exploration of what are indeed some of the biggest questions related to the interface between science and religion. Even those well-read in this field are likely to find it useful, while those new to these topics will hopefully get a sense of just how wide and deep these waters are, and how many aspects of the natural sciences, the history of religions, theology and philosophy intersect at key points, and how often a thorough investigation of the best and most insightful contributions to human knowledge over the past few millennia still leave many fundamental questions unresolved. I recommend Ward's book, not because it answers the "big questions" but because it helps us to understand what the big questions are, how to answer them to the best of our ability, and how to live with the fact that many of them we may never be able to decisively and finally answer.

Ken Olson's Review of The Jesus Legend

Ken Olson has written an insightful review of Eddy and Boyd's The Jesus Legend. It touches on a number of issues that I'm currently working on, such as oral tradition and historical reliability. I highly recommend it!

Speaking of what we do not know

A while ago I shared a video offering a "review" of LOST by someone who hadn't seen it. Well, even funnier is this video in which someone who has never seen a Star Wars movie all the way to the end trying to piece together what happens in the trilogy. You will cry laughing!


Star Wars: Retold (by someone who hasn't seen it) from Joe Nicolosi on Vimeo.

On a more serious side, I also was made aware of an excellent video about what science is, that deals with less amusing aspects of talking about things we have never taken the time or effort to understand (HT Sandwalk):

Review of Biblical Literature Blog

Review of Biblical Literature has just announced that from now on it will also be maintaining a blog, providing both an additional format for accessing book reviews and a forum in which they can be discussed.

The address is http://rblnewsletter.blogspot.com/

Yahweh or No Way

Stephen Colbert is always entertaining, and his new segment "Yahweh or No Way" is no exception. The clip below touches on one subject mentioned here very recently, and is worth watching all the way to the end:

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Yahweh or No Way - Roland Burris

Colbert at Christmas
Colbert Christmas DVD

Green Screen
Bill O'Reilly Interview

In other news, scientists have been exploring our matrix, while the "LOST brain trust" explains why each episode contains a bit of cherry pie. Here's a taste:

Based on everything you’ve seen up to this point, we know that Ben and Widmore don’t get along with each other and that Widmore wants to control the island and believes that Ben has taken the island away from him. You don’t understand the context of that. You don’t know what their past is or their relationship. So if you’re going to look at it as, there’s a Ben side and Widmore side, I’d say, “Well, then what side are the Oceanic 6 on? Our castaways -- are they on their own side?”

Basically, the only two sides that matter in any grand, epic storytelling are good and evil. Who are the good guys and who are the bad guys? And for so long, Ben Linus has been identifying himself as a good guy, but we’ve been seeing him engage in behaviors that would lead us to believe that that is not entirely the truth. The only question that matters is, what is ultimately a force of good and what is ultimately a force of evil, and what side of it are our characters going to end up on? Will some go one way and some go the other?

Fourth Picture Meme

I've been known to pass on a good meme now and then. I've also at least once meant to return to one and failed to do so. Jim West tagged me on one that I'd just as gladly ignored. The rules are as follows:

Go to the 4th folder in your computer where you store your pictures.
Pick the 4th picture in that folder.
Explain the picture.
Tag 4 people to do the same.

The reason I could not ignore it was not because Jim West said so, but because the picture in question turned out to be this gem, which a friend of mine recently shared on Facebook:

The bad news is that I can offer little in the way of explanation. I and two friends, in our younger years, are in my living room, and I have no idea what we were doing, although there is a radio/cassette player on the table, so listening to music is one possibility.

I tag Mark Goodacre, James Crossley, Ken Schenck. I also tag NT Wrong, and add the following challenge: Rise, I say, rise, return to the blogosphere and share a photo! Can you really remain silent and leave this world as one in which my blog rather than yours is the top of the listing in a Yahoo! search for "NT Wrong"?

Mistaken Memories

Working on the subject of oral tradition has further exposed me to the fascinating field of psychology of memory. Not only is our memory of stories we've heard fallible, but our own memories of our own experiences are plagued by the same issues. And so even if Richard Bauckham is right about the importance of the ongoing presence of eyewitnesses in the earliest Christian community, this doesn't serve as a magic wand that will suddenly allow historians to presume the accuracy of sources.

On the one hand, the existence of eyewitnesses who know the truth does not always prevent false rumors from circulating and being widely believed. On the other hand, even eyewitnesses do not therefore automatically remember accurately or preserve details.

This came to mind as I read a piece on the New Humanist blog about Neale Donald Walsch, a BeliefNet blogger who explained his plagiarism in terms of a story he read being internalized and remembered as his own experience. Now, it must be emphasized that I have no particular reason to think this isn't merely an excuse. Indeed, Walsch seems to acknowledge that not only the gist of the story but the exact wording is the same, which is not compatible with his having heard or read the story a decade earlier and mistaken the story for a memory of his own experience. Precise extensive verbatim agreement wording indicates literary dependence, whether through direct copying from a written text, or through deliberate memorization of a written text. Nevertheless, the phenomenon of "cryptomnesia", of mistakenly treating something one has heard as a memory of one's own experience, is a documented psychological phenomenon.

Historical study deals with probabilities. There is never absolute certainty, even when we have eyewitness testimony. Imagine what the debates would be like if all those participating used appropriate qualifiers reflecting this uncertainty.

One Hundred Powers in the Blogosphere

Several bloggers have already noted the list of the Top 100 Theology Blogs that has been posted at the Christian Colleges web site. In addition to feeling honored to have made the list myself, I was delighted to learn that there is a blog dedicated to a subject that fascinates me, the rabbinic discussion of those who say there are "two powers in heaven".

Multiple Attestation and the Markan Apocalypse

My main academic project for my sabbatical is on oral tradition in early Christianity, and what is involved in taking seriously the fact that, even though all we have are literary remains, these are products of a primarily oral environment, and even when a literary relationship can be shown to exist, orality ought not to be ignored.

Mark 13 is a great case for illustrating Matthew's literary dependence on Mark. Not only is there extensive verbatim agreement over the course of the chapter's material, but at one point there is even agreement on an editorial comment, "Let the reader understand". Had these been understood as words stemming from Jesus, we would have expected the more common "He who has ears to hear, let him hear".

This close agreement of Matthew with his source should not give a historian confidence in Mark's material, but cause for concern. It is an axiom of historical study that independent attestation at times provides grounds for greater confidence in the authenticity of material under consideration. Matthew's close agreement here, in comparison with other stories and sayings where the agreement is less precise, may suggest that Matthew did not already have knowledge of the material he encountered here.

To put it another way, the material found in Mark 13 was not circulating so widely by oral means, even after the writing of Mark's Gospel, as to be known to the author of Matthew. There is other material where the agreement is less substantial, and in those cases Matthew, when composing his own work, may well have had a story read to him from Mark, in whole or in part, and then included in his own Gospel the version he [i.e. Matthew] already knew.

Close substantial verbatim agreement does not merely indicate literary dependence. It also should raise the historian's suspicion that the material was not widely known, and thus could only be included in the later author's literary work by direct copying/recitation. As studies of orality and the composition of ancient literature progress, it will likely increasingly seem that, where some might naively think that we have two or three witnesses in the Gospels to the same material and thus grounds for greater confidence, in fact the opposite will prove to be the case, and those points of strongest evidence for copying will be placed under serious doubt, as material that was not widely known independently of the reading of the written source that includes it.

The reverse argument cannot be made simply - wide divergence of wording in telling the same story may indicate a less direct use of Mark as a literary source, rather than independent memory. And of course, precise agreement only raises the suspicion that Matthew may not have already encountered the material previously; it cannot prove this to be the case.

Interestingly enough, historians have long had suspicions about Mark 13, believing it to be at best an artificially-constructed composite piece woven from separate material, if not in some or even many places composed by the Gospel's author. And so it may be that rethinking the relationship between orality and literature, and between the literary interdependence of the Synoptic Gospels and historical-critical investigations, may not radically change our understanding of the material. But it has the potential to do so, and it is thus important to reconsider well-worn subjects in light of our increased understanding of these foundational matters of orality and the methods of composition used by ancient authors.

Final Battlestar Galactica: Face of the Enemy Webisode

Here is Battlestar Galactica: The Face of the Enemy webisode number 10, the last in the series.

Most Recent Comments

I've added to the sidebar a gadget with the most recent comments that have been left, so that visitors can see where conversations are ongoing. Let me know if this feature is useful!

I've also added some daily astronomy pictures, just because...

Cutting Superman's Hair

Yesterday in my Sunday School class, we moved beyond our discussion of the varied portraits of Jesus found in the Gospels to begin to answer the question posed in Mark's Gospel, "Who do you say that I am?" Being so used to discussing the views of others, it was interesting and helpful to have to give me own personal answer to the question. Ultimately, what I kept coming back to as central was Jesus as crucified Messiah. Historians may debate (as illustrated by the book by Tom Wright and Marcus Borg mentioned by someone in the class, The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions) how Jesus viewed himself and how various Christian understandings of Jesus developed. But one thing seems clear. Christianity continued, while other messianic movements disappeared after the individual who was their focus was killed, because instead of concluding that Jesus was not the Messiah because he had been crucified, instead they reinterpreted what was meant by Messiah, leaving us with the challenge of following a path that does not lead to our own personal gain. It is the power of that message that has changed countless lives, and it does not ultimately depend on historical reconstruction in detail of all that Jesus said and did.

Other subjects came up which will be the focus of our discussion next time. It is common in a Christian context to speak about Jesus as "God". But what does that mean? When Jesus behaves humanly, is that "just his humanity at work" at that moment? Did God accept human limitations in the incarnation (the term for that being kenotic Christology)? Was Jesus striding the earth getting the answer to every question right?

That last question led to an interesting side debate about whether Superman could get a haircut. My own answer is that I view Jesus as a human being through whom I (and others) feel we've encountered the divine; I don't view him as a "superman".

In that same context this cartoon from the Far Side came up...

Quote of the Day (Jocelyn Penny Small)

"It simply was not possible physically for ancient historians with their work methods to dissect in memory contradictory variants into separate elements in order to produce a single, more logical version."

-- Jocelyn Penny Small, Wax Tablets of the Mind: Cognitive Studies of Memory and Literacy in Classical Antiquity (New York: Routledge, 1997) p.185.

A Death and a Resurrection

While it is being said that NT Wrong (the blog, not the person behind it) is dead, we have also heard glad tidings of a web site's resurrection. Early Christian Writings, one of the most useful online resources for the study of early Christian sources, has returned to life. So too has Early Jewish Writings. Hallelujah!

Many thanks to Peter Kirby, who maintains these sites. Their value is great, and it is too bad that the internet is not designed to allow him to hear the thundrous applause as the news of the return of these sites circulates among scholars and all sorts of other people interested in these subjects.

Jesus with or without Special Effects

Mike Leaptrott has a simply wonderful short reflection on his blog entitled "Jesus in CGI". He considers the miracles and other such facets of the Gospels as "special effects" and considers how they (like modern CGI effects) have the potential to make the "movie" more or less enjoyable. Here's a taste:

Current flavors of fundamentalism rely heavily on a kind of CGI interpretation of God that fills in the gaps where human actors could not possibly succeed. By fixating on the imagery, the underlying plot is lost.

Elsewhere in the blogosphere, Ricky Carvel has a post on Lazarus as "the disciple whom Jesus loved".

Appleseed

Recently I finally got around to watching the movie Appleseed and its sequel Appleseed: Ex Machina. You can watch the trailer for Appleseed here and the trailer for Ex Machina here. Like many works of Japanese anime, these movies explore the integration of human and machine, as well as other technologies such as cloning.

Both movies are trying to explore religious and philosophical themes, and yet the evidence of the superficiality of the filmmakers' knowledge in these areas is evident in many places, such as when the first movie begins with a quote from "Revelations 12:4" (with a superfluous 's'), or when we get a close-up of Briareos' arm and read what seems to have been an unsuccessful attempt to render "Cogito ergo sum" in Greek letters. Nevertheless, the questions the film tackles are indeed interesting and relevant, and the impressive artwork and aesthetic content alone makes it worth seeing the movies. If you are a fan of sci-fi in general, and in particular if you liked The Matrix and/or Ghost in the Shell, then you really should see Appleseed if you haven't already.

Some of the more interesting questions the movies explore relate to the consequences of integrating machine and human. In the movies, as one expects will also be the case in real life at some point in the future, machine supplements and replacement parts are used on people who are injured. We thus see a number of cybernetically-enhanced individuals on the police force, but not everyone has such enhancements, and so clearly they such technology is being used to save the lives and functionality of the injured, and not for the sake of enhancement alone. Being part machine has its drawbacks and not only advantages. One of the key moral questions often discussed in our time is the appropriateness of genetic and technological enhancement to improve humanity, rather than merely correct natural errors. And Appleseed explores notions of humanity living in harmony with and cooperating with computers and clones in ways that other films that I've watched do not.

We also get to explore a question that the Star Wars movies raise. If Anakin had ended up a cyborg but had never turned to the dark side, or had turned back and been reconciled to Padme, could she have loved him in this "taller, darker and arguably less handsome" form? We find Deunan Knute and Briareos Hecatonchires exploring their relationship through just such a situation (and, by the way, the name of the latter suggests that the filmmakers knew Classics even if they were sketchy on religion an philosophy).

One message of the movies is that humanity has a penchant for pushing itself to the brink of self-annihilation, but it also has a penchant for finding at the brink a way to avoid cataclysm. Ex Machina suggests at one point that all "Edens" are susceptible to serpents, but also that, having lost Eden, that doesn't mean humanity should give up on survival.

Society, Science and Scholarship Around the Blogosphere

The Nation (HT PaleoJudaica) has a piece about Guy Stroumsa's book publishing Morton Smith's correspondence with Gershom Scholem, which may shed light on the question of whether Smith forged the Secret Gospel of Mark.

Pomomusings is up to chapter 3 in Jack Rogers' Jesus, the Bible and Homosexuality. Religion Dispatches discusses "Sex and the Seminary" (no, it isn't a new TV show). Gumby the Cat has the perfect pie-chart on persecution and Pac Man. Michael Bird has a post on the Lord's Supper (as well as one about this). Mark Goodacre tells you where to find the Abbott-Smith Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament available for free download in pdf format.

New Scientist has a piece on morality and our emotional reactions to scientific innovations. Douglas Anderson offers a perspective on the interaction of religion and science. Psychologists have been investigating spirituality and hapiness in children. John Whitfield is blogging On The Origin of Species as he reads it for the first time. V. V. Raman suggests that the conflict between the religious and atheists will never be resolved, because (among other things):

God is not so much an entity hiding somewhere like an Easter egg, to be uncovered by an eager searcher, but rather a deeply felt experience that humans are capable of. God, like music, is to be experienced, and no analysis of musical notes can prove or disprove the joy and ecstasy that comes from listening. Like the colors of the rainbow, God is a resonance in the conscious soul to an aspect of the world that instruments and theorems, syllogisms and scrutiny, can never unravel.

On the sci-fi front, Gabriel McKee shares a month's worth of links, on subjects that include religion in Battlestar Galactica's final season. IO9 has the latest news, including the commercial for the "enhanced" version of the LOST season finale from last year, which will air next Wednesday.

Finally, there's a poem by Jacqueline Osherow asking whether the universe is God's acrostic.

When Captain Kirk Met The Doctor

Hat tip to Mark Goodacre for sharing this video clip (originally from Kelvington.com) of the U.S.S. Enterprise encountering the Tardis.

Mythicism and Inerrancy

There is an interesting parallel between the situation of those arguing for the inerrancy of the Bible and that of "mythicists", i.e. those who argue that Jesus was originally thought of as a heavenly figure, one who was later then turned into an allegedly historical figure.

The case for inerrancy has to be able to demonstrate that every single factual claim made in the Bible is without error. The case for errancy, by contrast, has only to demonstrate conclusively that there is a single error.

The situation for mythicists is similar. They must show that all the stories about, sayings attributed to and evidence about Jesus is best explained in terms of his never having existed as a historical figure. The historicist, on the other hand, only has to show decisively that one event in the life of Jesus makes best sense if Jesus was in fact a historical figure, and that makes the case for there having been such a figure more probable. The evidence amassed by mythicists may require us to conclude that some or even much of the stories about Jesus were concocted later, but it only takes one piece of evidence that makes the best sense if there was a historical Jesus, for us to conclude that they were concocting sayings of and stories about a historical figure. Richard Carrier's example (used in the podcast below) of the guards at the tomb in Matthew is a case in point - that story is clearly a creation by Matthew, or someone between the time Mark wrote and the time in which Matthew was composed. It is patently unhistorical, but that doesn't show it to be an unhistorical narrative about the burial of a mythical figure.

Carrier (a mythicist) has some wise advice for mythicists on how to make the case for mythicism. I don't find his viewpoint persuasive, but it deserves to be heard and considered seriously in a way that some pseudo-historical claims, popular among so-called skeptics prone to engaging in parallelomania, do not (HT Tom Verenna).

If nothing else, the podcast has one of the most striking puns I've heard in connection with this subject, when Carrier refers to the Romans trying to "nail down" what actually happened with respect to Jesus. I don't know if that was intentional. But I find it problematic when Carrier claims that the Romans must have known that Jesus did not exist, since otherwise they would have rounded up the followers of Jesus. Paul himself claims that Jesus was descended from David according to the flesh, and there is a reasonable likelihood that Paul may indeed have been executed by the Romans. Why do Roman sources (Tacitus or the letters of Pliny) not mention that this movement is seeking to historicize a mythical figure? How is it that, in all the history of Roman opposition to Christianity, the non-existence of Jesus never gets a mention?

Jesus, Poets and Prophets

I recall reading somewhere not long ago in my studies of oral tradition (which has touched on folksong, epic, and the Parry-Lord school) that those who composed such works would often withdraw to compose their works, and then would return and send out troubadors or other performers. I couldn't help but think of the way Jesus is depicted in some parts of the New Testament, as withdrawing to isolated places, and then returning and sending out his students (= disciples).

The connection (and blurry distinction) between "poetry" and "prophecy" has often been noted, perhaps most famously in the case of Muhammad. This is not surprising, since composers and poets have often felt like their works were coming from somewhere outside them, appearing almost fully-formed in their minds. But I wonder whether trying this category on for size is likely to be helpful in the case of Jesus, whether in terms of historical research or in terms of mediating between his ancient context and our own.

What do you think?

LOST: What Will Happen Next?

HT SF Signal

Battlestar Galactica: The Face of the Enemy Webisode #9

I've neglected for a while to mention when new installments in the Battlestar Galactica webisode series The Face of the Enemy have been made available, but I thought I'd mention the most recent, #9, since it includes a discussion of the human tendency (and ability) to see (or not see) what we want to. You can find the episode as well as all previous ones on SciFi.com and Hulu.

There are all sorts of other interesting things at Hulu, including episodes of the classic Battlestar Galactica series. And at the CBS web site you can watch remastered episodes of the original series of Star Trek.

Sexual Disorientation?

Having posted several pieces both here and elsewhere on the subject of homosexuality, marriage, and the Bible, I suppose some readers may have been wondering about my own sexual orientation. And so, even though it may cost me some conservative Christian readers, I thought it was time to reveal the truth:

I am a heterosexual.

Those of you who have met me face to face or have seen photos of me probably guessed already that I'm straight, based on how I dress and other clues.

What is likely to offend some conservative Christian readers is not my sexual orientation, but the fact that I am persuaded that I was born this way, that this is a fundamental part of who I am, and not something I chose. I cannot remember any point in my life at which I felt like I had the option of choosing to be attracted to men, or women, or both.

I know some conservative Christians may be troubled by these statements, but I'm persuaded that it is possible to be a Christian and yet also be persuaded that some things about us are at least largely determined by our genes, and that we may therefore be acceptable as we are. I hope that you will continue to accept me as I am.

Apparently it is not only the study of genes, but also the study of jeans, that leads to the conclusion that some differences are biological rather than the result of a willful choice:

Video Examining Creationism's Foundations

AIG Busted shared this video - the last in a long series, apparently, addressing the ways in which antiscientific creationists approach the evidence and why it is so problematic. The very ending will make it worth having watched the whole thing through.

If this isn't your cup of tea, you could always try the video shared by Friendly Atheist with monkeys discussing religion. It isn't inherently atheistic, but illustrates that we speak about God and religion not only from a particular cultural, linguistic and historical perspective, but from the perspective of our own species as well.

Music and Physics

I would have made the quotation below, attributed to Albert Einstein, a "quote of the day", but I have yet to find the original source from which it derives. If you know where it comes from, do let me know!

“If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music. ... I get most joy in life out of music.”

-- Albert Einstein

General Audiences Blog

Several other bloggers posted the "film rating" for their blog, and I've been meaning to do so as well. Having finally gotten around to it, here is the result:

Perhaps having a plan for a rational dialogue and interaction is what helps keep things civil here. Although I doubt any of us gives the forethought to our commenting that is required by the Air Force:



I do love a good flow chart, though, no matter what the occasion...

Science, Religion and Resolutions around the Blogosphere

Michael Barton and John Pieret address some myths about Darwin. Matt addresses some creationist "arguments" that have been refuted over and over again, and yet continue to be used. PZ Myers plays ping-pong with a poorly-informed science teacher. If you don't want your children to grow up to spout nonsense on the subject of evolution, these resources may help. Creationism makes its mark at Religion Dispatches. Tripp Fuller discusses Whitehead's notion of religion as world-loyalty. And while Lee Strobel has a guest post about religion and science on the Friendly Atheist blog, Ken Perrott disputes the need for religion in order to have rationality. Julia Duin covers the story of an atheist who appreciates Christianity's role in Africa.

For those interested in less distressing forms of science fiction than Young Earth Creationism, Buddy TV (HT SF Signal) has some hints about the season premiere of LOST, coming soon (January 21st is already being referred to as "Lostmas"). There's also a buzz in the blogosphere about the new Doctor on Doctor Who.

Other bibliobloggers are making new year's resolutions. I had already previously made some sabbatical resolutions, which are better, since I only need to stick to them for half a year! :-) Among them are to work on both a scholarly volume on oral tradition in early Christianity, and a book for a general audience about the notion of Biblical literalism (and making the case that there are in fact no genuine Biblical literalists). I'm still looking for a title for the latter - I recently thought of perhaps calling it something like Why Fundamentalism Isn't Kosher but I'm not sure whether all English-speaking readers will pick up on the meanings: on the one hand, there is indeed something "dubious" about it, but it also alludes to the irony that Christian fundamentalists claim to believe the whole Bible yet don't observe the food laws. I also hope to spend some time reading works in Greek (not only the New Testament), Syriac and Mandaic during the sabbatical, although I have thus far resisted inserting the word "daily" into that committment.

Quote of the Day (Harold S. Kushner)

The name "God" stands for all those qualities in the world and in ourselves which our religious tradition labels as divine, that is, as comprising full human spiritual development, fashioning Man into what he is at his best and most fully realized. If Truth, Justice, Mercy, Generosity, Love are among the things we need to be genuine human beings, to be, in the Biblical phrase, men "in God's image", then the name "God" stands for the existence of these qualities in the world and the existence of a corresponding impulse toward them in every human soul...Belief in God means believing that the universe has order and direction, that it encourages human goodness and moral growth and that the impulse each of us feels to be a good person is a reflection of the purposefulness existing in the cosmos at large.

-- Harold S. Kushner, When Children ask about God (New York: Schocken, 1989) pp.16-17.

Where The Magic Happens

The latest Dharma Special Access video has been posted, this one introducing the writers of LOST. Apart from the Twilight Zone pinball machine, the most interesting detail is when Christian Shepherd, Eko's brother and the horse are classified as "undead", in contrast to characters who are currently living or have left the show.

Music and Mathematics: The Dyson Legacy

I was struck yesterday to discover that a composer whose music I enjoy, George Dyson, was the father of physicist Freeman Dyson, whose writings on science and religion I value.

I can't speak for the Dysons, but for me personally, music is a better vaccine against reductionism than anything else I know of.

(If you're interested in how the Dyson family legacy continues, by the way, FreemanDyson's son George is a historian of technology).

Can Protestants be orthodox?

Today in Sunday School we arrived at the last of our classes on the ways Jesus is presented in the canonical Gospels, focusing on the Gospel of John with its unique features such as the notion of Jesus as the Word-become-flesh and the pre-existence of the Son of Man. I gave a brief overview of my book (3 years of research in 15 minutes!) and my suggestion that the developments in the Gospel of John result from an attempt to defend Christian beliefs, during which process developments and expansions to Christian though take place.

We discussed whether the aim of Christians ought to be to combine the Gospels or to pick one that resonates with us; whether our aim should be to repeat what the Gospel authors said or to follow their example in using language of our time to address questions and issues of our time, just as they did in relation to their own historical setting.

The subject of the creeds came up, and as one might expect in an American Baptist context, voices soon were heard that said, in essence, "Whoa, wait a minute, what are these creeds you're talking about exactly?" The classic creeds of Christian orthodoxy have no precise or official authority for Baptists, and yet they are part of our heritage, ignored and unknown but there as historical influences nonetheless.

Our next subject will be sharing our own answers to the question in Mark's Gospel: Who do we, each of us, say that Jesus is?

In the mean time, I find myself wondering whether it is possible for someone to be both Protestant and orthodox. If orthodoxy involves assenting to the creeds of Nicaea and Chalcedon, then can one accept the doctrinal formulations of these documents while at the same time rejecting the authority of the church to define doctrine and anathematize dissenters? It is similar to the problem of Protestants assenting to the Bible the church defined while rejecting the church's authority to do so. As a Protestant, I cannot simply defer to the authority of the church, but I must acknowledge that this stance prevents me from merely shifting to authorities the church produced, whether the Bible, the creeds, or something else. The challenge to authority that begins at the Reformation inevitably turns its attention to the Bible and rightly comes to question its situation as the ultimate authority as well. And so Liberal Protestantism, in a sense, ultimately works out the self-undermining nature of the Reformation cry of "sola scriptura", when it develops critical approaches to the Bible. Conservative Protestants, on the other hand, are forced to resort to "picking and choosing" from orthodoxy in the way they claim to detest (but nevertheless do) when it comes to the Bible.

If the church and then the Bible are undermined, we should not think that our human reason escapes unscathed. The limitations of our perception, our proneness to deception and even self-deception, have also come to light as psychology and other fields have made advances. And so what are we left with? Much uncertainty, and the need for humility. But if humility results from an exercise in criticising authority that ultimately turns on itself and becomes self-critical, then is it inappropriate to see in this an outworking of the Christian Gospel, or at the very least a result that is in keeping with it in important ways?

Evidence for Evolution around the Blogosphere

Nature has made available a helpful resource about 15 gems of evolution. Meanwhile Ken Miller (HT AIG Busted, see also John Pieret) takes on disinformation about ID and the Dover trial. Sandwalk picks his top 10 articles on evolution from New Scientist. Michael Dowd has a list of evolutionary resources. Mike Beidler blogs about a creationist attempt at DIY peer review. Steve Matheson discusses evolution's speed limit. The Austringer blogs on an IDC vs. FSM smackdown. Jeffrey Shallit tests your knowledge of information theory (also at Panda's Thumb, the year in ID). Troy Britain blogs about intermediate fossils. There's a new video about "appearance of age" debuting at Beyond the Firmament. Mike L blogged about incarnation and evolutionary biology. And don't forget that this is a momentous year for all things related to Darwin (as well as for astronomy).

Still Third on the Third

For those who noticed a lull in my blogging activity, my family and I had a nice brief getaway in Chicago. We got to enjoy the bitterly cold wind off Lake Michigan, as well as swimming, visiting some relatives and doing some shopping for those Eastern European products that are that little bit harder to find in Indianapolis. I was delighted to see that discussions which had begun before I left are continuing.

While I was away, NT Wrong posted the Top 50 Bibliobloggers list for December 2008. I still came in as third (Ben Witherington came in first again). Jim West decided to create a Biblioblogger of the Year award, and gave it to NT Wrong, but apparently he considered me a finalist!

Keith Ward, Big Questions in Science and Religion 9: Has Science Made Belief in God Obsolete?

I did not finish my review of Keith Ward's The Big Questions in Science and Religion last year, but at least I can get it done early in 2009. The subtitle to this chapter is "Are there any good science-based arguments for God?" Ward begins by surveying the once-popular (and in some circles still-popular) notion that humanity naturally progresses through three stages in its intellectual evolution: religion, metaphysics, and finally science. Yet the twentieth century demonstrated that science did not eliminate warfare, conflict, and all the things that some hoped could be left behind as mere memories from a more primitive age. This is not to say that there has not been significant development and an increase in our understanding. Ward seeks to strike a balance, emphasizing that both religion and science have been used for good and evil (p.218). He writes (pp.218-219):

A study of human history suggests that religious beliefs, like scientific beliefs, were much more naive and mistaken in very early human history than they are now. And they probably shared the moral ambiguity of all human activities, being used both to bolster the authority of religious charlatans and to motivate heroically virtuous action in tribal societies. It is, however, prejudice to assert that religion properly belonged to that era, whereas science did not. A more reasonable view is that both religion (reverence for the spiritual world) and science (understanding of the natural world) were in a undeveloped state in prehistory and in need of much further development..

Ward rightly points out that we do not in fact know that gods were invented in prehistory solely for the purpose of explaining natural phenomena. It is also possible that the natural phenomena were understood as pointers to an underlying reality beyond them. Ward writes (p.220), "On such an account, the "religious sense" would lie in a disposition to take finite things or events as signs, communications, or disclosures of an unseen deeper reality. It may be mistaken, but the mistake is not that of thinking the cause of thunder is an invisible man pushing the clouds together."

Personally, I think that there is a sense in which there is nothing unnatural about human beings having sought explanations in personal terms for the things we find around us. Richard Dawkins rightly points out that, in the absence of Darwin's alternative explanation, there was nothing inappropriate or illogical about reasoning that such things as the eye appear designed. As further evidence has amounted, those who are open to having their understanding changed and shaped by the evidence have been forced to view things differently. Perhaps, ultimately, the question boils down to whether, when the explanatory function of the "religious sense" ceases to be plausible, the appropriate response is to "secularize" our understanding of the phenomenon in question, or to simply reinterpret the religious understanding thereof. It may be that neither answer is appropriate to all situations. But while Ward is right to avoid the assumption that gods were concocted solely as explanations for natural phenomena that we now explain through science, it remains the case that gods have been and continue to be appealed to as explanations in this way, if not for the events themselves, for the pattern or coincidence of them. And to the extent that divine action is offered as a competing explanation to a scientific one, science does have the power to offer a more compelling alternative in many circumstances. But Ward does point out that, in the Hebrew Bible, there is no attempt to demonstrate the existence of God by inference from natural phenomena (p.223).

Ward rightly criticizes the explanation of religion in terms of memes, which he calls a "pseudoscience" (p.221). While it may be that ideas are transmitted in a fashion that parallels genetic evolution, it may well be that (as in the case of our vision and our mathematics) our ideas provided survival value because they were correct, beneficial or otherwise useful.

It takes some time before Ward finally turns to consider one explanation that is sometimes offered as an alternative to a theistic model of creation, namely the multiverse. Two key points he makes are (1) since "mathematical equations are conceived by minds" (p.234), if one is to posit an ultimate reality, there is nothing unreasonable about supposing it to be "mind-like", and (2) if the choice is between "a huge number of universes, all of which exist for no particular reason" and a "Supreme Intelligence", one may perhaps be excused for concluding that the latter is "the simpler and more rational hypothesis" (p.235).

His statement about the nature of religious truth is worth keeping in mind to instill humility in those of us who are religious believers: "Religion is truth-claiming, though the truth is particularly vague, polysemic, and hard to describe" (p.221). And finally his conclusion about this subject: "The problem of the multiverse is a complex and exciting one, and it places the God hypothesis firmly on the intellectual agenda. The God hypothesis seems to be at least as good as the available alternatives, though this consideration alone will not intellectually compel anyone to believe there is a God" (p.235). It is, of course, to be kept in mind that this sort of discussion is about something that necessarily exists and is "mind-like", and not about the specific, highly personalized depiction of God in the Biblical or any other tradition.

Ward then goes on to discuss "fine tuning" (a subject to which my thoughts turned as I watched part of a documentary last night about the factors that may have caused Mars to lose its magnetic field, and as a result its atmosphere and its water).

Ward concludes this chapter by pointing out that science can help show the bankruptcy of such approaches to religion as "Biblical literalism". But science is not by definition committed to metaphysical materialism (p.242). In short, then, science cannot be said to have rendered religion obsolete, but science has things to say to religion that can help it.

Let me give Ward the last words: "If religion is fully humanized and open to the critical methods and established truths of the sciences, and if science is used in the service of human welfare and the flourishing of all sentient beings, there can be a long and positive future for human life and for whatever forms of life may develop from it. That is only likely to occur if scientists and religious believers engage in a serious, sensitive, and inquiring conversation. For that to happen, both fundamentalist religion and fundamentalist atheism will have to be set aside, in favor of something more self-critical and humane. If that does happen, religion will not disappear, but it may, and it should, change" (pp.242-243).

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

An nou fericit!

La multi ani!

Welcome to 2009!

(Hope you enjoy your stay)