I'm not usually one to laugh at someone else's misfortune, but this article is pretty funny. I mean, the irony alone makes one think that maybe praying for trivial purposes is not really the way to go.

Now if this were to happen to some cheesed-up celebrity at an awards show after their obligatory "thank God for He makes all things possible" speech, that'd be the best!

Yes, God does make all things possible, including getting hit by lightning for being a dork. *ZZZT*

I know this is a little bit off topic, but I came across a website while looking for the BBC series "The Story of God" and just had to report it here. The site is apparently a British Christian site that deals with being a Christian in our time (in this case "our time" apparently refers to "the one with all the heathens running around fornicating").

One of their features (linked above) is to review various television shows and report on them from a Christian perspective. Frankly, I found every one of the reviews to be more funny than interesting. They review "The Simpsons" very critically and - not surprisingly - call to their readers to sympathize with Ned Flanders. Also, they take "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" WAY too seriously.

Anyway, I'm including it here more for its humorous aspects than for any serious interest. Have fun!

While I was walking the dog this morning I had a thought. I don't know that I'll be able to put it into words very well, but I'll give it a shot.

Idealism and practicalism (I think "pragmatism" is a better word, but I didn't think about it until I was finished, so we'll stick with the former) are on two ends of a spectrum. That is to say, the closer you get to "ideal" the farther you get from "practical" and the other way around. So the practical-ist is concerned with what he is able to do and have. This means, then, that the idealist is concerned with what he is not able to do and have. That is to say that his ideas are more for someone else (i.e. future generations) than for himself. After all, it's unreasonable to think that an idealists vision could come into place in one lifetime (Think about Hitler and Stalin, for examples of idealists who tried to force their visions on others).

So the practical-ist is ultimately, then, more materialistic than the idealist since he only really cares about what he can achieve, not what can be achieved in the future. Due to the limiting view he gives the world the practical-ist doesn't even give lip service to those things over which he has no control. A great example of this is a guy at work, who we'll call "G". G has no interest whatsoever in things like politics, religion, philosophy, etc. Believe me... I've tried to bring up the topic. His apathy in these matters is so apparent that he takes pride in the fact that he doesn't even know for whom he voted in the last election for Canadian Prime Minister. However, get him talking about his stuff (like his new cell phone, or his motorcycle, etc) and you'll have conversation fodder for hours.

This is such a drastic change from my last job. I remember one of the first times I went to lunch with Karl, from my old job, we talked about where morals come from. Do they come from God and, if so, does that mean that the laws based the morals of one religion are superior to another? Do they come from public opinion and, if so, doesn't that mean that the laws based on morals are those that are the least-common denominator of society as a whole? I'm not going to go into the discussions now, but these are interesting topics. And I don't mean to give G a hard time, because he's not the only one that's a problem. They say that you're not supposed to talk about religion or politics at work and it could be argued that this is why these things are never discussed, but I had these conversations all the time with Karl, Jeff, Sam, and even Don (and if you know Don, then this is pretty amazing!).

I used to think that these people that don't like these discussions were either stupid or shallow. Now I'm beginning to think that they're just materialistic, or practical-ists. That is, they care more about what they can do and achieve and that talking about anything else is "below" them somehow. I've actually been very surprised to find that virtually everyone I've worked with in Montreal (co-workers and customers) are almost this exact same way! I completely understand that I am about to make a very sweeping generalization that I know isn't true for 100% of Quebecois, but I find that there are more materialistic people here than in the United States! And yet, the US is always accused of being materialistic.

I can't help but believe that the appearance of this generalization comes from the fact that religion is so generally disregarded here (by "here" I mean Quebec, specifically, but also in my limited experiences in Eastern and Central Canada). I can only really speak for Christianity, but I think that this applies for other religions as well: Religion requires a bit of idealism and imagination. All of the major "prophets" saw an ideal state. Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed saw "heaven", Buddha saw "nirvana", Lao Tsu saw "the Way", etc. These were idealists. Christianity tells us to "be more like Jesus" which, inevitably, leads us to try to be more idealistic. Buddhists are constantly striving to achieve their "Buddha nature", again trying to be more idealistic.

Now let me just say that pure idealism is as much of an extreme as pure practicality. Generally extremism is bad, and that applies here, too. Think, for example, of people who claim to be Jesus Christ. They are effectively saying "I am the ideal Christian" and they are, as such, persecuted. Even Jesus himself was persecuted for saying what he is.

Finally (yes, there is an end in sight), I think we need to be more balanced on the practicality/idealism scale. We need to be more focused on creating a better society and less on what we can achieve, while always keeping our eyes on what we need and only take those things and steps that will lead us toward the end that we will never achieve ourselves.

Here is an article I found mildly interesting and very appropriate for this blog. It is a list of (one man's opinion of) the 100 most influential people in history and the religion to which they subscribed. The list contains religious leaders and founders, scientists, philosophers, conquerors, and other well-known people. Have a look. It's fun.

Maybe I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed. I say this because I just today discovered the movement known as "Freethought". Now, I've heard people say that they consider themselves "free thinkers", but I never knew it was an actual movement.

In principle, I agree with the concept of Freethinkers (please note the capitalization and lack of a space between the two words, which I do to differentiate those of the movement and those about whom I will write shortly). I like the idea that they practice Science without any interference from dogma or culturally accepted prepositions. However, I think there is a fine line between this legitimate movement and a purely anti-religious stance ("free thinkers"). So fine, in fact, that the "movement for the purpose of being anti-religious" has even crept into the definition on Wikipedia. To quote: "freethought by definition involves a rejection of Christian dogmas." Why is this? Why does it "by definition" reject Christian dogmas? Why doesn't it "by definition" reject Judaic, or Islamic (etc) dogmas? Also, where in the definition does it actually state that Christian dogmas are rejected? The definition I read (the first line on Wikipedia) says "Freethought is scientific inquiry unrestricted by tradition, authority, established belief, preconception, prejudice or any agenda that might compromise the free exercise of thought and the reliability and validity of one's conclusions." I don't see any reference to Christian dogma or any other religion there.

This actually makes me a little bit angry. Just as our friend Pat Robertson (and our new friend Rev. O'Neal Dozier) makes a mockery of Christianity, so do these lug-heads make a mockery of a legitimate movement such as Freethinking! As long as Freethinking stays in it's own realm (that is, the realm of "it", or matter, or - more broadly - Science) then I think it is not only an acceptable movement but one that should be encouraged!

But when you get people with their own agendas who have a bone to pick with Religion and think they've found a movement they can latch onto, they will dirty the waters of the basic principles of that movement. They force Science out of its realm and into the realm of Religion.

I'll go so far as to say that these anti-religion people who feel they have found a home in Freethinking have the same desire for belonging that religious people do. But since they turned away from Religion altogether, they supplant Religion with its exact opposite in order to fill the hole that was left.

Science is a good thing. Freethought is a good thing. Religion is a good thing. They can all co-exist if they remember their boundaries and limitations.

I applaud you, Freethinkers, and I condemn you ,"free thinkers"!

Book Review: Tuesdays with Morrie, Mitch Albom

First things first: This book review is here 1) because I read it and wanted to talk about it and 2) because it does - however remotely - talk about Religion. Most of what it says is that "religions other than Christianity have something to offer, too". Now, on to the review...

My mom bought this book for me a while ago. I admit I was hesitant to read it because I don't generally go for sentimental reading. But, I read it anyway. I have to say that I was less disappointed than I thought I'd be. I know that's not a rave review, but then I came into it predisposed to not liking it.

Basically, it's the story of a man whose old teacher is dying of ALS, which - if you don't know already you will certainly know by the end of the book - consists of a painful and debilitating end to one's life. The professor's name is Morrie (shocking, no?) and he and his student meet every Tuesday (Ho ho! Didn't see that coming, did ya?) to discuss life, et al.

The book - which is equal parts fiction, non-fiction, and self-help - is ultimately readable with short chapters and accessible language. I read the whole thing in about two and a half hours (over five days while taking the subway). It's filled with a lot of little phrases that are meant to be memorable but are basically those things that, when presented with them out of context, we'd all say "Yeah, yeah, I know". Sort of like when someone tells you "You know, you really shouldn't speed"; it's one of those things that we all know but that we simply don't pay attention to. If Albom's intention was to bring these common ideas to the front of our minds - even if for just a moment - then he was quite successful. Also, I was distracted by the relationship of the student and the teacher. I felt it was far too intimate both for two heterosexual men or for a student and a teacher (even if they are both adults). I kept expecting a surprise at the end of the book that the professor was secretly in love with the author, but, again I was disappointed.

If you're looking for something heart-warming that's going to try to make you cry, then you should absolutely read this book. However, I didn't really care for it.

For the record, this review would have been even more scathing if I hadn't realized after finishing it that it was mostly a true story. This makes the quasi "wisdom" a little more palatable, but I still didn't like it.

All this talk about this weekend's opening of The DaVinci Code has gotten the media talking about Religion. So far the discussions have been pretty fair, but I think it's only to get ratings from the controversy.

It's made me think more about what I said yesterday and I realized that I have more to say. Pat Robertson gives Christianity a bad name (which, in turn, dirties the name of Religion in general). What I finally put together is that the growing number of people who give their professions a bad name seems to be increasing. Or, at the very least, if it isn't increasing it's surely being given more weight.

Staying in the realm of Christianity, Priests now have a reputation for child molestation. You don't think so? Would you be willing to leave your child with a priest you don't know without that nagging thought in the back of your head?

In the realm of Education, some teachers have done stupid things, like the man with whom I did my student teaching who is now behind bars for some sort of sexual misconduct with a student. Or there's the example of that teacher who had a child fathered by her 13 year-old student. These are bad acts, for sure, and parents have been using acts like these (and far more minor ones) to undermine the legitimacy of the teaching profession.

However, I think it's important that we separate the acts from the profession. The saying goes "One bad apple spoils the bunch", but I think we're taking that too far. Parents are second-guessing the teachers; A teacher will send a note home saying "Jimmy is being disruptive in class" and instead of the parent sitting down with Jimmy and either 1) finding out what's going on or 2) disciplining the child, they call the school board and complain that the teacher is wrong. The kid then sees this and feels empowered because they know that they now have control over the teacher via proxy through their parents.

I hate it when people say "In my day....", but I'll say it anyway: When I was little, if a teacher said I did something wrong, you best believe that I was gonna hear about it when I got home! Today, we're so convinced (incorrectly, IMHO) that the schools are bad - and therefore the teachers incompetent - that we blindly stand up for our children when the children are the problem (Or the parents in many cases).

Likewise, just because some priests are perverts or some Christians (I'm talking to you, Pat) are dorks doesn't mean that the whole of Christendom is worth nothing.

Now I just wish we could hold our politicians to the same impossible level of acceptability that we hold religious leaders and teachers...

I decided I'd take some time today to gripe about Religion and why it is in the sad shape it's in today. As you may have guessed, I'm a strong supporter of Religion and think that it's not getting it's fair share in society. However, I can completely see why people are turning away when we have loonies like Pat Robertson who claim they can talk directly to God and, in some way, "predict" the future. I offer up as evidence this article I found while browsing fark.com.

Most people who have found themselves caught up in the Scientistic worldview will agree with most others that Pat Robertson does not receive revelations from God, but is spouting either absurdities or obvious likelihoods in an effort to - in the end - get money for himself and his conservative agenda. If Robertson and his cronies are your reason for turning away from Religion (Christianity, in this case), then I'm right in line behind you! However, I hope people realize that Robertson does NOT speak for the whole of Christendom nor for any Religion that has any self respect at all.

It's you, Mr. Robertson, and people like you who are destroying the image of Religion. Shame on you!

With the Scientistic Worldview pushing the Traditional worldview out the door, it seems to me that the word "Religion" has lost all meaning. Because of this, it's also tough to find a good definition that isn't clouded by the Scientistic Worldview. However, here is one that I find fits pretty well.

So now that the word has lost all meaning it seems that just about anything can walk in the door and replace Religion with something else. An aside comment in Tuesdays with Morrie had the (fictional) narrator doing an honors thesis on how football has become a religion. This is absolutely absurd. Football isn't sacred and doesn't unite people into a single moral community. Yes, it does, arguably, bring people into a single community (unless they're rooting for rival teams), but what kind of moral community would this bring? Yes, there are rules to the game and certain things (hitting after the whistle, for example) that are considered poor sportsmanship, but this isn't the basis for a moral society!

The other day I was walking through the mall that's connected to my office building and saw the T-Shirt in the picture.


So even something like music can "replace" Religion. I suppose the sentiment here is that a person feels so strongly about music (and, implicitly then, so poorly of Religion) that they have replaced Religion with music. I'm sure the intention is more to raise music up than to put Religion down, but it necessarily does both.

I suppose this irritates me because a friend and ex-mentor of mine once said "Science is my Religion", which I think sums up the Scientistic worldview perfectly. People have been so put off by the dogma and practice of Religion that they've lost all hope in Religion and allowed things from other realms to displace it.

When will people realize that the practice of religion (and, truly, the evils that have come from it) don't - or shouldn't - diminish the power and effectiveness of the Religion itself?

Book Review: Why Religion Matters, Huston Smith

When I found this book I was pretty excited about it. I was hoping it would look at the issue of Religion's place in a society of Science and, generally, I was not disappointed. I did, however, find that maybe this book was a little too long and a little too embellished with personal tales. I couldn't help but get the impression that Smith was trying to write his Legacy more than trying to find an answer to the question he asks in the title. I say this because there are many places where he indicates that he's going to illustrate his point with an anecdote, but then frames it in a very self-serving and self-grandizing way. I have nothing against anecdotes (In fact I enjoy them a great deal) but when they are used more as a device of self-proclamation and less as something that really adds to a discussion, I get tired quickly.

Having said that, I feel he does make some good points, though many of them are similar (or exactly the same as) Ken Wilbur's Marriage of Sense and Soul. I'm not certain about this, but it seems to me that Wilbur's book may have been an answer to Smith's as Smith pines about the loss of the "Traditional" worldview and Wilbur argues of the dangers of doing that very thing.

At any rate, Smith does discuss Scientism a lot and I liked that. I don't know that I learned anything new on that specific topic, but it was nice to read, anyway. One thing that hit home for me was Smith's reference to Michael Polonyi's "Tacit Knowledge", which I know would excite my dad to no end. I remember hearing about tacit knowledge when I was a teenager. I didn't get it then, but I think I do now.

The verdict on this book is that it isn't Smith's best, but it's worth reading, especially if you've never read anything on the subject before.

The next book review will be Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom.

I've been reading Huston Smith's Why Religion Matters? (Review to follow in a week or two) and he quotes an author named Stephen Carter who I feel makes a pretty good point. He says it in the form of a statement, but I will rephrase in the form of a question: Is the Establishment Clause in the First Amendment of the Constitution intended to guard religious liberty or to guarantee public secularism? In other words, does the oft-misquoted "separation of church and state" mean that Religion has no place in Government or that Government has no place in Religion? I think that most secularists would answer "yes" to both questions and militant atheists would answer "yes" only to former question. Certainly, even if a militant atheist did answer "yes" to both it would only be because they know they would be judged as biased otherwise.

However, if we consider what the authors of the time were going through, I think it's clear that the Establishment Clause refers pretty singularly to Government not telling its constituents what religion they may or may not practice. I always learned that the American founders were Protestant refugees from Europe who were seeking asylum from a dictatorial Catholic church-state. If this is true, then my reason for believing the intent of the Establishment Clause is clear. If it isn't true... well... then somebody ought to talk to the Ohio State Board of Education about their curriculum!

To add to my case further, consider this: The framers of the Constitution (as any "Constitutionalist" or "Libertarian" will tell you) were interested in having a system of government that allowed for liberty... that is, freedom. With this in mind, we clearly can rule out the Establishment Clause is anything but a protection of the right to practice whatever religion you want (and that includes ruling out the idea that Religion can not influence Government).

Now, having said that, I think there still exist some issues. While I believe that Government may not dictate what religion you should practice, I also agree that certain laws that have been or are trying to be passed by the Religious Right are imposing Christianity on society.

How do we find the right balance?

I don't pretend to have the answer to this question. If I did, then surely someone would have come up with it before me and enacted it. However, I can certainly say that the wrong way to answer this is with flipping the Establishment Clause on its head as secularists/atheists have done and making it akin to a crime to practice religion.

I think the best example of this backward interpretation of the Establishment Clause is in the realm of Creation vs. Evolution. Personally, I don't believe that the Universe was created in six days as is described in Genesis. However, I also feel that the story (call it a "myth" if you want) of Genesis is no more a myth than the story of String Theory. The real difference is that the Genesis story was created using words and the String Theory story was created using mathematics. Neither story has been proven (and, in my opinion, will ever be proven) empirically. I know a lot of people will disagree with that last statement, but I charge them with finding a way to prove me wrong! That is, prove to me that String Theory can be proven. It's a silly argument and clearly it has no place here.

But I digress....

There has been a strong push to remove any mention of Creationism from public schools. I certainly agree that schools should not be forced to promote Creationism as the sole theory for the existence of the universe. But to claim - categorically - that Evolution (or more specifically String Theory) should be the only thing taught in schools is making the mistake of choosing one unverifiable myth over another!

This is another example of Scientism creeping into the mainstream consciousness. We believe so readily, so fully, and - indeed - so blindly in Science that we truly believe it has the answers when, in fact, not even the best of String Theorists can tell you, for sure, what caused the Universe to begin.

Book Review: Einstein and Religion, Max Jammer

I finished this book last week and was generally pleased with it. The author makes no judgments about any particular point of view but simply searches through Einstein's past to piece together the view of religion of one of the greatest scientific minds of all time. The book is divided into three larger chapters (each longer than the prior). The first two were fascinating and the last was interesting, though I feel the author got a little too much into the mathematics of things for the average reader. He did a good job, however, of summarizing the mathematics in simpler terms after the detailed explanation.

Basically, Einstein was in agreement with Spinoza that there is no personal God. A "personal God" is not like Depeche Mode's Personal Jesus, but instead a deity to whom we apply human characteristics. An impersonal God, then, is one who has no sentience per se, and certainly doesn't want, or need anything from us as humans. Since Einstein believed in an impersonal God, he also believed that God did not ever inject himself into the realm of humans, which lead him to hold very strong deterministic beliefs. In other words, Einstein believed that the universe was pre-ordained (and in my words, not Einstein's or Jammers) like a wind-up toy that was wound by God and released with no interference.

All-in-all this was a very fine book and I suggest reading it if the discussion of Science and Religion interests you (please note that I didn't say "Science vs. Religion"! That's a different topic altogether).

Grand Opening!

This is my first post for the Scientism and You blog. It seems to me that there is a lot of confusion about Scientism and its place in society, and I will try to make some sense of this issue with this blog. First, let's start with a link that I feel exemplifies this confusion.

The author here is lambasting Rabbi Lerner on his positions of Scientism, Religion, and Politics. The subsequent posts to his blog continue to show this confusion.

So here is my opinion on the matter: The author and his supporters are suffering from a straw man fallacy. They are so busy attacking their opponents dogma that they fail to attack his meaning. What I mean here is that they are attacking religious practices and dogmatic beliefs when, in fact, Lerner is actually discussing the idea that scientism does no one any justice; scientists, religious believers, or atheists.

Truly I must agree with the author that Lerner equates Secularists with Atheists and this could be a problem, specifically when discussing politics. However, I feel that we can overlook the small margin of error, especially since the authors supporters make even broader generalizations about people from religious backgrounds (see the post by Aquarius on the page linked above).

So now that I've gotten all of that out of the way... I don't believe he is the creator of this idea, but in Ken Wilbur's book "Science and Religion: The marriage of sense and soul", the author talks about the idea that humans work in three different realms (I'll use my words for them here as I don't remember his, but the idea is the same): The realm of matter, the realm of mind, and the realm of spirit. In the realm of matter, we have the laws of physics, biology (yes, including evolution), chemistry, etc. In the realm of mind we have sociology, ethics, and formal logic. In the realm of spirit we have emotions, creativity (as in art), and morals. These three realms can also be thought of, respectively, as "it", "we", and "I", or "stuff", "society", and "the person".

When viewed philosophically, not dogmatically, Lerner's point is that science is limited to the realm of matter and makes no claim in the realms of mind or spirit, and that "scientism" is the fallacy that comes about when people force science to make claims in realms in which it doesn't belong. The problem with the opinion in the link above is that it falsely assumes that religion is making the same mistake by stepping outside of its realm and making claims about the realm of "it", which is clearly not where religion belongs. When religion makes claims about the realm of "it", we come up with dogma, those particular religious beliefs that, when taken literally, can not be verified (or can be found to be false) by science, the true master of "it". It is true that many religious people believe that religion can explain everything about the universe, but this is no more true than people of science believing that science can explain everything about the universe ("Scientism"). So let's stop casting stones over who is more wrong.... both groups are equally wrong.

Finally, I'd like to say to the atheists, that just because something in the realm of spirit (e.g. religion) is not scientifically verifiable does not negate the entire realm (or religion). Yes, the Bible says that Jonah was swallowed by a whale, and yes, we know that if someone was actually swallowed by a whale they would almost certainly die. However, if we get caught up in the details of the story, we end up missing the whole point. I think far too many religious people get caught up in the details, so it only makes sense that anti-religion atheists make the same mistake about religious dogma.

Don't worry, folks! My posts won't normally be this long!