As a child, I had a number of strong religious beliefs but little faith in God. As I grew up, I realized that there was more to religion than fear. I read the lives of the saints, the metaphysical poets, T.S. Eliot and some of the simpler writings of the mystics. I began to be moved by the beauty of the liturgy, though remained distant, I felt that it was possible to break through to him and that the vision would transfigure the whole of created reality. To do this I entered a religious order and, as a novice and a young nun, I learned a good deal more about the faith. I applied myself to apologetics, scripture, theology and church history. Strangely enough, God figured very little in any of this. Attention seemed focused on secondary details and the more peripheral aspects of religion. I wrestled with myself in prayer, trying to force my mind to encounter God, but he remained a stern taskmaster who observed my every infringement of the Rule, or tantalizingly absent. The more I read about the raptures of the saints, the more of a failure I felt. I was unhappily aware that what little religious experience I had, had somehow been manufactured by myself as I worked upon my own feelings and imagination. Sometimes a sense of devotion was an aesthetic response to the beauty of the Gregorian chant and the liturgy. But nothing had actually happened to me from a source beyond myself. I never glimpsed the God described in the prophets and mystics. Jesus Christ, about whom we talk far more than about "God," seemed purely historical figure, inextricably embedded in late antiquity. I also began to have grave doubts about some of the doctrines of the Church. How could anybody possibly know for certain that the man Jesus has been God incarnate and what did such a belief mean? Did the New Testament really teach the elaborate - and highly self-contradictory - doctrine of the Trinity or was this, like so many other articles of faith, a fabrication by theologians centuries after the death of Christ in Jerusalem?
Eventually, with regret, I left the religious life, and, once freed of the burden of failure and inadequacy, I felt my belief in God slip quietly away. He had never really impinged upon my life, though I had done my best to enable him to do so. Now I no longer felt so guilty and anxious about him, he became too remote to be a reality. My interest in religion continued, however, and I made a number of television programs about the early history of Christianity and the nature of the religious experience. The more I learned about the history of religion, the more my earlier misgivings appeared justified. The doctrines that I had accepted without question as a child were indeed man-made, constructed over a long period. Since seemed to have disposed of the Creator God, and biblical scholars had proved that Jesus had never claimed to be divine. As an epileptic, I had flashes of vision that I knew to be a mere neurological defect: had the visions of raptures of the saints also been a mere mental quirk? Increasingly, God seemed an aberration, something that the human race had outgrown.
Despite my years as a nun, I do not believe that my experience of God is unusual. My ideas about God were formed in childhood and did not keep abreast of my growing knowledge in other disciplines. I had revised simplistic childhood views of Father Christmas; I had come to a more mature understanding of the complexities of the human predicament than had been possible in kindergarten. Yet my early, confused ideas about God had not been modified or developed. People without my peculiarly religious background may also find that their notion of God was formed in infancy. Since those days, we have put away childish things and have discarded the God of our first years.
Yet my study of the history of religion has revealed that human beings are spiritual animals. Indeed, there is a case for arguing that Homo sapiens is also Homo religiosus. Men and women started to worship gods as soon as they became recognizably human; they created religions at the same time as they created works of art. This was not simply because they wanted to propitiate powerful forces; these early faiths expressed the wonder and mystery that seem always to have been an essential component of the human experience of this beautiful yet terrifying world. Like art, religion has been an attempt to find meaning and value in life, despite the suffering that the flesh is heir to. Like any other human activity, religion can be abused, but it seems to have been something that we have always done. It was not tacked on to a primordially secular nature by manipulative kings and priests but was natural to humanity. Indeed, our current secularism is an entirely new experiment, unprecedented in human history. We have yet to see how it will work. It is also true to say that our Western liberal humanism is not something that comes naturally to us; like an appreciation of art or poetry, it has to be cultivated. Humanism is itself a religion without God - not all religions, of course, are theistic. Our ethical secular ideal has its own disciplines of mind and heart and gives people the means of finding faith in the ultimate meaning of human life that were once provided by the more conventional religions.
When I began to research this history of the idea and experience of God in the three related monotheistic faiths of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, I expected to find that God had simply been a projection of human needs and desires. I thought that "he" would mirror the fears and yearnings of society at each stage of its development. My predictions were not entirely unjustified, but I have been extremely surprised by some of my findings, and I wish that I had learned all this thirty years ago, when I was starting out in the religious life. It would have saved me a great deal of anxiety to hear - from eminent monotheists in all three faiths - that instead of waiting for God to descend from on high(theistic-jnr) I should deliberately create a sense of him for myself. Other rabbis, priests and Sufis would have taken me to task for assuming that God was - in any sense - a reality "out there"; they would have warned me not to expect to experience him as an objective fact that could be discovered by the ordinary process of rational thought. They would have told me that in an important sense God was a product of the creative imagination, like the poetry and music that I found inspiring. A few highly respected monotheists would have told me quietly and firmly that God did not really exist - and yet "he" was the most important reality in the world.
________________________________________
*Excerpt taken from the Introduction of Karen Amrstrong's book, A History of God: A 4,000-Year Quest by Judaism, Christianity and Islam, pp.xvii-xx. Karen Armstrong's book was "The New York Times Bestseller." This book is most helpful for seminary professors, students, pastors. It's also readable for laypeople because the author has used a language with less technical terms.
Reposted May 1, 2013 (for my other readings/reflections,etc., you can log to any of my other sites: YouTube-John Riingen; john riingen/google; juan riingen/facebook.
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
Monday, April 29, 2013
Why neuroscientist Sam Harris Believes Science Can Determine Human Values?*
"In my view, morality must be viewed in the context of our growing scientific understanding of the mind. If there truths to be known about the mind, there will be truths to be known about how minds flourish; consequently, there will be truths to be known about good and evil."
Harris continues: "Many critics claim that my reliance on the concept of 'well-being' is arbitrary and philosophically indefensible. Who's to say that well-being is important at all or that other things aren't far more important?
.................................................................................................................................
"It seems to be that there are three, distinct challenges to my thesis, put forward thus far:
1.There is no scientific basis to say that we should value well-being, our own or anyone else's. (The Value Problem)
2. Hence, if someone does not care about well-being, or cares only about his own and not about the well-being of others, there is no way to argue that he is wrong from the point of view of science. (The Persuasion Problem)
3. Even if we did agree to grant "well-being" primacy in any discussion of morality, it is difficult or impossible to define it with rigor. It is, therefore, impossible to measure well-being scientifically. Thus, there can be no science of morality. (The Measurement Problem)
"I believe all of these challenges are the product of philosophical confusion. The simplest way to see this is by analogy to medicine and the mysterious quantity we call 'health." Let's swap 'morality' for 'medicine' and 'well-being' for 'health' and see how things look:
1. There is no scientific basis to say we should value health, our own or anyone else's. (The Value Problem)
2. Hence, if someones does not care about health, or cares only about his own and not about the health of others, there is no way to argue that he is wrong from the point of view of science. (The Persuasion Problem)
3. Even if we did agree to grant"health" primacy in any discussion of medicine, it is difficult or impossible to define it with rigor. It is, therefore, impossible to measure health scientifically. Thus, there can be no science of medicine. (The Measurement Problem).
Harris adds, "While the analogy may not be perfect, I maintain that it is good enough to nullify these three criticisms.
___________________________________________________________________
*The Moral Langscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values, by Sam Harris, pp.198-199. Note: Sam Harris, apparently, is the first scientist to claim that science does not only provide facts, but it can also provide or "determine" human values.
Harris continues: "Many critics claim that my reliance on the concept of 'well-being' is arbitrary and philosophically indefensible. Who's to say that well-being is important at all or that other things aren't far more important?
.................................................................................................................................
"It seems to be that there are three, distinct challenges to my thesis, put forward thus far:
1.There is no scientific basis to say that we should value well-being, our own or anyone else's. (The Value Problem)
2. Hence, if someone does not care about well-being, or cares only about his own and not about the well-being of others, there is no way to argue that he is wrong from the point of view of science. (The Persuasion Problem)
3. Even if we did agree to grant "well-being" primacy in any discussion of morality, it is difficult or impossible to define it with rigor. It is, therefore, impossible to measure well-being scientifically. Thus, there can be no science of morality. (The Measurement Problem)
"I believe all of these challenges are the product of philosophical confusion. The simplest way to see this is by analogy to medicine and the mysterious quantity we call 'health." Let's swap 'morality' for 'medicine' and 'well-being' for 'health' and see how things look:
1. There is no scientific basis to say we should value health, our own or anyone else's. (The Value Problem)
2. Hence, if someones does not care about health, or cares only about his own and not about the health of others, there is no way to argue that he is wrong from the point of view of science. (The Persuasion Problem)
3. Even if we did agree to grant"health" primacy in any discussion of medicine, it is difficult or impossible to define it with rigor. It is, therefore, impossible to measure health scientifically. Thus, there can be no science of medicine. (The Measurement Problem).
Harris adds, "While the analogy may not be perfect, I maintain that it is good enough to nullify these three criticisms.
___________________________________________________________________
*The Moral Langscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values, by Sam Harris, pp.198-199. Note: Sam Harris, apparently, is the first scientist to claim that science does not only provide facts, but it can also provide or "determine" human values.
Sunday, April 28, 2013
THE SCIENTIST FRANCIS COLLINS FEW PEOPLE KNOW*
Francis Collins, currently the director of the National Institutes of Health, having been appointed by President Obama: he is a physical chemist, a medical geneticist, and former head of the Genome Project. He is also, by his own account, living proof that there can be no conflict between science and religion.
In 2006, Collins published a bestselling book, The Language of God, in which he claimed to demonstrate a "consistent and profoundly satisfying harmony between twnety-first century science and Evangelical Christianity. The Language of God is a genuinely astonishing book. To read it is to witness nothing less than an intellectual suicide. It is, however, a suicide that has gone almost entirely unacknowledged.
Collins is regularly praised by his fellow scientists for what he is not: he is not a "young earth creationist," nor is he a proponent of "intelligent design." Given the state of the evidence for evolution, these are both very good things for a scientist not to be. But as director of NIH, Collins now has more responsibility for biomedical and health-related research than any person on earth, controlling an annual budget of more than $30 billion. He is also one of the foremost representative of science in the United States.
Here is how Collins, as a scientist and educator, summarizes his understanding of the universe for the general public (what follows are a series of slides, presented during his lecture at the University of California, Berkeley, in 2008:
Slide 1: Almighty God who is not limited in space and time, created a universe 13.7 billion years ago
with its parameters precisely tuned to allow the development of complexity over long periods
of time.
Slide 2: God's plan included the mechanism of evolution to create the marvelous diversity of living
things on our planet. Most especially. that creative plan included human beings.
Slide 3: After evolution had prepared a sufficiently advanced "house" (our human brain), God gifted
humanity with the knowledge of good and evil (the Moral Law), with free will, and with an
immortal soul.
Slide 4: We humans use our free will to breal the moral law, leading to our estrangement from God.
For Christians, Jesus is the solution to our estrangement.
Slide 5: If the Moral Law is just a side effect of evolution, then there is no such thing as good and
evil. It's all an illusion. We've been hoodwinked. Are any of us, especially strong atheists,
really prepared to live our lives within this worldview?
....................................................................
Here is Collins story about his Christian conversion:
"A full year had passed since I decided to believe in some sort of God, and now I was being called to account. On a beautiful fall day, as I was hiking in the Cascade Mountains during my first trip west of the Mississippi, the majesty and beauty of God's creation overwhelmed my resistance. As I rounded a corner and saw a beautiful and unexpected frozen waterfall, hundreds of feet high, I knew the search was over. The next morning, I knelt in the dewy grass as the sun rose and surrendered to Jesus Christ." Here is another statement of Collins:
"As believers, you are right to hold fast to the concept of God as Creator; you are right to hold
fast to the truths of the Bible; you are right to hold fast to the conclusion that science offers no
answers to the most pressing questions of human existence; and you are right to hold fast to the
certainty that the claims of atheistic materialism must be steadfastly resisted.
God, who is not limited to space and time, created a universe and established natural laws that
govern it. Seeking to populate this otherwise sterile universe with living creatures, plants, and
animals of all sorts. Most remarkably, God intentionally chose the same mechanism to give rise
to special creatures who would have intelligence, a knowledge of right and wrong, free will, and
a desire to seek fellowship with Him. He also knew these creatures would ultimately choose to
disobey the Moral Law.
Here's what Collins said before he accepted the chairmanship of the Human Genome Project:
"I spent a long afternoon in a little chapel, seeking guidance about this decision. I did not 'hear'
God speak - in fact, I've never had that experience. During those hours, ending in an evening
service that I had not expected, a peace settled over me. A few days later, I accepted the offer."
Collins argues that science makes belief in God "intensely plausible" --the Big Bang, the fine-tuning of nature's constants, the emergence of complex life, the effectiveness of mathematics, all suggest to him that a "loving, logical and consistent" God exists. But when challenged with alternate (and far more plausible) accounts of these phenomena -- or with evidence that suggest that God might be unloving, illogical, inconsistent, or, indeed, absent - Collins declares that God stands outside of Nature, and thus science nannot address the question of His existence at all. Similarly, Collins insists that our moral intuitions attest to God's existence, to His perfectly moral character, and to His desire to have fellowship with every member of our species; but when our moral intuitions recoil at the casual destruction of innocent children by tidal wave or earthquake, Collins assures us that our time-bound notions of good and evil cannot be trusted and that God's will is a perfect mystery. As is often the case with religious apology, it is a case of heads, faith wins; tails, reason loses.
Like most Chrsitians, Collins believes in a suite of canonical miracles, including the virgin birth and literal resurrection(bodily) of Jesus Christ."
______________________________________________________________________________
*Excerpts taken from Sam Harris's book, The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Moral Values, pp.160-66. Sam Harris is a neuroscientist and the author of the New York Times bestsellers The End of Faith (Winner of the PEN Award for nonfiction) and Letters to a Chrstian Nation. His writings has appeared in Newsweek, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Times (London), The Boston Globe, The Atlantic, The Annals of Neurology, Foreign Policy, and many other publications. Dr. Harris holds a degree in philosophy from Stanford University, and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from UCLA. He is cofounder and chairman of Project Reason. Please visit his website at www.samharris.org.
Posted April 28, 2013 (for my other readings/reflections,etc., you can type either one of these: YouTube-John Riingen; john riingen/google; juan riingen/facebook)
In 2006, Collins published a bestselling book, The Language of God, in which he claimed to demonstrate a "consistent and profoundly satisfying harmony between twnety-first century science and Evangelical Christianity. The Language of God is a genuinely astonishing book. To read it is to witness nothing less than an intellectual suicide. It is, however, a suicide that has gone almost entirely unacknowledged.
Collins is regularly praised by his fellow scientists for what he is not: he is not a "young earth creationist," nor is he a proponent of "intelligent design." Given the state of the evidence for evolution, these are both very good things for a scientist not to be. But as director of NIH, Collins now has more responsibility for biomedical and health-related research than any person on earth, controlling an annual budget of more than $30 billion. He is also one of the foremost representative of science in the United States.
Here is how Collins, as a scientist and educator, summarizes his understanding of the universe for the general public (what follows are a series of slides, presented during his lecture at the University of California, Berkeley, in 2008:
Slide 1: Almighty God who is not limited in space and time, created a universe 13.7 billion years ago
with its parameters precisely tuned to allow the development of complexity over long periods
of time.
Slide 2: God's plan included the mechanism of evolution to create the marvelous diversity of living
things on our planet. Most especially. that creative plan included human beings.
Slide 3: After evolution had prepared a sufficiently advanced "house" (our human brain), God gifted
humanity with the knowledge of good and evil (the Moral Law), with free will, and with an
immortal soul.
Slide 4: We humans use our free will to breal the moral law, leading to our estrangement from God.
For Christians, Jesus is the solution to our estrangement.
Slide 5: If the Moral Law is just a side effect of evolution, then there is no such thing as good and
evil. It's all an illusion. We've been hoodwinked. Are any of us, especially strong atheists,
really prepared to live our lives within this worldview?
....................................................................
Here is Collins story about his Christian conversion:
"A full year had passed since I decided to believe in some sort of God, and now I was being called to account. On a beautiful fall day, as I was hiking in the Cascade Mountains during my first trip west of the Mississippi, the majesty and beauty of God's creation overwhelmed my resistance. As I rounded a corner and saw a beautiful and unexpected frozen waterfall, hundreds of feet high, I knew the search was over. The next morning, I knelt in the dewy grass as the sun rose and surrendered to Jesus Christ." Here is another statement of Collins:
"As believers, you are right to hold fast to the concept of God as Creator; you are right to hold
fast to the truths of the Bible; you are right to hold fast to the conclusion that science offers no
answers to the most pressing questions of human existence; and you are right to hold fast to the
certainty that the claims of atheistic materialism must be steadfastly resisted.
God, who is not limited to space and time, created a universe and established natural laws that
govern it. Seeking to populate this otherwise sterile universe with living creatures, plants, and
animals of all sorts. Most remarkably, God intentionally chose the same mechanism to give rise
to special creatures who would have intelligence, a knowledge of right and wrong, free will, and
a desire to seek fellowship with Him. He also knew these creatures would ultimately choose to
disobey the Moral Law.
Here's what Collins said before he accepted the chairmanship of the Human Genome Project:
"I spent a long afternoon in a little chapel, seeking guidance about this decision. I did not 'hear'
God speak - in fact, I've never had that experience. During those hours, ending in an evening
service that I had not expected, a peace settled over me. A few days later, I accepted the offer."
Collins argues that science makes belief in God "intensely plausible" --the Big Bang, the fine-tuning of nature's constants, the emergence of complex life, the effectiveness of mathematics, all suggest to him that a "loving, logical and consistent" God exists. But when challenged with alternate (and far more plausible) accounts of these phenomena -- or with evidence that suggest that God might be unloving, illogical, inconsistent, or, indeed, absent - Collins declares that God stands outside of Nature, and thus science nannot address the question of His existence at all. Similarly, Collins insists that our moral intuitions attest to God's existence, to His perfectly moral character, and to His desire to have fellowship with every member of our species; but when our moral intuitions recoil at the casual destruction of innocent children by tidal wave or earthquake, Collins assures us that our time-bound notions of good and evil cannot be trusted and that God's will is a perfect mystery. As is often the case with religious apology, it is a case of heads, faith wins; tails, reason loses.
Like most Chrsitians, Collins believes in a suite of canonical miracles, including the virgin birth and literal resurrection(bodily) of Jesus Christ."
______________________________________________________________________________
*Excerpts taken from Sam Harris's book, The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Moral Values, pp.160-66. Sam Harris is a neuroscientist and the author of the New York Times bestsellers The End of Faith (Winner of the PEN Award for nonfiction) and Letters to a Chrstian Nation. His writings has appeared in Newsweek, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Times (London), The Boston Globe, The Atlantic, The Annals of Neurology, Foreign Policy, and many other publications. Dr. Harris holds a degree in philosophy from Stanford University, and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from UCLA. He is cofounder and chairman of Project Reason. Please visit his website at www.samharris.org.
Posted April 28, 2013 (for my other readings/reflections,etc., you can type either one of these: YouTube-John Riingen; john riingen/google; juan riingen/facebook)
Friday, April 26, 2013
THE MARTIN LUTHER VERY FEW KNEW*
Dr. Martin Luther (1483-1546)
Luther, a German theologian and religious reformer, initiated the Protestant Reformation through his controversial writings. His theology and writings not only challenged the authority of the Roman Catholic Church but his writings reached France, England and Italy, and the Reformation eventually split Western Christianity and forever weakened the power of the Catholic Church. His influence extends beyond religion to politics, economics, education and language. In 1505, after receiving a bachelor's and master's degree, he suddenly abandoned studies, entered the Augustinian monastery in Erfurt and became a monk. In 1517, Luther became a controversial figure when he published his Ninety-Five Theses, opposing the indulgences (release from the penalties for sin through the payment of money by the Catholic Church). His refusal to retract his writings at the demand of the Pope led to his excommunication. His influence resulted in the major Protestant denomination of Lutheranism where their churches today use Luther's name. Protestant Christians so admire Martin Luther that he stands as a respected "Patron Saint" to their beliefs and morals. Christians often quote him, theologians write books on him, and many people use his name as theirs (Martin Luther King, Jr., for example).
Unfortunately few popular books or television documentaries on Luther go into detail about Luther's anti-Jewishness, or even mention that he had a hatred for Jews at all. This has resulted in a biased outlook towards Martin Luther and Christianity. This unawareness of Luther's sinister side, while honoring his "righteousness" leads to a ratcheting promotion of Luther which supports a "good" public image while also transporting his Jewish beliefs to those who carry the seeds of anti-Semitism. This will present an unwanted dilemma for many Christians because Luther represents the birth of Protestant Christianity as well as the genesis of the special brand of Jewish hatred that flourished only in Germany.
Although Luther did not invent anti-Jewishness, he promoted it to a level never before see in Europe. Luther bore the influence of his upbringing and from anti-Jewish theologians such as Lyra, Burgensis, (and John Chrysostom, before him). But Luther's 1543 book, "On the Jews and their lies" took Jewish hatred to a new level when he proposed to set fire to their synagogues and schools, to take away their homes, forbade them to pray or tech, or even utter God's name. Luther wanted to "be rid of them" and requested that the government and ministers deal with the problem. He requested pastors and preachers to follow his example of issuing warnings against the Jews. He goes so far as to claim that "We are at fault in not slaying them" for avenging the death of Jesus Christ. Hitler's Nazi government in the 1930s and 40s fit Luther's desires to a tee.
So vehemently did Luther speak against the Jews, and the fact that Luther represented an honorable and admired Christian to Protestants, that this written words carried the "memetic" seeds of anti-Jewishness up until the 20th century and into the Third Reich. Luther's Jewish eliminationist rhetoric virtually matches the beliefs held by Hitler and much of the German populace in the 1930s. Luther unconsciously set the stage for the future of German nationalistic fanaticism. William L. Shirer in his "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich," puts it succintly:
"Through his sermons and his magnificent translations of the Bible, Luther creatred the modern German language, aroused in the people not only a new Protestant vision of
Christianity by a fervent German nationalism and taught them, at least in religion, the supremacy of the individual conscience. But tragically for them, Luther's siding with the princes in the peasant uprising, which he had largely inspired, and his passion for political autocracy ensured a mindless and provincial political absolutism which reduced the vast majority of the German people to poverty, to a horrible torpor and a demeaning subservience. Even worse perhaps, it helped to perpetuate and indeed to sharpen the hopeless divisions not only between classes but also between the various dynastic and political groupings of the German people. It doomed for centuries the possibility of the unification of
Germany."
____________________________________________________________________________
*Excerpts taken online: "Martin Luther's dirty little book: On the Jews and their lies: A Precursor of Nazism, by Jim Walker. Originated: 07 Aug. 1996' additions: 20 Nov. 2005.
Luther, a German theologian and religious reformer, initiated the Protestant Reformation through his controversial writings. His theology and writings not only challenged the authority of the Roman Catholic Church but his writings reached France, England and Italy, and the Reformation eventually split Western Christianity and forever weakened the power of the Catholic Church. His influence extends beyond religion to politics, economics, education and language. In 1505, after receiving a bachelor's and master's degree, he suddenly abandoned studies, entered the Augustinian monastery in Erfurt and became a monk. In 1517, Luther became a controversial figure when he published his Ninety-Five Theses, opposing the indulgences (release from the penalties for sin through the payment of money by the Catholic Church). His refusal to retract his writings at the demand of the Pope led to his excommunication. His influence resulted in the major Protestant denomination of Lutheranism where their churches today use Luther's name. Protestant Christians so admire Martin Luther that he stands as a respected "Patron Saint" to their beliefs and morals. Christians often quote him, theologians write books on him, and many people use his name as theirs (Martin Luther King, Jr., for example).
Unfortunately few popular books or television documentaries on Luther go into detail about Luther's anti-Jewishness, or even mention that he had a hatred for Jews at all. This has resulted in a biased outlook towards Martin Luther and Christianity. This unawareness of Luther's sinister side, while honoring his "righteousness" leads to a ratcheting promotion of Luther which supports a "good" public image while also transporting his Jewish beliefs to those who carry the seeds of anti-Semitism. This will present an unwanted dilemma for many Christians because Luther represents the birth of Protestant Christianity as well as the genesis of the special brand of Jewish hatred that flourished only in Germany.
Although Luther did not invent anti-Jewishness, he promoted it to a level never before see in Europe. Luther bore the influence of his upbringing and from anti-Jewish theologians such as Lyra, Burgensis, (and John Chrysostom, before him). But Luther's 1543 book, "On the Jews and their lies" took Jewish hatred to a new level when he proposed to set fire to their synagogues and schools, to take away their homes, forbade them to pray or tech, or even utter God's name. Luther wanted to "be rid of them" and requested that the government and ministers deal with the problem. He requested pastors and preachers to follow his example of issuing warnings against the Jews. He goes so far as to claim that "We are at fault in not slaying them" for avenging the death of Jesus Christ. Hitler's Nazi government in the 1930s and 40s fit Luther's desires to a tee.
So vehemently did Luther speak against the Jews, and the fact that Luther represented an honorable and admired Christian to Protestants, that this written words carried the "memetic" seeds of anti-Jewishness up until the 20th century and into the Third Reich. Luther's Jewish eliminationist rhetoric virtually matches the beliefs held by Hitler and much of the German populace in the 1930s. Luther unconsciously set the stage for the future of German nationalistic fanaticism. William L. Shirer in his "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich," puts it succintly:
"Through his sermons and his magnificent translations of the Bible, Luther creatred the modern German language, aroused in the people not only a new Protestant vision of
Christianity by a fervent German nationalism and taught them, at least in religion, the supremacy of the individual conscience. But tragically for them, Luther's siding with the princes in the peasant uprising, which he had largely inspired, and his passion for political autocracy ensured a mindless and provincial political absolutism which reduced the vast majority of the German people to poverty, to a horrible torpor and a demeaning subservience. Even worse perhaps, it helped to perpetuate and indeed to sharpen the hopeless divisions not only between classes but also between the various dynastic and political groupings of the German people. It doomed for centuries the possibility of the unification of
Germany."
____________________________________________________________________________
*Excerpts taken online: "Martin Luther's dirty little book: On the Jews and their lies: A Precursor of Nazism, by Jim Walker. Originated: 07 Aug. 1996' additions: 20 Nov. 2005.
THE EARLY STRUGGLES OF THE ABOLITIONIST MOVEMENT: "THEY DID NOT KNOW THAT THEY DID NOT KNOW WHAT FORM IT SHOULD TAKE"
The abolitionist movement was based upon a moral frenzy, not an economic discontent. After about 1830 almost all abolitionists were resident in the North. For the most part they were middle-class people who had no material stake in the conservation or destruction of the slave system, which was in the most literal sense none of their business. Since slavery was a moral rather than an economic injury to them, they came to look upon it as an economic institution but as a breach of the ordinations of God. Abolitionism was a religious movement, emerging from the ferment of evangelical Protestantism, psychologically akin to other reforms - women's rights, temperance, and pacifism - which agitated the spirits of the Northern middle classes during the three decades before the Civil War. Its philosophy was essentially a theology, its technique similar to the techniques of revivalism, its agencies the church congregations of the towns. "Our enterprise," declared Wendell Phillips, "is eminently a religious one, dependent for success entirely on the religious sentiment of the people." The conviction that SLAVERY IS A SIN is the Gibraltar of the cause." Theodore Weld, one of the most effective leaders of the Western wing of the movement, once wrote:
In discussing the subject of slavery, I have always presented it as pre-eminently a moral question,
arresting the conscience of the nation. . . .As a question of politics and national economy, I have
passed it with scarce a look or a word, believing that the business of the abolitionists is with the
heart of the nation, rather than with its purse strings."
They had, to be sure, originally planned to make their campaign an appeal to the conscience of the slave-owners themselves, but sober observation of the Southern minds soon showed the hopelessness of such an effort. The minds of the masters were closed, and the abolitionists had precious little access to the minds of the slaves - nor did they want to incite insurrection.
.................................................................................................................................................Other abolitionists, feeling that it would be impossible to make a quick jump from slavery into freedom, and realizing that slavery in the United States was not legally a national but a state institution, which might be dropped in one place while it was flourishing in another, played with the metaphysics of "immediatism" by calling for "immediate emancipation which is gradually accomplished." Gradual methods, in short, should be immediately begun. Thus James Thome receded from the high ground of the Garrisonians: "We did not wish (the slaves) turned loose, nor even to be governed by the same Code of Laws which are adapted to intelligent citizens." To Garrison's followers this sounded like a proposal to leave the Negroes in some kind of subject condition, like a plan for forced labor --"the substitution of one type of slavery for another."
...................................................................................................................................................
The abolitionists were even less clear on how the Negro was to become an independent human being after he was freed (188). Southern proslavery apologists were quick to seize upon this weakness of the abolition case; they grasped all too well the anticipated difficulties of emancipation, and expounded them with the tenacity of the obsessed. Lincoln, who struggled conscientiously to imagine what could be done about slavery, confessed sadly that even if he had full power to dispose of it he would not know how. The abolitionists likewise did not know, but THEY DID NOT KNOW THAT THEY DID NOT KNOW (caps mine-jnr :-) The result was that when formal freedom did finally come to the Negro, many abolitionists failed entirely to realize how much more help he would need or what form it should take. Wendell Phillips, however, had learned to transcend Garrison thought. In the critical hour of Reconstruction he dropped the veil of dogma and turned to the realities.
_____________________________________________________________________
*Excerpts taken from The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It, by Richard Hofstadter, pp.185-188
In discussing the subject of slavery, I have always presented it as pre-eminently a moral question,
arresting the conscience of the nation. . . .As a question of politics and national economy, I have
passed it with scarce a look or a word, believing that the business of the abolitionists is with the
heart of the nation, rather than with its purse strings."
They had, to be sure, originally planned to make their campaign an appeal to the conscience of the slave-owners themselves, but sober observation of the Southern minds soon showed the hopelessness of such an effort. The minds of the masters were closed, and the abolitionists had precious little access to the minds of the slaves - nor did they want to incite insurrection.
.................................................................................................................................................Other abolitionists, feeling that it would be impossible to make a quick jump from slavery into freedom, and realizing that slavery in the United States was not legally a national but a state institution, which might be dropped in one place while it was flourishing in another, played with the metaphysics of "immediatism" by calling for "immediate emancipation which is gradually accomplished." Gradual methods, in short, should be immediately begun. Thus James Thome receded from the high ground of the Garrisonians: "We did not wish (the slaves) turned loose, nor even to be governed by the same Code of Laws which are adapted to intelligent citizens." To Garrison's followers this sounded like a proposal to leave the Negroes in some kind of subject condition, like a plan for forced labor --"the substitution of one type of slavery for another."
...................................................................................................................................................
The abolitionists were even less clear on how the Negro was to become an independent human being after he was freed (188). Southern proslavery apologists were quick to seize upon this weakness of the abolition case; they grasped all too well the anticipated difficulties of emancipation, and expounded them with the tenacity of the obsessed. Lincoln, who struggled conscientiously to imagine what could be done about slavery, confessed sadly that even if he had full power to dispose of it he would not know how. The abolitionists likewise did not know, but THEY DID NOT KNOW THAT THEY DID NOT KNOW (caps mine-jnr :-) The result was that when formal freedom did finally come to the Negro, many abolitionists failed entirely to realize how much more help he would need or what form it should take. Wendell Phillips, however, had learned to transcend Garrison thought. In the critical hour of Reconstruction he dropped the veil of dogma and turned to the realities.
_____________________________________________________________________
*Excerpts taken from The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It, by Richard Hofstadter, pp.185-188
Thursday, April 25, 2013
WHY THE CULTURE WARS BETWEEN RELIGION AND SCIENCE ALWAYS ENDS IN IMPASSE?*
"Both sides present what they take to be excellent arguments to support their positions. Both sides expect the other side to be responsive to such reasons. When the other side fails to be affected by such good reasons, each side concludes that the other side must be closed minded or insincere. In this way the culture wars over issues such as homosexuality and abortion can generate morally motivated players on both sides who believe that their opponents are not morally motivated."
________________________________________
*The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values, by Sam Harris, p. 88.
Posted April 25, 2013 (for my other readings/reflections,etc., go to one of these: YouTube-John Riingen; john riingen/google; juan riingen/facebook)
________________________________________
*The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values, by Sam Harris, p. 88.
Posted April 25, 2013 (for my other readings/reflections,etc., go to one of these: YouTube-John Riingen; john riingen/google; juan riingen/facebook)
GENETICIST FRANCIS COLLINS BELIEVES IN EVOLUTION AND GOD
During a lecture Collins gave at University of California, Berkeley in 2008, he presented a series of slides, presented in order:
Slide 1: Almighty God, who is not limited in space or time, created a universe 13.7 billion years ago with its parameters precisely tuned to allow the development of complexity over long periods of time.
Slide 2: God's plan included the mechanism of evolution to create the marvelous diversity of living things on our planet. Most especially, that creative plan included human beings.
Slide 3: After evolution had prepared a sufficiently advanced "house" (the human brain), God gifted humanity with the knowledge of good and evil (the Moral Law), with free will, and with an immortal soul.
Slide 4: We humans use our free will to break the moral law, leading to our estrangement from God. For Christians, Jesus is the solution to our estrangement.
Slide 5: If the Moral Law is just a slide effecdt of evolution, then there is no such thing as good or evil. It's all an illusion. We've been hoodwinked. Are any of us, especially strong atheists, really prepared to live our lives within that worldview?
...............................................................................................................................................................
But the pilgrim continues his progress: next, we learn that Collins' uncertainty about the identity of God could not survive a collision with C.S. Lewis. The following passage from Lewis proved decisive:
"I am trying to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him:
"I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God." That
is the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic -
on a level with the man who says He is a poached egg - or else He would be the Devil of Hell.
You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God; or else a madman or
something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit as Him and kill Him as a demon;
or you can fall at His feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing
nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left open to us. He did not intend
to."
Collins provides this pabulum for our contemplation and then describes how it irrevocably altered his view of the universe:
"Lewis was right. I had to make a choice. A full year had passed since I decided to believe in
some sort of God, and now I was being called to account. On a beautiful fall day, I was hiking
in the Cascade Mountains during my first trip west of the Mississippi, the majesty and beauty
of God's creation overwhelmed my resistance. As I rounded a corner and saw a beautiful and
unexpected frozen waterfall, hundreds of feet high, I knew the search was over. The next
morning, I knelt in the dewy grass as the sun rose and surrendered to Jesus Christ."
This is a self-deception at full gallop. It is simply astounding that this passage was written by a scientist with the intent of demonstrating the compatibility of faith and reason. And if we thought Collins's reasoning could grow no more labile, he has since divulged at the waterfall was frozen into three streams, which puts him in mind of the Holy Trinity.
It should go without saying that if a frozen waterfall can confirm the specific tenets of Christianity, anything can confirm anything. But this truth was not obvious to Collins as he "knelt in the dewy grass," and it is not obvious to him now. Nor was it obvious in the editors of Nature, which is the most important sceintific publication in any language. The journal praised Collins for engaging "with people of faith to explore how science - both in its mode of thought and its results - is consistent with their religious beliefs." According to Nature, Collins was engaged in the "moving" and "laudable" exercise of building "a bridge across the social and intellectual divide that exists between most of U.S. academia and the so-called heartlands." And here is Collin, hard at work on the bridge:
"As believers, you are right to hold fast to the concept of God as Creator, you are right to hold
fast to the truths of the Bible; you are right to hold fast to the conclusion that science offers no
answers to the most pressing questions of human existence; and you are right to hold fast to the
certainty that the claims of atheistic materialism must be steadfastly resisted.
God, who is not limitede to space and time, created the universe and established natural laws
that govern it. Seeking to populate this otherwise sterile universe with living creatures, God
chose the elegant mechanism of evolution to create microbes, plants, and animals of all sorts
. Most remarkably, God intentionally chose the same mechanism to give rise to special creatures
who would have intelligence, a knwoledge of right and wrong, free will, and a desire to seek
fellowship with Him. He also knew these creatures would ultimately choose to disobey the
Moral Law."
..............................................................................................................................................................
There is an epidemic of scientific ignorance in the United States. This isn't surprising, as very few scientific truths are seldom-evident and many are deeply counterintuitive. It is by no means obvious that empty space has structure or that we share a common ancestor with both the housefly and the banana. It can be difficult to think like a scientist (even, we have begun to see, when one is a scientist). But it would seem that few things make thinking like a scientist more difficult than an attachment to religion.
_______________________________________________________________________________
*The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values, by Sam Harris, pp.160-176.
Slide 1: Almighty God, who is not limited in space or time, created a universe 13.7 billion years ago with its parameters precisely tuned to allow the development of complexity over long periods of time.
Slide 2: God's plan included the mechanism of evolution to create the marvelous diversity of living things on our planet. Most especially, that creative plan included human beings.
Slide 3: After evolution had prepared a sufficiently advanced "house" (the human brain), God gifted humanity with the knowledge of good and evil (the Moral Law), with free will, and with an immortal soul.
Slide 4: We humans use our free will to break the moral law, leading to our estrangement from God. For Christians, Jesus is the solution to our estrangement.
Slide 5: If the Moral Law is just a slide effecdt of evolution, then there is no such thing as good or evil. It's all an illusion. We've been hoodwinked. Are any of us, especially strong atheists, really prepared to live our lives within that worldview?
...............................................................................................................................................................
But the pilgrim continues his progress: next, we learn that Collins' uncertainty about the identity of God could not survive a collision with C.S. Lewis. The following passage from Lewis proved decisive:
"I am trying to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him:
"I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God." That
is the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic -
on a level with the man who says He is a poached egg - or else He would be the Devil of Hell.
You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God; or else a madman or
something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit as Him and kill Him as a demon;
or you can fall at His feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing
nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left open to us. He did not intend
to."
Collins provides this pabulum for our contemplation and then describes how it irrevocably altered his view of the universe:
"Lewis was right. I had to make a choice. A full year had passed since I decided to believe in
some sort of God, and now I was being called to account. On a beautiful fall day, I was hiking
in the Cascade Mountains during my first trip west of the Mississippi, the majesty and beauty
of God's creation overwhelmed my resistance. As I rounded a corner and saw a beautiful and
unexpected frozen waterfall, hundreds of feet high, I knew the search was over. The next
morning, I knelt in the dewy grass as the sun rose and surrendered to Jesus Christ."
This is a self-deception at full gallop. It is simply astounding that this passage was written by a scientist with the intent of demonstrating the compatibility of faith and reason. And if we thought Collins's reasoning could grow no more labile, he has since divulged at the waterfall was frozen into three streams, which puts him in mind of the Holy Trinity.
It should go without saying that if a frozen waterfall can confirm the specific tenets of Christianity, anything can confirm anything. But this truth was not obvious to Collins as he "knelt in the dewy grass," and it is not obvious to him now. Nor was it obvious in the editors of Nature, which is the most important sceintific publication in any language. The journal praised Collins for engaging "with people of faith to explore how science - both in its mode of thought and its results - is consistent with their religious beliefs." According to Nature, Collins was engaged in the "moving" and "laudable" exercise of building "a bridge across the social and intellectual divide that exists between most of U.S. academia and the so-called heartlands." And here is Collin, hard at work on the bridge:
"As believers, you are right to hold fast to the concept of God as Creator, you are right to hold
fast to the truths of the Bible; you are right to hold fast to the conclusion that science offers no
answers to the most pressing questions of human existence; and you are right to hold fast to the
certainty that the claims of atheistic materialism must be steadfastly resisted.
God, who is not limitede to space and time, created the universe and established natural laws
that govern it. Seeking to populate this otherwise sterile universe with living creatures, God
chose the elegant mechanism of evolution to create microbes, plants, and animals of all sorts
. Most remarkably, God intentionally chose the same mechanism to give rise to special creatures
who would have intelligence, a knwoledge of right and wrong, free will, and a desire to seek
fellowship with Him. He also knew these creatures would ultimately choose to disobey the
Moral Law."
..............................................................................................................................................................
There is an epidemic of scientific ignorance in the United States. This isn't surprising, as very few scientific truths are seldom-evident and many are deeply counterintuitive. It is by no means obvious that empty space has structure or that we share a common ancestor with both the housefly and the banana. It can be difficult to think like a scientist (even, we have begun to see, when one is a scientist). But it would seem that few things make thinking like a scientist more difficult than an attachment to religion.
_______________________________________________________________________________
*The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values, by Sam Harris, pp.160-176.
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