Category Archives: Religion

Reconstruction of the USA

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Writing about theology is outside my comfort zone. As a non-theist, I lean heavily towards a mechanistic, secular explanation of the universe where observation, measurement and theory are the pillars which support our understanding of the universe. Crediting a deity with creating the universe only begs the question: who created the deity? Why would a universe created by a deity be more likely than one that exists independently? Along this line of thinking, Occam’s Razor would suggest that a deity is an unnecessary step in the reduction to the truth. Occam’s Razor isn’t just philosophical tidiness. It reflects a physics that is cut from the cloth of reductionism.

Occam’s Razor is neither a natural law nor a formal scientific method; it serves more as a heuristic guideline. When multiple explanations yield the same conclusion, the simplest one is usually deemed more likely. Supernatural or magical explanations find no refuge in Occam’s Razor. It’s not about resorting to a simple magic trick. Any explanation favored by Occam’s Razor must still withstand subsequent observation, measurement, and theoretical scrutiny—the core of scientific inquiry.

The point of this essay

I am writing to highlight that the United States of America, despite its chaos and noise, errors and blunders, has developed an impressive economic growth engine, formidable military capabilities, expanded civil rights, enhanced public health, and a wide-ranging scientific and technological foundation that surpasses anything previously witnessed in history. Numerous sources support this claim.

A significant portion of the American experiment including its economic system, directly stems from the European Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries. It must be emphasized that there is an emerging movement aiming to regress various facets of our culture to a period before the Enlightenment—a time characterized by extensive church authority and a government in alliance with it.

I will state plainly that I am deeply opposed to the forces currently working to regress our civilization. Since my earliest memories which began at the time of the Kennedy assassination in 1963, there has been a continuous lament over the state of our nation. People have consistently shaken their heads, openly questioning how the USA could continue to progress amidst the prevailing turmoil. This sentiment has persisted over the years. Nevertheless, not only have we persisted, but we’ve also made continuous progress in improving the quality of life.

The nostalgia for the “good old days” of America’s supposed greatness is often lamented by those who find current times challenging. A closer examination of American history reveals a complex tapestry of both distressing events and prosperous periods. In any given year, one can uncover instances of both success and sorrow. It seems that a certain level of disorder is inherent in our pluralistic democratic republic. The population typically follows a statistical distribution, with a majority of average individuals at the center and fewer at the extremes, represented by the virtuous and the villainous. While disorder is a constant, its nature fluctuates with the changing eras.

Considering the unfathomable expanse of the universe, it is difficult to comprehend the significance of distant galaxies, which remained invisible until recently, within the cosmological framework of the Old Testament as depicted in Genesis. The Abrahamic faiths inherently present a cosmological theory complete with an origin narrative and are replete with Bronze and Iron Age prescriptions for social structure, upheld by a deity who is portrayed as both loving and wrathful- curiously human attributes.

Bronze age religious sentiments

The foundations of these religions originate from an era that is far removed and largely outdated in the context of today’s social norms. The holy scriptures were written at a time when life-changing phenomena were commonly attributed to witchcraft, demons, or benevolent gods. Historically, the struggle to understand cause and effect in life meant attributing disease, illness, and death to dark and unseen forces. The advent of microscopes, along with advancements in medication and surgical procedures, has dramatically altered this perspective.

A persistent and detrimental remnant from the Bronze Age Abrahamic religions is the belief that humans have dominion over Earth and its creatures. This belief manifests in various ways today, notably hindering necessary conservation, environmental and public health efforts out of concern for humanity and the biosphere. The Earth’s biosphere has been under significant strain for many decades. Unfortunately, this broad dominion has historically held over women, who have suffered tremendously under a patriarchy endorsed by these religious doctrines.

Undoubtedly, religion provides numerous benefits to individuals in various significant aspects. However, it can also serve as a personal and collective obstacle. The issue arises when it becomes a foundation for mystical thinking, offering black and white solutions to the complex spectrum of issues we encounter, rather than acknowledging the continuous shades of grey that characterize our reality.

The coming storm

I posted an article on Theocratic Dominionism back on October 25, 2006. Today Dominionism, Christian Nationalism, Christian Reconstructionism, or the New Apostolic Reformation, NAR, are gaining much ground in politics. It is apparent now that the old Republican party has transmogrified into the MAGA party whose devout members are being led to a Christian Nationalism model. The endgame sought is certainly consistent with the goals of Project 2025. This is in the direction of what has been called “illiberal democracy” as the President of Hungary, Victor Orban, puts it.

The father of Christian reconstructionism is credited to the son of Armenian immigrants Rousas John Rushdoony (1916-2001). He was an orthodox Calvinist minister, philosopher, historian and theologian. Michael J. McVicar, associate professor of Religion at Florida State University wrote of Rushdoony –

“As a theologian Rushdoony saw human beings as primarily religious creatures bound to God, not as rational autonomous thinkers. While this may seem an esoteric theological point, it isn’t. All of Rushdoony’s influence on the Christian Right stems from this single, essential fact. Many critics of Christian Reconstructionism assume that Rushdoony’s unique contribution to the Christian Right was his focus on theocracy. In fact, Rushdoony’s primary innovation was his single-minded effort to popularize a pre-Enlightenment, medieval view of a God-centered world. By de-emphasizing humanity’s ability to reason independently of God, Rushdoony attacked the assumptions most of us uncritically accept.” [Italics mine]

According to McVicar, Rushdoony had no interest in the world of the enlightenment. The orthodox Calvinist Rushdoony saw people as “religious creatures bound to God, not as rational autonomous thinkers”. Rushdoony advocated under the theonomic perspective, meaning a Christian form of government where individuals and society are ruled by divine law, especially under judicial laws in the Old Testament of the Christian bible.

Rushdoony opposed democracy which he claimed opposed the will of God and favored the republic which represented a better form of civic government. He said to Bill Moyers in an interview “… a republic avoided mob rule and the rule of the “51%” of society; in other words “might does not make right” in a republic.”

“The central tenet of Rushdoony’s teaching is that God has tasked Christians with taking dominion over society, beginning in Genesis 1:28, in which God commands humans to take dominion over the earth. While many Christians have applied this verse in the context of stewardship, Rushdoony taught that this creation mandate is really a dominion mandate, commanding humans to bring every sphere of society—as well as nature itself—into subjugation under Christ. In his view, Christ’s sacrificial death nullified the Fall and subsequent curse of Genesis 3 and enabled Christians to perfectly follow God’s law. Reconstructionism is a guidebook for Christians to reconstruct society according to Rushdoony’s understanding of Mosaic law. (Notably, his understanding differs dramatically from historical Jewish interpretations and includes stoning LGBTQ individuals.)” Source: The Christian Century, November 2022.

Distilled down to a sticky residue, Dominionism is the belief that Christians should take moral, spiritual, and ecclesiastical control over society. Romans 13:1-5 says in so many words that God has ordained the state as a delegated authority; it is not autonomous. Secular authority is not sanctioned. It is upon this authority that Dominionism rests.

Implementing an ecclesiastical governing hierarchy to operate various government entities will be complex. Individuals identify as Atheist, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Mormon, etc., for numerous reasons, including family history or personal choice. Are these individuals considering that sectarianism might not pose an issue? Have they examined the impact of sectarianism in the Middle East and other regions closely?

Even if the sectarian issue is resolved, consider the extensive scope of the law in all its forms. Discussions about biblical law often seem to focus on the Ten Commandments, the law outlined in Deuteronomy and biblical punishments like stoning. Punishing criminals is one aspect, but what about civil laws? The Bible doesn’t explicitly detail regulations for commerce, transportation, safety, torts and numerous other areas governed by secular laws.

An example of religious authority gone bad

The Spanish Inquisition, officially the “Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition,” began in 1478 by the Catholic monarchs King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile. They sought and obtained independent inquisitorial authority separate from the Vatican and its own inquisition. Lasting from 1478 to 1834, this judicial institution aimed to eliminate heresy. However, it often forced Jews and Muslims to convert to Christianity or expelled them from the kingdom when they resisted conversion.

Unfortunately for the people of the New World, the Spanish conquistadores carried their Inquisitional evangelism with them to root out heresy. Along with it they spread smallpox, influenza and other diseases wiping out whole populations. This has been extensively covered by historians. The conquests of Cortes and his second cousin Pizzaro starting around 1519 in what is now Mexico and to the south visited death upon the Aztecs, Incas and many others.

The Catholic church in medieval times carried great authority and the monarchies of the time knew it. They sought to find favor with the Vatican and share in its power and wealth over the population. It manifested as the notion that to be against the ruling class was to be against God. It has never been documented that God had stepped in personally to referee these power games, you know, like he spoke to Noah or Moses, but the church was only too happy step in and be the arbiter of matters for the silent supernatural.

In theocracy, who is in charge?

The Biblical Law scenario wouldn’t involve a deity directly governing society, but rather sectarian politicians and religious leaders would act in the place of the mysterious, invisible and silent Deity. Over time, laws such as those from the Mosaic tradition would need to be codified for widespread dissemination, uniform interpretation and adaptation to law school curriculum. Considering the limited details provided by religious texts on prohibitions and punishments, extensive interpretation would be necessary to address the countless scenarios that could emerge within a society. The question then arises: In cases of uncertainty, what should be the recourse?

The long and short of it

What this burgeoning theocratic movement is about is political power. In short, a subset of the American people believe they have a solution to the woes of society and they have supernatural backing to make it happen. They claim that their authority is not of this world and not subject to Earthly constraints. The laws of man are inherently subservient primarily to the laws of God as issued thousands of years ago to tribal desert goat herders.

Reconstructionism is a quiet movement. It’s purpose is to implement a reconstruction of American values to suit the world view of a minority of religious extremists. It is a movement that seeks nothing less than the establishment of a theocratic form of government in America.  It is also called Theocratic Dominionism or Christian Reconstructionism.  But don’t believe me, see for yourself.  Google these terms and browse the online resources. 

The John Birch Society

For myself, I have been watching Christian fundamentalism since the early 1970’s.  I recall stopping at a booth at the county fair as a high school student and talking to members of the John Birch Society. I thought at the time that they were Looney Toons, or just an obscure Christian libertarian group.  I guessed that they were mostly harmless.   Well, I was wrong.

Frederick Clarkson at PublicEye.org writes- “Reconstructionist leaders seem to have two consistent characteristics: a background in conservative Presbyterianism, and connections to the John Birch Society (JBS).”

He goes on to say- “In 1973, R. J. Rushdoony compared the structure of the JBS to the “early church.” He wrote in Institutes: “The key to the John Birch Society’s effectiveness has been a plan of operation which has a strong resemblance to the early church; have meetings, local lay leaders, area supervisors or bishops.”

The JBS connection does not stop there. Most leading Reconstructionists have either been JBS members or have close ties to the organization. Reconstructionist literature can be found in JBS-affiliated American Opinion bookstores.

But what is reconstructionism about? Again, Clarkson puts it succinctly-

“Reconstructionism is a theology that arose out of conservative Presbyterianism (Reformed and Orthodox), which proposes that contemporary application of the laws of Old Testament Israel, or “Biblical Law,” is the basis for reconstructing society toward the Kingdom of God on earth. “

Reconstructionism argues that the Bible is to be the governing text for all areas of life such as government, education, law, and the arts, not merely “social” or “moral” issues like pornography, homosexuality, and abortion. Reconstructionists have formulated a “Biblical world view” and “Biblical principles” by which to examine contemporary law. Reconstructionist theologian David Chilton succinctly describes this view: “The Christian goal for the world is the universal development of Biblical theocratic republics, in which every area of life is redeemed and placed under the Lordship of Jesus Christ and the rule of God’s law.”

To establish a theocracy is to suppress independent action and thinking. It is to surrender freedom to self-declared religious followers who claim to have been spoken to by an otherwise silent and invisible deity. It is to yield to the argument to “have faith”.

“Deaths in wars and conflicts killed or allowed to die by human decision of approximately 231 million for the 100 years of the 20th Century.” University of Maryland School of Public Policy.

How many of the 231 million people in the 20th century prayed their hearts out and requested help or strength under horrific circumstances? I’d estimate that most of them made every effort within their power.

Conclusion

I agree. It is easy to dismiss this as a bunch of paranoid lunatics. But if you’re paying attention to things, you might also observe that we have been in the midst of this movement for some time.  The inauguration of Trump, and a MAGA Republican majority in either the house or the senate followed by the implementation of Project 2025 will be the kick-off moment for a Christian nationalist takeover of the USA. This is not the country I want to live in.

Vatican Cracking Down on Alleged Apparitions

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When a tiny slit between the grubby natural world and the rarefied ether of the supernatural tears and the two realms have a chance to see one another, people will naturally want to tell others. As luck would have it, when Catholics experience an apparition, it always seems to be from the Catholic playbook. You know, the Blessed Virgin, Jesus on toast or Saint so-and-so. It’s never Martin Luther or Desmond Tutu.

I write about this only as an amused outsider. I don’t care what they think they saw. Let ’em have it. It’s a great story to share. What is engaging for me is that the Church is uneasy with the doctrinal implications of what many of the apparitions or miracles have brought to the mix. The quote below by Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández is insightful.

“Even recently, some bishops have wanted to make statements such as, ‘I confirm the absolute truth of the facts’ and ‘the faithful must undoubtedly consider as true …’”. “These expressions,” [Cardinal Víctor Manuel] Fernández states, “effectively oriented the faithful to think they had to believe in these phenomena, which sometimes were valued more than the Gospel itself.”

Effective May 19, 2024, the Vatican has issued a document titled “Norms for Proceeding in the Discernment of Alleged Supernatural Phenomena.” Whereas previously, a local bishop had much discretion in what he decides before he announces a determination on an event of alleged supernatural origin. The new guideline states that the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) “must always be consulted and give final approval to what the bishop decides …”. The new norms say that “only the pope can judge that an alleged apparition or other phenomenon is of “supernatural origin.” 

What is going on with the supernatural phenomena issue? Has there been an outbreak? The whole religion rests on a pillar of the supernatural so is it really that bad? The real change is very small- the main difference with the new guideline is that consultation between the diocesan bishop and the dicastery is now in the open rather than going unmentioned and the Pope has the final word according to the Catholic News Agency. They don’t want the doctrine to get too wacky.

Why? It seems that the accounts of personal revelation and Marian apparitions were getting a bit out of hand. Many bishops have been inclined to rule in a positive way in favor of the alleged apparition. This became a problem writ large in the minds of some and it had to be addressed.

As I have previously mentioned, I did time in Texas. I did a postdoc in the blazing hot, heavily Catholic city of San Antonio, TX. One evening on the local news there was a TV camera crew trying to capture an apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It happened in an alley in a tree back lit by a streetlight and it drew a crowd of anxious, jabbering onlookers. The apparition itself was actually a shadow from a tree under the streetlight. But with the car headlights and TV camera lights it had completely vanished. Yet people lingered, hoping for a glimpse of the miraculous sighting. Eventually, the camera crew signed off and left. It was yet another Marian Apparition witnessed only by a lucky few.

Expelling Women from Pastoral Duty

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Latest news from the Baptists. At the 2023 Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) in New Orleans a move is underway to expel almost 2000 women from pastoral functions in its churches. A general vote will take place this week.

Apparently, the right wing of the SBC wants to crack down on what it sees as a liberal shift in its membership. Ultraconservatives believe that women pastors are just the beginning of future acceptance of homosexuality and sexual immorality. The ultraconservative fraction of American evangelism has been melding with Republican politics for decades since President Reagan and Jerry Falwell.

Pastor Mike Law from Arlington Baptist Church in Arlington, Virginia, wrote a letter suggesting an amendment to the SBC constitution stating that a church could only be regarded as Southern Baptist if it “does not affirm, appoint or employ a woman as a pastor of any kind.” The 111 page letter co-signed by 2000 male pastors and professors. Law cites 1 Tim. 3:1–7; Titus 1:5–9 in the Bible as backing up his assertion of the role of women in the church.

The language of these verses do not explicitly declare women as ineligible as an “overseer”, but they state that the overseer must be a “husband of only one wife“. The rest of the language goes on to list a number of personal qualities that an overseer must have.

I’m obviously not a Biblical scholar nor a believer in magic. Furthermore, this is a private matter among Baptists. Actually, it amuses me to watch them agonizing over how to polish the big brass knob on the doorway to their hoped for afterlife.

What I do care about is that this is a major setback for women in the 13 million member SBC organization. It imposes an inherent subordination on females based on the assertions of males who have appointed themselves in charge based on their literalist interpretations.

The text that they cite was written in a time when women were mere chattel who were deemed lesser than men. People get so wrapped up trying to do biblical things in biblical ways that they forget the core humane purpose of the church.

Worse than the unreasonable restraints on SBC women is how it will validate the woefully misguided instincts of the ultraorthodox Baptists as they spread into the greater population through politics. They want a theocratic state where people like themselves will rule under “biblical law”. They’re going to be disappointed.

Pat Robertson is Dead

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Warning: A large dose of sarcasm is being dispensed.

American media mogul, founder of Regent University and Southern Baptist Preacher-man Pat Robertson has fallen over dead. He was constantly yammering on television and leveraging his Christian nationalist views on conservative US politics to the point where disasters like 9/11 were blamed on spiritual revenge. Yes, big guy upstairs, you know, the one who set the galaxies spinning and knows our every impure thought, is upset with many of us because of our woke political views. The GOP loves the hellfire and brimstone stuff. It naturally attracts a certain caste of voters (MAGA people) who eagerly line up to see God-fearin’ preachers and Republican officials openin’ up a can of whoop-ass on the libs. These are the voters who Republican candidates lust after. Robertson’s apocalyptic theology depended on this.

Are such people retrievable from their trip down the rabbit hole of petty magical mystical thinking? It doesn’t appear so.

Baptist Hate-Preacher

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A video dropped from the sky showing Christian preacher Jason Graber of the Sure Foundation Baptist Church in Spokane advocating for the execution of the parents of transgender kids by a gunshot to the back of the head. This video is echoing all over the interwebs. It is important to realize that managers who oversee news distribution are duty bound to allow only items that attract the greatest number of eyeballs through the filter. Their job performance is judged on this basis. They curate the news minute-by-minute as it happens.

Graber is a small frog in a very large pond. He and his flock are a small group in Spokane. However, I’m sure that his homophobia and anti-trans speech rhymes with what a great many people believe. You do not have to be explicitly pro-gay or pro-transgender to see that these views are a stage-4 malignancy in our democracy.

However, there is nothing new to this kind of vile speech. This is part of hellfire and brimstone preaching that has been in America since the very beginning. Only today it is amplified and distributed broadly in the Mulligan stew of today’s electronic media. Who would have guessed that the invention of the transistor would lead to this?

Plainly this preacher-man does not represent the views of all Christians. Population attributes are generally distributed as a normal distribution or sometimes called a bell curve with extremes on each side. Let’s say in this case that on the left extreme are those of Christ-like temperament of love and forgiveness and on the right extreme are those of hellfire and brimstone temperament. This character is obviously on the hellfire and brimstone end of the curve. In a normal distribution the population of extreme members is low and the bulk of the members are midrange. The mathematical ideal is sometimes called a Gaussian distribution after the great mathematician Karl Friedrich Gauss**.

A normal distribution curve showing population percentages vs deviations from the average (Greek letter mu). Source: Simply Psychology, https://www.simplypsychology.org/normal-distribution.html

Brother Graber is very much on the extreme end of the curve, even for a fundamentalist. But the freakshow he puts on causes much rubbernecking on the great interstate highway of life. It makes him look bigger than he really is. Media rewards extremism with large viewership. Look at #45, the Elephant Man of media. You just can’t take your eyes off him.

One weakness of members of the human distribution is that many are liable to believe that his outrageousness is a measure of the purity of his righteous devotion to God. He is devoted alright. To a bronze-age deity who plays favorites and metes out lethal justice to the infidels. Historically, this kind of deity has always held an appeal to people. It so happens that I am not one of them. Tradition can offer great comfort for many. But it can also be unneeded baggage that bogs you down in the muck of obsolete beliefs. It is the imaginary cosmology of Deities, a theory of the universe that sees angels and demons lurking behind every tree. What’s behind every tree? The backside of the tree of course.

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**My blog name, Gaussling, is in honor of Gauss and in no way is meant to suggest that my mathematical abilities are anywhere near his. Au contraire.

GOP Evangelical Dread-Fear Machine In Action. Again.

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The weighty voices of the GOP evangelical propaganda wing have activated following the awful soaking that Houston received. The wagging fingers of TV evangelists were not far behind to remind us of the looming existential threat.

We’ve witnessed a burlesque of  righteous-sounding preachers leaning in from the video pulpit and warning, solemnly and in no uncertain terms, that hurricane Harvey is only the latest in a series of calamities to befall our nation. Our corrupt society is wallowing in a fetid pit of sin and depravity. The storms were heaven sent they intone, to show Who is actually in charge.

It’s all so very clear to these folks. The root cause of the mass murder at Sandy Hook and hurricanes Katrina, and now Harvey is the grievous sin of omission. For what? For failing to put an end to abortion and gay marriage. They’ve been connecting the dots and these dots lead to perdition. An existential threat is on the move. It’s Old Nick up to no good.

The conservative fear machine has kicked into full ruckus configuration. They deploy their weapons of incitement via their heavy presence on AM radio and cable TV. For elections and in the face of national debate, these evangelical conservatives know that they can dependably frighten just enough people to swerve the Republican hive mind. Who are these pliable voters? I think more than a few of them are people who for one reason or another did not take advantage of the education opportunities decades ago and now find themselves near the terminus of a life of toil.

Conveniently for those right of center, the Democratic Party is comatose and strapped into an iron lung, wheezing away the years in an undisclosed location.

9/10/17, Addendum.  In case I was not clear, it’s my observation that conservative protestant evangelical organizations have become a menace to American civilization. It seems to me that the election of Trump and the support bestowed upon him by conservative Christian groups, many of whom can be found out in the open on his evangelical advisory board, has opened the door to opaque theocratic influence on the large scale conduct of American government.

It’s axiomatic that people have an inherent right to worship as they please. So imagine the nightmare of trying to control what people believe when religion is folded into the curriculum of the public schools. What a tragic misunderstanding of human nature it would be to attempt to impose religious doctrine upon students. Parents would have none of it. But, a private school may have much more flexibility to teach a particular sect of religious belief. Is it  a coincidence that privatizing schools is favored by many religious organizations?

Finally, there is the matter of magisteria. Steven J. Gould wrote about religion and science as being non-overlapping magisteria. A magisterium is defined as a “a domain where one form of teaching holds the appropriate tools for meaningful discourse and resolution”. A magisterium may or may not recognize an external system of laws, facts, or values. Gould maintained that science and religion were non-overlapping magisteria in the sense that the tools of science were of no use in solving religious questions.

The secular world can be thought of that which describes what is human made and of human concern. It can also be thought of as that which is independent of religion. It is not atheistic or better or worse in any way. In chemistry we might say that the secular is orthogonal or perpendicular the religious. A bolt, an integrated circuit, or a tractor would be in the domain of the secular. So would the National Electrical Code, city ordinances, and state and federal law. All of these items are contrivances made by people for purposes living a better or safer life. Added to these items would be mathematics, the sciences and engineering. That which is measureable like the Volt or the kilogram have no defining attribute which traces back to religious definition.

It has been said that the purpose of government is to protect ourselves from each other. I would extend that to include the general domain of the secular. Having secular government means that subjective interpretations of religious matters must be secondary. This is owing to the reality that there are many religious beliefs in the world and the question of whose religion will prevail in an action involving the public will rapidly become intractable due to disparate beliefs. The secular world has elements of logic, measurement and guidelines for evidence or objective observation. All of these examples could be contained within a secular magisterium.

Public schools have long been the institutions where secular matters were introduced and learned. Government at all levels has been steadfastly kept within the secular domain. There was and remains to be a need for government to manage the secular details of a thriving civilization. The religious magisterium has a heavy reliance on beliefs which is a subjective matter subject to interpretation. A democracy requires a goodly amount of objectivity and evidence.

The notion of non-overlapping magisteria raises an interesting question. What if elements in one magisterium want control of elements in another magisterium? To have elements of a subjective domain in control of elements in the objective domain is to introduce chaos in both. Since neither side has the tools to operate in the other we have to conclude that this circumstance makes no sense for either domains.

 

God in the image of man

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The portentous return of American protestant evangelical politics on the coattails of the Trump win has certainly been startling to me at least. As if to underscore this return is the announcement that the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) will take on the case No. 16-111 Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd., et al., v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, et al. Petitioners.

According to the petition for a Writ of Certiorari, at issue is the following:

Whether applying Colorado’s public accommodations law to compel Phillips to create expression that violates his sincerely held religious beliefs about marriage violates the Free Speech or Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment

I for one sympathize with both parties. I would like to think that as a business man I had some control in the business arrangements I enter into. On the other hand, it seems quite reasonable that an order for a wedding cake should not be complicated by the theology of the baker. I gather that the sign over the door did not say “Bakery for Observant Christians Only”.

Having been in sales, I know there are a hundred ways to purposely kill a sale without it descending into a fight or bad feelings. A sky high price, a ridiculously long delivery time, kitchen remodeling, a diseased baker, etc. Ok, so it is a lie. It happens.

From my purchasing experience I know it is possible for a careful buyer to disclose as little information as possible so as not to cue a vendor to raise the price or decline to make an offer. The couple in question could have discretely asked for a cake without giving away their relationship or could have sent in a proxy. The figurine of a gay couple on top of the cake could have been purchased separately and set in place at a different location. Alternatively, the gay couple could have simply found another baker willing to do the job, say in Boulder to the north.

Yes, yes, yes. I know. Neither side should have to use subterfuge to complete this simple transaction. And neither side, in principle, should have to fear the consequences of their core values. But for crying out loud, this is Colorado Springs. A more conservative Christian enclave would be hard to find. The city is full of conservative retired military and a number of fundamentalist Christianist organization headquarters like Focus on the Family among others. But what are you going to do? Fight to the death everyone you find disagreeable? Does everything have to be consecrated to God? Crimony! Can’t there be secular activities like putting a lug nut on a bolt or buying baked goods?

If SCOTUS rules against Colorado’s public accommodations law to compel the petitioner to create expression that violates his sincerely held religious beliefs about marriage, then they will have set back the cause of LGBTQ rights, possibly for generations. Likewise, a ruling for the respondent might do similar damage for the conservative cause. Both sides could live with some ambiguity in this matter.

The notion that baking a cake for a gay couple somehow validates LGBTQ values seems to be a bit of a stretch. It seems to me that a conception of a God who would see the act of baking this cake with so negative a view as to impose an existential threat to the baker’s eternal salvation is to conjure up a very strange picture of the deity. If a human were to wield this kind of existential threat to the baker, that human might be regarded as psychopathic.

In my view, American evangelical Christianists have constructed a model of God in the image of a very cranky, peevish male human. A God who set the galaxies spinning, ignited our sun, breathed life into inanimate earth, and accounts for every flea riding the tail feathers of every bird would certainly have the insight and fatherly patience to see this gay Wedding Cake matter as a tempest in a teapot. Yes? Maybe? But perhaps that is me constructing God in the image of a mensch.

I like that- God as a mensch.

 

 

 

Gaussling’s 15th Epistle to the Bohemians. Thoughts of a Secularist Liberal Scientist.

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If you knew me personally, you’d know that as a reductionist my profile can be reduced to that of a liberal atheist scientist with marginally good manners. I broke the shackles of magical thinking in high school after reading a few books by Bertrand Russell and Carl Sagan. Though I have not been the same since, I have come to sympathize a bit with Quakers and their predilection for peace.

My religious upbringing was quite ordinary for a young Iowegian lad in the 1960’s. Confirmation in the Lutheran Church (Missouri Synod) in 8th grade followed by a short stint as a reluctant acolyte. The church seemed firmly footed in bedrock as an institution and adept at indoctrinating the young. In catechism studies I tried to understand the authoritarian system that is outlined by Martin Luther and the strange collection of narratives that make up the King James Bible.

There were abstractions that didn’t make sense then and are still a mystery to me today. The concept of the Holy Trinity always seemed suspiciously anthropomorphic. Then there is the crucifixion as a kind of “ghostly sorting mechanism” for salvation. It stands out against the backdrop of natural phenomena like physics and biology- mechanistic systems which seem to suffice for everything else. Finally, there is God’s seemingly endless requirement for worship and admiration which has always struck me as a vanity unnecessary for a supreme being. The whole scheme reeks of iron-age anthropology.

I remember the day it happened. I was praying for something or other. Trying to have a little spiritual time with the Big Guy. It finally dawned on me that I was talking to myself and in doing so, wishing for some particular outcome to happen. All those years. Praying and wishing were indistinguishable. I’ll admit, I was never one to volunteer a lot of praise to God. Heaping praise on a deity seemed patronizing and wholly unnecessary. Surely if God could elicit wrath, then he’d certainly pick up on being flattered.

Well, in the end, so what? Another tedious atheist commits apostasy. Like most people in US culture, my moral basis was built on what has been described as Judeo-Christian morals or ethics. It’s hard to avoid. But just as the earth does not rest on a foundation, I am not limited to sensibilities derived only by the sons of Abraham in a far earlier age. My culture and my brain tell me that theft, murder, and the other spiritual crimes (sins) are bad for the common good. That respect for others has a pleasurable and sensible aspect that threats of eternal damnation do not improve on.

The reductionist in me can’t resist the following assertion. Deistic religion reduces to cosmology. In the end, a religion offers a theory of the universe. It is a kind of physics that defines relationships between the prime mover and his (?) bipedal subjects imbued with mystical sensitivities. It claims to define the outcome of the disposition of a soul, whatever that may be.  I don’t even believe in the existence of the mind, much less a soul.  As a form of physics, religion lacks means by which theories can be tested. Quantitation of a spiritual element is an idea that has yet to see practice. It seems to lack predictive capability to estimate an outcome that can be validated. It is definitely not a science. It is not about matter or energy. It is about how to conduct ones life against a backdrop of divine authority and within a box of behaviors.

But our brains seem to be constructed in a manner such that religious/spiritual notions are nearly irresistible. Billions of people have claimed to feel its draw and testify to its merits. The projection of anthropomorphic imagery in myth is common in diverse cultures.  The Abrahamic religions congealed from cultures that were apparently unaware of the concept of zero. Where heaven is death with a plus sign, hell is death with a negative sign. To an atheist death is just zero. It has no sign or magnitude. It is unconsciousness and devoid of the awareness of pain or pleasure. Zero sensory processing. It is neither exaltation nor agony. Just zero. Entropy prevails. Such an outlook is hardly appealing enough to gather followers. It is grim and without hope of graduation to eternal bliss.  The take home lesson is to live in the moment, not the future.

Who am I to argue with millennia of religious thought? I don’t know. All I can say is that even as a cancer patient, I remain refractory to the pull of religious and mystical thinking. So it was and so it is.

Post script.

Divinity students! Relax. I’m no threat to your faith. My conclusions on this life of ours offers no ceremony and precious little fellowship. I can say that I’ve had an eye-full of the clockwork of this universe. Adherence to evangelical doctrines could not have provided the amazing insights. And for that I have no regrets.

Fulminating Belief and the Drake Equation

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It seems to me that the character(s) who produced the YouTube video that has caused so much religious fulmination in the sandy parts of the world ought to be parachuted into Cairo to answer for their actions. Surely they can give the best explanation of what their movie represents.

Another thing has occured to me. Perhaps we should make a minor adjustment to the Drake Equation which describes the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which communication might be possible. The equation can be found at this link.  The L factor defines the length of time a civilization releases detectable [radio] signals into space. Given the self destructive behaviours of beings capable of generating radio signals on at least one planet, maybe it is time to define L*.

L* = L(1 – P*/P) where P = average number of intelligent inhabitants of a planet and P* = average number of intelligent inhabitants willing to die/kill for their magical or political beliefs.

Perhaps the reader has a better modification.  Here is the Drake equation copied straight from Wikipedia:

N = R^{\ast} \cdot f_p \cdot n_e \cdot f_{\ell} \cdot f_i \cdot f_c \cdot L

where:

N = the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which communication might be possible;

and

R* = the average rate of star formation per year in our galaxy
fp = the fraction of those stars that have planets
ne = the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets
fℓ = the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop life at some point
fi = the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop intelligent life
fc = the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space
L = the length of time for which such civilizations release detectable signals into space

Our Family Atheist and the Religious ToE

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So it turns out that I am the family atheist and liberal. The social awkwardness and philosophical incompatibility of this condition was evident the other day in a discussion with a family member that diverged into a shouting match. In fact the immiscibilityof my liberal atheist proclivity with my family’s generally Christian conservative foundation has severed ties with a few family members outright and distanced others. My father, deceased nearly a decade ago, never reconciled with his son’s atheism. In his view, it was a choice inevitably resulting in existential tragedy and damnation into the darkest recesses of infinity.

My wife is a Methodist and our kid is being raised under that umbrella. I have taken the position that I will not indoctrinate my child in the analytical consequences of atheism. Rather, the adoption of a philosophical position on existence is a self-guided adventure everyone is entitled to. Whether one is lead deep into the doctrines of the Abrahamic religions, eastern philosophy, or the uncertain swamp of agnosticism, it is the right of all people to come to their own conclusion on the matter of ones place in the cosmos.

I claim that this is a right.  But many otherwise liberty-loving people disagree.  They view indoctrination into the religious fold as a kind of rescue. It is a dash across the finish line that must to happen well before death to ensure that the soul is channeled into the chute leading to paradise.  Once in this enviable condition, the ethereal community of souls can eternally heap praise upon the diety directly rather than across that impenetrable supernatural discontinuity that is resistant to all but the force of prayer. Or so goes the core theory of the Abrahamic religions as I understand them.

To many religious followers, the very fact that their religion is ancient seems to validate the accuracy and veracity of their ideas. The mere continuity of these doctines seems to confer some hopeful message about the vital truth of the doctine.

But I would counter that what continues over time is not the cosmic accuracy of the idea, but rather the psychological consequences of brain physiology.  Architectural features of the brain and the behavior of neurons therein have produced self-awareness. The self-aware brain enables much possibility for an organism.  An effect of our self-awareness is that we come to experience time.

But the very familiarity of self-awareness of the human brain might lead it to assume or calculate that self-awareness is a common condition in the external world. It seems to easily conclude that the apparent organization of the world was conducted by a central organizing influence- a diety. Moreover, it is not unreasonable for the self-aware brain to assume that it’s own self-awareness is part of a continuum of awareness or consciousness. The notion that self-awareness might extinguish would be inconceivable.

I think what the ancient religious texts and doctrines convey is a kind of familiarity. It is a shared experience of mystery, uncertainty, and fear through the common experience of consciousness. The brains of our ancestors communicated through the agency of language their chronicles of hope and fear to our brains which share the the same strengths and weaknesses.  It is this commonality that rings the bell of truth in our self-awareness. It reinforces the mystical experience as a physiological experience because it is fundamentally that.

What is inevitable about our self-awareness is extrapolation. Religion soon mutates from a personal mystical experience to a theory of physics and politics. This is what I cannot accept- Religion as a political template or as a ToE  (Theory of Everything).

Many people come to value alignment to doctrine as a higher calling than the application of love and charity to their fellows who have lost their way or have experienced bad luck or tragedy. I would offer to the reader that what makes a person liberal is the priority choice of people over the politcal doctrine of social Darwinism.

We in the USA have confused economic theory with reality. Economics and business are a subset of sociology. The alleged congruence of economics to morality or metaphysics is a political theory some people have asserted because it serves their purpose in the allocation of wealth.  It’s a part of their ToE. And I’m here to say that some of us can see what they’re doing.