William James: Lecture 1

As would be expected, the first lecture is an introduction to the material and outlines aspects of his approach and also explains why the subject matter is important. He also spends some time thanking his hosts in a self deprecating manner. At the time, America (even in Harvard) was not the center of intellectual thought, so William James talks about the great honor given to him to share his thoughts to a European audience.

To start with, he outlines two methods of inquiry; the first attempts to determine the what and the second tries to answer why it is significant or valuable. For example, in Biblical studies, Historical Criticism tries to determine the history of the Bible and how it came together. Who were the original authors and how were the individual writings compiled together into a single document? However Historical Criticism can never determine value by itself. If your definition of value is that the document has to be perfect, consistent, and without error, then the Bible would not fare to well. I found it interesting how much has not changed in the last 100 plus years. He could have written the same words today and it still is very applicable.

He spent some time criticizing over simplistic determinations of causal links, for example a link to religion from human sexuality. But he was also concerned that religious experience was being dismissed because of their physical origin. He argues that you can't dismiss an experience because it was likely caused by epileptic seizures. The true measure of the value our its results; not where it came from. Of course that means we will never be able to immediately know the answer, but will have to wait. This goes against our human desires for easy answers.

Blogging through the Varieties of Religious Experience

I will admit that I had lived for over 30 years before I heard about William James. He was a psychologist/philosopher in the late 1800s and early 1900s. He is most famous for his book, "The Varieties of Religious Experience," which was an edited transcript of a lecture series that he gave in Scotland, called the Gifford Lectures. I first heard of him while listening to a program called "In Our Time". By the way, I love listening to "In our Time." They have discussed everything from obscure battles from a thousand years ago to artificial intelligence to the dawn of the iron age to the age of the universe. Here is a link to the program on William James.

If you are interested in reading this book it is quite easy to find a copy. I got mine from Project Gutenberg for the grand price of free. It was preformatted to my e-reader which is even better. I will be taking a chapter at a time and highlighting sections that I particularly liked.

Book Review: Sense and Goodness without God

"Yet our very lives are a joyous occasion. By existing, and making of ourselves something good, we give ourselves and each other value, we create purpose and meaning. Neither existing by accident nor existing only a short while changes anything about the value of existing, the value of getting to be, to behold and to know the universe, to create something."
-- Richard Carrier

Richard Carrier's book "Sense and Goodness without God" is a fairly comprehensive presentation of a world view based on Metaphysical Naturalism. Even if you are an atheist, you will not agree with every point he makes and he isn't expecting agreement. The book could be thought of as a case study. Richard Carrier takes his own assumptions and shows how to validate and verify the assumptions as best as possible and from those assumptions create a world view.

He starts out with an overview of the purpose of his book and a brief biographical sketch. Next he launches into a discussion of how we know, starting with a very concept of what is language. He takes the reader through different methods of knowing and discusses there relative strengths and weaknesses of each method. Of course scientific investigation and logic is ranked highly, personal experience is less trusted, and faith the least trusted method of all.

After establishing method he takes the reader through a tour of the current state of scientific thought and his implications. Next he uses this basis to argue against positions that contradict the evidence. He basically points out that all investigation of supernatural claims when investigated using more trusted methods turn out to be incorrect.

Lastly he takes his foundation and builds on it. He presents a naturalistic case for morality, feelings of beauty, and how society should be structured.

High points. Richard carrier does well during his discussion of language and knowledge. Also his background as a historian shows when he is discussing historical material (especially ancient Rome). Also he makes a good case for morality and beauty.

Low points. When arguing against specific positions, I feel that he overstates his case. Typical argument would take an opponent's position and discuss its undesired implications. However the implications did not seem to logically follow from his opponent's position. His section on politics is very idealistic (no taxation, legislature determined by lottery, ..)

Overall I found the book engaging and I enjoyed reading it. It will challenge your thought and hopefully prod you in to developing your own world view.

Free Will?

So I have listened to a couple of podcasts recently that got me thinking about free will. Do we really have free will? Or is it something we imagine that we have? The first was a debate between an atheist and a Christian on Reasonable Doubts. The interview/debate appeared on the Don Johnson Radio show, but a fuller, unedited version is available here. The second was an excellent interview on Conversations from the Pale Blue Dot with Tom Clark. I used to strongly defend a notion of free will, but lately I have begun to have doubts about the whole concept.

I especially appreciate the Tom Clark interview. In the interview they mentioned that when we really say that we have free will, we have some "unmoved-mover" power. This is typically an attribute in theism that is reserved for God. Now maybe a theist could say that this is one of those "we were made in God's image" things. God has given some of his attributes to humanity. Additionally I think Tom separates out the concepts of determinism and being fully caused (no free will.) This makes sense to me. Randomness is one of the fundamental attributes of the universe (pick up a book on quantum mechanics if you don’t believe me.) This randomness does not mean that we have free will, but I think it might help to muddy the waters in the debate.

There has been quite a bit of evidence in neurological studies that support the notion that we don’t have free will. For example we know that brain trauma (either due to injury or stroke) can dramatically change a person and how they make their decisions. Probably the most interesting evidence is related to neurological studies of how humans do moral reasoning. Check out this write up on Neurologica for more information.

Now the question I have is how does free will and dualism relate. Much of the evidence against free will is also evidence against some sort of immortal soul. So I could see how free will and dualism can be a coherent belief, but what about holism and freewill? Typically Adventists have held onto both concepts, but I am not sure if it is a coherent set of assumptions. I may or may not try to more fully flesh out why, but I was curious what others thought.

So are Adventists Anti-Creedal or Creedal?

Once, a long time ago, Seventh Day Adventists were very suspicious of creeds. They believed in present truth and progressive revelation. This allowed for some movement and discussion about what it is we actually believed. It allowed for diversity of opinion among members.

In 1980 the General Conference decided to publish a list of "fundamental" beliefs. It is my understanding that it was originally conceived as documentation of the concensus views among members what were the beliefs of the church. Lately there seems to be more and more people attempting to marginalize voices in the church who dissent from the fundamental beliefs. It could be called small tent adventism. This has been combined with attempts to more precisely define the beliefs to allow for less room for interpretation and to shut down internal debate.

The latest evidence for this is the latest General Conference session (meets every five years to approve officers and changes to church operations, but mostly it is a huge cheerleading and networking type of event.) I've been concerned by the tone of some of Ted Wilson's (the new President) comments. Additionally they have decided to affirm the traditional understanding of origins that has been held by the church and request a committee to look at strengthening the wording of the 6th fundamental belief that is concerned with creation and origins. Spectrum Magazine has some good articles about this if you are interested in more details. I particularly liked this segment that discusses statemetns from Ben Clausen of the Geo Science Research Institute.

Quoting from the statement, Dr. Clausen said that "it is impossible," to teach students "scientifically rigorous exposure to and affirmation of our historic belief in a literal, recent six-day creation."

He added: "There are no available models."

"There are no available models." This is a striking admission from somebody who works in an Adventist Apologetics Organization. As a church, we can decide that the earth was created 6000 years ago. But not only is there no evidence for it, but that viewpoint is contradicted by the evidence. "There are no available models." There is no explanation that can adequately deal with the evidence while maintaining a young earth view.

This is a position that basically shuts down any outreach efforts to educated professionals. I once tried to explain the whole La Sierra controversy and young earth creationism to a coworker. Her immediate response was, "who would be stupid enough to believe that!!" I've had several lunch conversations with coworkers. Whenever the topic of creationism versus science is brought up, creationism is thouroughly ridiculed. I am told at church that I should invite my coworkers to church. But why would I invite them to a place that wants them to discard 15 to 20+ years of education in order to fit in?

Of course the people I feel the most sorry for are the professors who work for the church. These are the people who are trying to have this discussion while also maintain their jobs. But as Adventists move more toward making the foundamental beliefs a creed, discussion is becoming more difficult. Talk about a tight rope!

The New Atheists

I find it interesting that when people discuss the “New Atheists,” they seem to be of the opinion that this is some sort of new phenomenon. Usually the term is applied to Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett and others that have similar views. Some have even maintained that this is just a passing fad that will lose steam (example: David Bentley Hart.) Every time I heard such discussions, I have always wondered “but what about Bertrand Russell?” At that point I had only read one of his essays, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, otherwise known as college.

During my last trip to Powell’s, I found a compilation of essays by Russell, including “Why I am Not a Christian.” I will have a fuller review later, but I did want to say that the ideas expressed in his essays are very similar to the “New Atheists.” Religion hasn’t changed much in the past hundred years and many of those arguments are still valid today. Most of those articles could have just as easily been written by a Dawkins and I think the main difference between them is not tone or anything that they are actually saying. There are minor differences because Russell was a man of his time and didn’t have access to the latest scientific advancements and some of his predictions on societal directions have been proven inaccurate. However publishers are more willing to distribute such books and it is very easy to find numerous copies of Dawkin’s, Harris’s, or Dennett’s latest works and they have reached a wider audience.

So the New Atheists are not new by my definition and I don’t see them going away anytime soon. In fact every indication is that they are a growing movement.

Book Review: Atheist Delusions

I must admit that I had high hopes for this book by David Bentley Hart; however I found his argument to be mostly emotional. He was writing as a man who was offended and was lashing out. This aspect of his book can be found in an essay that we wrote for First Things. This essay has been thoroughly discussed on Pharyngula, Kevin Drum’s blog, and by Grad Student.

The other aspect of his book, mostly in the body of the work, is an overview of Christian history. He attempts to counter several narratives that are common today: The War Between Science and Religion, Christianity has a violent history, etc. However he seems to set up a straw man argument based on views of historians over a hundred years ago. He undercuts his own argument by stating up front that he is not a historian and what he is presenting is biased. But worse than that, even if everything was factual, I don’t think it supports his argument against atheists.

He attempts to minimize the involvement of the church in various atrocities. For example he tries to argue that Hypatia was not brutally murdered because Christians were intolerant of science, but because she caught up in the political undercurrents of a decaying society. Of course that doesn’t change that she was murdered by Christian monks. This episode is dramatized in a movie called Agora with Rachel Weisz, which may be less historically accurate then David Hart, however the trailers are quite chilling. The logical pretzels were quite contorted when he tried to minimize the Spanish Inquisition and the Crusades were completely glossed over. His argument is that the church actually had a tempering role on the Inquisition and that it is the fault of secular powers.

The good news, is I was able to sell this book back to Powell’s and I was able to reinvest the money into a better book.

Book Review: Living with Darwin

It has taken awhile for me to write this review, mostly due to lack of time. Philip Kitcher’s book, contrary to the title, is mostly about the intersection between Creationism and science. His main thesis is that it is incorrect to call Creationism in its various forms pseudo science or non-science, because so many historical scientists were Creationists of one sort or another. He would prefer to classify it as dead science, because it has been widely recognized as being incorrect and has been discarded because it was contradicted by the evidence.

He divides Creationism into three basic groups and then devotes an entire chapter going back over the reasons that scientists decided that the particular theory was incorrect. Young earth creationism was discarded in the 1830s due to advances in the field of geology. This was later confirmed by the discovery of radiometric dating, so that we now know that the earth is over 4 billion years old. Next the view of special creation (typical view point of most old earth creationists) was discarded in the 1870s with the publication of Darwin’s “Origin of the Species.” The last form of creationist is the non-adaptionist. An example of this would be most of the more “technical” writings of the Discovery Institute. Their belief is that natural selection is not a strong enough force to explain the diversity of life or complexity of certain structures. This view was discarded by scientists in the 1930s with the advent of the modern synthesis. To be quite honest, I see the last two viewpoints as being shades of the same.

In total he only devoted one chapter to the implications of “Living with Darwin” and I wish he would have spent more space discussing this. This is the discussion that those who are religious should be having. God, if he exists, created using an evolutionary process. Now what does that mean for us today. I think Philip is correct that most traditional notions of God are incompatible with the evidence we have. However he seems to be open to the existence of a god.

Overall the book is quite readable and I think that the most effective evidence-for-evolution book retraces the course of science and could be thought of a history of science book. In this type of book the arguments and counter arguments of scientists are presented and it is clear that the side that one had the most evidence on their side.

How would you respond to Sam Harris

In this video (embed wasn't working in preview mode, so you may need to follow the link) Sam Harris takes on three arguments for religion: religion is true, religion is useful, atheism is just another religion (h/t to Lukeprog). How would you respond to his arguments? Do you think he is way off base? Why? I will summarize his counter arguments for each of the three sections below.




Argument 1: Religion is True

Sam Harris responds by pointing out that different religions make conflicting claims so they can't all be true. Now if you want to make a claim in support of one particular religion over any other, you run into problems. For example miracles are not an indication of truth of religion. Jesus is recorded as having performed many miracles. On the other hand Sathya Sai Baba has performed "miracles" and millions believe that he is a god. Records of his miracles can be found on youtube and have happene fairly recently. Most Christians would find this evidence, less than convincing. Some would claim some sort of basis on the texts of the religion. However Sam Harris maintains that there are large failings of most of the ancient holy texts (scientific, ethical, etc.)

Argument 2: Religion is Useful

Even though we like the implications or usefulness of an idea; it doesn't make it true. Religion may give comfort, but it is a false comfort. Sam Harris is quite adament that religion is a poor source of morality. It isn't necessary to have religion to know what is good. We don't need religion to tell us that it is important to love your children. He also points out thtat societies that are less religious tend to have less crime and do more to help the poor and outcast than highly religious countries. Most of all we don't learn that cruelty is wrong from reading the Bible (genocide, sexual slavery, kidnapping, subjugation of women.)
Finally even chimpanzees and other social primates exhibit moral reasoning without any religion.

Argument 3: Atheism is just another religion

Atheism is just saying that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. It is not necessarily dogmatic. He is quick to point out that nothing prevents atheists from having transcendent experiences. However those experiences don't mean that God exists. Some claim that atheism is source of evil like Stalin, Nazis, and Pol Pot. Problem with those examples is that they were ideologies that are too much like religion.

Book Review – The Future of Faith

Harvey Cox’s most recent book, “The Future of Faith” was an excellent summary of the history of Christianity with a look to where he thinks the movement is going. In many ways he covers the same ground as Karen Armstrong did her in book, “The Case for God.” I enjoyed Dr. Cox’s work much more than Karen Armstrong. I found that his different perspective was refreshing and I find that Karen Armstrong tends to gloss over and minimize the differences in different religions and I think she may be missing important elements.

Harvey Cox divides Christianity into three main periods. There was a freewheeling, dynamic Christianity during the first few hundred years. He calls this period the age of Faith. We have only recently discovered just how dynamic this early period was. This was before many of the “traditional” Christian ideas had been fully developed. There was a wide variety of view points on the trinity, nature of Christ, and the reasons for his death and resurrection as well as what happened after death. This age ended during the reign of Constantine.

In his book he is quite clearly not in favor of what Constantine accomplished as well as his successors. It was during this time that the Christian church started to teach that there were certain beliefs that were critical for Christian faith. During this period heresies were identified and quashed as much as possible. This period he calls the age of belief and it lasted clear into the twentieth century (and even today.) If you want an example, you can google Brian McLaren and check out all the critical reviewers online. Many of these people are eager to define Brian as a heretic because of his thoughts on Substitutionary Atonement and the afterlife.

The last period is the Age of the Spirit. His claim is that we are currently entering this age of the spirit. As examples he lists off some of the trends in Liberation theology, Pentecostalism (now the largest subset of Christianity), and the emergent church. He is of the opinion that the non-Western world will now be the leaders and innovators in the coming years. He is also of the opinion that believers in Africa, Asia, and South America have not been as tainted by Constantinian thought (or Hellenistic/Western Thought) and so they are practicing a Christianity that is much closer to the original form. It will be interesting to see if he is right. I am skeptical about his claim that Fundamentalism is in decline, but much of what he says sounds about right.

My favorite part about the book is he seems to take a position that thoroughly rejects fundamentalism (especially the literal reading of scripture) but he is also skeptical of the atheist position. He presents a compelling third way, which I have found almost impossible to maintain. Anyway, this is a book that I would recommend. He documents the changes in Christianity and religion but without the triumphalism that was present in Phyllis Tickles book, “The Great Emergence” and without the generalizing that is in Karen Armstrong’s works.

Christian Atheists

Recently my local pastor had a section in his sermon where he discussed Christian Atheists. Now his definition of a Christian Atheist is very different from mine, however both definitions would make a certain level of sense. On the one hand, the pastor had defined a Christian Atheist as somebody who claims to believe in God, but they don’t live their lives as a follower of Christ (whatever that means.)

My definition would be somebody who doesn’t believe in God, but is a follower of Christ. Probably the most famous example would be Robert Price (aka the Bible Geek.) Robert Price is an extreme skeptic and atheist, but he loves liturgy and regularly (could I say religiously) attends his local Episcopalian church. Some would prefer the term Christian Humanist. Now in this case I am talking about people who are consciously trying to follow the example of Jesus even without a belief in God. There are many people, especially in small communities, that attend church and go through the motions just so that they won’t be ostracized by their local community.

Now I am sure some are questioning how this could be? First of all, the teachings of Jesus have inspired many movements, some of them not necessarily Christian. There are examples where the teachings worked (think civil rights movement in America or Indian independence led by Gandhi.) The Christian Atheist would of course reject the claim that Jesus was a savior or God. Only John has explicit language that could be interpreted to be a claim to Godhood. However John is widely considered to have been the last Gospel that was written. So it is very likely much further removed from the actual events and sayings of Jesus. Also, as documented by Bart Ehrman, there are several examples where the earliest documents are much more ambiguous on this issue. It turns out that later scribes may have altered the original text to support the doctrine of the Trinity. This means that you can still think of Jesus as a good teacher, but not necessarily God (contrary to the logic of CS Lewis.)

Along those same lines I read something in Harvey Cox’s book, “The Future of Faith.” He was telling a story to illustrate the difference between faith and belief. In his view faith is largely the impetus of action as opposed to belief, which is just accepting certain assumptions as true. A son was trying to comfort his mother in her illness. She asked her son to pray for her and he told the local priest that he was uncomfortable with this whole idea of praying and he went on to say that he didn’t believe that God existed. The priest responded, “What does belief have to do with prayer? You can still pray even though you think that there is no God.” The act of prayer would be an act of faith even though there is no belief.

Book Review - The Greatest Show on Earth

Richard Dawkin's is a prolific science writer and I have always enjoyed his prose. The extensive vocabulary and creative word play are simply enjoyable. This book had plenty of that, however I found the scientific content a little shallow. I have read several books that discuss evidence for evolution recently and I am sad to say that Dawkin's latest effort falls disappointingly flat. His book, "The Ancestors Tale" is miles better (of course it is also miles longer.)

Interesting Podcasts

One interesting aspect of the internet, is the ability to record and distribute audio programs about a wide variety of topics. I enjoy reading, but most of the books I enjoy are not featured in more traditional media outlets. Some of the more popular books will be featured on NPR or on the Daily Show (ironically enough.) However with podcasts there is an ability for authors to directly connect with a very targeted audience. If you ever wondered how books were placed on my reading list, many of them were put there because I heard a podcast with an author interview. So here is a list of some of my favorite podcasts.

Conversations from the Pale Blue Dot This is a recently discovered podcast for me and actually it is becoming one of my personal favorites. It tends to delve into fairly deep philosophical discussions. Luke, the host, is very much an atheist but he frequently has Christians and other theists. The tone is overall very friendly and I really enjoy the format.

Freethought Radio This podcast is sponsored by the Freedom From Religion Foundation and hosted by Dan Barker. It is actually a radio program that is available on a few AM or FM radio stations. There last guest was Daniel Dennett, who was discussing his study on preachers who don't believe.


Homebrewed Christianity Tripp Fuller and Chad Crawford are the co-hosts for this intriguing podcast. They usually have great guests and it is usual a good source for the latest and greatest in theology.

The Nick and Josh Podcast is another podcast that primarily is Christian focused. They do tend to have more atheist guests than Homebrewed Christianity and one of the hosts is basically an agnostic.


Point of Inquiry is a podcast sponsored by the center of Inquiry. I would say that they have gotten some of the most interesting guests. They recently lost their host, DJ Grothe, because he has accepted a position at another organization. It will be interesting to see if they can maintain the same level of quality.

Reasonable DoubtsandThe Skeptics Guide to the Universe both have a fairly similar format. They have a variety of segments and usually discuss news and events. The will also have guests on occasion.

RadioLab This is another of my favorites. They tend to be science themed. My absolute favorite so far is one episode that they did on statistics. Once you listen you will understand.

Nasty Computer Virus

So our home computer has been out of comission for the last two weeks. It started when we discovered that it had been infected with one of those fake antivirus programs. Basically it pops up a helpful window telling you that your computer is unprotected and then simulates an attack in progress. The goal is to convince you to give them your credit card number so that you can "purchase" an updated anti-virus program. I was able to get the point, with a combination of registry edits, manual file deletion and 4 anti virus programs, where the computer was mostly functional. All scans came up clear, but every once in awhile the virus would reappear. After a week of this, I finally installed Windows to a new harddrive and I have started over from scratch. All data has been backed up so none of the Disney World pictures have been lost or my 2009 tax return and financial documents. (This is extremely important for some reason.) Anyway, I hope to get back to posting blog updates more frequently.

Did Scientists discover a new hominid species

Carl Zimmer has been writing about the latest discovery in human evolution. You can read about the details here. Scientists have sequenced the mitochondrial DNA of a 40,000 year old finger that was found in Siberia. Basically what they discovered was that the genetic differences were to great for the finger to belong to our species. But it was also significantly different from Neanderthal DNA as well. Some researchers were quick to point out that there haven't been many genetic studies on Neanderthals so we don't know just how diverse there mitochondrial DNA is. We will have to wait for more testing before this can be settled.

In the mean time, this story reminded me of one of the Creationist arguments about Neanderthals. The typical claim is that the Neanderthals are Homo Sapiens but have some sort of disease like Rickets. Unfortunately in the face of genetic evidence, that argument no longer works. The differences between Neanderthal and Human are too great.

Book Review: The Case for God

Karen Armstrong is a prolific writer and I have read several of her books. The latest book is "The Case for God". I found it an enjoyable read, but it hit on very similar themes as many of her other books. In fact I joked on my facebook page that a more accurate title would be "A History of God" But she already wrote that book about 15 years ago.

The book discusses several different view points of God through out history, starting with shamanism and polytheism, to monotheism, rationalism, and the death of God. I already knew that our modern obsession with rationality and literal interpretation of texts was not shared throughout history. And I even had some inkling of the importance of ritual in human belief. However the one thing I learned was some of the history of the word "belief." Today it usually means some passive acceptance of a set of facts. It actually has similar roots to the word "love" and it used to imply action. This is one aspect that emergent type churches are focusing on. Believing (in the modern sense) in God is much less important than acting out love and compassion on earth.

She finally gets around to making her case for god in the epilogue. Her God is not the traditional God of Christianity, but is more mystery and compassion. I think she is correct that much of how we talk about God both inside and outside the church is idolatrous. She seems to view God as being a corrective for certainty. There is so much in this world that we do not understand and sometimes we can get carried away by our successes. She hypothesizes that the "new atheists" are so loud and certain, because they are mostly biologists and biology really hasn't hit the limits of what is knowable yet, unlike physics. It is an interesting idea and I know there are studies that say that physicists tend to be more religious than biologists.

If you haven't read any Karen Armstrong, this would be as good a book as any to start with and I think everybody should read at least one of her books. If you have already read any of her books, there probably won't be much to surprise you in this one.

Does your Pastor believe in God?

Don't be too surprised if he or she doesn't. I originally saw this on Pharyngula. The Washington Post has a paper and commentary by Daniel Dennett from Tufts University about pastors who are atheists. He wanted to concentrate on pastors who were currently working as pastors. The paper is a study of the responses of five people so no broader conclusions can be made (except that it was fairly easy for him to find five volunteers.)

I found the paper interesting because many of the responses aligned with how I justified my work as a Sabbath School teacher (it is just like Sunday School only on Saturday.) Also their survival strategies mirrored mine. People already assume that I am conservative. So anything I say is interpreted in a much more conservative fashion. In addition to that, I am able to speak in a metaphorical fashion, so that if you take me literally it sounds like more traditional Christian belief. While I have not been to seminary, I have an understanding of Biblical Scholarship that has happened in the last couple of hundred years. Once you understand how the Bible came to be, it is hard to take it literally or authoritatively.

Anyway, I highly recommend reading the paper.

Nothing in biology makes sense ...

except in the light of evolution. This was the title of article that was published by Theodosius Dobzhansky in the 1970s. Dr. Dobzhansky is one of the leading American Biologists of the early 20th century. He was also a Christian of the Russian Orthodox variety. I have been aware of the quote for awhile, but I was prompted by this post on learning about the joys of science after leaving fundamentalist Adventism to look up the actual quote. The paper is considered a classic so it is fairly easy to find. I have included a link to a copy on the NOVA evolution site.

It is an interesting essay. He starts the article with a story about a sheik who was trying to ban the teaching of the Copernican theory in Saudi Arabia in the 1960s. He used this episode as an example of the scientific meaning of a theory (hint: it isn't some wild speculation without evidence.) He then goes on to give descriptions of several compelling lines of evidence.

My favorite quote from the article is:

Seen in the light of evolution, biology is, perhaps, intellectually the most satisfying and inspiring science. Without that light it becomes a pile of sundry facts some of them interesting or curious but making no meaningful picture as a whole.

This matches my experience in biology. When I took biology in high school, my feeling was that it was just a bunch of facts that had to memorized. I learn best when I can see how the bits of knowledge are connected. I found the whole excerise to be quite boring. Once I understood evolution, the pieces started to fall together. If you want specific examples, I would highly recommend "Your Inner Fish" by Neil Shubin. He talks about the gill structures that are present in human embryos as well as why human males frequently suffer from hernias. (Have you ever wondered why you had to do the "cough test" at the doctor?) Now I find biology to be one of the most fascinating sciences and the majority of science book wish list is books about biology.

Accreditation and Academic Freedom

So I periodically check to see what is going on at the educatetruth site. I noticed something interesting today. According to their twitter feed on the right they had posted an article about WASC threatening to pull La Sierra's accreditation. The post itself was gone, but they did have a retraction notice. They decided to remove the post because they did not want to create problems for Larry Blackmer, the VP of Education for the North American Division. He had said some stuff and I guess he got some blowback once educate truth had posted his remarks. It was not removed because they had gotten some fundamental fact wrong (like what happened with Carlos Cerna's Biology paper awhile back.)

So, me, being the curious sort, decided to find out exactly what they had posted. Thank goodness for Google Cache. The quotes were from a Q&A session at an education summit for teachers in the Lake Union Conference in Michigan. In it, Larry Blackmer is quoted as saying, "Now WASC at La Sierra has contacted La Sierra and said, “”We believe in academic freedom as an accreditation agency. And if the church is going to meddle in what goes on in the classroom, then we will pull your accreditation.”" Later on, he discusses the results of a loss of accreditation. "No federal financial aid to any of the students. None of the credits from La Sierra would transfer to any other university. They would not be accepted into the University of California system for graduate programs. Just minor things like that."

This is why educatetruth will ultimately lose. Either evolution will be taught on campus or La Sierra as a university will be destroyed financially. This is actually something that I expected. The same issue came up when I was at Walla Walla College. The school board had started to meddle and micromanage the professors in the Theology department. I suspect the church administration will say some soothing words. Some meaningless action will be proposed to appear like there is action and the whole thing will blow over.

An example of why religion needs atheism

Today, I read an excellent article by Samir Selmanovic on Huffington Post. In it, he recapitulates an idea from his recent book.

Rabbi Or Rose tells me that rabbis of old have long taught that the highest form of human discourse is Makhloket, or disagreement. First we recognize our own limits, and then we proceed to clarify our positions as best we can. When we sustain the tension between us, each pulling our own way, we create emptiness between us. In this emptiness, Rabbis say, God creates. As it was in the beginning, so it is today. In the presence of one another, in the moment when our positions of clarity are matched with humility, the possibility of a truly new idea emerges, a solution, a way forward. Creation continues, and we all gain.

If people refuse to listen to those outside of their group, a statis is reached where no new ideas are generated. My life has been richer because of listening to others and taking seriously their ideas. I am not so sure about the involvement of God, but that is neither here nor there. Later in the article he gives some specific examples of how atheism is important.

Atheism at its best participates. It refuses to stay isolated until billions of people cease to be religious. Instead of simply dismissing religion, it engages with it constructively so that the world is better for it. Atheism at its best is an expression of faith in humanity, even faith in religious humanity, for however misguided we religious people might be, we are human, too. Atheism at its best asks us to enjoy our faith life, but with the understanding that our religions are "God-management systems," an attempt -- however honorable and perhaps necessary -- to manage a reality that is larger and more complex than our own religions. Atheism at its best is a guardian of secularization, a process of creating a common and safe space where our worldviews -- including religious ones -- can share their treasures and expose themselves to the entire world as their ethical community. Atheism at its best insists that religious people learn to live on Earth. Religion that does not work on Earth, they argue, does not work at all. Good point. To us religious people, atheists are not only precious neighbors but also strangers who see what we cannot see and ask questions that we don't know how to ask -- all the while acknowledging the good that religion brings. Atheists are God's whistleblowers.

I am currently reading Karen Armstrong's latest book, "The Case for God." In one chapter she writes about a religious tradition, where practioners reinforce the inadequacy of human language to describe god. Basically the practioner would start by listing off attributes of God. They would then list off the negative of the attribute. For example. God is love; God is omnipotent; God exists. This is followed by God is not love; He is not all powerful; He does not exist. The basic point is that if our God can be described by language he is not God but an idol.

Not everyone has the ability to do this sort of mental gymnastics. I know I couldn't. The God that I rejected would have been considered an idol. However all of us know somebody who has vastly different beliefs and conceptions of God and discussing them with that person can remind us that we don't have all the answers. We don't know very much about God at all (even his existence).