Fundamentalists Equate Fossil Fuel Use with Godliness

If anyone needs yet another example of how religious zeal can lead to intellectual blindness, I here provide one. This example comes from Bryan Fischer and the American Family Association. I am not saying that Fischer is stupid, but simply that his zeal has blinded his presumably latent ability to reason. Nor am I saying that all religion leads to such blindness. However, among American fundamentalists, such blinding zeal is very common. I wish I could say that Fischer’s viewpoint was as singular and ignorable as are those of the geocentrists, but I fear that this is not the case.

Fischer said that fossil fuels are a gift from God, and that by not using these gifts, we are insulting God. Therefore the development of alternative energy systems is an insult to God, in Fischer’s view. Fischer equates those of us who support a transition away from fossil fuel dependence to the “evil servant” whose master gave him some money and he buried it. See the full story here.

So, all of you who try to conserve energy: Prepare for Hell!

Where does one begin to analyze the absurdity of his viewpoint? First, if you believe in God, would you not also say that sunshine and wind and biomass are also gifts from God? Second, there is utterly no chance that we will stop using fossil fuels. Third, it is no insult to whatever God there may be if we use his gift wisely and frugally, rather than wastefully. Suppose I were to give a large sum of money to my daughter. She would accept it, and then use it wisely. That’s the kind of person she is. But I would be disappointed in her if she blew all the money on brief pleasures. Fischer seems to think that God wants us to use all of God’s gifts in an orgiastic fashion. But apparently this does not include such gifts as sexuality and wine.

This should all be perfectly obvious to religious people, even those who do not have a particularly well developed sense of stewardship of God’s good green Earth. But Fischer’s version of religion, which is widespread and infectious, blinds its adherents to even religious reason.

Religion is as powerful as any recreational drug and should be used, if at all, cautiously.

This essay appeared recently on my evolution blog.

Bryan Fischer also participates in a Friday morning comedy segment for American Family Radio. I therefore wondered if his statements were meant as a joke. I emailed him, and he confirmed to me directly that he was serious about what he said.

An Altruistic Taliban?

It’s enough to tickle the cockles of your heart. How genuinely sweet.

A while back, a Pakistani school girl, Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head by members of the Taliban. She has recovered from the attack enough that she addressed the United Nations on her sixteenth birthday, which was July 12. She continued the same message that she had been proclaiming before the attack: that everyone, including girls, deserves educational opportunities, and that the Taliban should stop being afraid of education.

Then today, July 17, a Taliban official, Adnan Rashid, released an open letter to Malala Yousafzai. He did not apologize for shooting her, of course; how could anyone who has a direct connection to the mind of God ever have to apologize for anything? But he said he was shocked at the shooting and wished that it had never happened. He claimed that the Taliban welcomes education, and he invited her to come back to Pakistan (perhaps so that they could have another try at her). He wrote to her, “I was thinking how to approach you. My emotions were brotherly for you because we belong to same Yousafzai tribe.” The sweetness that exudes from his message is enough to make you cry. I suppose that if Rashid had shot his brother in the head, he would have felt a similar degree of sadness.

Obviously, Rashid’s letter was just a publicity stunt, as was pointed out by Mansur Mahsud, a research director at the FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Area) Research Center in Islamabad. But what kind of publicity stunt was it?

It was an attempt to garner the power of altruism to help the Taliban. As many books, including my own Life of Earth, have pointed out, there are at least three ways in which the capacity for altruism can evolve. One of these, indirect reciprocity, may be unique to humans. Indirect reciprocity occurs when someone is nice to someone else, expresses love and respect and concern for someone else, in order to gain the goodwill not of the recipient but from the observers. A reputation for goodness is worth more than a lot of money in the bank. And apparently, according to Rashid, it is worth more than guns and IEDs. The reputation of goodness can be derived either from genuine goodness or from pretense. Rashid’s letter demonstrates that even one of the most evil groups in the world recognizes the necessity of having a reputation for goodness.

Rashid’s letter demonstrates that altruism is such a pervasive component of human psychology that even the Taliban has to tap into its power. It is a desperate attempt that fools nobody, but it is clear testimony to the importance of altruism in the human species. Our species has had the capacity for altruism for thousands or millions of years, but only in the last couple of centuries has this capacity had a chance to reveal itself as fully as it does today. Can you imagine Vlad the Impaler writing such a letter to, say, the family of one of his victims?

This essay also appeared today in my evolution blog.

Expect Nothing in This World

Independence Day has just passed. For many Americans, it is nearly a religious experience. But what is the American religion?

The American religion, which conservatives conflate with Christianity, is that we deserve to have instant access to every pleasure, regardless of the effects our pleasures have on other people. This is in complete contrast with Buddhism and also with Jesus, who told us to take no thought for the morrow, of what we should eat or drink or wear. And our economy depends on stoking our desires for instant gratification. If people started acting like Buddha or Jesus, our economy would collapse instantly. No corporation can thrive by pandering to the pleasures of people who do not feel the need to seek pleasures.

I am pretty good at not having desires and cravings for physical pleasure, at least for those pleasures that cost money and require time. But I am not perfect. During a recent excursion into the world of cravings, I learned a couple of things that helped me to understand better that physical gratification offers essentially nothing but frustration.

You will probably think this is weird, but I really like watching Perry Mason reruns from the 1960s. Perry Mason shows were a particular art form with a very specific structure. Even though each episode concerns a heinous crime, the structure of the show (the courtroom scene always begins at the half hour, for example, and the true criminal confesses his crime about eight minutes before the end) offers a comforting structure to the world. Everything is well, chaos is in retreat, when Perry Mason is at work. But where can you find these reruns? Perhaps online, if you subscribe to a download service. I do not, since I would use it only to watch a few Perry Mason reruns every summer. Blockbuster? Forget it. They do not even know that television existed in the 1960s. That leaves the public library. In Tulsa, you can find Perry Mason DVDs at libraries. Well, except that they are usually checked out by people even older than I am. It turns out that, if you want to put a hold on one, it will take at least three weeks before you can get it. There is no such thing as watching one of these DVDs on a whim. Since watching videos for pleasure is not something I often do, I am not accustomed to planning my video watching three weeks in advance. This is, for me, a formula for frustration.

There are three ways to avoid this frustration. One is to allow substitutibility for pleasures. (Did I spell that right?) If you want to watch a video, you should be open to almost any video—and they are mostly alike, and have blood and violence as their principal content. If you desire only to see a bloody, violent video (which Perry Mason is not; if there is blood, it does not show up well in black and white), then you can walk into any Blockbuster and find something that will please you. The second is to be willing to wait, which is frustrating. The third is the way that Jesus and Buddha talked about: to simply not desire any such pleasures.

My choice is somewhere between number 1 and number 3. I have lots of books, and lots of CDs I bought about a decade ago.  I can simply choose to enjoy what I already have, assuming that I can convince myself to substitute one of them for Perry Mason. I have not quite gotten to the point of desiring nothing. But I don’t have to, so long as I can be satisfied with whatever I happen to already have access to. And when I spend an evening with my wife, we can read stories to one another. But I’m sure Jesus was able to enjoy some pleasures also, even if it was only the pleasure of finding some cool fresh water in the desert.