The Jesus Algorithm

Evangelical Christians claim to love Jesus. But to them, Jesus is not a person. He is an algorithm.

An algorithm is a formula or computer code that controls something that happens, for example, that determines what the computer does. It has a certain function, and is valued just for that function. The algorithm certainly cannot decide for itself what to do.

To evangelicals, Jesus has just one function. He forgives sins. You are a sinner, they say, and what you need to do is to press control alt J to activate the Jesus algorithm. If you say the right words, all of your sins are totally forgiven, but if you do not, you are damned. Jesus himself has no say in the matter, any more than a computer does. If you are a good person, who obeys the Golden Rule, and truly loves other people, that does not matter. Jesus is not permitted to forgive or save you. And if you use control alt J, Jesus must forgive you even if he sees into your heart and knows that you are going to just go and do the sinful act again. To evangelicals, Jesus has no intelligence or personality. You have leeway for judgment. Jesus does not.

This is why Donald Trump is the darling of evangelicals despite his numerous, large, and ongoing sins. He uses the algorithm, or maybe has an intern do it for him.

It gets worse. Evangelicals (particularly the televangelists) fantasize that they have exclusive access to the keyboard. A Democrat cannot slip in and press control alt J. If you are a Democrat, you are damned, and there is nothing you can do about it. Republicans, on the other hand, have unlimited access to the keyboard. In fact, most of them seem to have special Cheap Grace apps on their phones that repents of their sins every ten microseconds, so that before they even realized they have sinned, they have asked forgiveness, which God is obligated to give. (Cheap Grace is a term invented by theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, to refer to this kind of thoughtless repentance that does not cost anything in your life. Back in the 1970s, when I was an evangelical, we all respected Bonhoeffer, whom the Nazis executed. I guess evangelicals don’t do that anymore.)

And God? He’s totally out of the picture. He has given all of his authority to Jesus, who is completely under the control of the evangelicals.

I greatly admire, and love, the Jesus who said “Behold the lilies of the field...even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed as one of these” and “Ask not what your country can do for you...” Oh, wait, that second one was John F. Kennedy. I think I would really enjoy knowing Jesus, if only the evangelicals did not keep him in a box like a veal calf and prevent him from having any personality.

Psychological Differences between Conservatives and Liberals

I continue writing about the study of 1,252 people by Wilhelm Hofmann et al. (Science, 2014) that I summarized in the preceding essay. One of the purposes of the study was to compare the moral values of liberals with those of conservatives.

Liberals cared more about fairness, liberty, and honesty, while conservatives cared more about loyalty, authority, and sanctity. That is, the values to which conservatives fundamentally cling are those that make them march in lock-step with one another and believe whatever their religious and political leaders tell them. Many of us would say that the moral values of liberals—try to be fair to and honest with people, and give them the liberty to live as they please, so long as they do not harm others—are superior to the moral values of conservatives, that is, to impose their moral values on other people.

In what I write next, I am going beyond the conclusions of the paper.

It is the conservative moral values that are leading our nation and world into peril. Conservatives are loyal to the Republican party and defend the authority of Donald Trump (though this was not yet the case at the time the article was published). They believe themselves to have sanctity, that is, saintliness, and for anyone who disagrees with them to be impure. Whatever their leaders tell them, they cling to it and are ready to rise up and fight any who differ from them, under the right conditions.

The values to which we liberals cling, however, are not those that are getting the world into trouble. We want to be fair to everybody: for example, it may be fair for you to have a gun, but it is fair for us to not be shot by your gun, and life is more valuable than gun possession. We liberals want liberty for everyone, but we recognize that your gun liberty is restricting our liberty to live. And we want to be honest, which is why our statements are more moderate and cautious than the simplistic and flaming rhetoric of the conservatives, and why such a breathtakingly high number of lies have issued forth from the current Republican political leaders. Practically every Trump tweet contains an easily recognizable lie. Conservatives want to be loyal to their party and to their exalted leader, and will make stuff up to bolster that loyalty.

Of course, there are spectra of liberals and of conservatives. But the liberals are more likely to recognize this. A typical conservative cannot have a decent conversation with any liberal: loyalty, authority, and sanctity are of prime importance. But I would rather have an honest conversation with a thoughtful conservative than spend time with a ranting liberal. I doubt, however, that most conservatives would prefer talking quietly to me to listening to the rants of Rush Limbaugh.

One cannot help being attracted to a political viewpoint that matches his or her psychological inclinations; but some of those inclinations endanger the future of the world, and others do not. Your desire to shoot me, and my desire to not be shot by you, may be equally the products of our inclinations; but your desire is bad, and mine is good.

Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) said on a February 21, 2018 news program that most mass shooters are Democrats. I wonder if she, and others like her, are beginning to stir up the moral sentiments of conservatives to begin to take physical action against liberals.

No Justice for the Wealthy

In the United States, if you are rich enough, you can get away with anything.

There are a few exceptions to this rule, but not many. Bernard Madoff is in prison, though he is serving his sentence in comfort.

Among all the many examples of wealthy people getting away with crimes, I have chosen the story of Patty Hearst. You are welcome to read, at your favorite online source, the story of her kidnapping by the Symbionese Liberation Army in 1974. A good source of information is the recent book American Heiress.

This so-called Army was actually a small cult that went on murderous frenzies. They kidnapped Patty Hearst, heiress of the Hearst fortune. At first she was confined, but soon she was allowed freedom of movement. Her captors became her friends. During the ensuing crimes committed by this Army, Hearst had many opportunities to reveal her captivity to third parties, or even to literally drive away from it. But she did not do so. She was as guilty of the crimes as anybody would be who fell in with a band of criminals and chose not to leave. This little cult was not a Mafia who could have hunted her down had she left them. Their tiny number dwindled to almost none after the shootout and fire in Los Angeles that killed the leaders of the cult.

Almost anyone else in Hearst’s situation would have been held accountable for such crimes. But Patty was rich. Really rich. Her parents wanted her to receive a pardon, as did their friend Ronald Reagan, who was the Republican governor of California. They vigorously requested that the Democratic President Carter commute her sentence, which he did. On his last day in office, the Democratic President Clinton pardoned her.

Politicians, both Republican and Democrat, will allow rich criminals to get away with almost anything.

The Armageddon Mindset

According to a 1999 poll, which is the most recent data I could find, 40 percent of Americans believe the world will end in a battle of Armageddon. About 45 percent of these people believe that the Antichrist is on the Earth now, and that Armageddon will happen during their lifetimes. This means that 18 percent of Americans believe that there is no future to the world past the end of their lifetimes. This is a large enough segment of the population that it is politically important, especially within the Republican Party.

Two things are impossible if you really believe that the world is ending soon. First, it is impossible to take any serious action about any environmental issue. We environmentalists can explain all day long that environmental destruction, particularly global warming, will prove disastrous to people in the future—in fact, in the near future. People who believe there is no future find such concerns literally incomprehensible. They may, in principle, assert that God is the Creator and we have no right to destroy the creation, but they simply cannot convince themselves of this, no matter how hard they try.

Second, it is impossible to take any serious action about fiscal responsibility. People with the Armageddon mindset overwhelmingly want the government to spend less money. But the reason is not in order for the government to have a sustainable future—since there will be no future—but in order to not have to pay taxes. Evidence for this is that these people call for unlimited spending on defense, which just might hurry up the Armageddon that they anticipate. They talk about the future of their children—a future they believe will not exist on Earth—and may try hard to believe it, but they cannot convince themselves of this, no matter how hard they try.

The Armageddon mindset is totally incompatible with any kind of scientific thought. This website is about ecology and evolution, about the effects of evolution on humans and the relationship between humans and the global ecosystem. The Armageddon mindset cannot be touched by reason or evidence, or perhaps even by direct experience. The only thing that scientists or scientifically-minded citizens can do is to write off the Armageddon folks and not even try to talk with them. Unfortunately, they are a major political force.

What should thoughtful people do about this, if anything? Please post your responses in the comment box below if your browser shows it; otherwise send comments to abutilongr@gmail.com. I hope you can enlighten me with some uplifting thoughts. This essay will appear soon on my website.