Destroying the Fourth Dimension

The human species is unique in having the ability to store knowledge than any one brain can contain, and the ability to pass this knowledge on from one generation to the next, especially in the form of writing. This is one of our greatest evolutionary adaptations. It allows a fourth dimension of adaptation: time.

When religious extremists, of whatever variety, wish to brainwash people into following them, one of the things they sometimes do is to attempt to erase the knowledge of the past. Their message is clear: God’s work begins right now, with them, and whatever has gone before is irrelevant. The extremists present themselves as the sole and unprecedented source of God’s words and will.

This is nothing new. According to Edward Gibbon, Christian zealots destroyed the Library of Alexandria, the last and greatest collection of ancient writings. During the Reformation, Catholics destroyed Protestant books, Protestants destroyed Catholic books, and everybody destroyed Jewish books, along with the persons who read them. Nazis burned Jewish books. But we sometimes think that, in modern times, we no longer do this. But do you remember when, in 2009, the Amazing Grace Baptist Church in Canton, NC, planned to burn Bibles? They failed to get the necessary fire permit so they just tore them up instead. They wanted to destroy all versions of the Bible except the King James Version.

Just this past week, religious extremists struck again at the fourth dimension. Before fleeing Timbuktu, in Mali, Islamist militants set fire to as many as twenty thousand ancient manuscripts. The manuscripts were Muslim books and writings, but the militants were passionately convinced that nobody before them really knew what Allah wanted people to believe. They tried to erase the past and make people think that Allah’s words and will began with them. They claim to venerate Mohammed, but to them Mohammed is just a stick figure that they use to justify their own blasphemy.

Perhaps the main reason that no group of zealots has ever been able to wipe out all of the knowledge that preceded them is that this knowledge was widely distributed. Especially after the invention of the printing press, lots of copies of books were spread everywhere, and no one could track all of them down. I wonder if this might be changing. If all of our books are eventually released only online; and if the books themselves are not sold, but only the temporary right to read them; is it not possible that a centralized, religiously-crazy government could use the internet to destroy all copies of a book that they oppose? This sounds like a weird story for a dystopian future, but it may be closer to reality than we like to think. I have no doubt that, if they had this ability, the Islamist extremists in Mali would have destroyed all writings except their own interpretation of the Koran.

One of our main evolutionary adaptations is the distributed network of brains and books—interconnected, but independent.

Yes, Wayne, Absolutes Do Exist, But This is Not One of Them

According to a January 23 news release, National Rifle Association executive vice president Wayne LaPierre told a Weatherby Foundation awards ceremony that the Second Amendment gives Americans the unfettered right to own firearms. “Absolutes do exist, words do have specific meaning in language and in law,” he said. “No government gave them to us and no government can take them away.”

It is not clear from the news release what LaPierre was referring to when he said no government gave “them” to us. Did he mean that government did not give us the right to own firearms? If so, LaPierre is utterly and frighteningly wrong.

Absolutes do exist. The speed of light. The charge of the electron. In fact, a whole list of physical constants. But the right to own firearms is not an absolute. The federal government has, in fact, given us this right in the Second Amendment. But the Constitution provided a mechanism for amending the Constitution. Therefore the Constitution, and the Second Amendment thereto, are not absolutes.

Furthermore, there is no absolutely clear definition in the Second Amendment of what these “arms” are supposed to be. It is illegal to own nuclear weapons or missiles. Are these arms? It is illegal to use, and in most cases to own, machine guns. Even the NRA has not dared to call for the legalization of private ownership of machine guns and nuclear weapons. The right to bear arms is therefore limited, not absolute, even if you were to interpret the Second Amendment as an absolute commandment from God.

One could interpret arms, within the Second Amendment context, as whatever is necessary to maintain a militia. But we don’t have militias anymore. There are groups of people who think that the government is restricting their rights, for example, to polygamy. Does the Second Amendment give them the right to have arms to resist the federal government from enforcing laws against polygamy? Could not Warren Jeffs claim that the Second Amendment gives his followers the right to armed resistance? Would this be an example of a militia? And, if so, his followers could most certainly use machine guns and cannons and nuclear weapons to defend their compounds, since the Second Amendment does not prohibit them from doing so. I am sure this is not LaPierre’s interpretation. But he has told us that it is not a matter of interpretation. It is a matter of absolute truth.

LaPierre, and many NRA extremists (a term LaPierre rejects), are using absolutist terminology that is usually associated with religion. Conservative religious leaders consider all of their beliefs to be absolute, and that God has given them the right to enforce their religious beliefs on others. The NRA is promoting a new religion: the absolute right to bear arms, as absolute as God Himself. The absolute right to bear arms is not found in the Bible, by the way. Jesus said, “Put away your sword, Peter; for those who live by the sword will die by the sword.” But the NRA is promoting a new religion in place of Christianity. And, like many other religions, the NRA religion sways people to adhere to its claims with visceral emotion rather than with facts. I am not saying that gun-rights advocates have no facts; I am just saying that whatever facts they may have are irrelevant when LaPierre talks about “absolutes.”

The recurring habit of conservatives to call all of their beliefs “absolutes” and to give them cosmic religious authority is one of the reasons that I consider traditional religion to be dangerous.

The talk of “absolutes” has made reasonable dialogue impossible. From the NRA viewpoint, there are only two choices: unrestricted ownership of weapons vs. total helplessness. The NRA has not permitted any discussion of intermediate possibilities. For example, what about stun guns? Could those be used as an intermediate form of school protection? I know that stun guns have a very limited range. But at least they provide some protection without actually killing people. At close range, a teacher’s stun gun could incapacitate a school shooter and allow his gun to be confiscated and for him to be subdued. What would be the strengths and weaknesses of a school stun gun policy? I would be interested in hearing this. But there can be no such discussion so long as the NRA divides the issue into helplessness vs. a full armor of assault weapons. I might want to hear a discussion of some intermediate possibilities regarding gun ownership and restriction; but I do not believe I shall ever hear such a discussion.

This is exactly the same approach used by creationists. They claim that if you do not accept a young Earth then you are an atheist. The NRA says you either accept unrestricted availability of weapons or else total defenselessness. Nothing in between. They have insisted on absolutes: an absolute dividing line between darkness and light, as between sun and shadow on the Moon. But this is Earth, with twilights and dawns.

Critical Thinking Diminishes Religiosity: An Experiment

There was a most astonishing article in Science magazine on April 27, 2012 (page 493). I had my class of graduate students read it and try to pick it apart, but we have found no flaws in it. The authors make two claims. First, people who are inclined to think analytically also have less religious belief, based on surveys administered under lab conditions. This is not surprising

It is the second claim that caught my attention. People, regardless of their prior religious beliefs, displayed less religious thinking if they had been primed by exposure to analytical thought than if they had not been so exposed. What was the priming event? They looked at a picture of Rodin’s The Thinker. The control group looked at a picture of some other sculpture. A pre-test had established that looking at a picture of The Thinker improved a person’s ability to use logic and reasoning ability. But the experiment itself showed that it reduced their religiosity.

It is well known that theologians have less conservative beliefs than do preachers, and preachers harbor many doubts of which they do not tell their congregations. This is the whole point behind Bart Ehrman’s books: he appears to shatter much conventional Christian belief by merely telling us about things he learned in divinity school! Religion is, as Bernard of Clairvaux believed and Peter Abelard did not, something that you must not think about too much if it is to have a good hold on your mind.

A Christian Agnostic Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone. Christmas is a time that drives some atheists crazy. They go around raising objections to manger scenes within public view, or at least on public property, and they can never shield themselves from the music and imagery much of which is overtly religious. If religion makes you angry, Christmas is not very merry.

But I am just fine with Christmas. It is such a beautiful experience; if it did not exist, we would have to create it. It is basically an excuse for doing things we would consider too soft and fuzzy the rest of the year. For example, Christmas is a time when the arteries of altruism open up a little more (see my evolution blog entry for today). Christmas memes have been accumulating in our cultural gene pool for thousands of years, from a variety of sources: Christian (the nativity story), pagan (holly and yule logs), traditional (Santa Claus, despite the fact that some fundamentalists think Santa is actually a clever form of Satan; click here or here), and commercial. Even conservative Bible scholars will tell you Jesus was not born at Christmas; the shepherds would not have had their flocks outside at night in winter. Christmas is the Mass of Christ, invented by the Catholic Church to capitalize upon ancient pagan yule festivities.

Religion, which pervades Christmas, generally dulls the thought process (a topic for later), but if you can’t be a little muddle-headed at Christmas, when can you be? People go around yearning for a white Christmas, even though if they really get one it is a pain in the hypothermic butt. Think of Santa Claus having a heart attack while shoveling his walk. This is because the desire for a White Christmas is a feeling, not a policy. Taken together, these memes have passed the natural selection test, and no atheist crusaders can change that fact. Have some eggnog (unless, like me, you have diabetes) and relax.

I do not merely acquiesce to the religious content of Christmas, but actually like it. Most scholars know that the gospel nativity stories were made up, principally because they are absent from the oldest account (the gospel of Mark). But what image do these stories create? A baby Jesus in the manger, bringing joy to the world. This is a good image. It is much better than the ugly image of Jesus in the book of Revelation, with a sword coming out of his mouth and his horse trampling thousands of people into mires of blood.

What I don’t like is the commercialization of Christmas, especially the increasing trend of people giving gifts to themselves. But I deal with this by ignoring it. My wife and I will have a quiet Christmas with just a very few gifts around…oops, where is the tree? We have a cherimoya tree—does that count? We’ll enjoy one another’s company rather than spending money.

When my mother was growing up in rural Oklahoma in the 1920s, the Christmas tree was a cedar tree that Grandpa cut from the field and dragged in. They had very little money, so Christmas gifts consisted primarily of everyone (in the large family) getting an orange. Back then, oranges were hard to get in Oklahoma. But they needed something to alter the routine of farming and ranching. This is what the Ghost of Christmas Present showed to Scrooge—even people who had little could enjoy a spirit of candlelit warmth in the middle of winter.

Merry Christmas to all.

Beware

I have just posted a video related to this topic on my YouTube channel.

Some religious people are good, and some are bad. As I described previously, the bad ones use force and have more effect on the world. But we must admit the existence of the good ones. Back when I was religious, I was one of the good ones, I think. And I know a lot of good religious people. So do you.


Religion is a minefield. You may walk through it unharmed, but there is a great risk that you will touch one of those mines. Those mines are the memes of religion. Some of those memes provide a framework by which your rage and destructiveness can come pouring forth, in which pity for your adversaries is considered a sin. We all have rage and arrogance, but some religious memes provide the ultimate justification for them. They are like catalysts that allow chemicals that might otherwise lie dormant to explode. Religious memes are perhaps the most effective way of turning good people into bad people.

Religious memes do not always release rage and destructiveness. They can also facilitate mental slavery, in which people are simply unable to think outside the confines of the meme. I have had numerous creationist students who were sincere and often very intelligent, and would go to incredible lengths to justify their beliefs. For example, God moved the fossils around during the Flood to make them look like they had an evolutionary order. I feel sorry for such brainwashed students.

Peter Abelard said that it was a sin to say a prayer if you do not understand what it means. He also said that by doubting we come to inquiry, and by inquiry we come to truth. This viewpoint was considered heretical by conservatives such as Bernard of Clairvaux. Look before you step. Think carefully before you embrace any aspect of religion.

Making a Difference

I recently received an email that I wanted to share, from a student who was in one of my classes over a decade ago at my previous institution (Southwest State University, now Southwest Minnesota State University). There are few surprises more pleasant for a professor than to hear from a student who benefited from a class. The class was “Earth through Time and Space,” which was an overview of the evolutionary history of the cosmos. It was a general education class, not directly relevant to anyone’s major or professional preparation.

The student expressed appreciation that I challenged the class to think about their assumptions, including religious assumptions that conflicted with scientific evidence. I do not recall preaching any atheism or agnosticism (I was still a conventionally religious person at the time), and I don’t recall any students leaving in protest (of course, it was a big lecture room and this could have happened without my knowledge). I wasn’t trying to turn students into agnostics, but this is what a few of them ended up being.

I can barely remember that far back. But it gives me a lot of satisfaction to know that some of the good that I tried to do is still remembered and still having an effect. I would like to quote the email, without including the name of the writer.

Mr. Rice,

I am not certain what made me think of the class I had with you at Southwest State University back in the late 90's, but it is one class that I will always remember.

Why? Because you were the first person in my life that ever questioned religion. And rather than storm out like many did that day, I decided to begin thinking and researching not only religion, but just about every thing else in life.

I learned how to be a critical thinker.

This may seem like a bizarre letter to you, but when someone asked me how I got started being a skeptic, I traced the roots back to Marshall and more specifically, your classroom.

So...thanks. You have no reason to remember me, as I was not a particularly great student....but I certainly remember you and the impact you had on my life.

I hope all is well with you.

The Weight of Evil

Sometimes it is really difficult to get motivated. It seems that the overwhelming weight of evil in the world will crush all efforts at goodness. Just think about people like the late Wangari Maathai and Wes Jackson, and all the good that they have done and do. Think about the people who change the lives of prisoners by teaching them to garden. There must be tens of thousands of such people who have made the world better. (Oh, by the way, Mitt, remind me again: what exactly is the good that you have done for the world?) But for each one of these people there are thousands of selfish people, and thousands of people who have lost all hope. In the past decade or so, over 200,000 farmers in India have committed suicide, mostly using the pesticides that they can no longer afford. Industrial agriculture is considered progress, and it is a relentless force. And it is just one such force in the world. There’s mountaintop removal, and…I’d rather not go on. What can good people possibly do against such odds?

Those who are evil will trounce those who are good almost by definition: the evil people believe in using power to trounce others, and good people believe that this is wrong. Good people believe force is wrong and that reason is right; therefore force is almost always on the side of evil.

For example, Christians who believe in a Jesus who has a sword sticking out of his mouth and believe that they can take whatever they want from gullible followers overwhelm the Christians who believe that these actions are wrong. Consider the arrogant Christian who cuts down every tree he can (I have met one), and the meek one who defends trees: perhaps even more trees get cut down because the presence of the meek Christian affronts and emboldens the arrogant one. The forces of industrial agriculture are relentless; and against them, there is Michelle Obama’s little organic garden. The forces of industrial agriculture even get stronger because many conservatives are offended at Michelle’s garden. (Chemical companies wrote letters to her urging her to use pesticides when she started the garden back in 2009.) Climate scientists explain the scientific evidence of global warming. But climate deniers use force and lies: they literally threaten the lives of climate scientists (see Popular Science, July 2012). The Heartland Institute, which is dedicated to climate denialism and is funded primarily by a single donor, issued a poster that proclaimed climate scientists to be the equivalent of Ted Kaczynski the Unabomber. Senator Jim Inhofe claims that climate scientists may be criminals.

Those in power got where they are by using simplistic thinking and force. It has always been this way. Intellectual honesty has always been the weaker party. It was their logical thinking, rather than their disastrous love affair, that proved the downfall of Heloise and Abelard in 1115. (And it was almost certainly their bracing intellectual honesty, honesty they found so rare in the world, that made them fall so much in love with one another.) Then as now, conservatives (like Bernard of Clairvaux) wanted to control the minds of everyone else and thus found it necessary to keep Heloise and Abelard as silent as possible.

And if there is a powerful, personal God who is present in the world, then he is allowing powerful evil people to be his spokesmen. I can either believe that God wants them to be his spokesmen, or that a powerful personal God does not exist. These appear to be my only two choices. I choose to remain agnostic about the existence of a powerful personal God rather than to believe God is evil.

All I can do is to encourage people of any faith or of no faith to make their world better. I do this through my teaching and writing and personal contacts. I must put these ideas out into the web, where they might do some good, rather than simply writing them down where they can be destroyed. In my teaching, I tell students about the ecological problems of the world. But many studies have shown that they do not listen, because bad news makes them just feel powerless. This is, as this essay attests, understandable. But what can I do? I decided to revive an idea I used a couple of years ago: I had the students make contracts with themselves to reduce their carbon footprint in some realistic but meaningful way. The problem is, I never followed up on it. This fall, I will have them make such contracts with themselves, and then report (as one of their required papers) how much success they had or did not have, and what they learned in the process.

It is easy to feel like Qoheleth, the author of Ecclesiastes, who is nearly immobilized by thinking about the weariness of the world and its weight of evil. “This too is vanity…” And if you feel overwhelmed into inaction, I cannot criticize you, for I almost feel that way myself. But we have one life in which to try to make some difference in the world. And it might work, a little. The world, at least, has not forgotten Heloise and Abelard.