I get annoyed about a book I haven't read

I have not read Karen Armstrong’s new book, but this Newsweek review seriously got on my nerves.

From the September 29, 2009, issue of Newsweek: The latest salvo in the war between the atheists and the believers comes from the doyenne of religious intellectual history, Karen Armstrong. Her tone is one of high-minded irritation. Her argument is compelling. To oversimplify: "faith" and "reason" are not like political parties. You don't join one after having been convinced via argument of its validity.

Well, no, you don’t; the vast majority of people “join” a religion because it’s the one in which they are raised from birth, the one they get from their parents. Political party affiliation often works the same way, of course; we tend to take on the beliefs of our immediate community. But more importantly, there is a category error here: “reason” is a process, not a conclusion, while “faith” implies a belief in something one has already decided to be true. It’s an extremely common false analogy, but an important one. Think of it this way: What people want to compare when they set up this dichotomy are two ways of arriving at an answer. The comparison is false because beliefs based on faith begin with the answer and work backwards to justify that answer; to have faith in something you have to know what that thing is FIRST. Reason, however, is merely the process one goes through to work toward an as yet undetermined answer. Thus, the application of, say, the scientific method, is not something one “joins,” but it is very much a way of arriving at answers that can be taught and demonstrated as valid, and it can be applied to many more situations, while belief-without-evidence is a position we celebrate in no other circumstance that I can think of outside of religion. Sam Harris often uses the example of someone asking, “Don’t you have faith that your partner loves you? You can’t determine that scientifically, right, smartypants?” No, you can’t, but you can certainly view the evidence in the way your partner treats you, for example. It seems to me that if you have to believe in your partner’s love based only on faith, your partner may not in fact love you.

What the Greeks called logos and what they called mythos define two different aspects of the world and our experience in it: the knowable and the unknowable. You can believe in both. The bridge between them, Armstrong submits, is not the snarky badinage or righteous browbeating that has so defined faith-versus-reason debates of late, but practice. By practice she means not the occasional yoga class but genuine, difficult, repetitive practice, which over time gives the practitioner—even the reasonable practitioner—glimpses of the transcendent or the divine. Call it God.

WHY? No, really: why? Why shouldn’t I call it neurochemistry? Or black magic? Or Jim? This is a bizarre claim that I hear all the time and I can never figure out how the person making it can be serious. Just because you might point to things that feel funky in your head or that science hasn’t provided answers for yet or that seem transcendent to you, how on earth do you make the spectacular leap from there to ergo X=The God in Which I Already Conveniently Believe? So, again, I would love to know if Armstrong has stories to tell about people who discover Jesus Christ through “practice” without ever having heard of him before.

The Case for God, which comes out this month, is Armstrong's 19th book, and it rides the crest of a wave of books meant to dismantle the arguments of the atheists Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and Richard Dawkins. Armstrong is uniquely qualified to write on this subject, for having been a Roman Catholic nun, she then rejected faith. "For many years, I myself wanted nothing whatsoever to do with religion," she writes. "But my study of world religion during the last twenty years has compelled me to revise my earlier opinions…One of the things I have learned is that quarreling about religion is counterproductive and not conducive to enlightenment."

OK, ugh, I hate this so much. Questioning religious beliefs or dogma and/or their function in our society does not constitute “quarreling” or “snarky badinage” or “righteous browbeating” or meanness, and these charges, again very common, merely allow one to shift the focus and avoid addressing the actual criticisms being raised. And of course quarreling can be productive and can lead to intellectual enlightenment, if we approach it correctly and use it to hone our own beliefs in an honest way. That’s why debate has held a respected position in the exercise of intellect for so many hundreds of years.

Armstrong shows that for most of human history, "faith" and "reason" were not mutually exclusive and that even today all kinds people believe in a God that in no way resembles the God the atheists despise.

GAH. I do not “despise” anyone’s god; I do not believe such beings exist, so I could not possibly despise them.

"Jews, Christians, and Muslims all knew that revealed truth was symbolic, that
scripture could not be interpreted literally, and that sacred texts had multiple meanings, and could lead to entirely fresh insights," she writes. "Revelation was not an event that had happened once in the distant past, but was an ongoing, creative process." This critique has not been articulated often or clearly enough: the new atheists are, in effect, buying into one particular modern, Western fundamentalist notion of God in order to make God look ridiculous and knock him (or her or it) down. For them to fail to concede that what William James called "religious experience" is far more complex than what certain contemporary believers preach is extremely disingenuous.

Really? The Crusades and the Inquisition and the Holocaust and Proposition 8 were carried out by people who saw scripture as symbolic? I know that’s such a cheap shot, but come on. Yes, some religious people have seen scripture this way, but the ones with the most power and the loudest voices do not, so let’s not be “disingenuous” here. Here’s a question: If atheists are “buying into” a “notion of God,” who is selling it? What strikes me about this screed is that it should be directed at fundamentalists, not atheists, if Armstrong is being, dare I say, ingenuous in her complaints. When atheists (or theists, for that matter) complain about religious dogma interfering with medical research and civil rights and reproductive health and science education and sex ed and any number of other areas that affect all of us, we are not reacting to something that we’ve made up because we don’t like god. I understand Armstrong’s wish to disclaim her embarrassing relatives, but sorry, you can’t, not if you want to defend this plurality in scripture you’re positing, because that means their reading of “practice” is as valid as yours. But more importantly, if scripture is an ever-changing facilitator of subjective experience as opposed to an actual signifier of determinable meaning, what bloody good is it? This is all so goofy, I’m sorry, but believers do not read “sacred” texts the way they read John Grisham novels; they think there’s something magical about them. Otherwise, how are they special? How are they worthy of existing outside the frame of rationality that we place over everything else? What makes them worthy of faith?

Most provocative is Armstrong's focus on practice—on the activities that help a person engage with God: reading, singing, chanting, meditating, praying, and so on. She has a special affinity for the mystics. The yogi, the Christian mystic, the Kabbalist, the Sufi, the poet—all these, she argues, access transcendence through disciplined work, through failure, anxiety, and the redoubling of effort. By submitting to the unknown, mystics are supposed to become more wise and more loving. At its best, then, mythos has a positive, pragmatic effect on logos.

I may have to read this book, I guess, because I would love to know what it looks like when someone “submit[s] to the unknown.” Wtf does that mean, and why should I attempt it or value it? I want the unknown to become the known. That’s why I like education! And science. And the quest to cure cancer. And the space program. MRI. Pregnancy tests. (I could go on…) She talks about “enlightenment” but then describes its pursuit as “submitting to the unknown”? Sounds like a load of pseudo-intellectual baloney to me. When Socrates acknowledged that the wisest person understands that he knows nothing, he didn’t mean to suggest that we should celebrate ignorance as a virtue. Perhaps this is the main reason that what others call “spirituality” has never worked for me; I am never, ever happy about not knowing.

"The point of religion was to live intensely and richly here and now," she writes. "Religious people are ambitious…They tried to honor the ineffable mystery they sensed in each human being and create societies that honored the stranger, the alien, the poor, and the oppressed." It doesn't always work, she adds, but it's worth a try. (Critics will charge that Armstrong's affinity for mysticism leads her naively to overlook the destructive differences among religions. Like Robert Wright, whose recent book, The Evolution of God, argues for a kind of divine morality among humans, Armstrong is more of an optimistic about religion than a pessimist.)

Again: “ineffable mystery in each human being.” Don’t know what that means. Also, though, I flat do not believe this claim. A minute ago religion was individual and personal and all about each believer’s needs. Now it’s about honoring strangers and aliens? Again, what does that look like? The Christian Bible is unapologetically tribal. Oh, wait, those words in the book don’t actually mean what they say because they’re mutable and symbolic and all. So on what does she base these statements about the purpose of religion, if we can’t even take what the religious texts say at face value? I am getting so confused.

Armstrong's argument is prescient, for it reflects the most important shifts occurring in the religious landscape. In the West, believers are refocusing their attention away from creeds and on practice—on making the activity of faith meaningful in daily life.

I don’t care what people do with their own time, obviously, but when “practice” or “activity” includes attempting to inject your religion into the public schools or into the laws of the state, I will fight you every step. It doesn’t matter too much, though, because I do not believe this is true at all, that believers are moving away from creeds. It certainly is not true where I live.

Examples of this are legion: in the Bay Area, a new school called the Gamliel Institute teaches Jews in every denomination about chevra kadisha, the ancient mitzvah of washing and shrouding a dead body. In evangelical circles, Christians are turning away from salvation talk and toward helping the sick and the poor.

Bullshit. They are not. Churches have always involved themselves in ministering to the disadvantaged, which is lovely, but there is not some big movement going on—at least not in the US—toward doing so instead of talking about salvation. Sorry, no.

Pentecostalism, the fastest--growing brand of religion in the world, stresses the gifts of the spirit: healing, and speaking in tongues. In his new book, The Future of Faith, Harvard professor Harvey Cox calls this new era "the age of the spirit": "Faith, rather than beliefs, is once again becoming [Christianity's] defining quality," he writes.

WHAT? With no beliefs, what do you have faith in? That makes no sense!

For me, the most refreshing change of all is the possibility, clearly articulated in Armstrong's book, that belief in God requires uncertainty as much as certainty. Sixteen percent of Americans recently called themselves "unaffiliated," a figure that sent religious professionals scurrying for fixes and explanations. But these Americans may just be signaling to pollsters an unwillingness to choose sides.
Miller Is Newsweek’s Religion Editor.
©
2009

If a belief requires uncertainty, I’m not sure you can even call it a belief without playing very loose with that word, but what matters here is that once again she asks me to rejoice in ignorance, now called “uncertainty,” and I reject that recommendation with everything I am; the thinker, the educator, the parent all recoil from such mealy-mouthed, self-effacing resignation.

California's Proposition 8; or, Die Haters

The Obama glow was completely ruined for me by the gay hating. I am so furious I can hardly sit here without screaming and throwing things.

You stupid, stupid assholes.

I guess it's going to take a gay Malcolm X to deal with this crap once and for all. Not that morons aren't afraid of gays as it is--we know they are--but they may need to get really afraid, physically threatened, before they back down and let the civil rights on which our country ostensibly prides itself govern all its citizens. Horribly sad, but perhaps also true.

Because aside from a wholesale abandonment of ancient bullshit superstitions by the general population, I don't see what else can fix this hideous injustice. And let's not kid ourselves: No secular groups are attempting to legislate against gay rights. This is all about the stupid Bible. So we have two elements of these "defense of marriage" propositions that are transparently unconstitutional: They involve legislating from a position of religious doctrine and they seek to write discrimination into law, which, hi, America, are SUPPOSED to be illegal and anti-American and contrary to all that stuff we claim to believe in.

Oh, but, something else we all know but don't so much talk about is that no politician has the stones to confront religious beliefs and call them misguided or discriminatory or batshit crazy wrong. We're all expected to respect religion and any dumb ideas it barfs up, so when something like this gay hating travesty appears, everyone is too mired in respect to call it what it is and stand in opposition.

I think anyone--and this includes our new president-elect, though I did vote for him--who calls him/herself "liberal" but does not stand for gay marriage is a craven hypocrite. I really do. In fact, I think anyone who claims to believe in equality and civil rights but draws the line at the Biblically-villified queers is a craven hypocrite as well. Screw you. I do not "respect" your idiotic bigoted beliefs, and I hope I never do.

To all you protesters in California and the group attempting to have the Mormon church's tax exempt status revoked, you go, sisters and brothers. Go get 'em. Even Dr. King finally said enough is enough, quit asking us to wait for equality because we're dead tired of waiting. I'm not gay but I am officially tired of waiting to live in a country that meets its own hype. This is ridiculous, that we're still debating this while the ecomony implodes and our soldiers die. Ridiculous. This is a slam dunk, people. Equality under the law. Look it up.

Two Open Letters

Dear iTunes:

I DO NOT WANT SAFARI. Really. I don't.

love,
Shell





Dear McAfee:

You suck.

No love,
Shell

This just in: U of California demands actual college coursework for transfer credit

Finally some sense in the news! Nice one, University of California.

MURRIETA: Judge throws out religious discrimination suit
Calvary Chapel attorney to appeal ruling

By RANI GUPTA - Staff Writer Friday, August 8, 2008 10:50 PM PDT

A federal judge in Los Angeles has thrown out the remaining claims of Calvary Chapel Christian School, which sued the University of California alleging university officials rejected some courses for credit because of their Christian viewpoint.

U.S. District Judge James Otero said in a summary judgment ruling released Friday that the school had failed to show evidence that UC officials had violated the First Amendment rights of the five Calvary students who sued along with the school and the Association of Christian Schools International.

Robert Tyler, an attorney who represented Calvary, said Friday night that the decision will be appealed.

"We always believed we were going to have to get up in the higher courts before we would get a ruling that would be favorable to us," said Tyler, general counsel for Advocates for Faith and Freedom, a religious liberty law firm in Murrieta.

In March, Otero threw out the Christian school's broader claims that UC policies were unconstitutional on their face. Friday's ruling concerned Calvary's claims that the policies were also unconstitutional as they were applied in the review of several classes.

Otero wrote that Calvary "provided no evidence of animus" on the part of university officials, whom he said had a "rational basis" for determining that the proposed Calvary courses would not meet the UC college preparatory requirements.

For instance, a UC professor who reviewed Calvary's proposed Christianity's Influence on America class said the course used a textbook that "instructs that the Bible is the unerring source for analysis of historical events," "attributes historical events to divine providence rather than analyzing human action," and "contains inadequate treatment of several major ethnic groups, women and non-Christian religious groups."

Another university professor agreed that the textbook from Bob Jones University shouldn't be used for a college-preparatory history class because it didn't encourage critical thinking skills and failed to cover "major topics, themes and components" of U.S. history, Otero wrote.

The judge said Calvary provided little admissible evidence to the contrary.

The court also ruled that UC officials had a rational reason to reject a course called World Religions for elective credit.

University reviewers had asked Calvary to accurately identify the book because they could not verify its existence and asked the school to show how the class "treats the study of religion from the standpoint of scholarly inquiry," Otero's ruling said. He said Calvary provided no evidence they had tried to clarify the content.

"[T]he course rejection feedback makes clear that the course may have been approved with minimal clarification," the judge wrote.

University officials have said they approved 43 courses from Calvary Chapel, which Tyler said Calvary students have used to gain admission to UC schools. There are other ways to be admitted, such as high test scores. However, Tyler said he fears schools will become afraid to teach from a Christian perspective.

"We're worried in the long term, Christian education is going to be continually watered down in order to satisfy the UC school system," he said.

A university spokesman could not be reached for comment late Friday.

This story out of Tulsa shows just how entitled the religious have become:

Islamic group files suit against Tulsa store
The Oklahoman

A religious discrimination complaint has been filed on behalf of a Muslim teen who said she was denied employment at a Tulsa store because of her headscarf, the Council on American Islamic Relations Oklahoma chapter announced today.

Razi Hashmi, the council's Oklahoma chapter executive director, said the young woman applied for a job at the Abercrombie children's clothing store in Woodland Hills Mall and was told her Islamic headscarf, or hijab, "does not fit the company's image."

Hashmi said the council filed a complaint on the teen's behalf with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in mid-July, citing religious discrimination.

He said the council is asking the store to offer the applicant a formal apology. Hashmi said the organization also wants the store's policy on religious accommodation clarified. The group also is asking for Abercrombie employees to receive workplace sensitivity and diversity training.

OK, we need to clarify something here. Religious freedom does not mean that you can have any job you want. It simply means that you can practice whatever religion you want without being hindered by the government. You are not entitled to a job at a trendy clothing store that routinely incorporates nekkidness in its advertising (for clothes, no less) if you don't look convincing in that role. They don't generally hire wrinkled people to work at Abercrombie either. Or, for that matter, ugly people. There is a certain amount of discrimination inherent to hiring practices, which is why we have these things called "applications" and "interviews." Whether you like it or not, A&F is about appearing over-priced and high energy, and there's no room for overt demonstrations of modesty in their idiom. The last thing they want is to make customers feel guilty about their vanity.

Besides, they didn't tell her she couldn't wear the stupid thing (and, yes, I meant that--I think it's stupid) just that they weren't going to hire her to wear it in their store. That's not illegal.

You're right--I am kind of dumb. Thanks, god!

I couldn't pull over to snap a photo, but I just passed a church sign that said "Trust Yourself Less and God More."

Wow, I really have a problem with that sentiment. What would that even look like? How does one accomplish it? Let Jesus take the wheel?

People are so odd

Flying home from Chicago this morning I sat in a row with a woman in possession of at least 50 years who--I shit you not--clutched a stuffed animal the entire flight.

Come on. Have some dignity. Either you'll make it home or you won't, but remember what your mother used to say about always wearing crisp underwear in case you find yourself offending some poor paramedic with your sagging elastic and skid marks? I'm going to suggest that you think about how you'll be remembered if the plane does go down and your mangled corpse is discovered clinging to Boo Boo Kitty.

I was sitting by the window and Kitty Klinger was on the aisle; between us was a college girl on her way back to school. The moment KK sat down she started babbling at this poor kid. Her rather alarming introductory declaration: "I've got to take my Dramamine now. The older I get I just get worse and worse. The last time I flew I got so sick!"

Um. Not so much what your fellow passengers want to hear while we're buckling ourselves in next to you? Thanks.

Then she went off about her kids and her grandkid and all the jobs she's had since she got divorced because she always put her kids first you know that was the way she approached it so if a job started to interfere with that why she went and found another one.

I hate people like this so, so much. I am not pathologically unfriendly, but I could not be less interested in being trapped by the boring lives of strangers. It's rude to do this, to take advantage of the politeness of others and force them to endure your bullshit. And put down that stupid toy, you weirdo.

Another illuminating post from PZ Myers

It is finished. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/scienceblogs/pharyngula/~3/344848952/the_great_desecration.php

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