Occupy the World
I apologize for the lack of posts recently and upcoming. I’ve been participating in Occupy Boston, and will be headed to Occupy Wall Street next week. In lieu of my regular column on naturalism, I’d like to share some of my thoughts on the Occupy movement after participating in it.
There’s something amazing happening right now on Wall Street, in Chicago, Boston, and an ever increasing number of cities throughout the country, and most people are missing it.
They are missing it partly because of a grotesque lack of media coverage, but that isn’t the only problem. I would go as far as to say there are a large number of participants that are experiencing this amazing event and missing the greatest, most powerful message this movement has to offer.
When Occupy Wall Street first happened I was glued to it. I followed what was happening on twitter and their livestream as much as I possibly could. I was enthralled that such a dedicated protest movement had finally erupted against the perpetrators of the financial crisis and was boundlessly excited for its potential. Thousands like me were smitten, and the energy was palpable.
Which Inspired Words?
This post is a part of the “Empowering Unbelief” weekly column in which arguments for naturalism and secular humanism are discussed from a lay perspective.
A large segment of modern Christianity is bent on the idea that the Bible is the direct, inspired, literal word of God. They think it contains no mistakes or inaccuracies, and that they can consult its teachings for answers in all aspects of their life and society. Their political views, moral stances, social life, and education are informed by this view of Christianity, and they act accordingly. For many this leads to views in opposition to women’s rights to abortion, rights to LGBTQs, and even science itself (eg. evolution, global warming). Those stances hinge on the Bible being the inerrant word of God, and were there to be uncertainty in that it would mean reevaluating how they come to ethical prescriptions for behavior.
The Gutenberg Bible, the first printed bible
Unfortunately for these kinds of Christians, there are all kinds of problems with the Bible texts, something that’s been known for centuries. Biblical scholarship has long shown that the Bible, whether originally inspired or not, cannot be trusted to be free of human error and meddling. When consulting the Bible with moral, theological, and historical questions we can never be sure that the words being consulted are the original words that were written.
The first major problem, especially for the New Testament, is one of language. The first century Jewish population in Palestine (the region where Jesus’ ministry is said to have begun) predominantly spoke Aramaic, yet all the gospels (accounts of Jesus’ ministry) are written in Greek — along with the rest of the NT. So already, we’re counting on first century translators. Add to that the fact that most people today read it in another language and that’s 2 language barriers from the actual words of Jesus. Most English translations show obvious signs of theological tweaking, further underscoring that you haven’t read the NT if you haven’t read it in Greek.
Islam is Not the Problem
This post is a part of the “Empowering Unbelief” weekly column in which arguments for naturalism and secular humanism are discussed from a lay perspective.
In the wake of the the September 11th, 2001 attacks the U.S. was — still largely is — gripped with a crippling fear of Muslims. Desperately grasping for an explanation for why anyone would commit such a crime, most people (myself included) accepted the administration’s narrative of the events. On September 20, 2001 President Bush gave a speech that spelled it out for us. He said they were “enemies of freedom,” that “freedom itself is under attack,” and Al Qaeda’s “goal is remaking the world — and imposing its radical beliefs on people everywhere.” To his credit he attempted to temper the inevitable jingoism:
“The terrorists practice a fringe form of Islamic extremism that has been rejected by Muslim scholars and the vast majority of Muslim clerics — a fringe movement that perverts the peaceful teachings of Islam.
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I also want to speak tonight directly to Muslims throughout the world. We respect your faith. It’s practiced freely by many millions of Americans, and by millions more in countries that America counts as friends. Its teachings are good and peaceful, and those who commit evil in the name of Allah blaspheme the name of Allah. The terrorists are traitors to their own faith, trying, in effect, to hijack Islam itself. The enemy of America is not our many Muslim friends; it is not our many Arab friends. Our enemy is a radical network of terrorists, and every government that supports them.”
Despite those kind words, religious and secular alike began to characterize Muslims as belonging to an inherently evil faith. Sam Harris, a prominent atheist and author, wrote in a chapter called “The Problem with Islam” in his book The End of Faith that “[i]t is not merely that we are at war with an otherwise peaceful religion that has been ‘hijacked’ by extremists. We are at war with precisely the vision of life that is prescribed to all Muslims in the Koran, and further elaborated in the literature of hadith, which recounts the sayings and actions of the Prophet.” He characterizes suicidal jihad as an inherent aspect of Islam that cannot be ignored by a truly devout Muslim; “On almost every page, the Koran instructs observant Muslims to despise non-believers. On almost every page, it prepares the ground for religious conflict.”
The trouble with this kind of thinking is two-fold. 1) It reduces the motivations for Islamic violence down to a single factor — religion — ignoring their own stated motivations; 2) the same criticism can be leveled at both of Islam’s sister Abrahamic faiths, yet the majority of practitioners of all three are overwhelmingly peaceful.
This Column is Late Not Because of Gays
This post is a part of the “Empowering Unbelief” weekly column in which arguments for naturalism and secular humanism are discussed from a lay perspective.
NASA/Science Faction/Getty Images
I’ve taken for granted several times that no modern person would attribute natural disasters to the actions of a divine entity. While short-term weather prediction is often comically inaccurate — especially here in New England — climate science is a robust field of study and we have a pretty firm grasp on how weather patterns form. They may be chaotic, and thus impossible to have absolute foreknowledge of, but they are not in principle beyond our understanding. Surely, no one could be delusional enough to think that a hurricane is a purposeful act of God. Right?
Wrong, unfortunately. Here’s a few nuggets from Media Matters. Pat Robertson, a prominent figure of conservative Christianity and former presidential candidate, linked hurricane Katrina (oh, and terrorism) to legalized abortion — specifically, the appointment of a Supreme Court Justice that might not side with anti-choicers.
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Religion is a Natural Phenomenon
This post is a part of the “Empowering Unbelief” weekly column in which arguments for naturalism and secular humanism are discussed from a lay perspective.
I discussed previously the power of scientific explanations over the repeated failures of religious ones. In every place that religion has offered up an attempt at understanding our world, science has stepped in and provided much better answers. Science took us to the moon. But one of the most damning ways that any religion fails in this regard are its hilarious attempts to explain its rivals, and the ludicrous special pleading required to exempt itself from the real explanations. The fact of the matter is, science can tell us why religion exists in the first place and it’s not because they’re all true.
Think about it — even if you’re a religious person who accepts the broad scientific consensus for most things, and aren’t inclined to think that Satan (or another antagonistic force) falsely imbues supernatural legitimacy to religions outside your own — it must be so. Religion has been around as long as people, so either Satan got going really early or there’s something about the way that our brains evolved that has the effect of making people believe in the supernatural.
So what makes people religious? Well the answer is far from complete, but we have a pretty good idea.
We All, Religious or Not, Must Fight for Secularism
This post is a part of the “Empowering Unbelief” weekly column in which arguments for naturalism and secular humanism are discussed from a lay perspective.
In any setting where parties interact for a common purpose it is necessary to set aside certain differences for the sake of that purpose. This should be obvious to anyone who has ever attempted to work in a group towards just about any end. Hackneyed sitcoms are rife with wacky roommates unable to accomplish such mutualism. Even Bert and Ernie can’t escape this strife. Secularism is a special case of this setting aside of differences, and it has dramatic consequences when it is ignored or openly attacked.
Secularism, in the political sense, is the exclusion of religion from state decision-making and endorsement. It is essential to protecting everyone’s freedom to believe whatever they like.
When the state endorses a particular religion, or even religion over non-religion, it creates a climate of distrust of non-adherents. Suddenly religion becomes a tool of nationalism. Anyone not of the favored belief is “unpatriotic.” The United States witnessed this during the Red Scare, and common perceptions haven’t much changed since. There was such a fear of “godless communists” that the nation as a whole went into a dissociative frenzy to identify ourselves in as stark a contrast as possible. 1954 saw the inclusion of the phrase “under God” in our Pledge of Allegiance (itself only adopted 12 years prior) and in 1956 “In God We Trust” became our national motto.
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