Year: 2009

Testing My Faith

[Later Addition/Redaction: As Prof Bibb points out in the comments below (and go read his fantastic blog, btw… I’ve been subscribed for the last few weeks and it’s one of my fav reads now), this is satire. And yes, I’m an idiot for a) not catching that and b) not doing my homework and clicking over to Edward Current’s YouTube page (lots of great stuff as well).

So, on with my righteous indignation…]

Besides my head literally exploding from the recursive and numerous logic fails, this video, it does point out a rather concerning strand that is influencing contemporary “theologies” associated with some members of movements such as the emerging church: the push against intelligence and asking questions.

In the video itself, we get the summary statement of these sorts of theologies:

“Maybe God created the evidence infinitely difficult to understand on purpose to test our faith in his son, born of virgin, and sent to die so that he could rise again and cleanse mankind of our sins. God is infinitely intelligent, you know?”

Well, we don’t *know* that since that would indicate we understand the nature of God. Some of us humans describe God with that descriptor, but it’s not something I’d ever claim to *know*. Language is important, folks.

Even more unsettling is the assertion that God would be a manipulative deity playing sleight of hand tricks with dinosaur bones and soil strata so that a very small percentage of our species (white, middle class North Americans living in the late 20th/early 21st century) could find redemption based on superior faith.

Trusting God is good and right. Trusting our tiny and inept brains to fully comprehend the nature of the deity, the cosmos and conceptions of absolute truth is idolatry.

I’ll stop there.

(BTW, William of Ockham was a very devout monk.)

Thanks to Pharyngula for the find.

Danes, Swedes and Post-Religious Morality

Growing up outside of a faith community (and in my hometown context, that meant Southern Baptist) until I was 13, my friends would often ask (even at our young age) how I knew right from wrong if I didn’t go to church. Those experiences have always stuck with me.

Of course, those questions made sense because as kids in the 80’s we were constantly on the alert for the godless communists that wanted to obliterate us and our Christian way of life. However, now we have the construction of al-Qaeda as the boogey people, so we demonize extremist Muslims rather than godless commies.

While these sorts of studies are hard to correlate data wise, it is interesting to observe how “post-religious” states such as Denmark and Sweden line up against more “religious” states like the US or Mexico or Brazil or Iran:

The Virtues of Godlessness – ChronicleReview.com: “Many people assume that religion is what keeps people moral, that a society without God would be hell on earth: rampant with immorality, full of evil, and teeming with depravity. But that doesn’t seem to be the case for Scandinavians in those two countries. Although they may have relatively high rates of petty crime and burglary, and although these crime rates have been on the rise in recent decades, their overall rates of violent crime — including murder, aggravated assault, and rape — are among the lowest on earth. Yet the majority of Danes and Swedes do not believe that God is ‘up there,’ keeping diligent tabs on their behavior, slating the good for heaven and the wicked for hell. Most Danes and Swedes don’t believe that sin permeates the world, and that only Jesus, the Son of God, who died for their sins, can serve as a remedy. In fact, most Danes and Swedes don’t even believe in the notion of ‘sin.'”

So, the question becomes what impact does religion have on our conceptions and intentional acts of realized morality? Are these positive or negative effects? Was religion formulated and born in an era of our species’ development when we needed a construct of some “other” force or entity to ensure community ethos, empathy, sharing, and foundational morality?

If so, what good is religion?

What Will Archaeologists Think of Us? Or Do Post-Moderns Dream of Electric Sheep?

Being that I’m of the historical mindset, it’s something I ponder often… what will our archaeological legacy be if the bits that we are creating even survive the coming millennia?

I’m not alone:

I sometimes wonder what future archaeologists and historians will understand about our society. It may seem unthinkable that future scholars would have as much disagreement about basic things as we do about the ancients, but I’m sure it seemed just as unlikely to those great old civilizations. Will historians understand our religious practices? Cultural and political systems? How much of our language will be opaque idiom? Let’s face it, bits and bytes are much less durable than papyrus, clay, and stone.

Fun stuff to ponder since we aren’t recording our decalogues on stones and stele anymore (somewhat unfortunately).

Are we the Myceneans 2.0?

NASCAR Folks on Twitter

TallGlassOfMilk has a great listing of NASCAR fans, bloggers, press, teams and tracks that are on Twitter.

I absolutely love this for a number of reasons.  It’s tremendous fun to watch an event (like a race) and interact with folks in real time on the web.  CNN and Facebook proved that during Obama’s inauguration last week.  Plus, it’ s even more fun to be at a race in person and interacting with folks on Twitter (tried it last year during two races and it really added to the overall experience.

So, if you’re on Twitter and a NASCAR fan, head over and let’s get our little community going:

http://drinkthis.typepad.com/answer_this/2009/01/nascar-on-twitter.html