Matthew joins me again to discuss artificial intelligence, ancient constructs of aid, panpsychism, science and the humanities, and formation of religious texts.
Mentioned:
More than a fingerprint on a pebble
Fascinating and all too familiar…
The pebble discovered in the San Lázaro rock-shelter (Segovia, Central Spain) is the oldest known non-utilitarian object with a fingerprint made in Europe. Its morphology and the strategic position of an ocher dot, where a dermatoglyphic image has been detected, may be evidence of symbolic behavior. This object contributes to our understanding of Neanderthals’ capacity for abstraction, suggesting that it could represent one of the earliest human facial symbolizations in Prehistory. All the analyses carried out suggest an intentional effort to transport and paint the pebble for non-utilitarian purposes, suggesting that it is indeed the work of Neanderthals.
On the Proliferation of Religion and AI
Fascinating thoughts here on AI, religion, and consciousness from Matt Segall (one of my professors in my PhD work on Religion, Ecology, and Spirituality at CIIS who is helping to lead the way through the pluriverse)…
We might dismiss ancient religious as overly anthropocentric or indeed anthropomorphic. But I think from my point of view, we need to recognize that before we rush to transcend the human, we have to understand what we are, and all of our sciences are themselves inevitably anthropocentric.
Denominational Journeys and Paths
Merianna, the kids, and I decided to make the trip up the mountain to Asheville, NC on Sunday (I keep finding it astonishing that we’re so close to Asheville now after our move back to Spartanburg, SC, last year) for church and a family visit to our favorite local pizza place.
We worshipped with Asheville First Congregational United Church and their pastor, Rev. Dr. Kendra G. Plating. Merianna and Kendra were friends from their time together at First Baptist Greenville, as well as our Cooperative Baptist Fellowship community here in SC. I’m always curious about the religious journeys that people take in and out of and through various congregations and denominations, and how those journeys shape the person and they shape those communities.
Walking alongside Merianna in her journey through seminary and then being a CBF pastor and then ultimately a pastor in the United Church of Christ was a fascinating period of development and growth, and we often talked about the “how’s” and “why’s” of that walk over the years.
My own journey in faith is tangled in denominational and polity wanderings. Growing up as a Southern Baptist in rural South Carolina, I felt a call to ministry and that attraction to religion as a cornerstone for my life fairly early (15? 16? I wish I’d written more of that down as a young person). While attending Wofford College, I realized that my denominational sentiments leaned more towards the Methodist tradition (Wofford is a Methodist college, after all). I was convinced I’d end up as a Methodist minister (as a member of the Wesley Fellowship and frequent participant in campus church, the Methodist State Conference we hosted at Wofford every summer, and especially our Tuesday afternoon Chapel services). I evidently upset a girlfriend’s mom by making the flippant remark that “maybe I’d go Catholic” as I was toying with the idea of “high church” after getting to travel to Europe. I never did end up making the formal leap to Methodism. However, Methodist liturgy and hymns still play a big part in my life, and I frequently use those when leading services.
When I arrived at Yale Divinity, I wasn’t exactly sure what to call myself, and there was no polity class for my technical status as a still-Southern-Baptist. So, I found myself taking American Baptist courses, much to the confusion of my advisor. It was a happy accident, and I also grew to respect and cherish what I found in the American Baptist tradition (especially given the short drive to the City for Riverside Baptist Church services on MLK weekends). I graduated from Yale Div as a still-Southern-Baptist, however.
Shortly after graduating, I ended up teaching (science!) at Hammond School back in South Carolina. A colleague’s spouse was the head of a group called the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship in South Carolina. Perhaps the selling point for me was that President Jimmy Carter was also a member of the CBF and taught Sunday School in his hometown church. I began to attend services at the local CBF church in Columbia, and it felt like I had finally landed in a fellowship structure that fit me and that I fit as well. I attended Gardner-Webb University Divinity a few years later and met many good friends and colleagues who are now serving or did serve in the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship as pastors and leaders. Some of those have ventured into other denominations such as Presbyterian, Methodist, Southern Baptist, and UCC. I finally had my Baptist ordination signed (by 3 women, I might add) in 2014 and remain a member of Emmanuel Baptist Fellowship in Lexington, SC.
Now, as Merianna and I look to the next part of our joint journey and our individual paths of calling, we are discussing polity, denominational structure, and liturgy. Being that we’re both ordained (in two separate denominations), these talks can get tricky when we discuss the possibilities of joining a new church here in Spartanburg and what that might look like for us and especially for our children (infant baptism? blessings? open communion?).
It’s fascinating (to use that word again) how telling the story of our life journeys can seem so complex and winding unless you’ve lived the story. In my head, teaching Physics and Physical Science for almost 20 years easily explains my PhD work in Ecology, Spirituality, and Religion. Growing up a Southern Baptist influenced by Methodism, Aquinas, Quaker polity, Dead Sea Scrolls, and Catholicism (and Rosicrucianism and more esoteric faith traditions) makes for a completely coherent path in my own mind.
Wherever this journey takes us, I’ll continue to find inspiration and revelation along the path. I like to think God demands that of us who choose to listen to the still small voice of the Divine whispering in a rush of wind, in the garden, and late at night as long-haired teenagers dreaming about the future (or as grey short haired men in their late 40’s telling stories and trying to understand the universe one day at a time).
Ecological Intentionality: Performing Peace Beyond Human Boundaries
Here’s a paper that I presented at this year’s American Academy of Religion, Western Region held at Arizona State University in March 2025 (Tempe is quite beautiful in March, btw!). It’s a good starting point for approaching my work and research called The Ecology of the Cross as a part of my PhD interests (and hopefully beyond)…
“This work explores the intersection of ecology and religion, theology, and phenomenology, drawing particularly on process thought, embodied consciousness, and participatory awareness via decolonization. I want to suggest that ecological intentionality offers a framework for peace that extends beyond Human interactions, challenging anthropocentric models of peace and instead envisioning peace as a relational, ecological, and more-than-human performance. I’ll begin by defining this concept of ecological intentionality within a phenomenological and process-relational framework, then explore its implications for peace beyond Human boundaries through examples drawn from both ecological and spiritual contexts. Finally, I’ll propose that peace, in this framework, is not simply an absence of conflict but a mode of relationality grounded in ecological reciprocity and mutual flourishing. This is part of a larger project for my PhD work that I’m calling Ecology of the Cross in reverence to Edith Stein and her influential work (on me), The Science of the Cross.”
What Most People Think
Socrates:
“But my dear Crito, why should we pay so much attention to what ‘most people’ think? The most sensible people who have more claim to be considered, will believe that things have been done exactly as they have” (Plato, The Last Days of Socrates, trans. Tredennick and Tarrant, Penguin Classics, 2003, 80).
Conservation as Communion
Here’s a paper I’ve written on the concept of re-thinking conservation attempts in modern societies based on technocratic and market-based ideas. Conservation and human action (and inaction) is a fascinating area to ponder. As part of my wider work on The Ecology of the Cross, this is a paper that explores some of the roots of our Western concepts of “conservation” and a possible middle way in these uncertain times using fire as a case study 🔥🌲.
Here’s the abstract:
“This paper proposes a paradigm shift in conservation, moving from technocratic and colonial frameworks toward an ethic of interspecies communion. Drawing on Juno Salazar Parreñas’ critique of biopolitical care, Mara Goldman’s analysis of Maasai narrative epistemologies, Barrett et al.’s model of intuitive interspecies communication, and philosophical reflections from Edgar Morin, William Desmond, and the emerging field of Ecocene fire practices, the paper articulates a vision of both conservation and understandings and uses of fire rooted in reciprocity, complexity, and ontological humility. It argues that communion, not control, must ground conservation in the age of ecological disruption.”
Our First Spartanburgers Game Tonight
Ben is having a blast at our new baseball stadium here in Spartanburg… Let’s go, Hub City!
Last Day
It’s the last day of Lily’s school and her first day facing forward in her seat. Time is such a strange concept.
Trying Out Tapestry by Iconfactory
I’m a bit (understatement) of an old-school person regarding how I handle my newsfeeds and RSS reading. RSS is still the way forward out of the mess that siloed social media platforms have created and encouraged each with their own time-sink and attention-thirsty newsfeeds and timelines.
I started my usage (obsession?) with newsfeeds while a student at Wofford College in the late 90s, running the PointCast screensaver on the desktop in my dorm room cubicle (replacing the beloved flying toasters). It was buggy and intense on RAM usage, but I thought the concept was brilliant.
That led to me discovering early and inventive services such as Newsgator and FeedDemon (I loved that service) and the work of Dave Winer to script together the RSS protocol(s). I transitioned from FeedDemon on my Windows machines over to Bloglines sometime around 2004 as the web2.0 craze was spinning up. This felt like a magic time for the web as numerous sites were adding RSS icons, services like Writely were starting to bloom (which would go on to be acquired by Google and made into Google Docs), and people were blogging on LiveJournal or Movable Type as Geocities became abandonware. MySpace was around and beginning to infiltrate our lives, but we had things like Ze Frank’s The Show to keep us honest. I eventually found NetNewsWire (there’s a whole saga there for its history as well) as I transitioned to the Mac world after buying my first Apple Computer in 2005. Turns out, I still use NetNewsWire heavily 20 years later.
I started fiddling with a newer service called WordPress in 2003 and created my own blog (here!) that bounced between Six Apart and WordPress. Soon, the world would come to know Google Reader, and it felt like RSS was in for a whole new phase of growth and going mainstream. I’m still bitter that Google shut down Reader in 2013 and credit that with so many ills and curses that Google has seemingly had over the last 15 years of the “social web” as it would have made a great social platform (unlike Google+ and Circles and Buzz and Wave and that whole era of messes).
Then, Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr all happened in 2006, and the writing was on the wall for the “open web” and RSS reading. People flocked to the silos. The hopes for open syndication via RSS readers in the mainstream died on the vine it seemed.
Until now, RSS reading, like dumbphones, is making a comeback with younger generations, and I’m glad to see it.
During all of those transitions, I kept using RSS readers (primarily Feedly, Feedbin, Reeder, and then back to NetNewsWire around Covid-time). I wrote a post twenty or so years ago here that RSS helped pay our mortgage each month. That’s still true. There’s magic in controlling your news and information consumption rather than relying on algorithmic data gathering services that “show you what you need to know.”
Now, I rely heavily on RSS reading for research and writing, as I work on my PhD dissertation and thoughts, along with feeds from friends’ blogs, news sites, services I use, and Substack newsletters, among others.
So, I’m a bit old-school in managing my hundreds of feeds, and NetNewsWire has been great for that as it syncs between my Mac, iPhone, and beloved iPad Mini via iCloud. My folders are neatly manicured and I try at least to get through all of my feeds at least once a day (I’m also an email and messages and inbox zero type curmudgeon… it still shocks to me to see people with thousands of emails in their inbox or hundreds of unread messages in their SMS app). As a result, I’m picky about my RSS reading and readers. I’ve tried services like the new Reeder, which brings in podcasts and YouTube videos and some social media alongside traditional blogs and RSS feeds, but I couldn’t commit and returned to NetNewsWire again and again.
I decided to give Tapestry a shot after reading about the latest update on Manton Reece’s blog (you should also check out his excellent micro.blog service if you’re looking for a great blogging platform).
Tapestry is made by Iconfactory, a company with serious street cred amongst us older web types (I loved their Twitter app Twitterific and used it heavily at the height of that now-defunct service along with their Transmit app for FTP). Tapestry is no different here in terms of thoughtful style and intentional minimalism with surprising complexity and delightful user interface.
Effectively, Tapestry combines RSS feed reading with services such as Blue Sky or Mastodon, and Reddit as well as YouTube subscriptions (I’m a heavy YouTube user, and that’s pretty well curated for me). I’m still trying to wrap my mind around seeing YouTube videos popping up in the middle of my RSS reading, but I see the value and point. I’m all about supporting the effort if we can get more people to turn back to private and person-controlled feed reading rather than algorithmic newsfeed scanning.
Is Tapestry enough to get me to switch from NetNewsWire? I’m not sure yet. But I’ll be using both the next few weeks to see where a habit or delight pops up and making note of that.
Regardless, I’m glad to see a company like Iconfactory hop into the effort!
Tapestry is available on Mac, iPad, and iPhone as a free app with a premium tier (not expensive, so the free version should be sufficient for most, especially considering current cost-cutting measures). Additionally, you can delete your Facebook and Instagram accounts for free today.