The "Netflixing" of American Politics

One of the criticisms commonly made towards US politics is the two-party system and how some voters complain that they don't have a candidate that lines up closely with their values.

This is what I call the "Netflixing" of American politics.

Netflix along with Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, and the hundreds of cable TV channels have provided the entertainment consumer with an incredible diversity of choices.  One can find entertainment choices that closely align with one's desires.

This is great for both the artists creating television drama and for the viewer.

But it may be creating unrealistic expectations in other areas of life where the outcome may be choices that do not align closely with one's desires -- like politics in general and the 2016 Presidential Election in particular.

The goal in any political campaign is to get a majority of the voters to support the campaign's candidate.  This means that any governing coalition will have to be a broad-based mix of constituencies.  Some members of this coalition may not be supporting their first choice for President.

Unlike the "Netflix" model where everyone get's their first choice, forming a broad majority coalition is closer to the television model of the 1950s and 1960s.

In the 1960's non-Netflix TV model, there are very few choices and they are not designed to meet an individual viewer's desires.  Instead, the choices are designed to meet the needs of a broad majority coalition.

And this sounds very similar to the approach traditionally used to run as a major party Presidential candidate.

Some time-saving tips for internet discussions

There are many catchphrases and slang words that one hears on the internet and in the wider use outside the internet.  Some of these slang words are creative and lead to improved communication. 

These words listed below are used by many to marginalize the concerns of other (even if that isn't the intention of all users of these terms).

Of course, there are times when a person quotes others using one of these marginalizing words to illustrate what another is saying and to respond to their arguments (I'm not criticizing that type of usage here).

Feminazi -- If you use the word "feminazi" as a dismissive way to label your opponents in a discussion about gender, sexism, and feminism, it's very reasonable to assume that you're not engaging in the argument as an honest debater.

Homosexual or Gay Agenda -- If you use the phrase "homosexual agenda" or "gay agenda" as a dismissive way to describe your opponent's views in a discussion about sexual orientation, it's very reasonable to assume that you're not engaging in the argument as an honest debater.

Social Justice Warrior or SJW -- If you use the phrase "social justice warrior"or "SJW" as a dismissive way to label your opponents in a discussion about oppression (including non-personal systemic oppression) and intersectionality, it's very reasonable to assume that you're not engaging in the argument as an honest debater.

The "tl;dr" version -- if you want your arguments taken seriously, don't use terms that your opponents view as name-calling. And now we can return to our interactions on the internet.

James Barrett — Unitarian Universalist Reproductive Justice Activist

Note - this is the text for a short talk that I gave on 31 August 2014 as part of a worship service for All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church in Shreveport, Louisiana.  The podcast audio recording for this can be found here (my portion starts at the 9:10 mark).

Who has heard of Rev James Reeb?

He’s a famous Unitarian Universalist who made the ultimate sacrifice – giving his life supporting racial justice in 1965.

Now, who has heard of James Barrett, Lt Colonel (US Air Force – retired)?

Jim Barrett is less well-known but he could be considered our “James Reeb of reproductive justice.”

A Response to "Public Education and Intelligent Design" (Part 1)

On 30 April 2014, Unitarian Universalist minister Rev. Dan Harper mentioned a paper by philosopher Thomas Nagel on his blog -- "A possible case for teaching intelligent design" is the title of the blog post and the Nagel's paper is "Public Education and Intelligent Design."

In the opening section of his paper, Thomas Nagel makes the following observation about the assumptions used in the sciences and how they may conflict with religious assumptions:

But the conflicts aired in this trial [Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District]—over the status of evolutionary theory, the arguments for intelligent design, and the nature of science—reveal an intellectually unhealthy situation. The political urge to defend science education against the threats of religious orthodoxy, understandable though it is, has resulted in a counterorthodoxy, supported by bad arguments, and a tendency to overstate the legitimate scientific claims of evolutionary theory. Skeptics about the theory are seen as so dangerous, and so disreputably motivated, that they must be denied any shred of legitimate interest. Most importantly, the campaign of the scientific establishment to rule out intelligent design as beyond discussion because it is not science results in the avoidance of significant questions about the relation between evolutionary theory and religious belief, questions that must be faced in order to understand the theory and evaluate the scientific evidence for it.

I'm not sure what Nagel means by a "counterorthodoxy" and "tendency to overstate the legitimate scientific claims of evolutionary theory."

Yes, it's true that many scientists are philosophical naturalists (who hold that only natural processes operate in the universe and there is no evidence for supernatural forces of any sort).

A commonly cited statistic is that 93% of the members of the National Academy of Sciences believe in a personal god (72.2% expressed disbelief and another 20.8% were agnostic concerning the existence of a personal god who answers prayer -- cited from Wikipedia).

But even scientists who hold supernatural beliefs (theism - a belief in a personal god) employ methodological naturalism when doing science even if they are not philosophical naturalists.

In writing the Kitzmiller decision, Judge Jones made the following comments about methodological naturalism and its role in the sciences:

"Expert testimony reveals that since the scientific revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries, science has been limited to the search for natural causes to explain natural phenomena ... While supernatural explanations may be important and have merit, they are not part of science." Methodological naturalism is thus "a self-imposed convention of science." It is a "ground rule" that "requires scientists to seek explanations in the world around us based upon what we can observe, test, replicate, and verify." (cited from Wikipedia)

At first glance, this quote from the judge's decision appears to support Nagel's opening statement in his paper.

But that really isn't the case.

For almost 500 years, we have been successfully used methodological naturalism in our exploration of the world because it works.

It's not an a priori assumption.

It's an assumption with a proven track record -- a pragmatic assumption.

Greta Christina mentions this on her blog:

When you look at the history of what we know about the world, you see a very noticeable pattern. Natural explanations of things have been replacing supernatural explanations of them. Like a steamroller. 

Why the sun rises and sets. Where thunder and lightning come from. Why people get sick. Why people look like their parents. How the complexity of life came into being. I could go on and on. 

All of these things were once explained by religion. But as we understood the world better, and learned to observe it more carefully, the religious explanations were replaced by physical cause and effect. Consistently. Thoroughly. Like a steamroller. The number of times that a supernatural or religious explanation of a phenomenon has been replaced by a natural explanation? 

Thousands upon thousands upon thousands. 

Now. The number of times that a natural explanation of a phenomenon has been replaced by a supernatural or religious one? The number of times humankind has said, “We used to think (X) was caused by physical cause and effect, but now we understand that it’s actually caused by God, or spirits, or demons, or the soul”? 

Exactly zero.

Now ... there may be theological implications for some regarding methodological naturalism as it is currently used in the sciences.

And there may be theological implications in some conceptual frameworks currently used the sciences.

We now view lighting being caused by electrostatic discharge in clouds.  We don't consider Thor to be useful here.

We now view HIV and AIDS being caused by a virus.  We don't find the "AIDS is God's curse" to be useful.

Our understanding of natural selection and evolution is that both are "material processes, blind, mindless, and purposeless" -- a process that happens without forethought or goal.  Google "Luria–Delbrück experiment" -- we've known that this is a blind and purposeless process for many years.

But one might say this is not consistent with my theology.

The rejection of Thor causing lighting also clashes with some theological opinions.

The rejection of HIV/AIDS being a divine curse clashes with some theological opinions.

The rejection of intelligent design clashes with some theological opinions.

If we are being reasonable in the first two cases ignoring theological concerns (lighting, HIV/AIDS), we may be reasonable ignoring theology in the third case (evolution and natural selection).

Conservatism Limiting the Growth of Atheism??

I have my doubts about small government libertarian conservative politics if we want to grow atheism and free-thought in the United States. Recently, the questions surrounding atheism and conservative politics came up in connection to American Atheists President David Silverman attending this years CPAC Conference ("David Silverman: CPAC is crawling with closet atheists").

I’ve read Phil Zuckerman’s Society Without God and I’m currently reading David Niose’s Nonbeliever Nation. Both books make a similar point about growing atheism and secularism in a democracy. Secular atheist-friendly societies appear arise naturally in situations where there is a strong social safety net. Niose (page 197) makes the following observation about this correlation in his book:

“As modern developed countries learn to educate, provide health care, and ensure the general welfare of a diverse population, there is less reliance on religious community and charity. This partly explains why conservative religion so often abhors the modern social welfare state, where the public sector fills many roles once served by religion. It’s little wonder that secularity is most prominent in the social democracies of Europe, where the notion of the public sector serving many essential community needs is widely accepted.”

For a small-government conservative or libertarian conservative atheist, this may seem frustrating. After all, conservative politics may have the unintended side-effect of keeping religion alive and limiting the growth of atheism.

[Cross-posted from philosophicalpenguins.wordpress.com]

Online Academic Theological Library

Here's a a free online resource courtesy of the World Council of Churches and globethics.net:

Global Digital Library on Theology and Ecumenism
Online theological resources for education and ecumenical dialogue

The Global Digital Library on Theology and Ecumenism (GlobeTheoLib) is a multi-lingual global digital library on theology and ecumenism that offers access to more than 500,000 texts, documents and other academic resources.

Why E. J. Dionne Is Wrong on Contraceptives and Health Care Reform

The Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne is frequently cited as a progressive Catholic who condemns the recent Obama Administration announcement to require all employers (except exclusively religious bodies) to offer contraceptive insurance coverage as part of comprehensive preventive care. Mr. Dionne has claimed this health care decision infringes on religious liberty.

I've already written about why this is a medically and scientifically smart decision.

But Mr. Dionne's thinking is inconsistent. I think this excerpt from "Balancing Faith and Contraceptives" by Scott Lemieux shows where Mr. Dionne's logic is faulty:

Elsewhere, Dionne effectively refutes his own argument by noting, "While the Catholic Church formally opposes contraception, this teaching is widely ignored by the faithful." For the same reasons Kevin Drum cites at Mother Jones, if opposition to contraception represented a widely practiced tenet of the Roman Catholic faith, I believe that the government's interest in securing gender equity with a reasonable, generally applicable law should prevail, but I can understand seeing this as a difficult question. But forgoing contraception is not central to the faith of most practicing Roman Catholics. There’s not a genuine clash between religious freedom and pressing government interests here; rather, a small minority of religious leaders are seeking a special exemption that burdens women in the name of principles the overwhelming majority of their followers reject. The Obama administration's balancing of the interests here was perfectly appropriate and is better than either alternative Dionne proposes.

In other words, it's not a matter of "religious freedom" for the Catholic Bishops to try and claim an authority over non-Catholic employees and a secular government that they no longer exercise over their own flock.

"Special Rights" for Religions When They Operate Secular Businesses? No!!

First, I will say that religious institutions (e.g. churches, mosques, synagogues, other places of worship, seminaries, etc) do have exemptions from the laws that secular non-profits don't have.

Religious organizations can discriminate on the basis of religion in hiring and firing. In areas where sexual orientation non-discrimination laws are present, religious organizations are exempt from following these laws as well. They can discriminate on the basis of gender in their hiring. In other words, they get to do a lot of things that would be illegal and wrong if a secular business were to do them.

But this exemption from secular law should not apply when a religious body operates a secular business like a hospital or a school.

These secular businesses employ members of all faith traditions and even those who are non-believers. The same is true for their clientele - they may belong to other faiths or have no faith at all.

Basically, we're talking about hospitals and colleges that have religious decorations on the walls and statues in the lobby. These trappings should not give a hospital or school "special rights" to ignore laws that secular non-profit and secular for-profit corporations must follow.

Contraceptive Health Care and "Religious Freedom" Arguments ... Or Facts Trump Theology

The bulk of this article uses research compiled for an article published by the Guttmacher Institute ("The Case for Insurance Coverage of Contraceptive Services And Supplies Without Cost-Sharing").

The 2010 health care reform law ("Affordable Care Act" or ACA) requires private health insurance plans to cover certain preventive health care services without any out-of-pocket to the consumer (e.g. no co-pays, no deductibles).

In November 2010, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) convened an advisory panel to develop guidelines for women's preventive care (a requirement added to the law by Senator Mikulski of Maryland). The legislative intent of this law was to include contraceptive counseling, contraceptive services and supplies, and annual well-woman gynecological exams.

The evidence support contraceptive health care services as an essential component of both individual preventive care and public health care. The Guttmacher Institute's report provides an excellent summary of the importance of contraceptive coverage:

Contraceptive use helps women avoid unintended pregnancy and improve birthspacing, which in turn have substantial positive consequences for infants, women, families and society. Moreover, although cost can be a daunting barrier to effective contraceptive use on the part of individual women, the evidence strongly suggests that insurance coverage of contraceptive services and supplies without cost-sharing is a low-cost or even cost-saving means of helping women overcome this obstacle.

Here's a summary of the benefits provided by making contraceptive use easier for children, women, families, and society from the Guttmacher report:

• In the United States, increased contraceptive use—particularly among unmarried women and among teenagers—has paralleled substantial declines in unintended pregnancy and abortion. Notably, increased contraceptive use has been found to be responsible for 77% of the sharp decline in pregnancy among 15–17-year-olds between 1995 and 2002, and for all the decline among 18–19-year-olds over that period.


• According to U.S. and international studies, a causal link exists between the interpregnancy interval (the time between a birth and a subsequent pregnancy) and three major birth outcomes measures: low birth weight, preterm birth and small size for gestational age.


• In addition, according to a 2008 literature review, numerous U.S. and European studies have found an association between pregnancy intention and delayed initiation of prenatal care.


• Furthermore, compared with children born from intended pregnancies, those born from unintended pregnancies are less likely to be breastfed at all or for a long duration. Breastfeeding, in turn, has been linked with numerous positive outcomes throughout a child’s life.


• Moreover, although evidence is limited, several studies from the United States, Europe and Japan suggest an association between unintended pregnancy and subsequent child abuse. There is also some evidence of an association between unintended pregnancy and maternal depression and anxiety.


• Both married and cohabiting couples are more likely to separate after an unintended first birth than after an intended first birth.


• Moreover, compared with those who have had a planned birth, women and men who have had an unplanned birth report less happiness and more conflict in their relationship, and women report having more symptoms of depression.


• Several studies have examined the role that contraceptive use—particularly the use of oral contraceptives—has played in improvements in social and economic conditions for women. The advent of the pill allowed women greater freedom in career decisions, by allowing them to invest in higher education and a career with far less risk of an unplanned pregnancy.


• Several studies have found that legal access to the pill led to increased pill use, fewer first births to high school– and college-aged women, increased age at first marriage, increased participation by women in the workforce and more children born to mothers who were married, college-educated and had pursued a professional career.


• A 2010 analysis of the literature found that hormonal contraceptives can help address several menstrual disorders, including dysmenorrhea (severe menstrual pain) and menorrhagia (excessive menstrual bleeding). Hormonal contraceptives can also prevent menstrual migraines, treat pelvic pain due to endometriosis and treat bleeding due to uterine fibroids. Perhaps most notably, oral contraceptives have been shown to have long-term benefits in reducing a woman’s risk of developing endometrial and ovarian cancer, and short-term benefits in protecting against colorectal cancer.


• Moreover, a 2000 study by the National Business Group on Health, a membership group for large employers to address their health policy concerns, estimated that it costs employers 15–17% more to not provide contraceptive coverage in their health plans than to provide such coverage, after accounting for both the direct medical costs of pregnancy and indirect costs such as employee absence and reduced productivity.

So ... we have facts supporting the case for contraceptive preventive care improves the situations of women, children, families, and society.

All I can find on the US Conference of Catholic Bishops web site about this law is that they object to it and that they are wrapping their objections in "religious privilege" that they want to extend to their non-profit organizations that provide secular services (e.g. education, health care, etc). If there are any factual objections to providing contraceptive care, it would be in their interests to voice them.

All that tells me is that these clergy leaders value their theology more than they value the well-being of children, women, families, and society (I'm assuming that these leaders are educated men who have ready access to the same facts that I have presented here).

They are free to promote this unhealthy idolatry of theology in their churches.

But this freedom doesn't extend to the secular world where their non-profit organizations employ non-Catholics who are engaged in non-religious work (health care, education, social services, etc). Theology doesn't exempt religiously-affiliated non-profits from religiously neutral laws that promote the common good.

We are lucky that these attitudes against contraceptives are not shared by a majority of Catholic laity.

Most Catholic laypersons support contraceptive use and a majority does support providing contraceptives as part of the ACA:

A new poll is out from Public Policy Polling, conducted on behalf of Planned Parenthood, on voter attitudes toward the new Obama administration requirement that employers who provide health insurance must also cover, co-pay-free, prescription birth control.

The PPP poll finds that "a 53 percent majority of Catholic voters, who were oversampled as part of this poll, favor the benefit, including fully 62 percent of Catholics who identify themselves as independents."

The poll also found 57% of all voters (and a 53% majority of Catholics) "think that women employed by Catholic hospitals and universities should have the same rights to contraceptive coverage as other women."

Webcomic Tribute to Christopher Hitchens (continued)

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

Webcomic Tribute to Christopher Hitchens

You need to go to the original webcomic to see the hidden comic picture (mouse over the red button below the comic).

Liberal Religious "Strawman" Arguments Directed Against "New Atheists"

On 2 October 2011, a subscriber to the the Unitarian Universalist Theology email discussion list said the following:

"But in fact, it seems to me that BOTH the Christian Fundamentalists and the Secular Atheists have decided to exclude all the other points of view from the debate. Each of them allows the other to participate so that they can each have a strawman."

To borrow the Wikipedia definition, a strawman is " ... an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position."

To be fair to the various vocal atheist and freethinkers out there, most of them are aware of liberal religious voices out there. And (to paraphrase Greta Christina and others) atheists would not be speaking out against religion very much if the predominant type of religion was Unitarian Universalist, United Church of Christ, Reform Jewish, Quaker, etc (less harmful and more likely to do good in the world).

When atheist writers like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens ignore liberal religion, it's not because liberal religion doesn't exist.

It's because liberal religions are statistically insignificant and are not representative of religion as it's commonly practiced in the world.

Here are some Gallup polling et al. findings that support this view that literalism and fundamentalism are widespread in North America and not some sort of "strawman" invented by the so-called "new atheists":

• 92% of Americans believe in God


• 81% of Americans believe in Heaven


• 70% of Americans believe in Hell


• 78% of Americans believe in angels


• 70% of Americans believe in the Devil


• 40% of Americans believe in creationism


• 38% of American believe in evolution with God guiding the process that created humans


• 16% of American believe in evolution as an unguided and undirected process

This unguided and undirected aspect of evolution is the dominant view in biology and is supported by observation and experiment.

Go Google the "Luria-Delbrück experiment" to read more about the finding that mutation -- the source of variation for natural selection -- is randomly generated and undirected without any consideration for the long-term future of the organism's well-being.

If 40% or more of the North American religious expression were Unitarian Universalist or United Church of Christ, then I think you could make a good case for Dawkins et al. pushing a "strawman" fallacy.

However, 78% of North Americans rejects evolution as it is understood by the scientific community on religious grounds. Perhaps the so-called "new atheists" have a legitimate complaint about religion as it's commonly practiced.

I would suggest that this new atheist "strawman" allegation is itself a "strawman" argument directed towards atheism.

Sources:

• More Than 9 in 10 Americans Continue to Believe in God


• Eternal Destinations: Americans Believe in Heaven, Hell


• Four in 10 Americans Believe in Strict Creationism


• New Gallup poll: America still creationist (surprise!)

[Cross-posted to Philosophical Penguins]

Unexamined Male Privilege in the Atheist Movement (in Three Parts)

Here are three links to a recent situation involving sexism and unexamined male privilege in the atheist movement:

• Unexamined Male Privilege in the Atheist Movement – Part I
• Unexamined Male Privilege in the Atheist Movement – Part II
• Unexamined Male Privilege in the Atheist Movement – Part III

These blog articles are on my other blog ("Philosophical Penguins") that deals with "Philosophy, free/open-source software, atheism, sexuality, and a lot more."

I created the other blog so I could learn more about WordPress using their free hosted service before migrating my Unitarian Universalist congregation's web site from Movable Type to WordPress.

Oh ... religious freedom is now a concern for anti-marriage equality folks

With the debate on marriage equality in New York, one of the major issues is protecting the religious freedom rights of those who don't endorse marriage equality.

Today on Andrew Sullivan's "Dish" blog, he wrote about the need for religious freedom protection in any state law granting marriage equality to same-sex couples:

It's a BFD because it will also insist on maximal religious liberty for those who conscientiously oppose marriage equality. A gay rights movement that seeks to restrict any religious freedom is not worthy of the name. And it makes me glad that we have largely avoided anything that looks like that strategy, and that last-minute negotiations were flexible enough to strengthen the protections for religious groups, churches, mosques, synagogues and the like.

One needs to keep in mind that there are some churches and congregations who are being denied religious freedom and prevented from freely exercising their religious beliefs when civil marriage equality for same-sex couples is not the law.

For example, Unitarian Universalists (UU) and United Church of Christ (UCC) support marriage equality as denominations. Many UU and UCC clergy will solemnize same-sex unions in religious ceremonies today.

But UU and UCC folks are told that their clergy must disregard their religious beliefs when acting as agents of the state in solemnizing marriages where marriage equality does not exist.

That suggests that the "religious liberty" concern voiced by anti-marriage equality folks is a specious concern. They haven't worried about religious liberty when it comes to my Unitarian Universalist religion or liberal Protestant denominations like the United Church of Christ that do recognize same-sex couples as families.

I'm willing to support the religious freedoms of anti-marriage equality folks to discriminate but it looks like they don't want to repay the favor and support religious freedom for Unitarian Universalists who want to celebrate same-sex marriages in their congregations.

Six Blind Men and the Elephant Revisited

I was thinking this morning about the "Six Blind Men and the Elephant" story that is commonly used in Unitarian Universalist religious education and other theological discussions as a metaphor for the wide range of diversity of theological views and views of god in our world.

Atheist blogger Greta Christina describes the use of the elephant metaphor on her blog:

You've probably heard this fable before. There are different versions, but the basics are these: Six blind men are standing around an elephant, touching it to figure out what an elephant is. The one touching the trunk decides that an elephant is a big snake; the one touching its leg decides an elephant is a tree; the one touching its tail decides an elephant is a rope; etc. It's supposed to show the limitations of individual perception, and the importance of not being narrow-minded, and how people with different beliefs can all be right. Or all be wrong. You get the gist.

It was recently suggested in this blog that this fable makes a good metaphor for religion. God is too large (it was suggested), too complex, too multi-faceted, for any one person to perceive correctly. Therefore, Reason #2 in my Top Ten Reasons I Don't Believe In God -- the inconsistency of world religions -- isn't a fair critique. The fact that Muslims see God one way and Catholics another, and Hindus yet another, and Jews, and Neo-Pagans, and Taoists, and Rastafarians, and Episcopalians, and so on -- in ways that are radically different, even contradictory -- it's just different people perceiving different parts of the elephant.

Many interpretations of this story are examples of the "begging the question" logical fallacy (a type of logical fallacy in which the proposition to be proven is assumed implicitly or explicitly in the premise).

The elephant represents some central and complete unifying divine reality and the six blind men represent different theological points of view that are perceiving the "divine reality" elephant partially and incompletely.

We -- the omniscient reader -- "know" there is a "unifying reality" because we know about the elephant in the story.

However, we may not be the "omniscient reader" in the world we live in.

It's entirely possible that the six blind men who are "experiencing" the pillar, rope, tree branch, leaf, wall, and spear are really experiencing differences in psychology and culture. The metaphor doesn't even acknowledge this possibility.

To assume that a unifying "elephant" is there to explain the widely different theological perspectives in our world is simply begging the question.

Stained Glass, Plate Glass, and the "Cathedral of the World"

Several months ago, my partner was teaching the "New Unitarian Universalist" adult religious education class and she shared a story in this curriculum by Forrest Church. The story is titled "Cathedral of the World."

This story uses the differing variety of colors, windows, and refraction in stained glass as a metaphor for the mystery one finds in religious exploration.

However, this story brought to mind another analogy that first read in Isaac Asimov's writings where he uses stained glass and plate glass as metaphors to talk about complex poetic writing and simple direct writing. I will write more about this metaphor later on.

A few days ago on the UU Theology email list, a list member made the following comment when discussing truth, knowledge, and religious meaning:

"You are making a distinction that I did not consider-regarding demonstrating that a concept is true removes its meaning. I think that is mainly true. We no longer get a lot of meaning out of medical cures-like we did when we thought spirits and shamans were responsible for that. Getting inoculations is no longer very meaningful. They remain meaningful in the pragmatic aspect of accomplishment-and predictability-but lose meaning in the more meaningful sense of personal meanings."

Again, this comment also brought to mind Asimov's stained glass and plate glass analogy. Asimov borrowed this analogy from Jay Kay and expanded on it to describe how he perceived his writing style.

In his memoir, he mentioned that there is writing that resembles a stained glass mosaic. A stained glass window is beautiful in itself and it lets light in through the many colored fragments. But one cannot see too clearly through them. To continue with this analogy, there is poetic writing that beautiful in itself and has great emotional impact. But this sort of writing can make comprehension more difficult.

Plate glass has no beauty of its own. Ideally, one should not even notice that it's there at all. It allows you to see what is happening in the world around you. Asimov suggests that his plain-and-direct, non-poetic writing style is analogous to plate glass. Ideas flow from the writer to the reader with few to no barriers to reader comprehension.

Colored glass mosaics have been known sense ancient times. Creating clear plate glass that doesn't distort one's view of the world is much harder. Even though it's less beautiful and less "poetic," it's much harder to make.

To take Asimov's stained glass and plate glass analogy further and apply it to the email comments quoted above, perhaps the shaman and spirit view of illness is a "stained glass" way of looking at the world. There may be more emotional meaning and poetry in this way of looking at the world. And the way of looking at the world that gives us immunizations, germ theory of disease, etc is a "plate glass" way of looking at the world. What we've lost in poetry and "meaning" we've made up in lives saved and suffering averted. Fair trade perhaps?

I want to take this analogy a bit further. Let's use the analogy of a moving car zipping down a high-speed freeway with lots of other traffic on it as a metaphor for the complex world we live in. We're cruising down the road at 70 miles per hour (approximately 115 km per hour for our European readers).

In this analogy, would we want the poetic and beautiful stained glass mosaic for our windshield? Or would we want a windshield that gives us the best possible view of world as we are hurtling down the freeway at high speed?

During the early years of the AIDS epidemic, some did try the shaman and spirit approach for understanding this disease. The shaman and spirit folks suggested that AIDS was God's curse for homosexuality. Those who were less poetic and less meaningful in their understanding suggested that a virus was responsible and there were practical things one could do to reduce risk, pain, and suffering (testing for infection, safer sex prevention, basic research into the disease with the hope of finding a future cure or vaccine, etc). Again, I'm OK with giving up some poetry if it reduces suffering in others.

I think giving up some poetry and meaning here is a fair trade.

Juan Williams and Bigotry

First, here's what Juan Williams said on Bill O'Reilly's show:

"I'm not a bigot, but when I get on a plane, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."

Source - NY Daily News (22 October 2010)

Bigotry is an emotional response and not a rational response.

I can understand having an emotional response but I don't understand the refusal to critically examine this sort of emotional response before opening one's mouth and sharing it with the world.

If a person like Juan Williams is unwilling to do this sort of critical reflection, then maybe this person might lose his media job for very justified reasons - namely stupidity.

I'm not too worried about Juan Williams - he won't starve to death due to unemployment. He was recently hired after this incident by Fox News.

In a post-9/11 world, the person wearing "Muslim garb" (whatever the frak that might be) is the person who is least likely to be planning a serious terrorist attack. Remember the real 9/11 terrorists wore Western-style clothing so the could blend in. A terrorist who is trying to actually do the job will blend in successfully.

I close this blog post with a clip from Family Guy that pokes a bit of fun about our current xenophobia for those who dress differently:

Do "New Atheists" Ignore Liberal Religion?

[Note - this blog post started out as a reply to "Islam, Fear, and Lies" on Rev. Cyn's blog.]

Do the so-called "new atheists" ignore liberal religion? Do they uncritically condemn all religion by assuming that the most extreme religious fundamentalists are representative examples of religion in practice?

These are very common criticisms of the "new atheist" writers.

However, I don't think it's a matter of the so-called "new atheists" ignoring liberal religion.

It's simply a matter of liberal religion being so tiny in numbers and influence that's it's not relevant to the questions surrounding the harm that religion causes in modern society.

As a "first-order approximation," one can ignore the influence of liberal religion in the wider religious world.

I'm sure that any suggestion that liberal religious folks ignore our lack of religious influence that begins with the equivalent of "consider a spherical cow in vacuum ... " will be condemned as too simplistic.

But there is data to back up what I'm saying.

All one needs to do is look at the exit polling data after the California Proposition 8 vote that denied marriage equality for all California residents in 2008:

Protestants were supporting Proposition 8 (65% in favor vs. 35% against).

Catholics were supporting Proposition 8 (64% in favor vs. 36% against).

Contrast the majority of religious persons voting against against marriage equality with the "none" demographic group (no religious affiliation) -- they were 90% against Prop 8 and only 10% in favor of it.

Religion appears to interfere with the ideal of supporting justice, fairness, and equality for all citizens.

And having no religion seems to be much more helpful in promoting justice in this example.

Second, some of the so-called "new atheists" like Sam Harris think that the moderate and liberal religious members of the various religious traditions are ineffective at countering their religious fundamentalist co-religionists.

Here are a few passages from Sam Harris' book The End of Faith where he discusses this:

According to Gallup, 35 percent of Americans believe that the Bible is the literal and inerrant word of the Creator of the universe. Another 48 percent believe that it is the "inspired word of the same" ... still inerrant, though certain of its passages must be interpreted symbolically before their truth can be brought to light. Only 17 percent of us remain to doubt that a personal God, in his infinite wisdom, is likely to have authored this text or, for that matter, to have created the earth with its 250,000 species of beetles. Some 46 percent of Americans take a literalist view of creation (40 percent believe that God has guided creation over the course of millions of years). This means that 120 million of us place the big bang 2,500 years after the Babylonians and Sumerians learned to brew beer. If our polls are to be trusted, nearly 230 million Americans believe that a book showing neither unity of style nor internal consistency was authored by an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent deity. A survey of Hindus, Muslims, and Jews around the world would surely yield similar results, revealing that we, as a species, have grown almost perfectly intoxicated by our myths.

***

While moderation in religion may seem a reasonable position to stake out, in light of all that we have (and have not) learned about the universe, it offers no bulwark against religious extremism and religious violence. From the perspective of those seeking to live by the letter of the texts, the religious moderate is nothing more than a failed fundamentalist. He is, in all likelihood, going to wind up in hell with the rest of the unbelievers. The problem that religious moderation poses for all of us is that it does not permit anything very critical to be said about religious literalism. We cannot say that fundamentalists are crazy, because they are merely practicing their freedom of belief; we cannot even say that they are mistaken in religious terms, because their knowledge of scripture is generally unrivaled. All we can say, as religious moderates, is that we don't like the personal and social costs that a full embrace of scripture imposes on us. This is not a new form of faith, or even a new species of scriptural exegesis; it is simply a capitulation to a variety of all-too-human interests that have nothing, in principle, to do with God. Religious moderation is the product of secular knowledge and scriptural ignorance ... and it has no bona fides, in religious terms, to put it on a par with fundamentalism. The texts themselves are unequivocal: they are perfect in all their parts. By their light, religious moderation appears to be nothing more than an unwillingness to fully submit to God's law. By failing to live by the letter of the texts, while tolerating the irrationality of those who do, religious moderates betray faith and reason equally. Unless the core dogmas of faith are called into question ... i.e., that we know there is a God, and that we know what he wants from us ... religious moderation will do nothing to lead us out of the wilderness.

Finally, some "new atheists" like Greta Christina are concerned with religion from a philosophical point of view. Greta thinks that religion is faulty from an epistemological point of view. And she would raise this philosophical objection even with moderate and liberal religious voices like the United Church of Christ:

I think science and faith are mutually exclusive.

Now, before you jump down my throat: I think religious believers can be scientists, and good ones. The evidence for that is pretty obvious. Most scientists throughout history have been religious believers, and many scientists today are as well. I'm not saying that having religious faith means you can't be a scientist.

I'm saying that -- as approaches to life, as approaches to understanding reality and engaging with the world -- faith and science are radically different. Science is an approach to life and learning that is willing to question anything, give up any belief or opinion, if a preponderance of evidence contradicts it. Faith is an approach to life and learning that starts with an assumption that it isn't willing to discard. The more progressive faiths are willing to bend and change to adjust to reality; but the basic assumption -- the existence of God and the soul -- can't be relinquished if you're going to maintain the faith. It's an approach to life based on an assumption that's not only unproven, but unprovable. And it's an approach to life that says it's okay to make this big, unrelinquishable assumption about the nature of reality based entirely on tradition, authority, and personal intuition.

(That's an oversimplification -- of both faith and science -- but for the purposes of this post, it'll have to do.)

And if you're a scientist with religious faith, it's very likely that, at some point, your faith and your science are going to collide. And when/if it does, you're going to have to make a choice. You're going to have to decide which approach you value more.

(The big conflict in the 20th century was obviously evolution, colliding with the idea of life being designed. In the 21st century, I think the big conflict may be neuroscience, colliding with the idea of the soul.)

If most religious folks were religious liberals (e.g. Unitarian Universalist, United Church of Christ, Quaker, Reform Jewish, Ethical Culture, etc), Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens, Greta Christina, and other "new atheist" writers probably would not be the outspoken critics of religion that they are today. There might be much quieter philosophical objections but we wouldn't be seeing the large number of best-seller books.

We deceive ourselves and others when we object to the "new atheists" first-order approximation descriptions of religion by pointing to religious liberals as a counter-example.

Excerpts from "Companions for the Journey"

At All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church in Shreveport, we have a recurring sermon series where members share the journey that led them to All Souls and why the continue to stay.

On 25 July 2010, I was one of three persons who talked about these questions and here is what I said:

The journey that led me to this church
Good morning – I'm Steve Caldwell and here's the journey that me to All Souls.

Does anyone know what a Unitarian Universalist is?

Well, the punchline for this joke is “An atheist with children.”

And that joke is the short version of my journey. But there is a longer story as well.

Many years ago, my first encounter with Unitarian Universalism happened in 1981 when Susan and I had out wedding in Athens, Georgia.

We were looking for a setting for us to get married. Susan was raised as a questioning Roman Catholic by a Presbyterian mom and Catholic dad. And I wasn't very religious (much to the aggravation of my Mom).

We both had relatives who would be more comfortable with a religious wedding instead of simple justice-of-the-peace ceremony.

Susan's dad suggested that we talk to the Unitarian minister in our town. He thought this would be a solution for both of us.

I attended church occasionally but I didn't call myself a “Unitarian” or a “Unitarian Universalist” yet. In 1980-1981, “signing the book” was just too religious for me.

A few years later when I enlisted in the Air Force, I told the recruiter that I was a “Unitarian” and that is what they put on my dog tags.

Fast forward to 1987 when Delia was born. We faced a dilemma that many UU parents face. How do we let our child know what our values are and also let her discover her own values? How to achieve this delicate balance?

From our wedding experience, we knew about Unitarian Universalism but we were far away from the nearest UU congregation because we were living in a small town about 3 ½ hours north of Detroit (Wurtsmith Air Force Base - near Oscoda).

However, we discovered that the UUA have an excellent “church by mail” program for isolated families like ours (Church of the Larger Fellowship). We did some UU stuff with Delia around the holidays and such. And we added yet another wonderful person to our family when Charlie was born in 1992.

Shortly after Charlie was born, we left Northern Michigan for Rapid City, South Dakota. In Rapid City, we discovered that there was a “real” UU congregation for our family where we could meet with other Unitarian Universalists face-to-face. And they had real religious education classes for our children as well.

After 3 years in South Dakota, we moved once again to Shreveport and Bossier City in December 1995.

I had visited All Souls a few times during the autumn of 1995 before our entire family moved to Bossier City.

I remember Ron Thurston and Charlotte Crowley who were working the membership table greeting newcomers like myself when I first visited on a warm September day.

Compared to our “church by mail” experience and our small lay-led fellowship congregation in Rapid City, we were amazed by how big All Souls seemed to us at the time.

Our kids enjoyed having RE classes where half of the kids did not have “Caldwell” as their last name.

And that's the long story about how I got to All Souls.

The reasons why I've stayed
The other question that I've been asked to talk about the reasons why I've stayed.

Charlie overheard me asking Susan about this and he had one possible answer – “computer tech support.”

But I should provide a more complete answer than that.

We don't talk about “salvation” very much in Unitarian Universalist circles. I've never heard anyone in a UU setting ask “are you saved?”

Hellfire and damnation in Unitarian Universalism went out of fashion back in the early 1800s with the theological writings of Hosea Ballou and other early Universalists who rejected the idea of Heaven and Hell in the afterlife.

We do have a theology of “salvation” today – we just don't talk about it very much.

Rebecca Parker (President – Starr King School of the Ministry and one of our leading theologians) provides a short and pithy summary of our implicit theology of salvation.

“We offer salvation from those things that deny life or make life less whole.”

When I heard this, a light bulb went off over my head. To me, this explained why I'm at All Souls and active as a Unitarian Universalist elsewhere.

I've been very active in our denomination as a curriculum trainer for the Our Whole Lives lifespan sexuality education series that we jointly developed with the United Church of Christ.

Our sexuality education curricula are just one example of the salvation what we offer – just one example of how we can save people from those things that take away life or make it less whole.

For example, a person who is struggling with negative messages about bodies and sexuality which are all too common in the Southern “Bible Belt” culture would find a message of salvation in a church like ours which teaches that our bodies and our sexuality are a good part of the human experience.

And there are plenty of other ways that we can provide salvation in this life to a world greatly in need of salvation.

The promise of salvation – along with providing computer tech support – is why I stay at All Souls.

Thank you.

The audio podcast recording with Gia Motti, Kathy Osuch, and myself can be found online here.

Salvation -- July 2010 UU Salon Topic

The July 2010 UU Salon topic is "salvation." Here are the questions for all of us to consider:

• What is it?
• Who gets it?
• How do you get it?

I'm going to start off with a short segment from my answer for the June question where I wrote about Universalism:

The UU religious educator and curriculum author Kate Erslev provided a descriptive summary of current-day Unitarian Universalist theology of salvation in her UU Identity curriculum for young adults:

Once again, in contrast to the predominant foundation of the theology of Calvinism, our roof was raised by the 19th century Universalists. Universalism gave us a roof that saved us all. They said that what saves us is the power of creative love made viable to us in the person of Jesus.

Do we need to be saved from Hell? The Universalists said that we create heaven and hell on earth. We need to be saved from the Hells that we create.

The portion of Kate's curriculum that talks about UU theology and how we view salvation was based on Rebecca Ann Parker's talk that she presented at the 2002 LREDA Fall Conference on theology of religious education. Rebecca talked about how our current-day implicit theology of savalation or soteriology comes from our Universalist heritage.

One short and pithy statement describing current-day UU theology of salvation that I heard at this conference from Rebecca Parker was that we offer salvation from those things that deny life or make it less whole.

As an Our Whole Lives educator and curriculum trainer, this simple statement about salvation explains why we offer sexuality education in our congregations. We provide sexuality education because it offers salvation in a very real sense.

This view of UU salvation may sound just too simple, but I'm OK with that.

So ... here are my answer to the questions about salvation.

What is "salvation"? -- it's anything that saves us in the here-and-now from those things that deny us life or make that life less whole.

Who gets salvation? -- In theory, it should be more available than it currently is. Many of the things that deny us salvation are human-created. But there are some things that we cannot change such as incurable disease and natural disasters. It's our job as Unitarian Universalists to help create a world where suffering is reduced even if we cannot eliminate all suffering in this world.

How do you get it? -- Ideally, we would all get salvation. Given the imperfect world we live in and the reality that there are some things we cannot change, we should work to ensure that as many people as possible should experience salvation. As we learn more about the world and each other, we may find out that what we've done in the past may have denied salvation for some.

For example, the UU Committee on Goals published results of its survey on beliefs and attitudes within the denomination on sexual orientation in 1967:

• 7.7% of UUs believed that homosexuality should be discouraged by law
• 80.2% that it should be discouraged by education, not law
• 12% that it should not be discouraged by law or education
• 0.1% that it should be encouraged

This shift in attitudes between 1967 and today means that more people are being saved from those things that make our lives less whole -- this is true for BGLT folks and their allies.