The Epistemic Play Pen

"Join me, I'm a fundamentalist."

In the February edition of “Christianity” magazine Greg Downes writes about his decision to study theology (see page 49):

When I first expressed an interest in the subject as a teenager, some well meaning Christians advised me against it, saying I would lose my faith. This certainly happens to some people, but I couldn't help but think that if I were to discover some devastating fact that was the death blow to my faith, surely that would mean it wasn’t true after all, and therefore not worth holding on to.

This is not the attitude of many Christians. When “The God Delusion” was published, a Christian advised me against reading it, saying it would undermine my faith. She was surprised when I replied: “Well if Dawkins is right I would want to be an atheist as soon as possible”. The response from this sister was that if Richard Dawkins was right she would really rather not know, since her life would be emptied of meaning. In that sense being an unashamed seeker after truth is what I have in common with men such as Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens, only since my conclusion is that God is, my world view ends up radically different.

Downes expresses an admirable attitude. The only real challenge to faith I can see here is the hint that for some, Christianity only works because a lack of intellectual integrity protects it. There seems to be a swathe of Christians out there who believe their faith is only safe whilst they remain in an epistemic play pen. With this level of gullibility no wonder the anti-science fundamentalists have a market.

Quasi-Religion Creeps into Atheism by Stealth

God is pictured as a kindly old bearded gentleman all in white, seated on a throne surrounded by light and who lives upon high.

(Picture from http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimshannon/3823248802/)

This is a curious post by PZ Myers. The post tells us about fellow atheist Alain de Botton who suggests atheists build “temples for atheists”. PZ Myers, need I say, is none too pleased; it’s sailing far too close to the winds of religion for PZ to feel comfortable! PZ links to this web page, where we can read:

De Botton's most recent book, Religion for Atheists, calls for unbelievers to copy the major religions and build grand architectural masterpieces to inspire a sense of perspective in people. He argues that a temple doesn't need to be dedicated to a religion: "You can build a temple to anything that's positive and good. That could mean: a temple to love, friendship, calm or perspective".

He added: "Why should religious people have the most beautiful buildings in the land? It's time atheists had their own versions of the great churches and cathedrals. A beautiful building is an indispensable part of getting your message across. Books alone won't do it."

As I have remarked before, when atheists want to introduce a blend of communal celebration and mysticism into their beliefs they have little choice but to raid religion for ideas*. Trouble is, in my experience atheist mysticism and crowd celebration always comes over as affected and intensely embarrassing; what is to be the focus of atheism’s mysticism and celebration? Humanity? Science? Our ontological context that makes science effective? But the self, the known and the insentient make poor objects of worship. Authentic worship and celebration thirsts for the transcendent

Whether one regards religion’s objects as real or not, it seems that humanity has an innate appetite for the transcendent and the mystical and only religion has the wherewithal to satiate this appetite. No surprise then that something resembling religion worms its way back into atheism at the first opportunity. That’s going to make a zealous atheist like PZ Myers very unhappy indeed: He may sense that conceding the existence of an appetite for religion, even amongst atheists, especially among atheists, might register as evidence relevant to the question of God's existence. If Myers' aim is to suppress religion I think he has got his work cut out!

Footnote:
* My previous quotation re this subject:  "when organised atheism in the form of communism has attempted to provide a public rationale for celebration it has created cult figures, demigods and a quasi-religious sense of mystical collective destiny."

Further Notes on "The Mouth of God"

There is an all too human temptation of pride in thinking of one’s self as part of an exclusive righteous elite, a spiritual remnant who hold tightly to “absolute truth”. The epistemological focus of this kind of devotion is on “The Word” and/or internalized epiphanies. A concomitantly fideist tendency to reject science (The Mechanics of Providence) as mere “man’s knowledge” is taken as an expression of devotion. Above all sectarians know that their words are “right” and everyone else is “wrong”, even other Christians; in fact especially other Christians! As I have indicated in my last post, this apparent epistemological arrogance surfaces in the mind of the sectarian as the epitome of humility because he, in his opinion, is conforming to Divinely revealed “blueprints” and simply mouthing God's words. That such “blueprints” have to be appropriated, read, interpreted, evaluated and implemented by the fallible mind of the sectarian never seems to enter the sectarian’s arrogant and proud head. He will claim that The Bible and/or The Holy Spirit underwrites all he says; thus are logos and mythos horribly abused to underwrite an epistemology of arrogance. Oh the irony of it all!

Strong sectarians have little regard for serious relations with “outsiders” for their own sake – outsiders are considered evangelism fodder and the sole reason for seriously relating to them is to get them into the sect.  Relations are severed when it becomes clear to the sectarian that an “outsider” is argumentative and/or a lost cause. The sectarian may become sullen and belligerent toward the dissenting outsider whom he considers to be opposing God's very words spoken through his mouth.

Such are my unpleasant experiences with those on the sect-cult spectrum.

The Mouth of “God”

Sectarianism: All  mouth and blind obedience.

The January issue of “Christianity” magazine has an interview with Christian palaeontologist Mike Taylor. During the interview Taylor comments on the polarised quarrels in North America between Creationists and Evolutionists. Viz:

They are a complete waste of time and energy. Scientists who should be doing valuable work are distracted into refuting frankly loony ‘science’. Worse still Christians who should be spreading the love of Christ are distracted into a fruitless argument that has nothing to do with the Gospel, and can only be a hindrance to scientists who might otherwise be open to Christ. It really is the most appallingly pointless and destructive conflict – all the more so because it’s between two sides that aren’t even opposed, as they would realize if they’d only listen to each other.

I’m certainly sympathetic toward Taylor’s impatience! The time of professional scientists (not to mention tax payer’s money) is clearly not well spent refuting the crank-science of fundamentalists. I’m also sympathetic toward Taylor’s regret at the pointlessness of it all, especially when the quarrel is between Christians. However, I think Taylor is rather too hopeful in his assessment that it’s between two sides that aren’t even opposed, as they would realize if they’d only listen to each other. For many fundamentalists this issue is very much bound up with their version of Christianity and they have a world view that obliges them to proactively crusade against Christians whose views differ from their own. Young Earth Creationist Ken Ham, need I say, is my textbook example; you won’t get him to accept that this is a fruitless argument. For him it is the stuff of the Gospel and those who do not share his views he thinks of as compromisers who are turning people away from church and the true gospel. Given extremism of this intensity any reasonable Christian who respects science and reason will find themselves in conflict with fideist fundamentalists whether (s)he likes it or not.

If we should have any doubt that Ham’s concept of the gospel is inextricably linked to his Young Earth Creationism (YEC) we only need read his blog post of 28 December and entitled A No-Literal-Adam Evolutionary Christmas “Gospel” Message. In this post he refers to a Christmas message from Faraday institute director Dr Denis Alexander as an “anti-gospel message”. Further, in a blog post dated 30 December and entitled Which Jesus Do You Really Believe In? we read the following:

Steve shows that today many Christian scholars who identify themselves as theological conservatives and evangelicals are preaching a Jesus different from the Jesus of the Bible. In order to accommodate their personal belief that millions-of-years-evolution is true, they are essentially re-writing major doctrines and accounts in the holy Scriptures from beginning to end. Many no longer believe in a literal Adam and Eve, a literal sin in a literal the Garden of Eden, a literal Ark and Flood, or that the Jesus created the world as recorded in the Old Testament and as He says He did in the New Testament

Consistent with a sect that is reacting to a hostile world by hardening its position in order to prevent its message being compromised, YEC philosophy is now getting explicit recognition in the statement of faith of those who attach themselves to it. In Ham’s blog post dated 26 Dec and entitled President of Creationist College Visits Museum with Family we read:

The college, which started in 1968 and is now a Bible/liberal arts school, has the following sentence in its statement of faith: “We believe in . . . Six creation days of twenty-four hours each.”

The sentiment is clear: For Ham salvation demands a belief in a creation period of literally 6 x 86400 seconds; essentially the core message that Ham’s Answers in Genesis organization is preaching – in his view to deny YEC is to deny Jesus and perhaps even jeopardize one’s salvation. This consolidation of the collective identity of a religious group in a ritualized gathering around a particular set of proprietary observances thought to be bound up with salvation (in this case YEC) interests me greatly; it is a stage in the formation of a cult.

***

Since my first identification with the Christian cause I have given a certain amount of time to the study of Christianity’s many sub-sects and cults. Let me be frank here. After being happily and merrily “converted” in the mid seventies my subsequent soon after discovery of the numerous cultish and sectarian expressions of Christianity was a big and unexpected shock; yes I really was naive enough to think that all was going to be sweetness, light and harmony in Christian circles. After all, I was given to understand that the radical message of Christianity was that faith wasn’t about an uptight and jealous guarding of proprietary religious observance and practice, but rather the acceptance of a very embracing message of grace, repentance, forgiveness, and relationship followed by a clear conscience. But here were people who were reintroducing no end of finicky observances and proprietary beliefs back into church, by using the Bible as if it was a collection of legal articles. They left little doubt that if their views were not followed whole heartedly it could endanger one's salvation. For them the guilt trip was very much back on the pilgrim's itinerary and constituted the coercive means by which they eased in their beliefs. I have to say that as far as I was concerned these people were (and still are) the biggest challenge Christianity faces to its authenticity and truth as one can find and so I threw myself into a study of the subject.

Below I provide a list of some of the partisan Christian groups I have been acquainted with. They occupy different places on the sect-cult spectrum and have varied degrees of social integration, strictness and recognizable identity; some have a fuzzier definition than others and some are movements within movements. However, they are all marked by offering particular observance novelties and/or spiritual elixirs that they regard as at the very least helpful to salvation, if not essential to it. The list below is roughly in the chronological order of my acquaintance with these movements. The bias toward protestant sects is a sign of my being in the protestant West.

Children of God.

Strict and Traditional Brethren

Jehovah’s witnesses

Mormons

The Christadelphians

Strict and Traditional Evangelicals

Herbert Armstrong and the Plain Truth

The Jesus Army

Restorationists

Gnostic and fideist charismatics

The Snake Handlers sect.

Potters House

Toronto Blessing revival

Barry Smith: Millennium Bug prophet

Gold dust and angel feathers Charismatics.

Extreme orthodox groups.

Answers in Genesis.

Strict and Particular Baptists

Todd Bentley’s Lakeland revival

The Witness Lee Brotherhood

The Geocentric Christians

Christian Flat Earthers (Now defunct?)

Real Catholics (Michael Voris)

William Tapley, end of world prophet 2010

Harold Camping, end of world prophet 2011

I don’t think anyone needs to be told that this list is by no means exhaustive. If one looks hard enough new species of Christian cult or sect, each with their own specialized hobby horses, will creep out from under every stone one turns. When presented with such a smorgasbord of types one seeks general ideas and themes to simplify and explain the phenomenon. To this end we can identify commonalities in the social dynamics that exists amongst the sects: The observations I have made above about Answers in Genesis are a case in point. Here we find a group whose specialist message is being rejected by the vast majority of Christians. In fact the 1960s “restoration” of YEC beliefs seems to be running out of steam and Christians are failing to accept YEC’s travesty of science. The reaction of those who have huge stakes in the movement (like Ken Ham) is to get more strident and extreme in their pronouncements as they find a need to derive an inverted self esteem from an increasing awareness of themselves as a "peculiar remnant" people. Thus, isolation leads to entrenchment and in turn a clearer definition of an eccentric faith. This seems to be the common polarizing dynamic that is a precursor to the sectification and ultimately cultification of a Christian movement; either that or the movement bombs because only unshakeable and proactive self-belief can survive marginalization by the rest of the Christian community. There is an inverted pride in being a small vociferous purist movement that sees itself as an uncompromising anchorage of truth in a sea of error.

There is another commonality I have noticed from my experience with sects and cults that I would like to share here and which is relevant to Taylor’s otherwise admirable sentiment that the two sides need only listen to one another. Listen to one another? Forget it! In the sectarian mind failure to enthusiastically and uncritically embrace the uncompromising sectarian message, whether it is about the latest form of restorationist teaching, blessing, or revival, is to play fast and loose with God and risk Divine displeasure. In this sense, then, sectarians think of themselves as God’s mouthpiece that must be obeyed. Therefore an attempt to negotiate with them will register as a failure to respond adequately to their message and will be regarded as at best a sign of spiritual impediment and at worst manifestation of willful sin. Their message is non-negotiable. They therefore harbour a deep suspicion of the motives of all who disagree with them and they find it difficult if not impossible to accept that anyone can dissent and still have a clear conscience; dissidents are likely to be thought of as consciously and deliberately resisting the Holy Spirit.

It is this hardline attitude of the sectarian toward prevaricators that unfortunately makes Taylor’s desire for conciliation unlikely to be fulfilled. The out and out sectarian takes himself very seriously indeed and if his views are not taken on board he will, after a time, retreat in sullen righteous indignation; neutrality is simply not an option with him and even an impartial noncommittal attitude is equated with rebellion against God. He will feel every right to echo divine anger toward the dissenter; you can sometimes see it in sectarian faces. As effectively “God’s mouthpiece” sectarians have no pride problems with making claims of breathtaking arrogance and yet, paradoxically, at the same time think of themselves as humble, devout, unquestioning vessels of the Almighty’s purposes. Whenever I deal with sectarians who make a show of their piety I always think of an epitaph that one can find on a tomb in St. Stephens church in Norwich:

A scholar without pride, a Christian without bigotry, devout without ostentation.

St Stephens Church, Norwich, holds a lesson for sectarian Christianity.

Crank Conspiracy Theories: What in the World are They Spraying?

Caution: Please approach this with Poe's Law in Mind. Note ambulance siren in the background - the men in white have the situation in hand.

Don’t Play this at Home:

The obscenities in this video tear through the sentimental and schmaltzy fabric of Xmas with the sound of a low flying jet over a soft Kincaidian landscape. The message is that Santa gets all the accolades (and gets to look charitable to boot) whilst the beasts of burden (the reindeer) and the small men (elves, pixies and dwarfs) do all the work. Given that Santa is patron saint of Xmas capitalism, the video reminded me very sharply of the days when I used to read the stridently Marxist newspaper "Socialist Worker". The video expresses that paper’s vision of society to a tee: In raucous and harsh tones it forever condemned middle class capitalist acquisitiveness at the expense of working class wealth producers. “Stuff the Bosses”, “Stuff the Tories!”, “Stuff the Royals!” were the kind of headlines that often graced the front page.

I myself, however, was as cynical toward this Marxist message as the Socialist “Workers” were to the society that sustained them in sufficient freedom to express their opinions. Theirs was a materialist version of an archetypical eschatology that promised worker salvation on the great and terrible day of Revolution. Thence on the workers would own the means of production ushering in a supposedly classless society where everyone’s interests coincided and therefore all would live in peace.

But as the video says: “What a croc of ****”. A successful society depends on differentiation and specialization, thus implying classes, thereby setting the scene for potential conflicts of interest. Potential conflicts of interest are a fundamental feature of social existence. The so-called “dictatorship of the proletariat” is a cloud cuckoo land concept that in practice leads to an elite ruling class who stifle all debate and dissention under the pretext that in a (fictitious) “classeless” society no conflict would exist and therefore by definition dissenters are reactionaries.

How many times have we seen the failure of this sort of cloud cuckoo land social philosophy? The Christian cults and sects do exactly the same: They are so sure they have found the secret to a social and spiritual utopia where (wo)man is at one with fellow (wo)man. But they fail to get the right balance between positive and negative democracy; accordingly their uncompromising effort to usher in a new unified and free Christian community has exactly the opposite effect. Their zeal, conviction and misplaced confidence in the rightness of their proprietary vision of community betrays them and they end up creating a social nexus ten times more oppressive than what they aim to replace; a nexus where censorship and compulsion are the norm and imposed by a (self) righteous elite. As the video says: “What a croc of ****”.  Oh the pathetic irony of it all!

No social restructuring of community and society will ever relieve us of the basic challenge we face day by day; namely, that of finding the strength of moral character to meet the demands of gainsaying self in favour of our neighbor. There is no uptopian society so structured that the moral choices we should make come effortlessly and naturally. This age old challenge is as much with us today as it always has been:

And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. (Micah 6:8)

Whether you believe the Christmas story is a myth or to signifies deep ontological realities, the values and challenges it embodies are timeless and for all: It is a story of a double condescension by Deity: One:That of giving our contingent and suffering world the power to allow its emergence out of the platonic realm of possibility into reality. Two: Of that Deity giving up all to visit this graciously reified world and identifying with it to the point of death:

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome[a] it.

9 The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Whether as a myth or as an “in fact” reality the Christmas story, in beauty, meaning, depth and grace, surpasses all.

More Nonscience From Ken Ham

Education without integrity

In a blog entry dated Dec 13th and entitled “We Love Science” Ken Ham continues to delude himself that Answers in Genesis isn’t an organization committed to delivering nonsense non-science to an ignorant and gullible Fundamentalist Christian public. I don’t want to spend too much time on the self delusions of this anti-science nincompoop, but if I were to expand upon just why Ken’s Answer in Genesis organisation is busily subverting science I would critique the following fundamental philosophical fallacies we find amongst the likes of Ken and his cronies:

1. The view that one can fundamentally distinguish between the “You weren’t there” historical sciences and the “repeatable” sciences: The motivation here is to undermine the historical sciences like evolutionary theory. As I have said elsewhere: All science, “historical” and otherwise, in varying degrees depends on historical documents and an assumed rational repeatability in the universe. There is no experiment that I can do, no historical investigation I can embark on, that doesn’t depend on documents and a posited rational repeatability. In short Ken’s philosophical fuax pas embodied in the quip “You weren’t there” undermines both Science and the Bible.

2. Ken’s Mature creation theory: I have addressed this at length here

3. The view that the Bible is the exclusive epistemic “lens” with which we see the universe: One cannot read and understand the meaning of the Bible without a “boot-strap” epistemic “lens” already in place – although of course the Bible effects one’s epistemic lens. What is being missed here is that epistemology and ontology have a two way coupling: Epistemology leads to knowledge of ontology and knowledge of ontology in turn modifies epistemology.

4. YEC failure to do justice to the equation “Meaning = Text + Context”: I have looked at this subject here.

5. An obsolete view of uniformitarianism that fails to understand power law catastrophism.

There are a lot more reasons I could find for pinning an anti-science charge on AiG, but really this unreasoning and bigoted fundamentalist group have consumed too much of my time already. It is irony that AiG’s position is liable to undermine all of science and history and would ultimately put irrationality on the throne. The vehement atheist and professional scientist PZ Myers has little patience with anyone who so much as entertains the subject of deity, but there is no need to unnecessarily antagonize an already very sore atheist with the anti-science bilge we get from Ken Ham. It is clear from the posts here and here that PZ Myers fully understands why Ken Ham’s junk science is the road to irrationalism and why it would lead to the ultimate demise of science and history as disciplines of hope and intellectual integrity. What an irony that secularist PZ Myers understands the role of rationality, intellectual integrity and hope in science but Ham’s organization doesn’t.

More Good News From Ken Ham.

(The first lot of good news can be seen here)

The Sectarian World View

In a blog post dated 17th November and entitled “World Wide Epidemic Threatens Church” we find Answers in Genesis’ Ken Ham riding on a wave of euphoria after attending “The All-Asian Creation Conference” in Malaysia. Over a 1000 attended the conference and Ken sold out of AiG resources in minutes. According to Ken he is amazed how God has used and taken AiG’s (false) message around the world. Ken also says he is thrilled to hear the testimonies of people who have been led to the Lord through AiG’s (false) message. As I have remarked before, this sort of talk, given that it is based on AiG’s fundamental errors really debases the language of Christian testimony. I’m sure the Jehovah’s Witnesses with their 7.5 million affiliates and the Mormons with their 14 million followers are equally as ecstatic after their huge rallies.

But, and this is the big “but”, 1000+ attendees is but a drop in the ocean. Ken really understands this and when he sobers up he comes back down to Earth with a bump. The following quote from Ken’s blog is an indication of just how marginal YECs are even within the Christian world. I have italicized the text where it is clear that Ken understands how relatively insignificant the YEC movement is even though it is 50 years since the “YEC reformation” started in the early sixties. I have also emboldened terms that indicate how badly Ken thinks of those who don’t hold his views; especially Christians. Ken is man on a very particular mission (i.e. to spread Christ plus YEC); but then particularity applies to the proprietary doctrinal idiosyncrasies of every Christian fundamentalist sect between here, Brooklyn and Salt Lake City. Here is my quote from Ken:

But something has stood out to me more than anything else at this conference, and it burdens me so deeply.

After I spoke a person came up to me and said, “Please bring a conference to Indonesia—most of the pastors there believe in evolution.” Then another person said, “Please come to my country—most of the pastors believe in evolution. Then another said, “Please come to my country—most of the pastors there believe in evolution.”

There were 20 countries represented at this conference, and I think I have now heard from people from nearly all of them pleading for a creation conference in their country. They have all have said to me something like, “most of the pastors—Christian leaders—seminary professors—believe in evolution and millions of years.”

Friends, disbelief in the book of Genesis is a worldwide epidemic. Satan has used millions of years and evolution to permeate the church around the world. What a mission field we now have to the church. And in particular, what a mission field we have to reach the “shepherds,” the Christian leaders and pastors around the world to call them out of compromise and back to the authority of the Word of God.

I think this one conference has made me realize even more than ever how the pagan religion of millions of years and evolution has so permeated the church around the world! What a mess! And sadly, countries like the USA and England have sent missionaries around the world teaching this compromised message because they were trained in compromised colleges and seminaries.

This makes me more burdened than ever to challenge these compromising church leaders.

And you know what else this conference in Asia has shown me? There is a real hunger among the people—hunger for the truth. It is a hunger for answers. When people who do have a respect for God’s Word are given answers and taught the importance of not undermining biblical authority in Genesis, they get it. They really get it! And then they are set on fire to go back to their country and be a missionary for creation evangelism.

Please pray for the Lord to open more doors so we can deal with this compromise epidemic that is undermining God’s Word worldwide.

Each and every sectarian thinks they’re uniquely placed before God. If anything, then, the small size of their community gives them the pride of being  part of a select spiritual elite, the remnant through which the Almighty is working to enlighten humanity about looming apocalypse. Moreover, they take consolation in their work of proselytizing; they always believe they are in with chance as they seek to convert those who are beyond the pale of their strict and particular beliefs and practices. But in the face of unbelief and lack of response to their message they look for scapegoats to accuse of courting Satan and sin; especially fellow Christians who don’t quite see it their way. These sects may be in a small minority but their clownish extremism gets them an audience out of all proportion to their size; Harold Camping (amongst many others of similar ilk) has shown us that.