Sam Harris’s new book

March 3, 2012 • 11:22 am

Sam Harris’s new book, Free Will, will be out in three days. You can order a paperback here, a Kindle version ($3.99) here, read a short excerpt here, and a longer excerpt at the Amazon site. At 90 pages, it’s only $6.99.

I like it a lot (I’ve blurbed it), and if you know my own views on free will, you’ll like it too.  Sam and I have pretty much the same take on the issue, but of course Sam is deeper and writes better! I also like Oliver Sacks’ blurb: “Brilliant and witty—and never less than incisive—Free Will shows that Sam Harris can say more in 13,000 words than most people do in 100,000.” ‘Tis true!

Why accommodationism won’t work: BioLogos fails to convince a Southern Baptist bigwig

March 3, 2012 • 8:19 am

As I’ve said many times before, accommodationism faces a rocky road when trying to convince believers that evolution is true. In the case of evangelical Christians, for instance, the BioLogos prescription is nothing less than a request that believers change their faith, taking the Bible, which many think is the inerrant word of God, as largely metaphorical.  Sometimes, I think, accommodationists don’t realize how hard it is for people to make that change.

This difficulty is instantiated in a two-part post at BioLogos by Kenneth Keathley, a professor of theology and administrator at Southesastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina, “Southern Baptist voices: Expressing our concerns” (part one is here; part two here).

Keathley’s piece is the first in a number of responses that BioLogos has commissioned from Southern Baptists, with the goal, as BioLogos President Darrel Falk says, of engaging “in charitable dialogue with those who disagree with us in a new direction. . .”. Falk ends his introduction this way:

We hope and pray that this dialogue will bring greater clarity to the issues at hand, charity towards those with whom we disagree, and glory to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Amen. Well, it may bring clarity, but probably not agreement, at least judging by Keithley’s two pieces. If those essays show anything, it’s that the gap between evolution and Keithley’s brand of faith cannot be bridged. And that’s a lot of opposition, for, with 18 million adherents, Southern Baptism is the largest Protestant denomination in the United States.

Keathley’s plaint is that BioLogos doesn’t take scripture serioiusly enough.  I’ll highlight a few of his six points of disagreement:

1.Concerns about theological method: Christians cannot do theology in a vacuum. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that theology is never done in a vacuum, and we should not pretend that it is. And the BioLogos Foundation is correct in arguing that evangelicals cannot ignore the latest advances in biology, geology, and other related fields. Our goal should be more than merely finding a way to reconcile Genesis with the latest discoveries in genetics. Rather, our task as pastors and theologians is to present a theology of Creation that provides a solid worldview for Christians to work in the natural sciences with integrity for the glory of God.

One gets the impression at times that evolutionary creationism is a theory in search of theological justification. It’s easy to see why believing scientists who hold to evolution would want to find ways that evolution could be compatible with orthodox Christian doctrine. However, theologically speaking, the danger of the tail wagging the dog is very real. Can one start with the Scriptures and arrive at anything resembling theistic evolution? Are we to start with a scientific conclusion and then look for biblical sanction? I don’t think most scientists would want to do science the way evolutionary creationists seem to be asking theologians to do theology.

Clearly the dog is Baptist dog(ma) and the tail is science. What they are asking for here is for science to accommodate itself to Scripture, rather than, as BioLogos insists, Scripture accommodate itself to science. BioLogos doesn’t seem to realize how seriously Southern Baptists (as do many other American Protestant evangelicals) take Scripture. But Keathley will show him.

2. Genesis has only so much hermeneutical elasticity: Genre and hermeneutics (the science of interpretation) have always been difficult topics. In the early days of the church, from Basil of Caesarea to Augustine, scholars struggled with the proper way to understand the creation account in Genesis. Lately, however, the concordist and non-concordist approaches to the first 11 chapters of Genesis seem to be of unending and ever-increasing variety and complexity. Theistic evolutionists have contributed to the conversation. Certain evolutionary creationists ask us to accept more and more fanciful interpretations of Genesis.

Take for example, the account of God creating Eve from Adam’s rib:

“So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.”—Gen 2:21-22 (ESV)

Should we understand, as some theistic evolutionists suggest, that the real message of these verses is that God gave a female hominid the same awareness of the divine that He gave to a male hominid? Is this the intended meaning of the account? I just don’t see how we can arrive at such an understanding with integrity. The textual skin of Genesis 1-3 does not readily fit over an evolutionary drum.

See the problem? Metaphorical interpretations aren’t kosher! Keathley, and many of his followers, won’t buy the metaphorical “intended meaning” divined by accommodationists. The operational word here is “integrity.” One could make the case that diehard fundies like Keathley have more intellectual integrity than do people like Darrel Falk, for at least they are intellectually consistent. In contrast, Falk ant the other BioLogos folks will twist both science and faith in tortuous ways to make them fit.

And, of course, there’s the perennial Adam-and-Eve problem:

4. The status of Adam and Eve: Evolutionary creationists appear to disagree among themselves about whether or not Adam was a historical figure. Some, such as Denis Lamoureux, declare Adam to be a mythical character. Others (Denis Alexander comes to mind) view Adam as representative of the first Neolithic farmers with whom God entered into a relationship.

For most Southern Baptists, including me, the historicity of Adam and Eve is a litmus test. Even a cursory reading of the Bible reveals why we believe this way. The New Testament authors treat Adam as a historical figure, and they interconnect the mission and work of Jesus with the first man. Paul repeatedly presents Christ as the last Adam—succeeding where the first Adam failed and redeeming fallen humanity in the process. C. John Collins has written an excellent book on the subject entitled Did Adam and Eve Exist? Who They Were and Why You Should Care. He gives three criteria for an orthodox understanding of Adam and Eve (pp 120-21), and I believe they are worth repeating here.

  1. The origin of the human could not have come about by mere natural processes.
  2. Adam and Eve were “at the headwaters of the human race.”
  3. A historical fall must have occurred very closely to the beginning of the human race.

Evolutionary creationists still have a great deal of work to do in this area. If no evolutionary theory can be found that can reasonably incorporate above three criteria, then that would be a deal killer.

Well, #1 can be satisfied by the unscientific gambit of saying that God not only created the process of evolution, but did so to arrive at a specific aim: H. sapiens.  #2 simply can’t be satisfied by any scientific interpretation. Humanity was never down to the two individuals asserted by the Bible. The solution here is one of the ridiculous gambits proposed by BioLogos, such as the “federal headship” model, designating Adam and Eve as the only two people among many who were the Official Progenitors of Humanity.  You don’t have to be a genius to see how desperate and ridiculous such a suggestion is. As for #3, BioLogos would have to a) define when “the human race” began historically, and b) find some historical evidence that would correspond to a “fall.”

It’s a mug’s game here, and anything that BioLogos came up with would simply look ridiculous. The fact is that there’s no way to reconcile a literalist interpretation of Scripture with science: you either water down the science (as in proposing that God’s aim in evolution was arriving at our own species) or ask the faithful to water down their beliefs. The latter, as is clear from Keathley’s piece, is untenable:

6. The nature and authority of Scripture: Southern Baptists are inerrantists, without apology. We hold to the infallibility of the Bible because we believe it is the Word of God. God is truth, so the very nature of the divine disclosure is truth, without any mixture of error. In addition, we believe that the Bible presents itself as inspired, infallible, and inerrant, and that this was the understanding Jesus had of the Scriptures during his earthly ministry. One is free to reject the Bible’s infallibility, but I think anyone who does so must admit that his view of Scripture is different from our Lord’s.

. . . The BioLogos Foundation has not made clear its view of Scripture, but the nature and authority of the Bible will have to be a major portion of any serious conversation between Southern Baptists and BioLogos. . .

If the members of the BioLogos Foundation someday demonstrate how evolutionary creationism fits reasonably with a high view of Scripture, a credible approach to Gen 1-3, a historical Adam and Eve, and a historical Fall, then I will be the first to take their arguments seriously. I just don’t think they’ve done that yet.

Good luck, BioLogos!  What you’re up against is the view that when Scripture and science conflict, scripture must win.  If BioLogos is going to convince people like Keathley, they’ll have to twist and dilute the science so much that the organization will no longer be trying to change people’s religious views to get them to accept science; rather, they’ll be changing the science to accommodate people’s religious views. And that violates the aim of BioLogos‘s founder, Francis Collins, now head of the National Institutes of Health.

But the problem goes beyond Southern Baptists. Here’s a statistic I’ve mentioned many times before:

When asked what they would do if scientists were to disprove a particular religious belief, nearly two-thirds (64%) of {American] people say they would continue to hold to what their religion teaches rather than accept the contrary scientific finding, according to the results of an October 2006 Time magazine poll. Indeed, in a May 2007 Gallup poll, only 14% of those who say they do not believe in evolution cite lack of evidence as the main reason underpinning their views; more people cite their belief in Jesus (19%), God (16%) or religion generally (16%) as their reason for rejecting Darwin’s theory.

I bet Karl Giberson and Pete Enns are really glad that they’re no longer associated with BioLogos.

Guest post: the BBC and free speech

March 3, 2012 • 4:55 am

Reader Sigmund has contributed an essay prompted by some remarks on free speech by the BBC’s director-general:

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Mark Thompson and the limits of free speech about religion

by Sigmund

Mark Thompson, the director general of the largest and oldest broadcasting company in the UK, the BBC, recently gave an interview to an organization called Free Speech Debate. His topic was, unsurprisingly, of the limits of free speech in broadcasting – particularly with regard to religion. In this interview, shown on the YouTube clip below, Thompson discusses the practical reasons why different religions are not treated equally by British broadcasters.

Thompson describes himself as a ‘practicing Catholic’ and someone who is personally offended by critical depictions of his religion and its important figures. He states that he has not, and indeed would not, watch ‘The Last Temptation of Christ’ or ‘Monty Python’s Life of Brian’ for that very reason. In the interview, however, he was careful to state that, his personal feelings notwithstanding, he thought it important that other people should have the choice whether or not to see such material. Thompson famously approved for broadcast the musical play “Jerry Springer, the Opera”, a satire of sensationalist daytime TV, that featured scenes with Jesus, the Ku Klux Klan and Satan and which provoked numerous complaints and even death threats from evangelical Christians.

So is respect for the principles of free speech is a guiding dictum of British broadcasting?

Needless to say, it is not.

“Without question, ‘I complain in the strongest possible terms’, is different from, ‘I complain in the strongest possible terms and I am loading my AK47 as I write’,” said Thompson. “This definitely raises the stakes.”

In other words, while in theory the principle of free speech is applied equally to all beliefs, in practice the very real threat of violent attack means that certain faiths – meaning Islam – cannot be subjected to the same degree of examination.

Thompson continues in the interview by attempting to explain why a religious individual person might feel justified to resort to violence.

“One of the issues is that almost all people who have religious belief are realist about the belief, in other words they believe that their faith refers to things that have an objective reality and so for example they regard blasphemy as causing objective harm. So it’s not just that a blasphemous statement or act would “hurt their feelings” or anger them because it went against their opinions, it would do actually objective harm. Offending or an act of sacrilege against the God-head or a religious figure actually creates harm in the world, as it were, and might be as heinous, or more heinous, than harm to a human being. “

 “The point is that for a Muslim, a depiction, particularly a comic or demeaning depiction, of the Prophet Mohammed might have the emotional force of a piece of grotesque child pornography.”

Thompson then finds fault with secularists for somehow failing to appreciate the harm they are causing.

“One of the mistakes secularists make is not to understand the character of what blasphemy feels like to someone who is a realist in their religious belief.”

I think that secularists DO accept that many Islamists feel this way. We realize, for instance, that Islamists may also feel the same sort of emotional force from the idea of someone changing their religion, the sight of two homosexuals holding hands, a woman who is unveiled, someone drinking alcohol, or even seeing a group of schoolgirls going to their classes. We just don’t think we should walk on eggshells simply to avoid all possibilities of offending people who entertain these sorts of delusions.

The other problem with Thompson’s argument is that by treating ‘Muslims’ as a single monolithic block, he is guilty of the same sort of negative stereotyping that his avoidance-of-controversy approach seeks to mitigate.

Not all Muslims are offended by non-deferential examination of their religion. For example Imam Abdullah Antepli, the Muslim Chaplain of Duke University, recently wrote a robust criticism of violent Islamic responses to the recent destruction of some copies of the Koran at a US army base in Afghanistan.

“I believe there can be no Islamic, religious, ethical or moral justifications for your excessive, lawless and destructive way of expressing disapproval and hurt. Therefore, I condemn and shun all past and recent Muslim reactions with the strongest possible disapproval and dismay. Shame on you!”

While these sorts of reactions to Islamic religious violence are, unfortunately,  far too rare, they do occur, and it is important to note them, if only to point out that those who are all too vocal with claims of offense do not speak for everyone who calls themselves a Muslim. As for those Muslims who do claim offense, the correct response is surely not to avoid all possibilities of provocation, for that is simply impossible in a modern liberal democracy. Indeed, the policy of avoiding critical reporting of Islam has contributed to a situation in which violent protests are seen as the normative response to the rare instances when someone breaks ranks and does publish something critical.

Unfortunately for the Islamists, the media landscape has shifted beneath their feet in the past few decades. The advent of the internet and the degree of anonymity it offers means that it has become impossible to silence critics by the old tactic of issuing threats. While the BBC and print newspapers will continue, for purely pragmatic reasons, to avoid publishing material that may incite death threats, it falls on those of us in the online community to continue to pursue the real principles of free speech.

Caturday felid: crazy Russian cats

March 3, 2012 • 4:45 am

I don’t know what they put in the cat food in Russia, but many of the most awesome cat videos are coming out of that country. Today we have two.

This dude is watching t.v., apparently in Russia since the headline is:

And, a Russian kot goes for a swim in the sea (thanks to P.Z. for putting this up, even though he called the cat “squid food”):

h/t: Michael

Miley Cyrus tweets Lawrence Krauss, gets flak from the faithful

March 2, 2012 • 12:21 pm

Okay, it’s Friday so it’s okay to post stuff like this.

On Friday, the overrated singer Miley Cyrus tweeted this:

Note, it’s marked “sensitive content,” so you may have to change your Twitter settings to see it.

Well, Cyrus was raised a Christian, and yet the quote above says, “Forget Jesus. Stars died that you might live.”  Pretty inflammatory. And, sure enough, the Jebus-lovers started coming out:

As far as I can see, comments are closed now.  I think she realizes she made a mistake, at least with respect to her fans (or America as a whole).  “Forget Jesus” is about as inflammatory as anything John Lennon ever said.

h/t: the Brockmeister

OMG: Alain de Botton has a blog

March 2, 2012 • 9:43 am

. . . on HuffPo, of course, where the famous faitheist can continue to bleat about how atheists must adopt the trappings of religion.  His first piece, “5 religious concepts that atheists can use,” starts off badly and goes downhill fast:

Probably the most boring question you can ask about religion is whether or not the whole thing is ‘true’. Unfortunately, recent public discussions on religion have focused obsessively on precisely this issue, with a hardcore group of fanatical believers pitting themselves against an equally small band of fanatical atheists.

Au contraire, mon vieux: the most important question of religion is precisely whether it is true.  For if it isn’t, and believers come to realize that, then religion collapses and all of its attendant ills disappear.   The “boring question” world-weariness is a pose, meant only to inflate de Botton’s own silly agenda, which in this piece includes 5 suggestions that nobody is going to adopt:

  1. Educate people like the Catholics do, with a spiritual calendar and a spiritual agenda.
  2. Practice body-engaging activities like the Japanese tea ceremony or Jewish ritual baths (he doesn’t mention that the latter are intended to “purify” women after menstruation.
  3. Have more community. As de Botton says, “The secular world isn’t short of bars and restaurants, but we’re singularly bad at any kind of regular way of turning strangers into friends. We know from parties that people don’t talk to each other until there’s a good host that does the introduction. Religions function as hosts: their buildings and rituals allow us to express a latent sociability which lies beneath our cold exteriors.”
  4. Create more art with an easily grasp-able didactic function, like Christian paintings.
  5. Go on pilgrimages: hard ones! As the man says:

Religions have shown a surprising degree of sympathy for our impulse to travel. They have accepted that we cannot achieve everything by staying at home. Nevertheless, unlike secularists, the religious have singularly failed to see the business of travelling as in any way straightforward or effortless. They have insisted with alien vigour on the profound gravity of going on a trip and have channelled the raw impulse to take off into a myriad of rituals, whose examination could prompt us to reflect on our own habits and sharply alter where and how we decided to travel next. We all want travel to change us, religions honour this wish properly.

Really?  We can’t just go to a natural history museum?  We have to do a Santiago de Compostela schtick where we hike cross-country for days from museum to museum?

The man is mad, and, like Laplace, we simply don’t need his hypotheses, but this idea is the only thing he’s got, and he’s sticking to it, saying the same thing over and over again with mind-numbing regularity.

And who are the members of the “small band of fanatical atheists,” anyway? Why doesn’t de Botton name them?

Self promoter.  Meh.

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Speaking of accommodation at HuffPo, over at EvolutionBlog Jason Rosenhouse takes apart a remarkably silly piece by paleontologist Robert Asher, “Why I am an accommodationist.“

Post-theology humor

March 2, 2012 • 6:49 am

Here, courtesy of alert readers Grania and Andrew, are two bits of apposite humor. The first is from the British humor magazine Private Eye (this is the totality of the piece; it wasn’t continued inside):

And some rodential Jehovah’s Witnesses: