David Brooks, “How to Fight the Man.”

There is no god and that’s the simple truth. If every trace of any single religion died out and nothing were passed on, it would never be created exactly that way again. There might be some other nonsense in its place, but not that exact nonsense. If all of science were wiped out, it would still be true and someone would find a way to figure it all out again.

Now, this might be true or it might not be true – it’s a thought experiment with no way of verification. It’s an assertion, not an argument. Thus, from the very beginning, the appeal to empiricism is weakened.

But this claim – “it would never be created exactly that way again” – is true of anything rooted in the passage of time: history, art, literature, even the progress of science itself.

If everything related to human rights were erased from history, would it be recreated? Who could possibly know? Does that mean it’s foolish to support human rights or hold them as a core belief?

What about literature? If all traces of Shakespeare’s entire canon were erased from the earth, they would be lost forever. Does this mean that English professors are wasting their entire lives? (On second thought, don’t answer that.)

Science itself is rooted in history. If science were restarted from zero, I’m sure that many things would be rediscovered, but many important aspects of modern science – the divisions between disciplines, the classification of species, the technology required to conduct certain experiments, the prioritization of certain questions over others – are, in many ways, historical accidents, the results of specific actions and decisions made by specific people at specific points in time. Why else do we hold certain scientists (Newton, Darwin, Einstein, etc.) in such high esteem?

Further, as a recent Nova special discussed, time itself (and therefore all of history, including religion) may actually be an illusion. The past, present, and future might all simultaneously exist and be equally real. Physicist Brian Greene, summarizing some implications of Einstein’s theories:

BRIAN GREENE: Just as we think of all of space as being “out there,” we should think of all of time as being “out there” too. Everything that has ever happened or will happen, it all exists, from Leonardo da Vinci laying the final brushstroke on the Mona Lisa; to the signing of the Declaration of Independence; to your first day of school; to events that, from our perspective, are yet to happen, like the first humans landing on Mars. [Emphasis added.]

To put this another way, the religious “nonsense” that Penn Jillette criticizes for being  irreproducible may be as firmly rooted in the fabric of the cosmos as any scientific discovery. If you accept the view of time described by Greene above, then the development of Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and every other religion was inevitable from the very moment of the Big Bang.

Of course, not everyone shares this view of time. It’s shocking, I know, but the relationships between science, religion, and philosophy may – may – just be slightly more complicated than as described by comic magician, even a magician as talented and clever as Mr. Jillette.

[An aside: In my own study of religion and philosophy, certain ideas do seem to be reappear over and over again, across cultures and centuries. For example, when I shared the above quote from Nova on Facebook, a friend who studies cultural perceptions of time noted that contemporary physicists are reenacting theological debates about the nature of time from the 12th through 14th centuries. There's a reason why "big names" like Plato, Aristotle, Jesus, Augustine, Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha), etc., remain current. Even if you disagree with them, their teachings get at certain fundamental ideas of human nature and reality that cannot be ignored if you want to study those matters.]

1. First, I switched to “Use Facebook as Emerging Scholars Network.” If you’re the admin of a Page, you will see a similar option in the right sidebar.
   

   Page Admins can choose to use Facebook as their Page, gaining special powers in the process!

2. Next, I selected the Friends/Fans icon in the upper left corner. Click “See All.”
   

   That little silhouette is the list of your fans. Your Fans list used to be easier to find.

3. Since this was a Page, I filtered the Fans by Pages.
   

   There doesn't seem to be a Search function, unfortunately.

4. Click the X to remove them as a Fan, making sure that you check “ban permanently”as an option.
   

   "Ban permanently" is a good option to choose!

5. There is no Step 5.

That’s it! I hope you find this useful. Unfortunately, I’m not sure how to search Fans other than scrolling through the whole list of them. If you have a large number of Fans, this might be difficult. If the person has recently joined or had activity on your Page, then that will make it easier to find them. If they aren’t active and you can’t find them in your list of Fans, then perhaps you’ll be lucky and no one will notice.

Like I said, this process was far from obvious, and there might be an easier way. If you know a better or different way, please tell me in the comments. Thanks!

Note: These instructions apply only to Facebook Pages (i.e. for businesses, nonprofits, clubs, causes, etc.). If you need to block someone from your personal Facebook account, see this article from Facebook.

My two immediate thoughts:

1. Wow! What a helpful guy! Thank you!
2. Wait a sec – who just carries around a sign like that? Are expired car tags a cause near to his heart? Does he have a whole stack of signs for various problems? “Your left turn signal is out.” “Front passenger-side tire is low on air.” “Blue smoke coming out of your exhaust.” “Bumper falling off.”

Gordon MacDonald, Ordering Your Private World, p. 5, emphasis added.

I find these words frightening because I think they are true.

So if we find ethical, theological, and historical diversity in Scripture, we begin with the assumption that what the Bible intends for us to learn is not primarily concerned with textual unity or precise moral consistency as construed by modern ethicists, theologians, and historians. Rather, “The unity of the Bible is more subtle but at the same time deeper. It is a unity that should ultimately be sought in Christ himself, the living Word…”

Mark Noll, Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind, p. 139, quoting Peter Enns, Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament.

Of course, this leads to several important questions: How much theological or historical disharmony can be tolerated? How much unity should we require for fellowship or organizational structures? What do we do with ethics or theologies that oppose each other? Nonetheless, I think Noll and Enns are on to something important here.

However, since this photo gallery appears in the New York Times, will the primary audience see anything besides rednecks and hillbillies? Won’t this gallery simply reinforce existing stereotypes of Kentucky among the East Coast elites? Will they have any insight at all as to how to interpret this quote from Adams that accompanies the gallery?

When I was young, I couldn’t wait to leave Kentucky. Now, as I get older, I value every day when I return.

Many people know about Kentucky author and farmer Wendell Berry, but I wish more people knew about Harlan Hubbard, classically trained painter and musician, an essayist who inspired Berry and who, like Berry, chose to live off the land in rural Kentucky rather than among the cultural elite. Hubbard is someone who gets you a bit closer to the paradoxical land that is Kentucky.

Second, the assistant rector while we attended St. John’s, Felix Orji, is now Bishop Felix Orji in the Anglican Church in North America. What wonderful news – congratulations, Felix!

Since the atonement involves tremendous complexity and great mystery, the best narratives will not be simplistic (like movies were resolution comes through a car chase or gunfight). Neither will the best narratives be Manichean (where the good guys are all good and the bad guys are all bad). Nor will they be simply heroic (where protagonists triumph over obstacles through reliance on their own inner resources) or simply nihilistic (where the point is to enact the futility of human existence as in novels of Thomas Hardy like Jude the Obscure and Tess of the D’Urbervilles). Rather, the best narratives will be morally complex, as in fact the enduring tragedies, comedies, and novels — like Oedipus Rex, King Lear, Paradise Lost, and Crime and Punishment — regularly are. Such morally complex narratives are most satisfying because, in terms of atonement theology, they are most true to life.

Mark Noll, Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind, p. 71. Emphasis added.