• 27 SEP 07
  A year of following all the rules in the Bible – Boing Boing
  “I did everything the Bible says! Even the stuff that contradicts the other stuff!!” (Ned Flanders). An agnostic decided to follow “all the rules in the Bible” for a year. It got him a book deal. He believes in sacredness, whether or not there is a God.

• 29 SEP 07
  Friendly Atheist » The Year of Living Biblically
  Ooh, Stephen Colbert’s book is coming out soon. I gotta get that one. Of course, this post is really mostly about “The Year of Living Biblically”. That also looks good, it doesn’t pique my interest as much though.

• 15 OCT 07
  » What Happens When an Agnostic Follows the Bible Literally for One Year?
  I’ve miniblogged this on boingboing before. This post has more info though, and is very interesting. Sacredness has value, y’know, as does rituals.

• 17 OCT 07
  Debating The Year of Living Biblically. – By A.J. Jacobs and Matt Labash – Slate Magazine
  A nice letter from the author of “The Year of Living Biblically”

Those last two links are probably the most interesting.

So now I own both the Stephen Colbert book and The Year of Living Biblically. I have read a little bit of each, but I read the little bit of the Colbert a year and a half ago, and I’ve only just begun with Jacobs’. And I love it.

I think one remarkable and unique thing about this book is that despite it being a book on religion, it should be accessible to everyone. Whether you’re a conservative American Evangelical or similar, or a “moderate” or “liberal” Christian, or you are completely non-religious or from another religion, this book should still be able to educate and entertain. I’d give it a “bridge building” prize, if I had one to give.

The front pages have many, many positive testimonials, coming from Jewish sources, Christian sources (conservative and liberal), entertainment sources… here’s two:

In the twenty-first century few, if any, Christians truly attempt to follow the Bible in its literal entirety, even us evangelicals. In this year-long experiment A.J. Jacobs attempts just that, with disarmingly sincere, refreshingly humorous and unexpectedly insightful results. I commend this inspired narrative to anyone actively exploring the continued relevance of biblical living, religion’s need for critical self-reflection and the timelessness of authentic faith.
– Reverend Jim Wallis, author of God’s Politics and president of Sojourners/Call to Renewal

A book that is at one and the same time delightfully readable and profoundly memorable is a wonder! The Year of Living Biblically is exactly that. A.J. Jacobs has perceived the distinction between the wisdom of the Bible and its absurdities. It is a shame that so many of both our clergy and our politicians seem incapable of making that distinction.
– John Shelby Spong, author of Jesus for the Non-Religious and former Episcopal bishop

For more, check the links above, or the TED talk embedded below. The TED talk also briefly connects to my previous blog post when he mentions Radical Honesty (and certainly does not recommend it). This talk may be better framed for a TED audience than a certain subset of American evangelicals, but hopefully not stop them from appreciating it, or reading the book for that matter.

You change your behaviour and that changes your mind, rather than the other way round.

And I should probably review a book only once I’m actually finished reading it, but oh well. I thought I’d mention it now because I will be using a short extract in my next post.

The discussion touched on:

• Can something in the universe be considered inherently “evil”, or is evil rather a human construct, just our way of seeing things?
• If cats aren’t considered evil, can humans be considered evil?
• The differences between being evil and doing evil
• Is it evil to wonder if someone is evil? Maybe it is better to just talk about what people do, rather than about their “identity”.
• The role of knowledge of the consequences of one’s actions. Does it make a difference if the cat is unaware of the pain and suffering it is causing, versus having full knowledge?

Summarising it all proved beyond me, feel free to read the discussions on the original post and Facebook updates if you can see those. It seems quite clear to me that the question of “evil?” is more relevant once it comes to human behaviour. So, let’s move on to the next question:

There are many kinds of lies. Which kinds can you think of? When are lies evil… or bad? Are lies sometimes good, and if so, when?

Feel free to talk about “bad” and “good” instead, to avoid semantic discussions about what constitutes “evil”.

Just like last time, there is not supposed to be a right and wrong answer, this is an opinion question. I consider all answers to be correct, and differences of opinion particularly interesting.

• The Sacred Writings of the World’s Great Religions – S. E. Frost, Jr. – published in 1943
• The Philosophy of Nietzsche – Hand-written note suggests it was bought in 1941
• The Basic Teachings of the Great Philosophers – S. E. Frost, Jr. – published in 1942, this is a 1943 reprint

These books were given to my father by his father in the early 70s. I did not really know my grandfather, he passed away when I was practically still a toddler. I hear he was slightly eccentric, but a brilliant man, an artist and writer. Oupa Nel. J Nel van der Merwe. (J was for Jaco, probably from Jacobus.) With Izak Wilhelmus van der Merwe who wrote under the pen name “Boerneef” as his cousin (though I don’t know if they were *first* cousins, and Boerneef could be one generation earlier too), I suspect the Ceres van der Merwe’s have some good artist-type genes.

I don’t know much about my grandfather’s worldview. (Actually, I don’t know much about my father’s either. ) However, he wasn’t one to leave books in a pristine state: I see many margin notes and other writings on blank pages. What intrigues me is how much my own views have in common with my grandfather’s. Or even just my interests… How much of our worldview predispositions are due to our genes? Those combine with our culture, our memes, that we inherit from those around us.

Wrote my grandfather to my father, in the front cover (translation below, with the usual disclaimers about how impossible it is to maintain the same nuances in a translation):

Aan Jac — Vir jou latere lewe, seun. [Lees eers bladsy 94, 150 ens.]

Dié een man het die Wêreld van Denke (filosofie) diep getref. Hy laat my baie aan Salomo se wonderlike boeke in die Bybel dink.

As ‘n mens sy jeug ken kan jy verstaan hoekom hy “kinderagtig” is m.i. i.v.m. die Christus (wat liggaamlik sterk moes gewees het. Dink aan C. se reiniging v.d. Tempel, hoe C. oral geloop het ens.)

N. is verantwoordelik vir die berugte sin: “God is dood.” (Verg. Dolf v N: “Die Son Struikel”) maar m.i. wou hy daarmee die mensdom weer God laat her-”sien”. Van Wyk Louw het ‘n gedig oor N. geskryf. (Sien agter.)

‘n Belangrike, diep, belangrike boek hierdie. Op één stadium van my lewe het dit vir my baie beteken.

But it is not easy going.

Pa   1973

---

Jac, asseblief:–
Lees éérs Ecce Homo, dán Zarathustra

To Jac — For your later life, son. [First read page 94, 150 etc.]

Jac, please:–
First read Ecce Homo, then Zarathustra

As a Ceres Van der Merwe, two generations ago, I reckon he was certainly still Boer in heritage and culture, but being an intellectual, having studied art, philosophy and psychology, and apparently comparative religion, he must have been further removed from our Calvinist heritage than most.

In the back of the “Great Philosophers” book, Nel wrote a bit about his own views of the divine, apparently similar to those of Pascal, Eliot and others. He contrasts his views with the views of the rationalists.

The Eternal begins where our “words” and reasoning ends — that is why I choose Art … music, poetry, painting, etc. It goes down into your guts. J.N.

On the artistic side, somewhat opposed to the “rationalists” (specifically the views of the so-called “Rationalistiese Vereniging van UK” — a society at the “University of Cape Town” I presume) and in contact with our religious heritage and tradition, while also a “liberal” like most intellectuals (which I deduce from his comments on “conservative Cape’s reaction to NP van Wyk Louw’s divorce in the back of the Nietzsche book), his views certainly fascinate me.

I think I inherited enough of the “artistic genes” and found the necessary memes to have a good appreciation for my grandfather’s views. I don’t have any trouble “bridging” to them, I can feel the truth in his views. At the same time, I think I’m standing a bit closer to the “rationalists” than he was: it could have been interesting to have a deeply philosophical conversation about such matters, to see how well I could bridge in the other direction. It all seems to be the flip-side of the same coin to me, the artistic side, is to me all about developing an artist’s appreciation of the human experience of this universe.

And with his margin notes and underlining of passages he considered key, reading these books might serve as a decent alternative to that conversation. It would be both an opportunity to see how much my genetic and general Afrikaner-culture inheritance already shaped my memes and interests in that same direction, and a path for more direct memetic inheritance. My father did not get around to reading these. With a career in engineering, technology and business (electronic media) and a strong interest in science that he imparted to me, I’m not sure how much formal philosophy he ran into. I will read these on my father’s behalf, and I won’t be waiting for my “later life”.

Why is “you have to believe!” so pervasive in our culture? The “you have to believe!” meme appears to be hiding around every corner. Including Wanted, wherein the protagonist had to start believing in his calling.

What makes the act of believing something so important? Might there be some sort of survival benefit for a creature with a tendency to believe? Some argue it could just be a side-effect of having some other beneficial traits. I disagree with that. To get straight to my answer to the question: to me, belief seems an absolutely critical element in the sanity of a self-aware thinking creature. I don’t think such creatures could function without beliefs.

And here I don’t just mean “believe” in the sense that I “believe evolution is true”: since evolution is a scientific theory, my belief in its validity is based on what I know of the science involved. That belief is something that could be investigated empirically, and the belief then proven false. In this particular blog post, I’m talking specifically of beliefs that can not be empirically shown to be correct or incorrect. I’m talking about beliefs that will always remain, no matter how far you dig to try to deconstruct them to things that can be rationally proven or disproven.

I think that due to the nature of self-awareness, the requirements for sanity of a self-aware creature, to have a workable world-view you have to take some irrational (arational?) leaps of faith: belief is fundamental to the survival of a rational mind. Which is not to say there aren’t unwanted side-effects, there are: not believing incorrect things so much, but rather, believing harmful things. (Believing it worthwhile to go on a suicide-bombing mission is tautologically harmful to your survival.)

Law, Life, Morality, Economy

High time to anchor my assertions above with some examples.

Recently I heard the suggestion from someone studying law that for a legal system to be considered moral, ethical, just, requires a belief in free will, whether free will exists or not is a question that need not even be asked. Without axiomatically accepting, believing, in free will, a legal system could be considered immoral, and should be dismantled (assuming we’re trying to be moral/ethical creatures), leading to the collapse of society.

In the case of law, an alternative view is possible though: in a mechanistic view of the universe, the legal system could serve as deterrent in the game wherein outcomes are determined by the balance of costs. So let’s move on:

• The choice to live life, as opposed to simply giving up on it, requires a belief in the value of actually living. Having something to live for, something you believe to be worthwhile.
• Secular enlightenment-style morality is built on beliefs in equality and the golden rule.
• Our economic systems are built on beliefs too: the belief that the rest of humanity is trustworthy enough that these pieces of paper we call “money” will always be assigned some value for trading purposes.

The Gregarious Greater Good

For cooperative societies to function, for gregarious creatures to work together, there needs to be a belief in a cooperative “greater good”. A belief in there being a right and a wrong. There are always opportunities for an individual to commit wrongs where no other member of their group would ever find out. Doing so would benefit the individual, even if it isn’t beneficial to the group. We can talk about group selection and group dynamics ensuring that the number of such individuals acting in self-interest is kept in check, but that’s taking a step back. What about the views of each individual in the group? Those individuals that choose to not act in self-interest?

In animals without rational or self-aware thought, with no sense of individuals in the group, this “belief” could be just instinctual habits driven by genetic predispositions. Selection could ensure instinctive cooperative behaviour. Calling that a “belief” requires semantic flexibility. However, how do such cooperative creatures maintain cooperation once they develop rational self-awareness? If the cooperative culture is maintained, this habitual genetic-predisposition instinct becomes explicit belief in the context of having an active awareness of personal choices and consequences. The belief may also live in the culture’s subconscious, faithfully lived out, internalised by individuals since their toddler years.

The Golden Rule. Equality. Freedom. These are all things we believe in. These thoughts weren’t the first thoughts that came to me during the movie though.

Self-Belief

The thought/reason the movie gave for the importance of belief was more about self-confidence: the protagonist had to believe in his own abilities. And in the group he joined, they had to believe they are working towards a worthwhile goal. It was about “believe in yourself”. I would like to go scour all the great and ancient mythologies for stories about protagonists started with initial doubts they had to overcome in order to reach their full potential.

Much of our contemporary psycho-bla-bla, talk-show-bla-bla or “newage guru”-bla-bla is focused on “believing in your potential”, often expressed in ways that make it sound like icky woo. However, that doesn’t reduce the importance of the basic need — the need I believe lies at the core of our “you must believe!” cultural undertones.

Contrarian Christians might choose to feel uncomfortable with the suggestion “believe in yourself!” — let me illustrate neutrally: if you believe you can’t do maths, you’ll suck at it. If you have no confidence in a race, you won’t be a good athlete. If you have a complete lack of self-esteem, you will typically perform in a way that reflects that: badly. If you believe God hates your guts and wishes you never existed, same thing. If you rather come to the belief that God granted you skill at maths (thus framed in terms of a gift accepted and not in terms of “belief in yourself”), that’s still precisely what I’m talking about in this post, please bear with me and look at the concepts.

There is a flip-side: someone that is too “full of themselves”, arrogant. It depends on what they do in life, arrogance can prove to be an asset in getting certain kinds of jobs done, but can at the same time be damaging to teamwork, relationships, interactions with others… (What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?) And in the middle lies balance.

Take the very same person that’s struggling in a corner somewhere, with self-esteem and the work they’re doing, get them into a place where they believe in their own capabilities, armed with the necessary ambition, and watch them grow and exceed what previously seemed to be their limits. Not so? A positive feedback cycle.

It is of great importance for people to believe that what they do matters.

Irrational!
(with the right understanding of what is considered entirely rational)

Feelings of self-worth are really not rational facts found by a process of scientific inquiry, they are much rather a kind of faith. Such feelings can certainly be empirically reinforced: precisely by starting with an assumption and then seeking evidence to support your presupposition, thus, not science!

I wager such assumptions cannot withstand scientifically rigorous open-minded attempts at falsifying them. Here’s how that would go: “OK, so I have the theory that I’m worth something. To scientifically prove this, I must remain skeptical of that assertion, and try my best to disprove it.” Setting out to prove yourself worthless? Tell me, where does that end?

Note that I am not saying one shouldn’t be inquisitively investigating these things, carefully: it can be a worthwhile search! The results of that journey rather leads to discovery and greater awareness of the axioms on which you build your faith with regards to your place in life and way of life.

Words are defined by the way they are used. Deduce the definitions I’m running with in that way, by looking at the context. Between appreciation of your definitions, my definitions, and the concepts we’re trying to refer to, we can still have some good concept-driven conversations.

And I commit to use my comments below to try to steer discussion in that direction.

One of them was an interview with Peter Singer about his book The Life You Can Save: Acting Now To End World Poverty. He challenges the “western world” about its apparent apathy towards poverty.

In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Peter Singer details how twenty-six thousand children die each day of preventable diseases and poverty worldwide, and contrasts this toll with the public’s moral outrage over the blackest days in our history, such as 9/11/2001. He talks about the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth regarding the poor, and questions why most Christians today have seemed not to make ending world poverty a priority, instead focusing on issues such as abortion and homosexuality, which are not mentioned by Jesus. Singer argues that when people in affluent societies value even small luxuries more highly than saving the lives of the world’s poor, that it is morally equivalent to standing by when one could easily save someone from drowning.

He acknowledges the psychological differences, but argues for equivalence with regards to morality/ethics. (Seeing someone drowning in front of you is in your face, whereas poverty is typically on the other side of the world.)

That’s something about Europe, or America, or the developed world in general: these nations are typically quite out of touch with what real poverty looks like, or what it feels like. Cinema and TVs show images, good movies evoke emotions, but it’s a two hour experience of something “exotic”, then it’s over.

Of course, “back home” (Cape Town, Stellenbosch) most of us are probably also shockingly out of touch, considering the fact that real poverty is within walking distance there. (In Stellenbosch, it’s even within rich-folks’ walking distance: only 2km. Perspective!)

If you’re curious, go read the synopsis, or listen to the podcast. Maybe read his book (I’m considering it). Check out thelifeyoucansave.com, or GiveWell. For some ideas challenging Singer’s apparent simplification of the matter (referring the drowning-person example), there’s some debate in the comments on the Point of Inquiry site. Then come share your thoughts!

In what ways do you currently contribute to charitable causes? What other ways might you investigate in the near future? And how do you feel about the suggestion raised in the podcast, that in some ways Peter Singer, an atheist, could be considered “a better Christian than most Christians”?

Many seem to think Christianity is about community. It isn’t about community, it is about transformation.

Interesting. I can see that. A lot of the developments I’ve seen in Christianity lately seem to be related to getting back that transformational power, escaping from dogmatic ideology it has turned into in many contexts. Where does community fit into it then? Maybe something along the lines of transformation happens best within the context of community?

In epistemology, the prefix meta- is used to mean about (its own category). For example, metadata are data about data (who has produced them, when, what format the data are in and so on). Similarly, metamemory in psychology means an individual’s knowledge about whether or not they would remember something if they concentrated on recalling it.

Thus here follows some “guidelines” about the community guidelines. Yes, there aren’t guidelines yet, other than those floating around in my head, but I’ll start sharing them this week.

Firstly, they are guidelines, not rules: I’m finding it very difficult to stick to them myself, but it’s the commitment to the principles that’s important to me.

Writing them out and explaining them will help me to stick to them, because they will be more clear in my mind when I’m done, but also because others can then hold me to my commitments. Anyone can point out to me where I fail, even if you’re not committed to the guidelines yourself. This will not be hypocritical precisely because it comes from my own commitments, not from you expecting of me what you’re not practicing yourself.

Furthermore, this “community” I’m now referring to is completely voluntary, by which I mean you’re still welcome to participate on this site even if you choose to shun the guidelines. In some ways, I’m defining a new community that is orthogonal to any community we already have.

In short, if the guidelines make sense to you, you can strive to keep them. Those that strive to keep them will be considered to be a part of the community of people that strive to keep the guidelines. Heh.

*Orthogonal: independent of, distinct. Just because you’re not in the guidelines-community, doesn’t mean you’re any less a part of this site’s community.

Are Cats Evil?

That question is actually too broad, take it more limited in scope: is the way they play with mice evil? …encouraging a mouse to try and run away again, giving them (false?) hope, only to pounce on them moments before they get away, successively wounding them more and more, driving them to exhaustion, torturing them, making them suffer…

Please motivate your answer.

There is not supposed to be a right and wrong answer, this is an opinion question, I consider all answers to be correct. Hence, I don’t consider debate interesting — the interesting part is supposed to be the further exploring of other questions within the light of our chosen answers to this one.

Some discussion took place below. Two comments were dropped on the imported Facebook note, good discussion took place on a Facebook status message.

The first six chapters and the dating techniques they introduce during their investigation (give me a shout if I miss something):

• Chapter 1: The ever-changing calendar the origins and complications of our calendar systems.
• Chapter 2. A hero in a dark age – reconstructing history, in the light of the search for King Arthur.
• Chapter 3. The forged cloth of Turin – radiocarbon dating.
• Chapter 4. The pyramids and the bear’s groin – star-gazing
• Chapter 5. The volcano that shook Europe – pottery (typology), tree-ring dating.
• Chapter 6. The Mandate from Heaven – dendrochronology (advanced tree-ring pattern dating) and some more ice core dating.

Can I suggest we use a consistent style for marking what we are responding to? Based on what we had in the past: @Hugo #14 for replying to Hugo and the 14th comment, when not responding to a comment, just the topic you’re starting a new thread on, e.g.: @Chapter1. This will encourage me to fix the imported old comment threads when I get around to implementing the threaded comment system I’m dreaming about. (No need to be too strict though, e.g. marking unneeded when replying directly to the comment above. Import will have to have human-oversight anyway.)

Like a good thesis or academic paper, the book’s introduction serves to frame the material covered by the book, and explains why it is important. After all, Chris Turney is a published scientist, he knows how to write papers. However, he also writes accessible and entertaining popular science, the kind any literate lay-person can appreciate and understand, no college degree needed! (Read some reviews).

Important!

So what makes this so important? Turney mentions two examples of its importance, two weighty examples: the massive extinction of the world’s fauna and flora, and extreme climatic change. Humans have obtained great power and influence over the environment, our actions might just have some huge consequences we did not expect.

In order to develop some understanding of what the future holds, we need as good an understanding of how our mightily complex planetary ecosystem fits together as we can muster. The only way of gaining such an understanding is to study the past — a past that is, according to the evidence we’ve uncovered, several billion years long. Ignoring what we can know about the past would be irresponsible, would leave us blind with regards to what the future holds, would be an act of refusing to act as stewards for our planet.

The book explains what we know, and more importantly, how we know it.

Controversial!

Turney explains some of the controversies around time, e.g. Chapter 1 covers some of the conflicts around our calendar system. In the introduction he mentions some controversy surrounding a pop song:

If you haven’t read the book yet, see if you can spot it. Let’s play at being pseudo-intellectual-art-critics in the comments below.

For your friendly neighbourhood creationist?

How accessible would this book be for a young earth creationist? (Here I return to my old excessively verbose ways Feel free to skim or skip if you’re not grappling with such questions.)

If they’re interested in the subject matter, it looks to be very accessible. Turney approaches dearly held beliefs with the necessary sensitivity and empathy, even the epilogue on creationism (I’m briefly skipping to the end) sticks to facts and doesn’t ridicule. He remains open-minded as scientists should: he does not get dismissive, he simply requests evidence — “until creationism provides compelling evidence”, second last paragraph. The book serves enough examples of what kind of evidence lead to our current scientific conclusions, and he points at some events that should leave this kind of compelling evidence, if creationism were true.

One thing I did make a note of was a paragraph on page 3, stating:

“The key word we hear with creationism is ‘belief’. No matter how much science proves otherwise, some creationists still choose to believe the world is only 6000 years old. I might believe that the world is flat or that little green men live on Mars; should I get a teaching slot alongside electrostatics and gravity? I hope not.”

I think that’s about the worst it gets. What do you think, does that feel like ridicule? If you know my habits, you know how hyper-sensitive I can get when I’m on the lookout for things that could be negatively perceived — I get absolutely absurd. (And of course, when I’m worked up and “writing with passion, I’m prone to throw out negative words myself.) In and of itself, the sentence in question simply illustrates, clearly, how mere “belief” is inadequate for motivating the teaching of something in science class — for science you do need compelling evidence.

So what’s the potential problem? …the use of stereotypical examples. Stereotypes can be very loaded in someone’s mind: their use can provoke emotions from previous encounters, even if the current context doesn’t rationally justify those emotions flaring. We’re human, you know! For people with a strong in-group/out-group thing going, perceived negativity or ridicule can trigger a reaction of “this book seems biased against us, it is therefore not neutral and its contents cannot be trusted — I should stop reading”.

I think the ideal is really quite simple: give a book like this to a creationist from within the context of a friendship. “Here is a book that explains the science, it illustrates quite well why I believe what I believe. If you would like to understand my views and the views of others better, take a look at it.” By connecting the material to a good friendship, the friendship can lend it some goodwill, provides it with a friendly face, which helps overcome our tendency to interpret material we disagree with in the worst possible light.

Chris Turney’s book does explain, before the paragraph in question, that beliefs are matter of personal choice. He agrees that that is perfectly fine (oh, he’s such a liberal, isn’t he!). He is only taking exception to people trying to force personal beliefs into a science class. Simultaneously, he points out the limitations of science: “No one should claim that science has the answer to life, the universe and everything”. I like! The way this book is put together, I can’t imagine even a fictitious person who I wouldn’t be prepared to lend this book to.

All that said, I remain particularly keen and curious how this book is perceived by young earth creationists. If you’re a young earther (or possibly an until-recently-a-dedicated-young-earther) and you read this book, please come share your thoughts, experiences and feelings with us? Thanks!

Getting your hands on it:

In South Africa, I ordered the paperback version from Loot for R128 (+R20 shipping). If you would like to borrow that copy, I can add you to the waiting list. Otherwise, consider buying your own, to be lent to friends and family. It can’t hurt to have more in circulation!

(Yes, I should impose a word limit on myself. Fewer next time!)

Thanks to all supporters!

While I was away, I received another message via Facebook from a complete stranger saying “keep on blogging!” I’d like to thank all my supporters for your support, it certainly helps to keep me motivated. I especially love these “out of the blue” messages, reminding me there are also lurkers that find some value in this blog. I love hearing from you, and I remain curious what you’re looking for, what you find most valuable or interesting.

Where is Chapter Three?

Don’t worry, it is on its way!

Even if it gets delayed for an unhappy amount of time. Even if I were to stop blogging some day… I’m not done with my current “blog arc” until I’ve taken a good shot at Chapter Three. However, I’m forced to delay it until I have a mechanism in place to deal with the inevitable derailing comments.

One of the most important elements of my vision for the future of this blog, for Chapter Three and beyond that is, is the open and friendly atmosphere I want to establish and maintain. To see our efforts dashed to pieces before our eyes as negative and destructive types loot the community’s openness.

Since time is few, and I’m no longer making promises, we’ll all have to exercise patience until those mechanisms have been implemented. Hopefully before Christmas anyway. :-/ In the meantime, we’ve more than enough interesting stuff to keep us busy! On to the first “meeting” of our book club next, yay!

To some, science seems like “the new Authority”, the new self-sustaining system perpetuated by clergy named “scientists” and to be dogmatically obeyed by the rest of us in the pews. (Heh. Not even church is like that, assuming you choose a nice progressive community.) The problem is “science” is pigeonholed into something it isn’t, and this is helped by the fact that it has such a handy pre-existing label. Develop a pigeonholed understanding of the label, then the job is done!

So instead of saying “I care too much about science”, I’m going to talk about… “I care too much about understanding reality/creation as best I can”, “I’m too interested in the evidence about the past that surrounds us”, or something similar.

And so my quest for maximizing understandability continues down the road of ever-increasing verbosity. *sigh*.

By decree, we decided on Bones, Rocks and Stars by Chris Turney. I propose we start with this book on 13 July. Hopefully I’m not busy referring to myself in the plural.

It is a thin little book, 180 pages, but I’ll still carve it up into little bits: about 30 pages per blog post, which is two chapters, spread over six blog posts. What time frame this will be, I’m not sure. (Spread over six weeks?) It is my intention to write an intro blog post giving a brief overview of the contents of each section, then we can have discussions in the comments.

If I choose to write “independent” posts about the things we learned, I will do so after we’ve had our discussion. The purpose of such posts would be to have something to point other people to: future visitors of the blog that have not read the book. Such posts should provide a brief overview of the important bits to get people up to speed, but for more in-depth details, they would probably refer to either the book, or to our discussion, or to other useful material we identify. Rewriting the book would be silly. This “distillation into an overview” will certainly be a struggle, maybe our discussion can help hack out the important details.

13 July is a Monday. I’m open to shifting it to another day: would you prefer the end of the week? Publish on Friday mornings? We don’t need to rush the discussion… Whatever we decide in the comment thread below, the next post will be with the expectation that participants have read the introduction and the first two chapters: “The ever-changing calendar” and “A hero in a dark age”.

I’m taking two weeks’ vacation before then. The book will go with me, for the plane, the airport, or other idle moments. Thus, the “deadline” we choose really shouldn’t be making any whooshing sounds on my side…

Humans are selfish and egocentric. I call this characteristic a “sin”, in the sense of “missing the (divine) mark”.

Lo-and-behold, our sinful nature is such, that it often even becomes the core of our religion. “Getting saved.” What does that mean? It can mean different things to different people — some meanings are beautiful, some meanings are ugly. For many, “being saved” effectively means “I believe I’m going to heaven after I die”. Their most important drive or focus in their religion is then to achieve that state, selfishly getting what they want, for their own benefit. It becomes the biggest purpose of their religious/spiritual life, and once they feel they’ve achieved that goal, they are satisfied.

…when there are so many other things that is so much more important to our community and the world around us, so many more important things to be concerned about.

Contemporary Conservative Christianity is all too often like that, selfish and ego-centric. Sinful. Concerns about the afterlife is not a divine concern. From what I understand, the ancients (of Hebrew Bible fame) had a more communal understanding of what salvation was about: it was more about the tribe, as a whole, as a community, and less about the selfish individual. Salvation for the tribe: divine.

This is just a quickie. My post on what I call “the divine” is coming soon. On top of that, I will (eventually) try to explain my understanding of “sin” and “salvation”.

In this series, I will sketch out my views, not seek some balanced “there are many perspectives, for example, such-and-such”. When I do touch on other views in this series, it will be for the purpose of explaining how it fits into my view.

I’ll try to keep posts short and to the point, after all, details can be explored in conversations in the comments. I’m not going to rush it, it will probably take months. But I’ll try to put out my first post within the next seven days. It will be on the divine.