Sapere Aude

More Insight From "The Don"

2009-10-30T08:23:00.000-07:00

"I think this is when most people give up on their stories. They come out of college wanting to change the world, wanting to get married, wanting to have kids and change the way people buy office supplies.

But they get into the middle and discover it was harder than they thought. They can't see the distant shore anymore, and they wonder if their paddling is moving them forward.

None of the trees behind them are getting any smaller and none of the trees ahead are getting any bigger. They take it out on their spouses, and they go looking for an easier story. "

2009-08-16T10:19:00.000-07:00

"We indulge a historical deafness

when we think of the Jewish and Christian movements

as the uncritical endorsers of

whatever societal structures currently

hold the population captive. "

Thoughts From Donald Miller

2009-07-20T17:51:00.000-07:00

"My Life, This gift I have been given, has been wasted, thus far, attempting to answer meaningless questions. recently I have begun to believe that there are more important questions than how questions. How do I get money? How do I get laid? how do I become happy? How do I have fun? ....My mind [eventually] fell across the question Why? I had only just begun to question my faith in God, a kind of commercial, American version of spirituality. I had questions because of the silliness of its presuppositions. The rising question of why had been manifesting for some time, and had previously only been answered by Western Christianity's propositions of behavior modification. What is beauty? I would ask. Here are the five keys to a successful marriage, I would be given as an answer. It was as if nobody was listening to the question being groaned by all of creation, groaned through the pinings of our sexual tensions, our broken biochemistry, the blending of light and smog to make our glorious sunsets. I began to believe the Christian faith was a religious system invented within the human story rather than a series of true ideas that explained the story. Christianity was a pawn for politicians, a moral system to control our broken natures. The religion did seem to stem from something beautiful, for sure, but it had been dumbed down and Westernized. If it was a religious system that explained the human story, its adherents had lost the grandness of its explanation. in exchange for its validation of their how lifestyles, to such a degree that the why questions seemed to be drowning in the drool of Pavlov's dogs. And it wasn't just the church that was drowning; it was all of humanity or, at least, all of the West. Our skyscrapers and sports teams, our malls, and our master planned neighborhoods, our idiot politics, our sultry media promising ecstasy with every use of specific dish washing detergent. What does all of this mean? Are we animals nesting? Are rats in one giant cage, none of us able to think outside of our instincts? And does my faith live within these instincts, always getting me to my happiness, or is it larger, explaining the why of life, the how a shallow afterthought?"

The Social Construction of Reality and Christian Thought

2009-03-31T17:46:00.000-07:00

Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann’s work, The Social Construction of Reality, grapples with the idea that our world consists of all that it does because men and women have collectively created the languages and institutions that make our society a concrete object. The authors also trace the idea of knowledge and how it is contextual. These ideas will prove useful in applying the social theory of Berger and Luckmann in an effort to trouble, but ultimately reconcile the notion of a socially constructed reality with Christianity.

In an effort to trace the argument of Berger and Luckmann one must first realize that reality is an entity that stands apart from an individual’s own wishes or consciousness. While this thought seems absurdly basic, it is a necessary one as we strive to separate ourselves from the world that we are so sunken into, even to the point that we are convinced that our reality is somehow absolute. This is not to say that our reality is a complete counterfeit, but to maintain that it is only genuine because humanity has created it and it is therefore real. However, it is arbitrary because the human race lacks the authority to make a reality that is absolute.
The concept of a socially constructed reality has its roots in the theory of Karl Marx and Wilhelm Dilthey (among others). Marx claimed that the world is divided into human activity and the world produced by human activity. Marx built on this with his skeptical “Ideology,” which claims that human activity is controlled by those in power to keep the disenfranchised out of power. This was accomplished with the power of knowledge. Dilthey contributed to the sociology of knowledge through the notion of “historicism,” which states that human thought always occurs for a specific purpose at a certain point in history.

The simplistic nature of these ideas causes one to wonder why the thoughts above are not more self-evident. Perhaps this is due to humanity’s constant need to focus their thoughts on the practical tasks of everyday life. This pragmatic consumption of human thoughts is referred to as “recipe knowledge” by Berger and Luckmann, who go on to theorize that this is needed because humans are “instinctually under equipped.” Furthermore, they add that, “Man occupies a peculiar position in the animal kingdom. Unlike the other higher mammals, he has no species-specific environment, no environment firmly structured by his own instinctual organization” (pg. 47). Therefore, in an effort to compensate, humans construct their own reality and become socialized in order to receive knowledge.

In essence, central to the concept of a constructed reality is the communication of that reality through language, which is arbitrary. For example, the word “chair” is not inherently connected to the object that society agrees to call “chair.” Instead, the word “chair” is merely a signifier for a given object. In this way, words serve as widely held symbols to conjure up a common object. These symbols only work so well because they are held in common by a community. Consequently, language is a social construction that serves to reinforce every other part of this socially constructed reality.

As humans go about their everyday lives they use language to speak society into existence. The result is the externalization of this society. Men and women collectively use their words to build the structures in our society. However, once these structures are put into place, they are not easily changed. For example, the founding fathers of the United States used language to create a constitution. Once their words were put onto paper, they were used to construct our government, which has become a superstructure so massive that it seems to be unchangeable to any one individual Thus, in this way, language is used to externalize the institutions of our society.

Therefore, once society is externalized, it turns on the same men and women who spoke it into existence as it begins to shape the way they think and act. This is the internalization that Berger and Luckmann describe as the reconciling of society to one’s own conscience. In other words, the structures of society persuade those within it to follow their rules and conform to their codes. For example, the powers in society have convinced the average individual who drives while intoxicated is committing a terrible crime that endangers society. This has been accomplished through laws and through the media running stories of tragic drunk driving accidents and this serves as an example of a structure that has influenced our conscience. Breaking the speed limit by exceeding it by five miles per hour, on the other hand, is widely held as a crime that is far from despicable. This is due to the fact that the superstructures of society have not succeeded in convincing it’s citizens that that going five over is wrong. However, the fact that drunk driving is widely held as a civil evil is the result of internalization.

The acceptance of an institution from a society’s citizens is referred to as legitimation, or as Berger and Luckmann state, “legitimation is the process of ‘explaining’ or justifying” (pg. 93). It is through this process that a socially constructed reality is recognized for its value and the codes of that society are realized as valid. For example, the education structure and its red tape are recognized as valuable for the credentials that it bestows on an individual and the knowledge it gives its participants. It is worth noting that there is also an element of knowledge to legitimation, which is portrayed in the example of education through the picture of its participants who are knowledgeable of the value of the institution.

In an effort to apply the previously stated ideas to everyday life, it is beneficial to consider how the beliefs of Christianity and the sociology of knowledge conflict and compliment each other. The most blatant example of conflict between these two ideas can be portrayed by looking at knowledge from a modern perspective, which many Christians have used and continue to use regarding their faith. The stereotypical modernist perceives truth as transcendent and an absolute that one can know. This is convenient for the modern Christian as he or she wrestles with the idea of a transcendent God because the searching Christian can adopt this definition of knowledge to their world and make it black and white. The result of living according to this knowledge is portrayed by the legalistic Christian, who lives according to a strict set of dos and don’ts because they claim to know what is absolutely right and wrong through their transcendent knowledge. In this way, the following words of Berger and Luckmann apply: “as long as the routines of everyday life continue without interruption they are apprehended and unproblematic” (pg. 24).

However, if one troubles the notion of transcendent knowledge with the previously mentioned idea of historicism, then one’s everyday life ceases to be solved by transcendent knowledge. Instead, Christians must wrestle with the notion of Marx’s “Ideology,” which states that ideas are used to justify an end in service of an interest. When this is applied to the issue of Christianity and a socially constructed reality, it demands that Christians recognize that their claim to know absolute truth was at least convenient, if not motivated by, their desire for a simplistic faith. It is much more convenient for the lazy Christian to go through their everyday life with certain “recipe knowledge” that claims to absolutely know right from wrong. This certainly allowed the modern Christian to flee the academic scene in the late twentieth century.
In light of the need to form a worldview that meshes with our perceived reality, therefore, the Christian must admit that at least most of human knowledge is constructed by reality because the evidence from history and anthropology is far too massive to ignore. For example, dating practices differ drastically from time to time and place to place. Consequently, the modern Christian must edge closer to the post-modern sector, which is feared by the Christian due to the slippery slope of relativism.

Berger and Luckmann are not promoting the deconstruction of all thought until all of our ideas are simply placed into a metanarrative. They only maintain that humanity is limited to the knowledge found in our reality, which is truer than the modern Christian realizes. However, one can easily maintain the existence of transcendent truth outside of a socially constructed reality. In this synthesis a Christian can maintain that their knowledge of reality is indeed subject to the very society that humanity has constructed. However, with a limited knowledge of God’s absolutes, the informed Christian can better identify and expose the lies of the enemy.
Followers of Christ can only do this by maintaining that there are absolutes that are built into creation by God. However, it is impossible for men and women to know absolute truth absolutely, but one can know it substantively. Indeed, it is only through a limited knowledge of absolutes that Christ followers can strive to give a different legitimation to their own society. “Legitimation”, as the process of giving value to an institution of society, can only be achieved if one is aware of value at all. In this way a Christian can give value to a structure of society with an authoritative knowledge of right and wrong. Furthermore, followers of Christ can externalize and internalize a constructed society according to the absolute norms, which transcend time and space.

The thrust of Berger and Luckmann’s argument does not only explain how reality is constructed, but also communicates how we can better participate in its construction. As Christians, God has charged us with building his kingdom and to use all knowledge for the glory of God. Therefore, let all Christians go forward in humility as the admit that all truth belongs to God and only he knows it absolutely. However, let us thank him for allowing us to know it substantively and let us be ever mindful that many components of the world we live in is a product of a broken human race.

Disecting Suburbia

2009-02-05T11:21:00.000-08:00

The Tragedy of Suburbia

American life has always rested on the foundation of private property. It was private property that drove the very first wave of settlers from Europe, where owning a piece of land was essential in order to control one’s own fate. However, all the land of Europe had been purchased by the elite upper class which caused the society to be closed. Consequently, there was no room for upward mobility. The same desire for property ownership fueled the desire to settle the West later in American history. At this point there was a romanticized individualism connected to the idea of a hard working, peaceful existence on a western ranch. This existence was founded on the promise that the inhabitants would be connected to nature. This way of life became known as the American dream.

It is no coincidence that this same dream was the foundational desire of the American GIs who were pouring into the US at the end of World War II. These men were greeted upon their return to the states by an economic boom the size of which the world had never seen. We were the victors of an earth-shattering conflict that devastated all developed portions of the earth except for the continental United States. We were the only nation in the world to leave the war a greater economic force than when we entered the conflict. As the war’s victors, we enjoyed the spoils and sought out a quiet residence where we could relish in our affluence, and enjoy a quiet family life. This post war dream manifested itself in the form of suburbia, a dream which was made possible through a number of avenues, but has resulted in a variety of unfortunate consequences.

The Suburban Makeup

Suburbia, or sprawl, is characterized by five components. The first is housing subdivisions, which are unique because of their exclusively residential zoning. They are different from traditional city planning forms in that they are entirely made up of residences, often with the same set of floor plans, or variations of them. Commercial or industrial venues are in no way integrated into these pods of houses. Shopping Centers are the second component of sprawl which is defined by exclusive strips of commercial districts. Prime examples in our society today are big-box retail store such as Wal-Mart and Target that are always found on long stretches of highway. These stores are always accompanied by the entire suburban area’s shopping and dining options, which usually take the form of a combination of strip malls and stand alone buildings. All of these retail centers have been influenced by post-war efficiency and are designed in such a way that customers can find what they want and get out as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Office parks are places of work that are once again sectioned off into their own exclusive set of properties. Much like the retail districts, they are accompanied by large parking lots. They are also similar to the houses in that they are idealized by the vision of working in connection with nature. The fourth component is civic institutions. These are the places where we go to school, church, or any other public gathering place. Traditionally, these shared facilities have been the epicenter of our communities in an effort to promote equal access to all. In suburbia, however, these churches and schools are found in no particular place and are not given the same attention in structural design due to spending cuts and a focus on efficiency much like our shopping centers. The final component of sprawl which ties the entire package together is roadways. As a consequence of the lack of integration of the previous four components, large highways are needed to give citizens the mobility that is required to move from district to district with ease.

Car Culture

The western ideas of progress and science, which date back to the Enlightenment, can still be found in American society. After winning a world war that was partly an industrial contest, we had even more reason to put our faith in these ideas. After all, if industry served us well in war time, it will serve us just as well in peace time. Therefore, we should use the technological fruits of science to give us the convenience and tranquility that we desire in our post-war lives. It follows naturally that we build our society around the automobile, which is a quiet, private way to move form place to place. This is exactly what we did. We also sang songs about our automobiles and built altars to them, planting them proudly in front of houses. We call these altars garages. In this way, our society’s dependence on roadways was fueled by a post-war form of car worship, which was made possible through an economic boom. In America, we knew that we had the production capability to make enough cars cheap enough for everyone to buy one because we had out-produced every nation on earth during World War II. The idea of every individual owning their own car and having that freedom that comes with hoping in your own automobile and going anywhere you want at any time you want fits nicely with ideals of freedom, individuality, and control that has been part of the American dream from the very beginning.

Cars ultimately cause of a breakdown in connective tissue. Instead of feeling connected to others, we disconnect ourselves from the outside world through our very own private, metal cocoon. Walker Percy articulated the side effects of a society built around cars when he claims that, “Whenever I drive a car, I have the feeling I have become invisible. People on the street cannot see you; they only watch your rear fender until it is out of their way”. Car culture has not only left Americans lonely and disconnected, but it as also left our municipalities bankrupt. The costly task of building and maintaining the massive highway system is more expensive than the tax base that most suburban communities can support. For example, a Milwaukee suburb conducted a cost analysis in 1992 that showed that a new single family unit paid less than $5,000 in taxes, but costs the municipality more than $10,000 to support the home. The inefficient, lonely city design needed to support our obsession with the automobile is not worth the heartache or the money it costs.

Every Man’s Castle

Victorious World War II Veterans benefited from the G.I. Bill of Rights in 1944, which granted them educational and housing benefits. This aided the standard of living for veterans in hard times that came with the economic transition between war and peace. Among the list of initial post-war problems was a housing shortage. The shortage was so severe (3 million married couples were not able to set up their own household in 1947) that the Federal Housing Administration began requiring lenders to give veterans housing loans without requiring a down payment. As a result men like William Levitt began to build house in the same way that everything was produced in the U.S. at this point-- quickly and efficiently. Levitt himself built six thousand houses in Long Island, New York by the end of 1948, and more than seventeen thousand by 1951. By the end of the 1940s, 55 percent of American households owned their own homes.

These homes promised a quiet existence and a safe place to raise a family, which in theory would meet the very goals of a tired World War II veteran only interested in minding his own business. Therefore, it made sense that housing subdivisions did not have sidewalks. It made sense that they had a yard with trees, bushes and a fence. All of this commodified the American dream and made it easily accessible to the middle class citizen. At last freedom and equality had been obtained. Each family would have land that was connected to nature (i.e. land, trees and bushes) that was hoped for from the very beginning of American society. These World War II veterans had obtained the privacy, and individualism that was romanticized in the old West.

Suburban Meltdown

Sadly suburbia did not deliver all of its intended promises. The first problem surfaced in the form of ghettoized African Americans, who were left in the inner cities. This was largely a repercussion of racism in post-war America, rather than the unintended result of suburbia homes. The root problem was that the American dream has a romanticized connection with nature at its core. In spite of the vast amounts of land and wealth in the U.S., there is not enough to truly satisfy our desire to be connected to nature. Instead we find ourselves duped into settling for an imitation of a genuine western ranch or a manor in a park if you prefer the more European form of the ideal. At the same time we are cut off from our neighbors just enough that we will never talk to them unless their tree falls in our yard or some other violation of our prized, but fake privacy has been violated. Furthermore, by leaving the city and entering suburbia we curtail involvement with the public realm. The public realm, as it is defined by Kunstler, is the connective tissue that exists between various private structures. Some examples are streets, parking lots, sidewalks, and parks. In suburbia, connective tissue exists only to serve cars. Evidence of this is the fact that suburbia is connected with wide roads that lack sidewalks and various housing subdivisions are connected by highways that value fast cars, rather than sidewalks that value people.

Every Child’s Prison

The irony of suburbia is that it was designed as a safe place for children to grow up, but it has turned out to be a place where young people become stranded until they reach the legal driving age. This only perpetuates more waste because this usually requires one more inefficient car for the family. If teenagers do not achieve this independence they are often bored at best. A sad, but common effect is teenage suicide, which often plagues those who feel so disconnected that they take their life into their own hands. On the other hand, car crashes often plague the teenagers who do obtain their mobility. While others factors definitely play a part in teen suicide and car crashes, it is suburbia that makes inexperienced drivers climb behind the wheel in order to engage in activity.

The Alienated Poor

The final and most often forgotten social group who has been abandoned through the move to suburbia is our nation’s poor. This phenomenon is ironic because the nation’s democratic ideals that are often deemed responsible for building suburbia and have traditionally been a proponent of the idea that every citizen can have their own home in the first place has, at the same time, ghettoized our lowest citizens. In other words, the same government that has ruled this “land of opportunity” has built suburban highways through poor neighborhoods, leaving them dominated by masses of high-speed vehicles. Thanks to our suburban communities, the poor have been left to inhabit the avoided inner city so as not to be a burden on the conscience, much less the pocket book, of the middle to upper class. As the privileged of American society have moved out of the inner city, so have many of the jobs that the poor rely on to improve their financial situation. As we have stated previously, under a sprawl structure everyone needs a car and the poor are no exception as more and more jobs have left their neighborhood.

The Cost of Loneliness

We have established that a community structure that encourages a culture that is generally lonely and depressing. For further proof, the Harvard Mental Health Newsletter reported in 2002 that the depression rate among children is 23 percent. Many factors account for this, but one of the most common is neglect (one of the most common reasons is simply two parents working). Suburbia requires that both parents work and provide a sizable income in order to meet the financial responsibilities that come with an inefficient suburban home, which is only becoming more expensive with rising energy costs. As a result preschoolers are the fastest growing market for antidepressants. Over 4 percent of preschoolers (over a million) are diagnosed as clinically depressed.

If the existentialists are right and the only meaning in life is the meaning we make for ourselves, then Americans have bought this philosophy and are making meaning for themselves through their obsession with filling their lives with stuff. We build living rooms in our lonely homes full of extravagant entertainment centers. Even our forlorn cars have begun to include entertainment centers in our feeble attempt to compensate for the breakdown of connective tissue. We have fallen prey to the advertising gimmicks that feed off of our lonely lives. These nick-nack toting salespeople manipulate us easily because they know we want new gadgets to fill the void in our lives and to fill the void in our lonely, inefficient castle. In conclusion, these soulless, cookie-cutter communities cannot be sustained unless the economic prosperity that Americans have always enjoyed is perpetuated indefinitely, which, given the history of the world and our present global market is very unlikely. In the end, suburbia is an inefficient commodification of a dream that promises privacy from the problems of the world, but only maroons us by secluding us from the very thing we need for survival: an uplifting community.

The Community Makeup

In light of America’s misuse of a post-war economic boom, one may ask, “What should we have done differently? What would an uplifting community look like?” Following are the six components of an uplifting community. The first is The Center. A neighborhood should have a communal square or some variation. This is a great place to build churches, libraries, youth centers, small retail businesses, restaurants, etc. It is a great place to visit because it is built for walking and easily accessible to everyone in the community. The five-minute walk is an important characteristic to a good community because it allows local residents to experience a rich public realm as they travel to their working, shopping and socializing. We are not claiming that citizens will never have to drive, but that most of their everyday living needs can be met by taking a five minute simple walk. The physical and mental health benefits alone make this a great idea, not to mention the environmental, political and economic benefits of weaning ourselves from oil and automobiles in the way that we do now!

Thirdly is The Street Network, which from a birds eye view looks like a grid in a good community. This is constructed so that those who choose to drive have variety of routes to choose from as they go about their lives. This cuts down on traffic because not everyone is forced to drive on one major highway to arrive at a destination quickly. Narrow Streets are included in a healthy neighborhood because they demand traffic to slow down for the pedestrians which are a higher priority than cars, which is how is only normative, considering our communities are made up of people not automobiles. Parallel parking also helps the situation by providing another barrier between cars and citizens. Furthermore, traffic can allow narrow streets because there are more streets and fewer drivers.

Fifthly, we have Mixed Use buildings in a nice community, which breaks down the entire trend of sprawl with its specialized districts. Instead, mixed use introduces a different type of zoning according to size. Small buildings are generally put along side other small buildings, medium with medium and so on. Many of these buildings are in the form of a main street shops with a residential or office apartment above them. This is a very efficient use of space and it creates a nice place to work or live because of its convenient location. These buildings are intentionally built to “human scale,” which means they are nice to walk by. In other words, they do not have the dwarfing affect on humans that a sky scraper has, which is so symbolic of America’s overwhelming bureaucratic institutions. Furthermore, parking lots are placed behind our public places, and in the event that a building sits back from the street it does so to provide a garden or park for all to enjoy. Finally, Mixed Income Housing is essential to a caring community. Instead of isolating the poor for the sake of our conscience, we live along side them and make their needs our own. We draw them in as members of society in an effort to help them, rather than ghettoizing them in an effort to forget about them.

I realize that these six principles are very communal for our intensely individualized culture. However, I am convinced that our society is in dire need of people who are concerned for the common good, rather than themselves. This need is demonstrated in the private affluence, but public poverty of our American society. We despise taxes because we want to keep our money to spend on our cookie cutter houses, meanwhile our government does not have the money or the desire to maintain a livable public realm. However, sprawl and all of the problems that come with it are merely consequences of the deep entrenchment of the American dream and American values. There is a long hard battle of ideas to be fought before we can begin to see a major change in America’s city structure.

Tell Me All Your Thoughts on God

2008-12-18T11:37:00.000-08:00

The following are the words of Frank Schaefer as they were stated in an NPR interview on December 9th, 2008. "The Reason that I did not leave faith altogether is one that I will never know because I do not know where my conditioning as a person of faith ends and where my choices begin and where they end. All I can tell you is that if I wanted to become an atheist the first thing I would do is pray to God to help me......I'm stuck. I'm stuck because faith is just part of my life. I don't know whether if it is because faith is real or if its because that is the way I was brought up, but a day that doesn't begin with prayer for me feels empty. Even when I am questioning the existence of God."

Frank is wrestling with a huge question here. It is one that I have wrestled with myself and one that every person of faith must ask themselves. Essentially he is asking, "Is my faith socially constructed? Am I purely a product of my environment or do my beliefs run deeper than my arbitrary culture? How can anyone profess to worship a God who is merely a cultural decoration?" In order for a God to be worthy of our adoration this being must be transcendent, it must be bigger than me and you and our collective identity. Otherwise how can this being have the authority to do what God does? God is ultimately whatever grips you. He is whatever answers your questions. He is the being that assigns meaning to the happenings of our lives.

We are constantly striving to make meaning out of everything we experience in life. When we encounter something we asses its value and assign it a narrative using our faith in God. We explain why this or that happens. Many of us use purely scientific reasoning to make sense of the world around us. Other times we use coincidence and at other moments we use fate. But we all use something and whatever we use becomes a type of god. Many of us look to a god that might be connected to an organized religion to explain things and to tell us what value we should be assigning to all of the happenings around us. What is most frustrating is that we all have conflicting characteristics for our god and call him many different names, yet we cannot all be right. This doesn't bode well for a being that is supposed to omnipotent and transcendent. When all of our gods are compiled there are to many narratives flying around and, quite frankly, no one knows what to believe, but we all want to commit to one because we yearn to make sense of the world around us. So many of us do what every good American does and we go shopping. We choose a little from this god and little from that one and we end up with a hybrid god that does everything we want him to. However, if our god does exactly what we want it to then we have become our own god and we are not worthy of adoration, nor do we have any knowledge or authority to assign narratives that might make sense of this infinitely complex world. So what must we do when we are stuck in this quagmire?

I don't have a purely logical answer for this question because at its core this question is like every other- we use faith to answer it. Sometimes though I feel stuck, much like Frank Schaeffer feels stuck, but I know this as much as any human can know anything: ultimately we must give ourselves over to a god and there is a God, a true God who has absolute truth that governs our world. I know this with the aid of a lived experience and sometimes in spite of one. He is not relative to a geographical location or a socially constructed being because a god like that is worthless. He is mine and I am His, but this did not happen without "becoming critically aware of my own ability to compose my own reality, self-consciously participating in an ongoing dialogue toward truth, and cultivating an ability to respond in ways that are satisfying and just."

If God Isn't Dead yet, Can Evolutionary Biology Strike the Final Blow?

2008-12-10T05:23:00.000-08:00

With the rise in recent years of publications like Richard Dawkin's The God Delusion, we have been increasingly exposed to seemingly compelling arguments against the existence of God. One of the most interesting arguments comes out of the field of evolutionary biology and it attempts to answers the question: why is belief in God seemingly hardwired into human beings? Children readily accept the idea of God. The most primitive cultures adopt the idea as well. Evolutionary biologist, Daniel Dennet strives to explain this phenomena by proclaiming that, "Everything we value- from sugar and sex and money and music and love and religion- we value for reasons. Lying behind and distinct from, our reasons are evolutionary reasons, free-floating rationales that have been endorsed by natural selection." In other words, everything that is in the nature of modern humans is there because it aided in the survival of our species. Those who adopted certain traits lived to pass these traits on and others didn't- survival of the fittest.

Evolutionary biologists might explain this to the lay man this way: traits like the assignment of narratives, a slight paranoia to see beings or things, particularly dangerous ones, where they may or may not exist and the tendency to perceive intelligences where there are none all lend themselves to survival. After all, a paranoid sense of reality is often more effective in keeping one safe than an accurate one. Coincidentally, these are the same traits that cause us to believe in God. Finally, belief in God which is hardwired in all of us only exists because natural selection has caused it to exist. That's it. All of the worship, all of the time, money and energy, all of the death that has been caused in the name of religion is all the byproduct of evolution. If this true, then evolution is guilty of an extremely cruel hoax.

However, this theory has a massive Achilles' heel! The fact is that if we only apply this theory to belief in God then it is being applied selectively, not justly. This theory does not merely explain away why we believe in God. Instead, it explains away why we believe in everything. Like Dennet said, from sugar to sex, money, music, love to religion. Timothy Keller, who I have relied on a great deal for the ideas in this post, characterizes the evolutionists position this way "since we are the product of natural selection, we can't completely trust our own senses. After all, evolution is only interested in preserving adaptive behavior, not true belief." If this true then we cannot trust our senses to tell us anything and we begin to slip down the slope until we land in a pool of Darwinian nihilism. The only way to pull ourselves from this pool is to realize that this very theory turns on itself because we cannot even trust our own evolutionary biological theory because it would only be constructed of physiological traits handed down from the ancients just like anything else.

Stepping Outside the Moral Matrix

2008-11-26T07:01:00.000-08:00

While I don't agree with everything Jonathan Haidt has to say, I must admit that he introduces some compelling ideas in this video. While this may be counter intuitive to some people, I find that the ideas I disagree with most are some of the most compelling and are incredibly important to wrestle with. For example, the explanation of religion at minute 13 in his talk is extremely important for any person of faith although they may find it offensive. However, if you step out of the "moral matrix" for a minute, as Haidt suggests, you can engage the idea and learn from it without adopting the idea as your own. I think it is important to note that Haidt is not asking anyone to give up their convictions or beliefs. Instead, he gives an invitation to step out of our "Us verses Them" mentality which is often so counterproductive in a Christian's attempt to portray Christ to those around us.

Haidt also gives his listeners some material to start asking yourself where you stand on his five moral foundations. Are you liberal or conservative? Should you move yourself more to the center? Perhaps there is a moral foundation that you do not hold as important as you should or vice versa. If you are a person of the Christian faith, which of these five moral principles do you think Christ holds as most important? Are you in like mind with Christ? For more captivating ideas go the TED Website by clicking here.

How Do You Know?

2008-11-17T15:49:00.000-08:00

According to the dominant, modernist view of knowledge that is pervasive in our society, we cannot know anything unless it has been proven to us using the scientific method. Consequently, science holds a position in our society that it doesn't deserve. Tolstoy spoke out against the emphasis on science when he said,"Science is meaningless because it gives no answer to our question, the only question important to us 'what shall we do and how shall we live?'" I am not going as far as to say that science is strictly meaningless, but for those asking existential questions, it offers no absolute answers. We as humans are not capable of absolutes, that is why we have faith.

Many beings hold to a more pure form of rationalism, but there is no value-neutral, air-tight, scientific fact. Every piece of knowledge is subject to human perception and human people use faith when they claim any idea as truth. Every act of knowing is connected to a person. When trying to understand this, it helps if you use a Frisbee analogy that belongs to Ester Lightcap Meek. She describes knowing as, "A risky disposing of our beings, a passionate commitment to trust things we cannot fully justify at the time of effort. Just as the person who truly lays out for a Frisbee risks crashing to the ground, with or without the Frisbee....Human knowing involves actively struggling to rely on a collection of as of yet unrelated particulars to achieve a focus on a coherent pattern or whole." This doesn't make reality simple, neat and tidy in the way that our modernist friends wanted to make it for us, but it is more accurate. Reality is many shades of grey not black and white.

This is not to say that there is no absolute truth. I believe in an ultimate power who has created absolute truth, but only He knows it absolutely. He has revealed enough of it for us to get through this life honoring Him. In our endless struggle to obtain more of God's absolute knowledge, we ultimately use faith, not science. For example, right now I am sitting in a brown office chair as I type this. Last time I posted to this blog I was sitting in this chair and the time before that as well. In fact every day I sit in this chair and each time I do, it holds me. Consequently, I have faith that this chair will hold me tomorrow when I come to sit in it. In the same way, I could take the most seemingly value-neutral, air-tight scientific "fact" and say the same thing. Take the idea that 2+2=4, for example, I know that 2+2=4 because I added it yesterday and all throughout my existence and it has always added up to 4. Therefore, I have faith that if I did this addition tomorrow it would still equal 4. That is the only way I know this equation works. The same logic can be applied to knowing the most elusive of beings-God. He held me yesterday, He holds me today and He will hold me tomorrow.

Free to Think or Free of Thought

2008-11-03T11:51:00.000-08:00

If you look for it I am convinced that you will see it. The anti-intellectualism of our culture is truly pervasive. There is almost a moral revulsion that can be found in the air and it is aimed at those who tote learning as a worthwhile pastime. We often hear this idea reaffirmed when we herald the superiority of "common sense" over esoteric knowledge. You can see it when we consistently attach words like nerd or geek to persons who devote their time to studying almost anything other than the sports page.

Anti-intellectualism is not a new trend in our society. Rather it has been here from the days of early America, which was a nation made up mostly of those who were discontent with various aspects of European society. Europe was seen as decadent, cosmopolitan, and artificial by colonial Americans. Meanwhile, the new nation was forming its own identity in reaction to these ideas and began to view itself as benevolent, rustic and natural. In short, American society began to view intellectuals as effeminate, impractical, elitist and perhaps even dangerous. It was the notion of elitism that mixed with egalitarianism and democracy that gave the American people even more righteous anger towards intellectuals. In this way learning was perceived as an enemy of a classless society.

Intellectuals, on the other hand, haven't always done a great deal to help their cause as they become high on heady thoughts and often speak above others for the sake of exclusivity rather than for specificity. However, we cannot allow the lack of humility of some intellectuals who become to high on ideas to cause us to scorn learning altogether. That would mean (to barrow a parochial phrase) "throwing the baby out with the bath water." Instead we must recognize learning for its intrinsic value and give it its proper emphasis in society. Learning makes for better citizens. It is the keystone of democracy. Without it we cannot allow common men and women to participate in government because they simply wouldn't be qualified. Learning promotes maturity and responsibility and it ultimately gives young people the critical thinking skills necessary to make responsible decisions, thus bestowing them with the keys to adulthood.

So what can we do to change our anti-intellectual environment? Lets start by changing the way we talk about those who study. Even in jesting, we should not refer to them as nerds, geeks or use other language to identify them as social outcasts. We can also begin to give education the attention that it deserves and take away much of the inapropriate importance that is placed on atheletics in many of our schools and colleges. I enjoy sports, but I have often observed how they can be a distraction from learning as the priorities of students, staff and faculty often become mixed up. Schools are primarily institutions for learning- its that simple. Finally, we can also start viewing education as more than merely a means to an end, a passport to privilege or your ticket to your job. Learning becomes infinitely more enjoyable and valuable when we recognize its intrinsic value and its life changing power.

Things I Heard While Listening to Morpheus

2008-10-22T17:28:00.000-07:00

I have recently thought extensively regarding the idea of worldview and the connections between this idea and the extremely important film The Matrix. Before I make some of these connections allow me to first explain what I mean when I say worldview. A person's worldview could be defined as one's underlying assumptions about life which determines the comprehensive framework of one’s basic belief about "things." In this definition "things" is defined in the broadest sense. It includes the world, human life in general, the meaning of suffering, the value of education, social morality, and the importance of family, etc. Even God could be included in these “things” (Wolters).

The reality is that many people in our world live without the knowledge that humans have a worldview often because we are so sunken into the everydayness of life that we do not step back and reflect on such things. However, we all have a worldview and we show it every time we respond to everyday issues like abortion, capital punishment, pacifism, communism, or homosexuality because our worldview determines our reaction to all of these issues and many more. We are being informed regarding all of these subjects and others without knowing it. We are being stimulated by a matrix of ideas. These ideas are in the air we breath. We cannot see them but we take them in and we unknowingly use them as a lense to see the world and to discern truth. If you look for them you can see these ideas when "you turn on your television, you can feel them when you go to work, when you go to church, when you pay your taxes."

Morpheus, however, is correct again when he says that no one can be told what the matrix is we can only experience it for ourselves. This is why the college years are so crucial for young people. The university is the first place where most young people are exposed to other ideas besides the one's that are fed to them in their often sheltered upbringings. I am not using sheltered in the way we normally think of it as protected by parental figures from the "real world." Everyone is exposed to the world in some fashion, but the fact is that most people are only exposed to one view of the world and hence have a tidy, simple perspective on a world that is infinitely nuanced and complex.

It is at college where some of us are disconnected from our home (just as Neo was disconnected from the Matrix) and are introduced to professors who are no longer giving us the neat and tidy textbook version of history. Likewise, The philosophy course we may take shows us many alternative life philosophies and presents them in a light where all of them seem equally valid. College is often the place where a young person is shown, often for the first time, many opposing, but valid, worldviews and thus realizes that he or she has a worldview. Often we must see parts of a worldview in someone else in order to clarify our own. It is the free exchange of ideas combined with the the diversity of a college campus and the distance from all that has been familiar to us that join forces to ultimately pull us from the matrix. The fact is that, “Sometimes we simply encounter someone, or some new experience or idea, that calls into question things as we have perceived them, or as they were taught to us. Or as we have read, heard or assumed. This kind of experience can suddenly rip into the fabric of life, or it may slowly yet just as surely unravel the meanings that have served as the home for the soul” (Parks.)

However, higher education is not the only call to leave the matrix, nor is it a guaranteed ticket to a new life of the mind. No matter where we are or what we are doing we must make the choice, just as Neo chose the red pill, so must we call into question our taken for granted reality and seek out our own underlying perceptions regarding the world and our place in it.

Some Timely Advice From our Northern Neighbors

2008-10-19T13:36:00.000-07:00

I was recently reading an article online from a little known Canadian Publication Called Geez Magazine. Here is a quote from it:

I’m not sure I should say this but I feel y’all in the US are too caught up in the phenomenon of America. Yep, even the progressive Christians. You take your nation and its politics so seriously. Obviously US politics directly affects the lives of many people and cannot be ignored altogether, but super-power is not the ultimate power. As people of faith we have the luxury of a broader perspective, a perspective that allows us to operate on a plane beyond power-politics.
So have a coffee, chill, turn off the news, maybe take a trip north. We get hyped up over elections here too – and sometimes I curse the scoundrel who is currently king of our castle – but in the end he’s just the Prime Minister. We don’t expect him to be a moral or spiritual figurehead. We don’t actually care that much if he smoked up two decades ago or even two weeks ago. Neither our moral nor spiritual center is with our politicians. And our political process is healthier for it. It is less polarized, less moralistic, and God isn’t in anyone’s corner. Sure we have religious politicians (our public health care system came straight from the social gospel) but because they rarely play the divine trump card, the polemic stakes don’t get elevated to the level of God-is-on-my-side dead end absolutes.

I found this perspective badly needed in my own life as our election here in the US is about to reach its climax. While I don't completely agree with the statements like, "We don't actually care that much if he smoked up two decades ago or two weeks ago." because I do believe that a persons actions are a reflection of one's worldview and a politicians worldview is essential to their decision making. However, I do believe that we should not use God as a weapon to prove someone else is wrong so we can be right. The fact is that we live in a pluralistic society where we must frame our beliefs with humility and love in order to be heard. We must also adopt a lifestyle that brings people together rather than divides them. This is a lifestyle that does not jump in bed with one political party. Instead it rises above party lines and strives to show what is true and what is false about each party. We need to remember that no matter what happens in the political sphere there is a bigger picture and Christians should focus on the big picture rather than grasping for power in the political realm. There are many other great insights in this article. If you would like to read it in full click here.

Thoughts on Cool

2008-10-15T15:34:00.000-07:00

I have noticed, through my interactions with other young people, the intense preoccupation with being perceived as cool. When we declare a major in college, for example, we do not let ourselves become wrapped up in our discipline.We keep it at a distance and treat it as our means to an end. Our Passport to Privilege (Steve Garber).

We declare a major because the undecided student looks indecisive and uncool. Instead we enter into work that does not resonate with us. In regard to our public life, we keep our options open, never letting on that we are passionate about any one thing, lest we be considered a nerd.

Consequently, we do not engage, we do net enter into community. Somewhere along the line apathy has become cool. The apathetic person is often guarding their heart never letting on that they are committed to anything and thus never saitisfied by the full realization of a passion. And sadly they may never become committed to any cause greater than themselves.

Reflections on My Experience as a RD

2008-10-14T07:49:00.000-07:00

As I stepped onto campus here at USF that first time I suppose I had grand visions of deep, thoughtful conversations. You know the kind. Where both parties walk away knowing that their lives will never be the same. I haven’t actually had any life changing conversations yet, if you want to know the truth. If there has been one thing I have learned since I got here it is that students do not like to have those kinds of chats with “total strangers”, such as myself, and neither do I. This only became clearer to me as I tried to pry my way into chats concerning topics such as: purpose in life, intrinsic value in education, or the notion of worldview. It is actually extremely awkward to attempt a conversation like that with someone you have never talked to before except for the occasional “how are you?” or “how was that football game?”

At this point, I suppose that you want to know: Why do you want to have these discussions with students? You see, I have been reading this book. It’s called Big Questions, Worthy Dreams: Mentoring Young Adults in Their Search for Meaning, Purpose and Faith. I picked it up because I spend a lot of time reading books in hope that they will make me smart… but it hasn’t happened yet, but if you want to know the truth, I am really crazy about learning. At any rate, I picked up the book thinking that it would help me mentor young adults because my boss told me that I had to do that and that I wasn’t here just to eat at the cafeteria.

In the book, the author, Sharon Daloz Parks, made the following straightforward statement: “Many [young adults] simply have been lured into elite careers before anyone has invited them to consider the deeper questions of purpose and vocation.” Parks goes on to proclaim that young adults must ultimately obtain faith in order to be mentored into full fledged adulthood where they can make educated decisions for themselves. When she started to talk about faith I assumed she was talking about religion. However, she explains that when she refers to faith she is actually talking about making meaning out of the world we are living in. She pointed out that without the ability to make meaning in life we will suffer from confusion, distress, stagnation and ultimately despair.

I couldn’t really understand what she was talking about, so I asked a college buddy of mine named Andy, who is an airline pilot, what he thought she meant. Andy the airline pilot explained it to me this way. He said that it might help me to understand what Parks was talking about by thinking about even the simplest things in life. As an example, Andy asked me to think about the time I spent four months in Greece and how frustrated I felt when I could not understand the language. Andy the airline pilot caused me to realize that this was also true about the most important things in life. He showed me the place in Parks’ book where she claims that “human beings, either unconsciously or consciously, compose a sense of the ultimate character of reality and then stake their lives on that sense of things.” “Did you hear that,” Andy asked? “We stake our lives on all of the perceptions we have. In other words, we make all of our decisions based out of our faith or out of how we make meaning of life.”

Upon hearing this, I decided that ideas like the one Andy the airline pilot had explained to me were important and that we should spend more time reevaluating how we make meaning in life. This is why I am passionate about mentoring students and building deep and meaningful relationships, encouraging them to make thoughtful choices through a critical evaluation of the ideas that they hold as truth. I do not do this because it is part of my job, but because it is a part of who I am.