One aspect that this doesn’t cover is the usefulness of a theory. Theories are used to make predictions that can be tested. Those tests are themselves experiments.

To follow the analogy, we’d use the pentagon shape figure out where a point that we haven’t yet discovered might lie. We look there and try to find a point. If it’s there, our confidence in the theory is strengthened. If it isn’t, we go back several steps, fiddle with the drawing and try again. (As Kuhn pointed out, it isn’t quite that simple, but close enough for this example.)

Isaac Asimov once used the analogy of constructing a map using points of latitude and longitude. The advantage of this analogy is that you can immediately see how to make useful predictions with a map. Figure our where you want to go and try driving there. If you wind up in the middle of the ocean, you know your map is inaccurate. Make corrections and try again.

The question arises: is the map the terrain? Or in other words, is the theory a perfectly accurate depiction of the reality? The pure answer is: of course not. The pragmatic answer is: who cares?! As long as the map gets you to where you want to go, it’s good enough.

These were all men, of course. Women attending “viewing parties” in Orthodox neighborhoods.

According to The Verge, the message was basically “Internet? Bad!”

The main thrust of the meeting, as espoused by spokesperson Eytan Kobre, was to identify and guard against the major threats posed by the internet, primary among them being ready access to pornography, which “has reached epidemic proportions” and is “eating away the fabric of society.” It’s difficult to agree with Mr. Kobre’s sweeping conclusions that broken marriages, violence against women, and social disintegration can all be blamed on some nudity and over-aggressive comments sections online, but he goes on to raise some salient points later in the article. He notes that as we’ve grown more connected online, we’re also becoming more distant in person, replacing conversation with “tweeting and twittering.”

What’s interesting is that the whole affair seems to have been one big commercial, or possibly a huge case of affinity fraud:

According to The New York Times, the meeting was sponsored by a rabbinical group that is connected to a software company specializing in selling web filtering software to Orthodox Jews. You won’t be surprised to find, therefore, that the conclusion reached at the end of the rally was that we should all, Jews or otherwise, install internet filtering software on our machines as a “minimal base line of protection.”

I’d be curious to find out if an Orthodox Jewish web filter would block an atheist site. Because, you know, all the bacon jokes we make.

Via Open Culture

[...] please stop labeling the other side of the argument as “hate speech” and bigotry. It’s not. It is a working out of deep convictions and a particular understanding of sexuality as a good gift from a good Creator, to be used within certain boundaries.

I originally responded with a riff off a previous post, because I’m not convinced that these “deep convictions” are anything more than unreflective conservatism combined with some proof texting. But I really like Ari Kohen’s response to a Glenn Loury and Ann Althouse bloggingheads talk:

Religions aren’t monolithic; if people really are involved in deep spiritual reflection on the matter of homosexuality, then they will surely be able to find an interpretation of their religious texts that allows for the kind of evolution that President Obama described. This doesn’t mean I’m not serious about practicing Judaism; it means I’m serious about finding a way to reconcile my belief in the teachings of Judaism with my belief that people should be treated equally. But, obviously, one must actually have both of these beliefs.

What do we call someone who either fails to consider the alternative teaching of his or her religion or rejects that teaching because it doesn’t lead to continued condemnation of gays and lesbians, someone — in other words — who doesn’t actually have both a religious belief and a belief in equality?

With apologies to Loury and Althouse, I think I have to call it bigotry.

I really like this response, because it recognizes that religions are variegated things that allow the individual more control than most folks acknowledge. We’re fond of treating religion as something you’re born into and stuck with barring deconversion. We don’t often talk about the streams of tradition within the religion that an individual must accept or reject.

Look around you: in our culture the chances are you’re going to see someone who is a Christian but holds to different interpretations of what Christianity means. Every sect has a tradition that explains how they’ve come to understand their religion the way they do. Every permutation has an argument as to why their tradition is legitimate. And this is fractal: every community has within it different streams of tradition that emphasis and interpret the components differently.

Perhaps you’re an evangelical who places high importance on the words of the Bible. But why do you take this passage at face value, while interpreting that passage in its historical context? Why is this verse intended only for that time and place while that verse is immortal and internal? Why do you interpret this passage in light of that passage instead of the other way around?

More ink has been spilled writing biblical commentaries than writing Bibles. Many of these interpretations are reasonable and the arguments sensible. How do you decide which is the “right” interpretation? Different members of your community have honestly looked and yet come to differing conclusions.

Kohen offers one way out of this mess: certain principles are non-negotiable. With Kohen, one of these principles is that all humans are equal. If you’re thinking leads you to the conclusion that some people have rights that others do not have, then it’s time to think again.

This is an old, old method. Rabbi Hillel is supposed to have said that the golden rule is the core of the law, and that all the rest is commentary. If your interpretation of the law leads you towards treating someone in a way that you would find hateful if the situation were reversed, then your interpretation is wrong. Supposedly his followers expanded this to say that the love of one’s neighbor is the core of the law, and any interpretation that leads you away from that love is flawed.

This should be natural for Christians, since Jesus spelled out the two most important commandments in Matthew 22:36-41, one of which was to love your neighbor as yourself. If your interpretation of the Bible leads you towards treating your neighbor as if their love, vows and relationships are less real than your own, then – as we say on the interwebs – “ur doin’ it wrong.”

And, as Kohen concluded, if your only guiding principle seems to be that gays are icky and less than equal with heterosexuals, then we have to conclude that your principles are bigoted. No matter how prayerfully and deeply you hold to a bigoted principle, it does not stop being bigoted, nor do you.

As long as we’re talking about “marriage” we’re going to continue to see a stalemate on this issue as those who believe in a traditional, biblical view of sexuality and those who want the basic rights afforded to others all around them each refuse to give an inch.

So what’s the solution?

The State needs to get out of the “marriage” business. It should recognize that as long as it uses that term, and continues to privilege certain types of relationships over others this issue is going to divide us as a nation, and is only going to become more and more contentious. We need to move towards the system used in many European countries where the State issues nothing but civil unions to anyone who wants them, and then those who desire it may seek a marriage from the Church.

Let me be clear that I don’t oppose this suggestion. There are problems, like the fact that “civil unions” are not treated as equal to marriage. We might be able to fix some of that with legislation, but I suspect the lingering taint of “not real marriage” will persist for generations.

But for other reasons as well I’m reluctant to accept such a compromise. Part of my response has to include a little history. Here’s a snippet from Gary Wills:

The early church had no specific rite for marriage. This was left up to the secular authorities of the Roman Empire, since marriage is a legal concern for the legitimacy of heirs. When the Empire became Christian under Constantine, Christian emperors continued the imperial control of marriage, as the Code of Justinian makes clear. When the Empire faltered in the West, church courts took up the role of legal adjudicator of valid marriages. But there was still no special religious meaning to the institution. As the best scholar of sacramental history, Joseph Martos, puts it: “Before the eleventh century there was no such thing as a Christian wedding ceremony in the Latin church, and throughout the Middle Ages there was no single church ritual for solemnizing marriage between Christians.”

Only in the twelfth century was a claim made for some supernatural favor (grace) bestowed on marriage as a sacrament. By the next century marriage had been added to the biblically sacred number of seven sacraments. Since Thomas Aquinas argued that the spouses’ consent is the efficient cause of marriage and the seal of intercourse was the final cause, it is hard to see what a priest’s blessing could add to the reality of the bond. And bad effects followed. This sacralizing of the natural reality led to a demoting of Yahwist marriage, the only kind Jesus recognized, as inferior to “true marriage” in a church.

The church fathers ranged from men who thought that marriage was a lesser good than celibacy (St. Augustine) and those who thought it a lesser evil than fornication (St. Jerome). Most seemed to agree with St. Paul that “It is well for a man not to touch a woman.” (1.Cor 7:1)

The Church came to marriage late and grudgingly. Only in the twelfth century did Aquinas add an Aristotelian spin on marriage and make it a sacrament. Note that this is not a biblical argument but a natural law argument. Protestant founders like Luther and Calvin seemed to reject it when they left marriage as a civil institution.

Which raises the question: exactly what claim does Hyatt think Christianity has over a civil institution that predates the religion, and which the religion resisted for centuries?

So here’s a counteroffer for Hyatt: let’s leave “marriage” as a civil institution. It has an extremely long history of being a civil institution, and for most of its history the Christian church was happy to leave it as such. Perhaps the Church could use a more theologically loaded word like “covenant,” since that already has some legitimacy among conservatives.

This is a serious suggestion. Conservatives have claimed the word “covenant” as a way of reclaiming of the idea of marriage from the 15 min. in Las Vegas variety. Unlike civil unions, covenants will not be tainted as a kind of marriage lite. It stands a much better chance of working for everybody than the original compromise.

They could learn a lesson from that old time religion, Christianity, where instead of just shouting at people, like John the Baptist did (and look what happened to him), St Paul professed to become all things to all men in order to win souls to his cause. Eventually, that strategy made Christianity the majority faith of the Roman empire.

I’ve run across these ideas about Paul before, and I thought I’d use this as an excuse to complicate them a bit.

John, Jesus and Paul

Let’s get the first part out of the way. According to tradition, John the Baptist and Paul both met the same fate: beheading as a punishment for troubling the authorities. And according to most historical Jesus scholars, John the Baptist played mentor to Jesus, so you can’t say he never accomplished anything. Any comparison has to accept that John started the movement that Paul found so inspiring.

Hoffman alludes to 1 Corinthians and Paul’s claim to be “all things to all men.” But accepting that at face value causes a problem when you run into one of Paul’s testy moments. For example, in Galatians we get to see Paul when his authority has been questioned.

Paul insisted that he derived his authority solely from God – no scholar’s modesty here. He prayed that “If any one is preaching to you a gospel contrary to that which you received [from me], let him be accursed.” And cursed “I wish those who unsettle you would mutilate themselves!” Since his opponents were arguing for circumcision, this is sometimes translated as a wish that they’d ‘finish the job’ and castrate themselves. Fun guy.

Rather than being a flexible teacher, Paul had a very touchy pride that appears to have led to rifts between himself and the rest of the movement. His preaching led to a near riot in Ephesus (Acts 19:21-41), which the author of Acts attempts to explain away as caused by the base motives of the pagans, but which was more likely caused by the perception that Paul was dishonoring the patron Goddess Artemis.

Constantine

Then there’s the question of how much Paul accomplished. This question is hard to answer, because we have no reliable numbers from the period. Most of the traditional estimates come from Christian sources that were written very late. Some estimate that 10% of the Roman population was Christian by the time of Constantine.

There are problems with that number. 10% is also an estimate as to the number of Jews in the Empire. We have a great deal of archaeological evidence for the presence of Jews, including artwork and synagogues. In comparison, we have scant archaeological evidence for the presence of Christians.

This has led some historians, notably Peter Brown and Kenneth Harl(*), to suggest that Christians never spread as widely or as deeply as once thought. Whatever Paul’s successes as a missionary, his converts mainly stayed within the Jewish communities. The Neronian persecution put the brakes on future missionary work, and Christianity remained a minority of the Jewish minority until Constantine

If Brown and his colleagues are right then Constantine’s role is absolutely vital. There are many people who shaped early Christianity, like Paul, Ignatius and Origen. Without their influence Christianity may have survived, but it seems unlikely that it would become a world religion. However, without Constantine and the powers of the emperor, there is no real question: Christianity would have remained an afterthought.

So what can we atheists learn from “old time religion”? I suppose the lesson is that it doesn’t matter how cranky and controversial you are. If one of your converts holds absolute power, then your success is assured. I’m not sure how this lesson is useful, but there it is.

(*) Arguments here drawn for Kenneth W. Harl’s Teaching Company lectures, “Fall of the Pagans and the Origins of Medieval Christianity.”

I grew up in North Carolina, the state currently at the center of this argument. My problem with this picture is that the creator assumes that most folks now accept interracial marriage. From my experience, the opposition isn’t dead, it’s merely gotten quiet.

One thing: it’s a truism that funerals are for the living. From my perspective, funerals exist to help the survivors come to grips with the gap that has opened up in their lives.

Different people will need different things as they learn to cope with the death of a loved one. But I have a hard time understanding the role of the southern baptist ceremony I just saw. All the talk about heaven and the repeated bouts of evangelism seem to me to miss the point. None of it helps close the hole that now exists.

(As an aside, I think that if Rabbi Hillel had been a Baptist, he would have stood on one leg are recited John 3:16 and the Great Commission, then proclaimed that all the rest of the Bible was commentary. I’m an atheist, but sometimes I think I get more from the Bible than they do.)

Madalyn Murray O’Hair got in trouble once when one of her supporters suggested that an atheist funeral was a contradiction. Chuck the body in a hole and go on. This strikes me a foolish and blind. The psychological issues that exist are very real and have to be dealt with, and where better to start than a funeral?

And honestly, I don’t think that religion helps deal with the problems nearly as well as many believers insist. More often than not it simply changes the subject. Perhaps the deceased is in heaven, but I’m still alive and I have to keep on living. How do I cope?

Which raises the question: what would a truly atheist funeral look like?

The death of my grandfather, combined with some medical problems among the rest of my family, mean that I’m going to have to take some time off to deal with family matters. I’m not likely to be near a computer for the next week.

If the silence gets too much, you can use the time to write a guest post of your own. You can submit your posts to: vorjack.unreasonablefaith@gmail.com

Thanks folks. Back in a week or so.

Vorjack

Back when I was a wee little vorjack, my grandfather would always tell me Jack stories. These were little folk stories common in the southern appalachians.

Some Jack stories have fairy tale elements: kings, giants and dragons. You’re probably familiar with Jack the Giant Killer or Jack and the Beanstalk. My grandfather’s stories were always more mundane. They were stripped down Horatio Alger stories; no so much rags-to-riches as rags-to-financial-self-sufficiency.

The typical story had a small young man named Jack out in search of his fortune. Along the way he would have to outwit his larger, oafish older brothers (Will and Tom traditionally) and get cheated by a prosperous but conniving farmer. He would eventually outmaneuver the farmer with some clever wit or some homespun common sense, marry the farmer’s daughter and become prosperous.

Now open your bible to the story of young Jacob, about Genesis 25:24 to about Genesis 30:43. Jacob is a small young man out in search of his fortune. But first he must outwit his larger, oafish older brother (Essau) and he’ll get cheated by a prosperous but conniving farmer, his uncle Laban. Eventually Jacob outmaneuvers Laban with some clever animal husbandry, marries both of the farmer’s daughters and becomes prosperous.

Tricking the Trickster

The parallels are interesting. Both Jack and Jacob are archetypal trickster characters. And when the trickster is your hero, you can’t just have him launch into his pranks. The other guy has to start it. And so, Jack and Jacob get taken.

In Jack stories, this frequently involves squeezing more work out of the poor boy. In one story I remember, the conniving farmer orders Jack to plow until he can no longer see. Once the sun goes down Jack starts to unhitch the mules, only to turn around and find the farmer handing him a lantern. Once the lantern has burned out the sun is starting to rise. Keep plowing, boy.

Poor Jacob works for his uncle for seven years so that he can marry Laban’s daughter Rachel. Finally, on the day of the wedding, Jacob lifts the veil and finds the Laban has switched Rachel with his other daughter Leah. Ha! Sorry, Jacob, you got the wrong daughter. Seven more years of work if you still want the other one.

(You may notice that the women are practically non-entities in these stories. That’s the proof that they’re stories for young boys, for whom girls are still alien creatures.)

Brains over Brawn, Looks and Money

Eventually, the trickster wins by outsmarting his rival. In another Jack story, the conniving farmer is despairing the number of suitors after his daughter. In frustration. he tells his daughter that he’ll throw a dance, and whoever she’s dancing with at the end will be her husband.

Jack overhears, and convinces the other suitors that he just saw the daughter eating ramps (wild garlic) and that if they were going to get close to her they’d better eat ramps as well. While the other suitors are chowing down on ramps, Jack chomps on some breath mints that he’d palmed earlier. When the dance occurs, the daughter – who was sensible enough to have never touched a ramp – cannot tolerate the breath of any suitor except Jack.

The idea that eating ramps can protect you from the smell of ramps is a questionable bit of folk wisdom. (in my experience, the only thing that works is moving to another state.) But our boy Jacob uses an even less likely bit of ancient wisdom to make his fortune.

It stems from an agreement between Jacob and Laban: Jacob would watch Laban’s flocks, and in return Jacob would get to keep those sheep that were spotted and speckled. Sneaky Laban tried to cheat, by removing all the speckled sheep from his flock before Jacob could even begin. Where would Jacob’s wages come from now?

Jacob decided that is there were no speckled sheep in the flock, then he’d make his own. In the ancient world, it was believed that a baby would be affected by what the mother was looking at during the moment of conception. So Jacob took branches and cuts strips of bark off, making them striped and speckled. He placed the branches near the watering trough where the sheep would breed. And so many striped and speckled lambs were born, and Jacob’s fortune began to grow.

Just Another Tall Tale

So where exactly do these parallels come from? Barring a time machine, the most obvious answer is that the storytellers took the Jacob story as a model. But the men from the region I’ve met were not the sort to look to the Bible for bedtime stories. Religion is a sober thing, not a source of entertainment.

I kind of like the idea that there’s just something natural and intuitive about the shape of the story. When telling stories to a young grandson, what better hero than a strapping young lad. I like the idea that men have been telling such stories to sons and grandsons for over 2,500 years.

Unfortunately, my own grandfather is no longer telling these stories. He died last weekend, after long life, and surrounded by friends and family. He left behind a sprawling family, a hundred whittled toys, the lingering smell of pipe tobacco and fragments of stories like the ones above. I can no longer remember more than a few bits and pieces, but I hope that there are others who are passing down the old Jack stories, along with the love of a story well told.