I was in a hospital last night (don’t worry; my visit wasn’t for health reasons), and I walked by the chapel and noticed it was closed. Although I’m sure it was merely closed for cleaning or basic maintenance, the sign they chose to keep people out was rather humorous. Danger!
The chapel was right outside the GICU—you know, where people die.
About a year ago University of Nebraska-Omaha student Jennifer Lassley published a graduate paper in International Social Science Review titled “A Defective Covenant: Abandonment of Faith among Jewish Survivors of the Holocaust.” This paper popped up in an EBSCOhost search a few weeks ago, and I downloaded it and added it to my queue, where it remained until recently. Finally reading it, I feel her paper is remarkable because it tackles difficult questions in a short, concise document. How do Jews reconcile the problem of evil? To what extent did the Holocaust shape Jewishness? What do survivors have to say? And so on. Classic history paper. I don’t think I can reflect on every point she makes, so I’ll be addressing her work in a general context—with a few more defined points here and there.
Intro and Methods
Lassley is vague about her methodology (more on that in the discussion) but, from what I can gather, it’s an impressive research project, especially for a graduate student. Essentially, she pieces together a historical narrative of European Jewishness immediately before and during subsequent decades following the Holocaust. In doing so she helps us understand how Judaism has changed—often to reject the concept of god—when it was forced to acknowledge the Problem of Evil.
In order to carry out her research, Lassley consulted the Visual History Archive at the Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education at the University of Southern California, which, in her words, contains “107,000 hours of video documentation of roughly 52,000 [Jewish Holocaust] eyewitness interviews conducted during the mid to late 1990s” (p. 2).
A Sample of Narratives and Biblical Promises
Lassley offers several Jewish Holocaust survivor narratives that show how the brutality of the Holocaust shaped Jewish theology, forcing many Jews to renounce belief in an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-benevolent god. This rejection of the divine, Lassley writes, is not merely a product of brutality alone, however. She reminds us the Jews were offered a covenant with god, a covenant that was broken when god allowed the systemic annihilation of their people.
She exemplifies this concept with the following quote by Holocaust survivor Jim Burakiewicz: “Very often I think that the Lord could choose somebody else for the next 2,000 years so that we can have a little bit of peace. I don’t feel privileged just because I’m Jewish. I don’t feel exceptional. I suffered a hell of a lot just because I’m Jewish” (quoted on p. 8). Jim’s statement, she writes, underscores not only a rejection of guiding supernatural agency; it also underscores a rejection of the idea of Judaism. According to Jim, he’s a human being first, second, and last.
Another remarkable quote comes from Max Feig who struggled to understand why children suffered: “I saw what they did with small children. Big children, big people are sinners. Okay? They’re punished. What is a small child of four, five, six years, what sin can they have that they must be killed?” (quoted on p. 10). Max eventually lost his faith, unable to reconcile the problem with god’s absence during the slaughter of children.
Takeaway
Lassley helps us explain the phenomenon of Jewish atheism. She writes, “For [Jewish atheists], the horrors of genocide have provided a transformational vessel toward the abandonment of faith. Their tragic journey epitomizes an edifying addition to the spectrum of Jewish identity” (p. 15). In other words, facing unrelenting barbarism is sufficient—at least in the European Jewish context—to philosophically reject god, yet still hold onto the idea of being Jewish.
Discussion
First, I want to get some administrative matters out of the way. Lassley’s paper is sort of disjointed. I’m used to highly structured papers with headers and sub-headers. Her paper runs seamlessly, which probably works in history departments. But I don’t like having to guess what her hypothesis, methods, and conclusions are. But those are issues that do not detract from what she has to say. I was particularly confused by her methodology. She cites 107,000 hours of filmed Holocaust survivor interviews, but clearly she didn’t watch ~4,500 days worth of film to research this paper. How did she choose which interviews to watch? Or did she read transcriptions and sort for keywords? I don’t know. I wish she’d told us.
Something else hit me when reading this. The idea of Jewish atheism being a product of the Holocaust stands in direct contrast with Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart’s study, which shows us how religion is robust when existential security is low; when it’s high, religion fades to secular ideas. Of course, this in no way implies Lassley is mistaken. Perhaps in an environment where existential security is essentially zero, faith cannot sustain. In this case we might see faith increase as we work backwards from the concentration camps to the beginning of European antisemitism. Indeed, if I read her paper correctly, it appears that this is an implied argument she was attempting to make. In this sense there is no contradiction between these two studies; they are merely looking at different starting points.
Finally, Lassley is very honest about the limits of her research. For example, she acknowledges that memory is not precise. And using personal anecdotes can be problematic. She writes, “Although the personal accounts of survivors are abundant and often quite detailed, anecdotal source material must always be utilized with caution. Indeed, human memory is of better service to anthropological, sociological, and philosophical analysis, rather than historicity” (p. 2). In other words, Lassley is reminding you that her paper should not be viewed as gospel.
This post is part of my Science Sundays series.
Yesterday I read a post by Hemant Mehta, or, as most people know him, the Friendly Atheist, and I’m surprised to say this is the first atheist article I’ve ever read that I’m offended by.
The article reflects on Tracy Morgan’s very recent first interview since his accident that left him brain damaged and severely injured. I’m a big fan of Morgan’s comedy, so I’ve been following this case since it first developed. I watched the interview on Yahoo News, and when Mehta’s article popped up in my news feed, I eagerly clicked it, assuming Mehta was merely writing an article to express heartfelt relief that an icon such as Morgan was—at least—recovered enough to make a media appearance. Despite Mehta’s atheist blog handle, this was not merely wishful thinking. Mehta has made other non-atheist-related posts in the past.
Instead I was upset to learn that Mehta did indeed make an atheist-themed post.
He writes:
During the segment with Matt Lauer, Morgan thanked lots of people involved in his recovery: The doctor, the nurses, his family, the police, the passers-by on the side of the road who stopped to help him out, his drivers, the people piloting the helicopter that took him to the hospital, etc.
Never once did he mention God.
This is true. I’ve watched the interview, but I’ve also shed a tear or two after watching it. Unfortunately, Mehta’s post focussed entirely on the absence of god in Morgan’s statement, instead of what the interview was truly about.
Morgan becomes visually shaken from the mere mention of his good friend James McNair, AKA Uncle Jimmy Mack, who died during the collision. The interview is very difficult to watch. You can tell he’s trying in vain to get past the tragedy of losing a friend and get back to his one true love in life—being a comedian.
The fact that god is never mentioned is irrelevant to me. Even if he had thanked god for his (presently) partial recovery, to me that would’ve had no impact on the meaning of this interview. Tracy Morgan, with or without god, is opening himself to us—scars, cain and all—for the first time in a year to give us hope, even in the face of personal tragedy. I really don’t see how we should—or even could—take Morgan’s interview and put it into any other context than the way Morgan himself presented it.
Prior to publishing this article I contacted Mehta to express my grievance. He wrote back with permission to quote him. I think his response is remarkable and redeeming so I’m publishing it in its entirety.
Thanks for the email and opportunity to respond. (Most people don’t do that, so I really appreciate it.) Feel free to quote me however you see fit.
I’m sorry if the post came across as insensitive or callous. I definitely didn’t mean it that way. When I first saw the interview, I think I felt the same way you did. I was thrilled to see Morgan back in front of a camera and on his way to recovery.
I don’t usually get emotional during these kind of things, but as he spoke, I stopped everything else I was doing and just listened. Hearing him talk about the loss of his friend, the people who gave him strength, and how he hopes to get back into comedy soon was very encouraging. (Heck, even his lawyer seemed like a decent guy instead of just some paid mouthpiece!)
It wasn’t until hours later, when a reader pointed out the lack of God in his statement, that the omission even registered. I’ve seen a lot of interviews with people following really heartbreaking tragedies and it’s almost commonplace for them to mention/thank God. Following the tornado in Oklahoma a couple of years ago, Wolf Blitzer asked Rebecca Vitsmun if she attributed her family’s survival to God… her response of “I’m actually an atheist” went viral, I believe, precisely because she didn’t give the answer we’ve come to expect.
That’s why it seemed worth mentioning that Morgan did something similar. He thanked so many people — rightfully so — and left out God, which a lot of others in his situation wouldn’t have done. I’m not sure what his religious background is, but I thought others might appreciate that bit of information.
So I completely understand why you’d say his omission is irrelevant. It honestly wouldn’t have bothered me if he did thank God, maybe because that what I just expect people in his situation to do. It’s kind of like the President not wearing a flag pin — it’s really not a big deal if he doesn’t wear it, but you know people are going to notice. Perhaps in the rush of the moment, I just wanted to be among the first to point it out, and in the process, I neglected to share a lot of the more serious things about the interview that I’m telling you now. Those things didn’t go unnoticed, but they didn’t get mentioned in the post. Sometimes, I’m guilty of trying to find atheism in stories that don’t necessarily warrant it.
I will defend pointing out the omission, but I could’ve been more careful in how I presented it. Certainly, the fact that he didn’t mention God wasn’t anywhere close to the biggest thing anyone should’ve taken from the interview. If I blew that bit out of proportion, you’re right to call me out on it. I’ll try to do better in the future.
— Hemant
I don’t have to remind you of this, but we’re all going to die. Some of us sooner than others. In fact the odds are essentially 100% that we’ll all be dead in 100 years. Every last one of us. This knowledge is—as far as we know—distinctly human and also distinctly terrifying. Thinking about our own mortality is not something we enjoy doing, and I’d assume most of us go out of our way to avoid thinking about it. And when things make us think about death, we tend to avoid those things too, even if they’re other human beings. This phenomenon is called Terror Management Theory. Such is the theme of the latest study into anti-atheist prejudice.
In the online April 2015 early release of Social Psychological and Personality Science, researchers Corey L. Cook, Florette Cohen, and Sheldon Solomon published “What If They’re Right About the Afterlife? Evidence of the Role of Existential Threat on Anti-Atheist Prejudice.” They attempt to determine to what extent atheists pose an existential threat to religious people in terms of the realization that death is inevitable. In other words, do atheists make people think about death? And does this cause them to feel threatened by atheists?
Results
Cook, et al, conduct two studies “to establish that existential concerns contribute to anti-atheist sentiments” (abstract).
In the first experiment the results show “that people have generally negative impressions, accompanied by high levels of distrust, of atheists,” which supports previous posts I’ve done on anti-atheist prejudice. Moreover, however, the results indicate “participants became more negative, more distant, and more distrustful of atheists after reflecting on their own mortality” (p. 5).
In the second experiment the researchers find “just thinking about atheism increased implicit death thought accessibility to the same level as a traditional MS [morality salience] induction” (p. 5). In other words, thinking about atheism caused the test subjects to think about death, which, in turn, it can be argued, expounded the results in the first experiment. The researchers put it this way: “Experiment 1 showed that atheists were also perceived as more untrustworthy following an MS induction” (p. 6).
Discussion
At first glance it seems the answers we’ve gotten over several weeks about anti-atheist prejudice offer us contradictory findings. On the one hand, previous research (especially by Gervais, et al) indicates a cultural attitude towards atheists as not trustworthy. On the other hand, this research suggests anti-atheist prejudice can be explained using “an existential psychodynamic perspective” (p. 5). Cook, et al, point out that these findings are disparate merely because the approaches are disparate. When we account for that we can begin to see how Gervais’ and Cook’s findings complement each other. That is, from a cultural evolutionary standpoint, “people are particularly attuned to cues indicating untrustworthiness” (p. 5), and “atheists pose an existential challenge to central tenets of believers’ cultural worldviews, and are thus disparaged when concerns about mortality are aroused” (p. 5-6).
We might say that the afterlife is a rather important feature in some societies. When non-belief is considered it stands in contrast with this social feature and elicits distrust against those who don’t share the cultural belief.
I was rather excited when I first discovered this study. During the last five parts of this literature review, distrust was a recurring theme, but it appeared to be drying out. There’s only so many ways we can study distrust, and the overlap was becoming apparent. That’s not to say the previous studies are weak—just the opposite. Similar findings across the board generally means researchers are doing something right. But the previous research can’t close all the gaps in our knowledge, so it was refreshing to find an alternate way to come to conclusions about anti-atheist prejudice. This study is remarkable to me because—prior to reading it—I had no idea people could feel existentially threatened when I speak of atheism.
Finally, although the researchers point out some interesting future research points, I feel they overlooked an important one entirely. For both experiments, their subjects are college students. Although students can range from ~18 to 100+, most fall around 20 years old or so. I’m wondering if we’d get different results if we reran the study using people over 60. Older people view death differently than younger or middle aged people. Might they be less adversely affected by thoughts of death and therefore more willing to view atheists with more acceptance and less prejudice? I don’t know, but it would be a very cool research project.
For more info on this general concept—thinking about mortality—Wikipedia has a pretty good introduction to Terror Management Theory. Because psychology is not my field of expertise, I had to read up on it prior to reading Cook’s article.
This post is part of my Sunday Science series.
A vocal minority of Christians often blame natural and man-made disasters on god’s wrath. This can be seen time and time again. Pat Robertson is a great example of the tired old “God’s angry” trope. Even recently, the Rev. Al Sharpton asked whether or not god was angry with Texas and sent heavy downpours to punish the big state. It’s nothing new… literally. This idea dates back millennia, and two thousand years ago it was used as a Pagan accusation against Christians.
First, I’d like to put first century Pagans into context. For the purpose of this post, these Pagans inhabit the proto-Christian region under Roman occupation. They worship multiple gods and call on these gods for basic survival needs. They do not believe in the salvation of the soul, nor do they necessarily believe in an afterlife. Their primary objective in worship is to satisfy the gods so that they will bring rain, help crops grow, provide personal and reproductive health, and so on. The Pagan religions, in this sense, helped people cope with lives filled with misery, drought, famine, disease, etc. When the gods were pleased with Pagan rites, such as animal sacrifice and prayer, the gods intervened and helped the Pagan survive the harshness of the first century.
You can imagine, then, how the Pagans felt when Christian groups began springing up in the Roman Empire and converting Pagans to a foreign religion!! Whenever there was a natural disaster or a famine or a disease, the Pagans blamed the Christians for angering the gods. This sometimes led to violent reactions against the Christians and—although the Roman Empire took no role in Christian persecution in the first and second centuries—Roman guards were either powerless to or uninterested in stopping it.
In other words, this idea that a divine supernatural agent becomes angry and punishes entire human societies for the misdeeds of others is not unique to a minority of vocal Christians (or any other contemporary religious followers). This idea dates back at least 2,000 years, probably much longer. What interests me, therefore, is how this idea has managed to survive for so long, even after changing and adopting new leadership. Furthermore, how has this idea survived this long when—especially in the twenty-first century—we learn everything we need to debunk this idea in high school? We can explain natural and human behavior sufficiently enough to know there are no supernatural hands causing tragedies. Yet, somehow, a few loud Christians still believe and preach this stuff.
For a conversation about this phenomenon in the early Christian context, see W.H.C Frend’s Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church (Oxford: Blackwell, 1965) and Robert Wilken’s The Christians as the Romans Saw Them (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984). Additionally, Bart D. Ehrman dedicates part of a chapter (pages 196-200) to this phenomenon in his book Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2005).
I’m driving deep South. Somewhere between Cowpens and Mobile I recognize my sleep deprivation after almost driving off the side of 65S, awoken only by the ominous du-du-du-du-du of my car careening to the right. I wake myself with a few slaps to the face and turn the radio up. There’s a Norwegian metal band playing, which is, suffice to say, sufficient (and good) noise to keep my brain going at least at minimal capacity until the next exit.
It’s around noon. I’ve been driving ten hours.
It’s been…er…very hot these last few days. Off to the West are floods, tornados, and massive storms. Here in the Southeast we’re getting remnants of those pockets of precipitation.
I pull off to the nearest gas station. It’s coupled with a 24 hour grocery store—one checkout.
There’s a black man at the pump. He doesn’t work there. Just hanging out.
“Where am I?” I ask.
“Prichard, son,” he says.
I pull out my phone. “Ah, I’m only a few miles away.”
“Uh huh.”
I’m hungry. I know Alabama’s not the best place to grab a snack for a vegan, but this gas station/grocery store looks somewhat promising. There’s a sign for a smoothie/sandwich shop in the back. I grab a basket.
As I walk down the isle, adorned in cowboy hat, blue Lennon-esque sunglasses, tattoos from sleeve to wrist, I notice the common stares, as if I’m a mafia member or something. But these stares are less-than-usual than what I’m used to in the Mid-Lant or even in the Middle East; these are objectively disapproving stares. These people dislike me for some reason.
I grab my smoothie. Peaches, bananas, and blueberries. I pick up a six pack of Red Stripe. And some kettle chips. Oh and some floss and a serving of vegetable dumplings, which were horrid. I make my way to the checkout. There’s a line. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Finally it’s my turn.
Denied.
“We listen to God’s music here,” the woman said, before turning me away.
I realized I was wearing a t-shirt with an emblem that reads: “DEVIL’S MUSIC” and has a Rob Zombie-like devil illustration on it.
I protested, and she finally agreed to take my money. But before I left I turned to her and said the most atheist thing an atheist could say to a Christian.
“Only Christ can judge me.”
I only did it to make her feel bad. Kill ’em with Christ-ness.
In the June 2015 edition of Social Currents, Jennifer L. Glass (et al) published “Leaving the Faith: How Religious Switching Changes Pathways to Adulthood among Conservative Protestant Youth.” Glass and her team—after reviewing the literature—noticed an interesting trend; white conservative Protestants “experience consistent disadvantage in the transition to adulthood…” (p. 126). Following this realization, they were left with two contrasting possibilities. 1) Does religious participation motivate conservative Protestants “to order their lives in certain ways”? or 2) “are those who order their lives by the early assumption of adult roles simply more attracted to the message and resources of Conservative Protestant organizations?” (p. 126).
These questions are the basis of their research. They test these questions by looking at religious switching. That is, they looked at adolescents who switched religions “and observe[d] their transition to adulthood using four crucial markers—completed educational attainment, age at first marriage, age at first birth, and current income” (p. 127). The results are somewhat interesting. They find that those who switch religions can mitigate some of the negative consequences of being raised in a conservative Protestant home. The results, however, were somewhat marginal.
Results
Marriage and Children
Both men and women who switched religions from conservative Protestant to mainline Protestant, Catholic, or secular were more likely to wait longer to get married and have a first child. Women who switched waited significantly longer to get married and start a family. Men who switched also waited significantly longer. Men who switched to secular (that is, no religious affiliation) waited the longest to get married and have children.
Education and Earnings
Conversely, there appears to be no advantage in education or earnings by switching from conservative Protestant to any other religion, with one exception. Men who switched earned significantly more than those who remained in a conservative Protestant religion. Within this exception, there also appears to be no distinction in education attainment for those who switched to mainline Protestantism or non-religion.
The researchers then looked at geographical distribution and noticed another exception. Non-Southern women who switch to no religion make more money than their Southern secular counterparts. Glass, et al, put it thusly: “[I]t appears that women’s earnings do benefit from religious disaffiliation, but only for those raised outside the South” (p. 138).
Summary
The findings are weaker in some areas and stronger in others. The strongest correlations appeared in marriage and having children. Switching from a conservative Protestant religion to something else correlates with a delay in getting married and having kids. On the other hand, the correlation was weaker in education and income. Switching—mostly—had no positive impacts on education and earning.
Discussion
These results seem to have surprised the research team. They were expecting more upward mobility among those who switched religions, especially for the women. They attempt to explain this and set the stage for future research by hypothesizing that choosing to get married and start a family is much easier than choosing to finish a four year degree. Therefore, “Because schooling advantages and disadvantages accumulate over time…the opportunities a student has for upward mobility narrow over the high school career…” (p. 138).
Of particular note to me was the statistically significant correlations of advantage of switching religions in some cases. For example, why are women in non-Southern states more likely to earn more money if they switch from conservative Protestant to no religion than those women in the South? An easy hypothesis would be that switching to no religion in the South carries with it social stigma that might hinder upward mobility. Of course, I don’t know the answer to this question, so that’s only a guess.
At the very end of the study the researchers point out that their findings “do not address whether other forms of religious switching produce similar delays in the assumption of adult roles or whether the results for Conservative Protestant switching are unique” (p. 140). Well, wouldn’t that be interesting to find out? While there are dozens of directions this research team or others could go in the future (and they do address several of those in their discussion), this one, to me, seems the most interesting question.
Finally and furthermore, how do these findings apply to other societies? I think it would be really neat to apply their methodology to studies that examine Europe and Oceania (more secular regions) and Africa and the Middle East (more religious regions). I don’t think we’d get results comparable to the US, and that would allow us to build stronger theoretical frameworks of how religions shape societies—and the individuals within them—and how societies shape religions.
When it comes to the historical Jesus—the question, did Jesus exist?—I’ve always been a skeptic. Although historians almost universally agree that he did exist, I’m a little more cautious about this question because there’s zero extra biblical evidence contemporary to the time that Jesus allegedly lived. This in no way implies that I claim there was no historical Jesus whose teachings paved the way for Christianity; it merely takes the position of I don’t know. And therefore I’ve always entertained this question by ignoring it.
But one of my favorite authors—an agnostic New Testament scholar—wrote a book on this topic a few years ago. I haven’t gotten around to reading Prof. Bart D. Ehrman’s Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth, mainly because he’s such a prolific writer that I don’t have time to read all of his books. But the other day I watched a video of Ehrman reading excerpts from his book at (presumably) a book signing. In this video he slams “mythicists” who reject the historicity of Jesus as nothing more than nut job conspiracy theorists, akin to those who believe the moon landing was staged. Then he makes a very compelling logical argument, which I paraphrase below. Here’s the video I’m referring to:
Ehrman makes a lot of points in this video, and I’m sure the book expands on these and others. But there’s one that is really quite brilliant.
Essentially it goes like this (it begins around the 18:30 mark): There’s no archeological evidence of Jesus or early first century writings that mention him outside the bible, but there’s also essentially zero extra biblical evidence that Pontius Pilate existed either (the only evidence of Pontius Pilate are some coins and an early first century brick bearing his name). Pilate was the Prefect of Judea (essentially the Governor), and Jesus was a Jewish peasant (I’m not using that word pejoratively; I’m using it to reflect reality). If none of the Roman or Greek authors of that time bothered to write about the Governor of Judea, why would they write about a lowly Jewish peasant? The fact that the evidence is either scant or non-existent should not lead us to believe Jesus never existed; it should merely lead us to assume he wasn’t important enough to write about.
I think this is a very good argument. It doesn’t lead us to conclude that Jesus did, in fact, exist, but it’s a very good way to nullify the mythicist view. I, myself, am still a skeptic, but that’s ok. I don’t claim the historical Jesus is a myth, and whether or not the historical Jesus existed has no bearing on my beliefs, my work, or my happiness. Personally, I don’t care if he existed or not and am more than happy to assume the position that he did exist for conversational purposes.
Now that I’ve watched this video, I’m very likely to purchase his book. I want to know the full argument for why I should believe that Jesus was a real person.
There’s a rather large flowering bush in my front yard, and right now it’s surrounded by busy, busy bees and other insects foraging for provisions. Most of these bees are large and shiny, relatively docile carpenter bees, incapable of stinging—or too preoccupied to try. They look like shiny bumble bees. I enjoy watching them up close as they interact with the bush, with each other, with me, and, surprisingly enough, not with the stray, brave honeybee that dares to venture into carpenter bee territory. This lack of territoriality struck me, and I did some reading up on carpenter bees. During my reading I heard an all-too-familiar Australian voice try to biblically defend the vast differences between carpenter bees and honey bees. Here’s a table of a few of these differences for quick comparison.
| Honey Bee | Carpenter Bee |
| Very social | Tolerates social activities, sometimes behaves anti-socially towards other carpenter bees |
| Lives in tight-knit colonies | Builds solitary or small occupancy dwellings by tunneling into wood |
| When threatened, will protect self and hive with stingers | Males have no stingers, females have stingers but rarely use them |
| Very defensive against intruders | Males are inquisitive about intruders and docile enough to let you hold them |
| Not defensive against members of its own species | Males are very aggressive against other male carpenter bees |
Now that you have these differences in mind, let’s take a refresher on the creationist argument about species variation. Here’s a quote from a creationist, John D. Morris:
The small or microevolutionary changes occur by recombining existing genetic material within the group. As Gregor Mendel observed with his breeding studies on peas in the mid 1800’s, there are natural limits to genetic change. A population of organisms can vary only so much.
They call this microevolution.
In other words, variations within a species occurs within a finite range of genetic possibilities. For example, a change in bananas over time that resulted in purple fruit would be able to occur because bananas have in their DNA the genetic information required to make purple fruit. If the change over time resulted in bananas having central nervous systems and communication systems, capable of screaming in pain when animals ate them, it could happen only if bananas already had the genetic information required to make that happen. [I add this last part because creationist arguments have this unfortunate ability to define something while leaving it open for infinite possibilities.]
Back to the carpenter bees. First, I have to get Noah’s flood out of the way. Creationists are undecided about whether or not insects made it onto the ark during the flood. Here are some links for that argument. But the Noah myth is irrelevant to the point here because bees are in the bible. They are defined as territorial, chasing after you when you get too close. They will swarm their victims and sting them with their stingers. And finally—and perhaps most importantly—they make honey. Given all of these traits, we can assume that the honey bee is what they’re talking about.
The authors of the bible don’t seem to have any knowledge about relatively friendly and docile, wood-dwelling bees that don’t sting. We might also assume that since carpenter bees are curious about humans and interact with us a great deal, creationists might say the carpenter bee came about by microevolution later on. Furthermore, most carpenter bees are distributed in Southeast Asia, the Americas, and Africa, with only one or two species living in the Middle East, which would embolden the creationist claim; the carpenter bee came about after the honey bee by migrating to different regions.
If the creationist makes this claim, however, it’s claiming some really strange things about beneficial traits. In this view the carpenter bee lost its ability to sting (in males), micro evolved from being a social species to a somewhat anti-social species, lost its natural tendency to defend itself and other bees, became docile to the point of being easy prey, and began in-fighting with other males. What the hell happened to the carpenter bee??? Well, according to microevolution.
In another view, the creationist might say the carpenter bee was around all the time; many species existed pre-flood that were never written about in the bible (they might say). They might claim they survived the flood by living in wood floating on the flooded earth. If this is the case, then they are saying god made all the different bees that sting you and are really good at defending themselves, and then turned around and said, now lets make a harmless and defenseless bee (maybe as a cruel scare prank for people who are allergic to bee stings?).
No matter how a creationist defends these differences, they have to cede that the carpenter bee is vastly different from most other bees. And non-creationists might be able to explain this difference. Well, evolution explains it perfectly, but I mean to explain why the male carpenter bee has no stinger, for example.
I hypothesize that the carpenter bee’s traits are surviving transitional forms that led to modern honey bees, bumble bees, and other social and territorial bees. This is beyond the scope of any of my areas of expertise, but I think it might be a good first guess. Maybe someday this hypothesis will be tested.
A few years ago I was on a board of directors for a non-profit organization that works for the repeal of capital punishment in my state. Last night I attended a member’s meeting for the organization to discuss the current state of the death penalty, future goals, and other organizational issues. While I understand that non-religious people are by no means necessarily opposed to the death penalty—I’d imagine our demographics mirror the demographics of our societies as a whole—I was continuously frustrated when the issue of religion came up. And it came up a lot.
First, the meeting was held at a Pentecostal Church, and was lead by a former employee of the Pro-Life department of the Catholic Diocese. The Rector of the church was also in attendance. A retired Baptist Minister, a Catholic Nun, and a prominent Quaker activist flanked the rest of us. An exonerated death row survivor who thanked god for his deliverance from execution sat beside me. In fact, in atheism I was alone. The closest thing to another atheist in attendance was a non-practicing Jew (whose son was tragically beheaded in Iraq in 2004).
Second, appeals for membership were largely divided between two non-mutually exclusive areas: 1) Church groups are a really good place to spread the message about capital punishment, and 2) we’ve had tremendous success convincing state Republican leaders to cross the isle and come out against the death penalty—especially Tea Party members, who don’t trust the government to get it right—by bringing up the issue of cost. In other words, the best ways we know of to attempt to convince people capital punishment is wrong is by appealing to religion and appealing to state coffers.
At every point in the meeting, I kept thinking about the large and growing number of secular people in my state, especially college students. But I couldn’t find a way in. Atheists and other non-religious people just don’t have the organizational robustness needed to adequately bring up a topic for discussion. Well, maybe Reddit, but it’s difficult to appeal to the emotions of people on notorious troll sites.
Like I said above, I’m aware that many non-religious people support capital punishment. This post is not to argue against it. In fact, I accept that supporting the death penalty is a matter of personal opinion, and it’s not subjected to my will. The point of this post, however, is to bring up a troubling reality in my state.
I currently live, work, and study in the south of the US. By most standards my state is the least religious southern state besides Florida. As our secular population hedges towards 20%, certain non-profit organizations, such as those opposed to capital punishment, will lose the ability to reach out to certain audiences who would otherwise support them. Catholics, Quakers, and Pentecostals are huge supporters of this movement, but if current trends hold, the effort it takes to reach out to them will increasingly provide diminishing returns.
Don’t get me wrong; I welcome the secularization of my state. It’s just that without a secular social structure to pick up the slack, secularization also carries with it some negative consequences. And I’m not entirely—or at all, really—convinced secular church-like services are the answer either.
This post is merely a reflection.
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