I Need Input from Christians: Textual Variants

Posted on May 13, 2015 by Ryren Cadora

In preparation for a short documentary film I’m making about textual variants in the Bible, I would like to pose a question aimed strictly at Christians—both Catholic and Protestant—and ex-Christians. People of other religions and non-ex-Christian atheists (et al) are welcome to comment, but your answers lie outside the scope of this project.

The question is simply this:

Are you familiar with the textual variants of the New Testament, particularly the Gospels?

If you want to answer this question, feel free to comment and say a little something about yourself: Religion, familiarity with textual variations, and perhaps a defense.

For reasons I cannot explain, the discussion about textual variants appears to have mostly faded away in recent centuries, despite no good reconciliation. So I’d like to hear what contemporary personal theology has to say about this.

Wikipedia thankfully has a relatively robust introduction to the subject at this link, if you’re interested in the topic.

The problem can be summed up like this: If we do not know what the scriptures originally said due to copy error and intentional manipulation, how can be be certain we understand Christianity?

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The Islamic State and the Obsolescence of Terrorism (SS#16)

Posted on May 10, 2015 by Ryren Cadora

When terrorism enters the repertoire of contention, it does so attached to a socially ticking clock. As is often the case, the clock begins its countdown well before newly emerging terror groups begin their bloody campaigns. The Islamic State (IS) and Boko Harum (BH), for example, emerged as terror groups decades after the idea of religious terrorism began*. This means, among other things, that IS and BH have been enjoying gains that began diminishing before many of their members were born. In other words, while IS has enjoyed impressive victories by engaging in a terror campaign, it might not be long before religious terror slips into obsolescence. When this happens, religious terror will still be a means to an end, but it will be completely meaningless. And once this happens, IS and other religious terror groups will either collapse under their own weight or have to adapt to more socially acceptable methods.

The basis beneath this idea is not mine. Indeed, David C. Rapoport conceptualized this theory in 2002 with his “The Four Waves of Modern Terrorism.” In it, he identifies four waves of modern terrorism: the anarchist wave (1880s), the anti colonial wave (1920s), the New Left wave, and finally the religious wave. Each wave lasted a generation and, at their inception, was at least moderately successful. But the elements were—at least in the case of the first three waves—not in those groups’ favor. Rapoport writes, “Resistance, political concessions, and changes in the perceptions of generations are critical factors in explaining the disappearance [of the waves]” (p. 48).

We don’t have to spend a lot of time on the first two variables. But I can mention some key points. “Resistance” is quite important. When religious terror arises, we might expect a reactionary force, particularly because the target audience of terrorism is often other religions. “Political concessions” leaves little to be explained. When terror groups enter the realm of politics, they are often unable to do so while still killing innocent people. The third variable, however, is extraordinarily important to understand the phenomenon of the emerging obsolescence of terrorism.

“Changes in the perceptions of generations” is the evolution of social attitudes of terrorism. While initially a social civilian group might benefit from and accept the use of terror against—say—an occupying force, subsequent generations might be repulsed by the idea of indiscriminate killing of innocent civilians. Indeed, it’s highly unlikely they won’t be repulsed. When the idea of terror loses its appeal—and, more importantly, becomes the focus of social accusation—the idea is unlikely to survive into the next generation. More on this below.

The Fifth Wave?

IS’s brand of religious terrorism is nothing new. It’s been around for ~35 years and has spanned roughly a generation. Although Islam is the main purveyor of religious terrorism, its techniques have also been employed by Christians, Buddhists, and—to a lesser extent (mainly due to population size)—Jewish protestors. For reasons I don’t seek to explain, however, fighters in the name of Islam are the main culprits when news of international terror is displayed on the television.

IS, on the other hand, and Boko Harum present features unique to previous terror groups. For example, Anthony N. Celso writes in “The Islamic State and Boko Haram: Fifth Wave Jihadist Terror Groups,” that “The traditional preference to analyze Islamist groups from a rational perspective may be misplaced” (p. 251), drawing comparisons between IS and BH and Islamist terror regimes that were not necessarily rational actors. If IS and BH cannot be explained by the 4th wave, then is there another way to explain them?

Celso writes that Jeffrey Kaplan’s fifth wave “refines David Rappaport’s [sic] four wave theory of modern terrorism” (p. 251), which states that “terrorist waves are short lived as each cycle dissipates due to a combination of internal weakness, generational change and external pressures” (p. 252). Kaplan’s fifth wave, Celso writes, consists of 17 distinct hallmarks, which can be found here. In other words, IS and BH exist at least somewhat (if not mostly) outside the scope of Rapoport’s fourth wave of terrorism. A fifth wave is necessary, Celso writes, to explain the Islamic State and Boko Harum.

A fifth wave could, unfortunately, mean another generation of terror.

But History Should Still Look Poorly Upon the Fifth Wave

Whether or not IS and BH represent the waning cycle within the 4th wave or the waxing cycle within a 5th, history has never supported terrorist regimes, particularly Islamist regimes. Celso reminds us of this; al Qaeda, the Armed Islamic Group (GIA), and al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) (for some examples) collapsed under their own weight when they became terroristic. He writes (p. 268):

[I]nexorably [AQI and GIA] resorted to religious brutality, creating countervailing forces (popular revulsion, internal rebel dissension and external resistance) that led to their later implosion.

In other words, simply by transforming a religious group into a terroristic group, they create impossible obstacles to overcome. Although the initial success of brutality seems a compelling reason to continue using it, brutality cannot be sustained for longer than a generation—if history tells us anything.

Boko Harum and the Islamic State can claim a short-lived victories because of their ability to repel government forces and stake a claim on the monopoly of violence in certain areas, but it’s unlikely they’ll survive the internal, external, and popular resistance to their methods. Celso puts it bluntly in the conclusion: “the odds are against Boko Harum and the Islamic State” (p. 268).

—

*The oft-cited year for the emergence of religious terrorism is 1979, during the Soviet Occupation of Afghanistan. On the other hand, religious terrorism—even suicide terrorism—has existed for millennia. See Robert Pape Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism (2005).

This post is part of my Science Sunday series.

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Will the Islamic State Succeed?

Posted on May 9, 2015 by Ryren Cadora

This is a question I’ll be attempting to answer tomorrow. The Islamic State appears to have a lot of small and immediate victories under its belt, thanks to its willingness to use terror as its primary—if not only—weapon. In order to answer this, it might be helpful to understand IS’s goals: The return of the Caliphate and the implementation of Sharia law in order to avoid Western influence. Of course, it’s goals could be anything at all. The main point is we understand that they have goals. Knowing what they are helps us do that. Now, I want you to make a list in your head of how many terror campaigns you can think of where terrorist groups not only achieved their goals, but also sustained them. I’m not talking about terror acts that might or might not have been successful; I’m talking about groups that achieved their long-term goals and sustained them amid popular resistance, the emergence of diplomatic pressures, and external reactionary forces (i.e., foreign militaries). I think you’ll find it rather impossible to think of even one example, no matter how far back in history you go.

Tomorrow I will explain what difference a generation makes.

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Cognitive Bias towards Design: Atheists Are Not Immune (SS#15)

Posted on May 3, 2015 by Ryren Cadora

“How can you not believe in creation?” a creationist might ask. “Just look at the stars and birds and fish. Evidence of creation is all around us.” Statements such as these have been repeatedly debunked, yet they persist as if they are naturally ingrained in human cognition. But perhaps creationists can be forgiven for this cognitive bias because, as a recent study suggests, even atheists — when pressured to make split second decisions whether or not a phenomenon is natural or manmade — see design in places where it doesn’t exist.

In the July 2015 edition of Cognition, researchers Elisa Järnefelt (et al) published an article titled “The divided mind of a disbeliever: Intuitive beliefs about nature as purposefully created among different groups of non-religious adults.” In it they conduct three photograph-based studies to examine “the roles of cognition and culture in adults’ recurrent and persistent tendency to view living and non-living natural phenomena as intentionally created” (p. 83).

Findings

Study 1

In the first study researchers examined both religious and non-religious North American participants. When shown pictures of natural phenomena, religious participants were more likely to attribute natural phenomena with purposeful design than non-religious participants; however, when non-religious participants were pressured to answer whether or not a natural phenomenon was purposefully designed within a certain amount of time (the “speeded task”), the non-religious increasingly noticed design where there was none. In other words, when you throw reason out the window, you’re more likely to make faulty assumptions.

Study 2

The researchers then duplicated study 1, this time using only North American atheists. The results were as expected. Atheists were more likely to incorrectly attribute natural phenomena to design when their decisions were constrained by time.

The researchers add (p. 80):

[I]nterestingly, even though North American atheist participants in Study 2 showed significantly lower creation endorsement than North American non-religious participants in Study 1, they still demonstrated a tendency to increasingly default to a view of both living and non-living nature as purposefully created when forced to rely on automatic reasoning processes.

Study 3

Finally, the researchers duplicated studies 1 and 2 using only Finnish atheists. It should be noted that Finland is considerably less religious than North America. Study 3, therefore, acts as a control group (p. 74). The results of study 3 are consistent with both previous studies. Finnish atheists are more likely to make faulty assumptions about agency when unable to use reason.

Discussion

The results of these studies support the researchers’ dual process hypothesis. In other words, our ability to differentiate between natural and designed phenomena can occur as the result of either conscious or unconscious processes. When time is of the essence, we — even atheists — are more likely to assume intentional agency when there is no intentional agency. That is (p. 73),

[G]iven the existence of reliably early-developing cognitive abilities and tendencies to reason about intentional agents and purposefully designed objects, all individuals continue to possess heightened implicit receptivity to religious ideas throughout life…

Atheism, in this sense, is the product of an ability to overcome natural cognitive biases that assume supernatural agencies are behind natural phenomena. But at a primal level, this is rather difficult. The researchers put it bluntly when they say, “regardless of their explicit, reflective disavowal of belief in supernatural agents, at a non-reflective level of processing, people enduringly remain ‘intuitive theists’” (p. 73) [emphasis mine]. This is not a cheap shot at atheists; rather, this statement is somewhat necessary to make sense of the findings. It doesn’t mean atheists don’t exist; rather, it means atheists are capable of making faulty assumptions about design when their unconscious mind is forced to make decisions absent their conscious rational mind. It also doesn’t mean that deep down atheists believe in god; rather, it means humans beings generally will assume god exists until their rational brain kicks in (of course, even then most people still believe in god). Besides, even if the study were saying that atheists believe in god, the authors are quick to point out the following question: What god? (p. 84):

[T]he current results show that the increased tendency to see creation in nature is not simply reduced to Abrahamic god beliefs.

They expand on this (p. 84):

The current results therefore also serve as a reminder that supernatural reasoning encompasses far more than Abrahamic god belief; explicit references to culturally recognized supernatural agents, such as ‘‘God’’ or ‘‘gods’’, (e.g., Haught, 2003; Norenzayan & Gervais, 2013), are not enough to reliably capture the range of supernatural conceptions people possess (also Boyer, 2002 [2001]; Lanman, 2012; Wildman, Sosis, & McNamara, 2012).

If my discussion feels like it’s taking the defensive, this is intentional. The results of this study are surprising and help us explain cognitive biases that might have helped us survive the prehistoric earth, but I fear that some people might take this study, bastardize its findings, and use it to support creationism or their own religious views (for example, Psalm 14). This would be profoundly intellectually dishonest. And I hope if you catch someone using this study in dishonest ways, you’ll call them out on it.

Finally, while this study is interesting, in hindsight its findings are not as surprising as they were when I initially read the article. To assume intentional design when there is none was probably a very important survival mechanism thousands of years ago. It probably goes hand-in-hand with the assumption of the malicious agent when there is none (see type 1 and type 2 errors). That is, to assume agency — even when there is none — alters our behaviors, making us more likely to be cautious. Those humans with better abilities to assume agency, therefore, were more likely to survive to reproductive age to pass these traits onto their children. Theism, in this sense, is natural. It helped shape the cognition of human beings as we have it today. Belief in god is one aspect of this ability. But even without god, atheists are still able to make faulty assumptions about design.

This post is part of my Science Sunday series.

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Religion and Mental Health (SS#14)

Posted on April 26, 2015 by Ryren Cadora

Citing previous research that ignored secular groups, this month researchers Jon T. Moore and Mark M. Leach published a study that seeks to explain “the relationship between religion and various facets of mental health” (p. 1). Their paper, titled “Dogmatism and Mental Health: A Comparison of the Religious and the Secular,” appears in Psychology of Religion and Spirituality (April 2015, advanced online publication).

Moore and Leach, while combing through the previous literature, noticed a trend; practically all studies support the idea that as religiosity increases, quality of mental health increases. But they also noticed other trends, and they were thusly able to categorize previous studies into two problematic groups: 1) some studies either controlled for secular groups (that is, they ignored them), or they lumped them together with low religiousness (which is wrong because one group believes in god to some degree while the other does not), and 2) some studies focused solely on Christian groups and dismissed all other groups. Therefore, Moore and Leach conducted a study that analyzes 4,667 respondents who identify as atheist, Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, and non-religious spiritual “to determine the relationships among general dogmatism levels, existential dogmatism, religiousness, and 5 indicators of mental health” (abstract).

Four Main Findings:

First, existential dogmatism (certainty that god does/does not exist) was expected to be positively correlated with all five mental health indicators. While the study indicates their hypothesis holds merit (p. 5) they note,

Given the high amount of statistical power in the current dataset, the detection of significant correlations becomes problematic. As such, the relationship between existential dogmatism and the five mental health variables would be considered small effects … and statistical significance is not necessarily noteworthy given the minimal magnitude of shared variance.

In other words, the sheer volume of data produced predictable results; however, this necessarily means causal effect is difficult to determine. This first hypothesis is without an answer.

Second, they hypothesize that religious people with high levels of existential dogmatism will score higher than atheists with high levels of existential dogmatism. They find (p. 5),

Overall, existential dogmatism, be it theistic or atheistic in nature, ended up accounting for very little unique variance in the mental health variables when covariates were included in the model.

In other words, this hypothesis fails. There is little to no discernible difference here between highly existentially dogmatic theists and atheists.

Third, they then test religiousness but come up with similar findings to existential dogmatism (p. 6):

Hypothesis 3 was not supported given that religiousness and existential dogmatism had similar standardized regression weights … both approximating the cutoff for a small size effect…

Fourth, they test dogmatism (certainty of beliefs in general) “to mediate the relationship between existential dogmatism and mental health” (p. 6). This test, too, produced no meaningful results (p. 6):

Hypothesis four was not supported.

The authors conclude (p. 9):

Grounds for declaring that there is a substantial mental health disparity between religious and secular groups were not supported in the current study.

Discussion

In other words, the conventional wisdom that religious people have higher qualities of mental health is not supported by the current literature. Indeed, this study finds that atheists have “similar” levels of mental health as their religious counterparts. That is to say, religion is not a necessary coping mechanism. Without indicating why, atheists appear to have comparable abilities to cope.

The article itself does contain a short list of methodological limitations, and Moore and Leach therefore remind us that future research is needed along other or similar lines of inquiry — some of which might not even test for religiousness. For example, the authors cite belonging to tight knit social structures as being a strong predictor in mental health. But limitations aside, the relative methodological strengths — at least compared with previous research — gives us the best insight yet into the disparity between the mental health of theists and the mental health of atheists… which is negligible to say the least.

Tom Jacobs, writing for Business Insider, has his own take on this study here.

This post is part of my Science Sundays series.

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Sacrificing Posts for Better Posts

Posted on April 25, 2015 by Ryren Cadora

Up until a few months ago I tried to post at a minimum of every other day. My goal was to be a prolific poster, mainly criticizing the bible. This is not all the writing I do, however. When I started graduate school many years ago my advisor told me to write two pages, single-spaced about everything I read: one page for a summary, and one page for a critique. I’ve been doing that ever since; however, those two pages sometimes swell to five, as I weave the readings together to make my analyses look more like a conversation amongst scientists. This is how I spend most of my time.

A few months ago I decided to begin a new section on this blog titled “Science Sundays,” where I use the skills I learned early on in my academic career to help explain the scientific literature to my readers. Most of what I’ve tackled so far has dealt with religion or atheism in some context, but let’s face it; I’m a political scientist, not a psychologist or a sociologist. Therefore I had to get up-to-speed. This necessarily meant one thing: something had to give.

By doing the Science Sunday posts, I am now dedicating a lot of my spare time to researching things outside my field. This means I have to sacrifice posts on this blog (I can’t sacrifice my academic research). Particularly, I have to sacrifice my Bible Contradictions posts. My Bible Contradictions posts make up about 80% of my page clicks, so I’m sacrificing something people actually want to read in order to spend more time writing posts that collectively make up about 2% of my page clicks. This is not necessarily a complaint.

While I wish people would engage my science-related posts more than bible contradictions, I’m just happy people are questioning their religious beliefs. I hope when they come here they look around, maybe read a Science Sunday post or two, and develop a healthy fascination with the scientific method that rivals their wavering religious beliefs.

Anyway, the point of this post, for anyone who’s wondered why my posting has slowed, is that I don’t post as often because I’m working on better posts. And often in order to summarize a recent publication, I have to crack open a few undergraduate books just to get a grasp on certain theoretical elements that are foreign to me. I’m having a lot of fun doing it. I actually think it’s helping me better grasp my own field. Or at least giving me ideas of how I can incorporate other fields’ findings into international politics.

PS. Tomorrow’s Science Sunday post is finished and ready to be published. You’re gonna enjoy this one.

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My Friend’s Mother Almost Escaped a Cult

Posted on April 24, 2015 by Ryren Cadora

I’m still friends with my high school sweetheart. She’s now a mother to a school-aged child. We live in different parts of the US, but we still chat online about animals, vegetarianism, movies, and religion. When we were dating her mother banned our relationship unless I attended church services every Sunday. This, despite my girlfriend and I both being openly anti-religious. I was fifteen and sixteen at the time, so this was no empty threat. If I didn’t attend church services on Sunday, my girlfriend’s mother would stop giving us rides. So I went to church. For two fucking years.

I’ve written about these experiences before, but I can’t remember where. So here’s a recap.

The church in question was a Jehovah’s Witnesses Kingdom Hall. On my first day I wore my best clothing: A polo t-shirt and khaki pants. The elders at the church were upset by this. They told me I needed to respect the church and wear church clothes. I went out and purchased a white button-up dress shirt and a tie (my first tie, mind you). I spent an hour or so with my father, learning how to properly tie a tie, and then next Sunday I showed up with my long hair pulled back, looking like a proper Christian. The elders were upset. They told me I had to wear a suit. I didn’t own a suit and couldn’t afford one, so I politely told them to fuck off (using different words, of course). I continued going to the church for the next two years until the elders and I got into a row over my long hair. They would not ban me from attending, but they started putting pressure on my girlfriend’s mother to interfere with our relationship or suffer the consequences. In the end, knowing that breaking us up was impossible, she chose to hide our relationship from the church by dropping the rule that I had to attend in order to date her daughter.

This whole ordeal was very confusing to me. One of the elders had long hair, neck tattoos, and was an active heavy metal musician. Surely it wasn’t my appearance that caused such friction with the church. No. It was that I was an atheist. And it had nothing to do with my behavior. I never spoke up in church. I never challenged members, even after services. I kept my mouth shut and only mocked the Kingdom Hall while in private conversations with my girlfriend. It was simply because, when questioned about my beliefs, I confessed that I didn’t believe in god. Therefore, the church feared that I would “corrupt” the minds of young Jehovah’s Witnesses.

My girlfriend and I broke up shortly thereafter. She ended up moving to another state because her father was dying.

Her mother remained with the church. Fast forward a decade and a half, and the mother is still with the church, despite almost escaping its clutches.

She’s an old woman now. She’s been alone for a big part of her life. Some months ago, maybe a year, she met a seemingly nice man, and they quickly formed a relationship. Unfortunately, the Kingdom Hall banned her from seeing the man, threatening her with disfellowship (which means certain and literal spiritual death), because he’s not a Jehovah’s Witness. This was the final straw for the woman, and she was finally able to leave the church pending a trial. Meanwhile, she was shunned. JWs were forbidden from associating with her, which was tragic (in multiple ways), considering what happened next.

The trial never happened. According to my ex-girlfriend the man who fell in love with her mother was abusive, and the relationship turned sour very quickly. When the Kingdom Hall got wind of the abusive relationship, they intervened, promising the woman spiritual help. This offer gave her the confidence she needed to end her abusive relationship and go back to the church (in other words, she left one abusive relationship for another abusive relationship). Today she’s back with the church, unable to see the emotional trauma through which the Jehovah’s Witnesses church put her through.

I need to make this clear: They literally threatened this woman with spiritual death. That might not sound that bad, but for someone who actually believes in the church’s teachings, it’s the worst possible thing that can happen to you. Furthermore, the church’s only care was to bring her back to the church. It’s almost like they see her physical abuse as a blessing because they used it as leverage — an emotional bribe, if you will — to compel her back to the church. And this woman had no choice because without the church, her friends were forbidden from supporting her emotionally throughout her abusive relationship. Without emotional support from her friends, she felt trapped in an abusive relationship. Instead of getting her the help she needed despite her position with the church, they created a situation where her only options were either be abused or go back to the church.

This whole thing really irritates me. I’ve known this woman for more than half my life. She’s a rockin’ grandmother. She makes illegal spirits and cusses like a sailor! She listens to Rammstein (sometimes) because they sing in her native language. She’s a really cool woman who has a good head on her shoulders, but she just can’t seem to shake the Jehovah’s Witnesses church. She deserves so much better than a church that will emotionally mind fuck her with literal threats of death.

In the title of this post I call the church a cult. I can’t think of a better word for it. It’s a fucking cult. I’m not the only one who thinks so. There are several organizations that help members escape the JW cult and offer support for them once they’re free. For example, here’s one right here. Here’s another one. And yet another one. And here’s a list of some of the documented psychological abuses carried out by the Watchtower Society. Is there such a thing as “battered believer syndrome”? I can’t think of any other reason why someone would stay in such an abusive religious relationship.

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Correlation between College Attendance and Liberal Beliefs (SS#13)

Posted on April 19, 2015 by Ryren Cadora

Conventional wisdom would have most of us believe that attending college strengthens students’ liberal beliefs and diminishes their religious beliefs. This idea is not lost on the church. In recent years the Catholic Identity College Guide’s list of faithful schools has swelled from 4 or 5 to 38 as alternatives to secular education. Indeed, previous research supports this hypothesis. Sources here and here. The university appears to be a place where young people’s minds are opened and broadened to humanity and secular coexistence. But not all researchers agree with this.

In Social Forces, vol. 90, no. 1 (September 2011), pp. 181-208, Damon Maryl and Jeremy E. Uecker published “Higher Education and Religious Liberalization among Young Adults.” In this study they seek to test this hypothesis using a more robust methodology than previous researchers have utilized. Their results are rather remarkable and surprising. They sum up their main point thusly (p. 199-200):

First, and most importantly, contrary to longstanding scholarly wisdom, attending college appears to have no liberalizing effect on most dimensions of religious belief. In fact, on some measures, college students appear to liberalize less than those who never attended college. College students are less likely to stop believing in the propriety of conversion attempts. On the other hand, they are more likely to develop doubts about their religious beliefs. In the main, however, the effect of college on students’ religious beliefs appears to be extremely weak. Although significant minorities of emerging adults become more liberal in their religious beliefs, college itself does not appear to be the culprit. College students do not liberalize any more than those who do not go to college.

Usually I follow up these block quotes with “In other words…” but I don’t feel this one needs much explanation.

In another significant — but not unexpected — result, the researchers find that we can explain liberalization on other factors: Social ties, particularly religious ties. The study suggests that the less religiously diverse a social network and the more often a person attends church, the less likely it is they will develop liberal beliefs. The more important variable here is church attendance, which is to be expected; the church offers predictability.

In one of the more surprising findings, which was addressed above in the block quote, “college appears to have a somewhat protective effect on conservative Protestant students’ beliefs” (p. 201). The researchers aren’t exactly sure why this appears to be the case, but they offer a few hypotheses, including one that places cause squarely on Protestant teachings. I’ll offer my own hypothesis below.

Discussion

My father blames my liberal beliefs on my education. He seems to have an idea in his head that all college professors have a political agenda to make conservative Christians turn liberal atheists (he watches a lot of Bill O’Reilly). While he doesn’t shun me for my beliefs, he thinks he knows just who to blame for them. In contrast, however, I became a vegan while in the US Navy, which necessarily means I developed my beliefs about animals while surrounded by conservative men who would certainly mock my beliefs. I learned to be at least partially liberal in a very non-liberal environment. Whatever liberal beliefs I have came not from my university, but from something else. As a matter of fact, and to contradict my father further, I developed more right winged ideas in the university after looking at the evidence. For example, I’m a firm believer in nuclear energy because I understand the role it plays — not only in our society — but also in our environment.

In regards to conservative Protestant beliefs being somewhat protected in college, I have my own thoughts on that, but without proper studies I’ll confess that I’m just guessing. It appears to me that the university has long changed from a place to express and challenge ideas to a place where all ideas must be respected. Students no longer challenge young earth creationists attending Physics 103/104 who assert that the universe is X,000 years old. They instead accept a differing viewpoint, no matter how wrong that point is. And as I learned firsthand, the easiest way to piss off the student body is to say something critical of Islam.

But what I find most socially interesting about this study is that the next time someone blames “Liberal colleges and professors” for an electorate decision, show them this study, and maybe they’ll shut the hell up.

This post is a part of my Science Sundays series.

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How Did Christianity Become Secularized?

Posted on April 18, 2015 by Ryren Cadora

The title here, which remains an unanswered question, might make a lot of people uncomfortable. Some Christians might shun the idea of their religion being secular, and others, particularly non-Christians, might scoff at the idea — Christianity in the US is anything but secular! they might say. I’m not suggesting either of these ideas. Instead, I’m putting modern Christianity into context with Christian history. It seems most modern Christians, for example, feel that the genocide or forced conversions of non-Christians are deeply un-Christ-like. However, this was not always the case, and the Roman Catholic Church sanctioned this very doctrine no fewer than three times (many, many more times, depending on our definitions).

I tumbled on this question — or, rather, I was forced to ask it — because a common criticism of Christianity is that it promotes rape, genocide, human sacrifice, etc. But modern Christians have every right to reject this criticism because — for the most part — their religions in no way still support human rights abuses. Still is the operational word here.

Somewhere, some time ago, Christianity lost its monopoly on violence, and within that void emerged a softer, more PR-friendly religion (relatively speaking, of course). I’m not entirely sure where and when this happened. Some have argued that heavy-hitting philosopher Thomas Hobbes played some role in this. Hobbes, it’s been argued, saw Christianity as the greatest threat to civil peace. Using his clout he helped weave peace into society by arguing for Christianity’s liberalization. On the other hand, my readers might recall my oft-cited study by Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart, which suggests the liberalization of religion is a natural result of society’s increase in existential security. Whatever the cause, I think it’s a worthy investigation because it affects very broad fields and phenomena.

But I’m not merely talking about human rights abuses. In just the last century Christianity in the US has lost its position on women’s rights, interracial marriage, and, most recently, same-sex marriage. While the bulk of Christianity has not yet accepted same-sex marriage, we can argue that it will have to accept it in order to survive. What I mean is, Christianity was forced to adapt to changing social norms in order to survive. It now completely, without hesitation, rejects slavery, despite the New Testament’s seemingly full embrace of owning human beings — even children — against their will. It seems in order to adapt and survive, Christianity had to reject some of its teachings.

So what are the mechanisms that bring this about? How is it that a secular society can gain enough strength to change Church doctrine? This is something I’m very interested in. I’ve been in contact with Prof. Bart D. Ehrman of UNC at Chapel Hill, and, while he personally couldn’t answer the question, he aimed me in a direction where I may find some answers. If no answers are to be found, this could be a very fun research project.

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George Carlin Needs His Own Stamp

Posted on April 16, 2015 by Ryren Cadora

I think it’s about time we gave our favorite atheist, good ol’ Georgy, his own postage stamp. What do you think?

George Carlin Stamp medium

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