Update on what I'm reading... (part 2)

I have started reading four new books.

How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture Then and Now by James L. Kugel

No, I've not become religious again (God forbid!). But regardless of any religious sentiment I might have, I have for some time had a strong curiousity to establish in my mind exactly how I should regard all the various biblical stories that I learned as a child. Of course, I have long since stopped believing in miracles but if one thinks about it for a moment, there's a lot more to it than that. Are the non-miraculous events described true? Did the people exist? Many such questions come to mind. I was interested to know what the answers of modern biblical scholars were to such questions. Fortunately, Kugel's book is an excellent source in this regard, covering both the ancient and modern understanding of the Scripture. For example, Kugel names the four assumptions of the "ancient interpreters" (these are the original Rabbinic and Christian interpreters of the Bible from about the 3rd Century BCE and on, that the followers of Judaism and Christianity follow to this day.

1. The Bible is a fundamentally cryptic text filled with hidden meanings.
2. The Bible is book of timeless lessons to be applied to any age.
3. The Bible contains no contradictions of mistakes. In order to resolve any seeming contradictions see point 1.
   
4. The Bible is a divinely given text.

(see pages 14-16 of Kugel's book for the four assumptions)
On the other hand modern scholars essentially follow Baruch Spinoza's recommendations for how to study the Scriptures. Spinoza emphasizes that Scripture is to be understood by Scripture alone, that to understand Scripture we must understand the peculiarities of its own language, that it means what it says even when it disagrees with our own conceptions. In addition Spinoza started focusing on how the books were put together and the process of their transmission, and openly admitted that it contains contradictions. I'm now on page 376 and very much enjoying it.

100 Billion Suns by Rudolf Kippenhahn

I have recently decided that my knowledge of astronomy and cosmology is completely inadequate. I used to know a lot more particularly around grade school time. However, since then I have not kept up with the latest developments in the field and I find may of the popular mentions more confusing than helpful. My initial investigations on the web led to talk.origins Evidence for the Big Bang essay, a fairly detailed review of the meaning of and arguments for the Big Bang theory. That's where I came across a recommendation for Kippenhahn's German language book Kosmologie für die Westentasche (trans. Cosmology for the Vest Pocket) by the same author but it was difficult to find, and I happen to come across the above English language book in a used bookstore. I'm around the first two chapters. It seems a little technical for a book aimed at laymen but I like it like that. I'm also reading the following:

Principles of Physical Cosmology by P. J. E. Peebles

As I mentioned, I'm interested in Cosmology. I was particularly interested in understanding if popular pronouncements about the Big Bang theory are a correct identification of the underlying science. For example, here's one from a recent editorial by Dinesh D'Souza (hat-tip Noodlefood):

Modern science has discovered that the universe, far from existing eternally, had a beginning. Not only matter but space and time itself came into existence around 15 billion years ago in the fiery burst that scientists term the Big Bang. The laws of physics themselves originated at that point, and those laws were inoperative “before” the founding moment.

So what do actual scientist say when describing what "science has discovered" about the universe? Here Peebles book, a textbook for advance undergraduate and graduate students, seems particularly helpful as already in chapter 1 he clearly contradicts D'Souza's claim and clarifies the limits of the science involved. After dicussing the "main elements of the standard world picture" he comments on page 6:

The familiar name for this picture, the "big bang" cosmological model, is unfortunate because it suggests we are identifying an event that triggered the expansion of the universe, and it may also suggest that the event was an explosion localized in space. Both are wrong. The universe we observe is inferred to be close to homogenous, with no evidence for a preferred center that might have been the site of an explosion. The standard cosmological picture deals with the universe as it is now and as we can trace its evolution back in time through an interlocking network of observation and theory...If it is found that still earlier epochs left evidence that can be analysed and used to test our ideas, then that may be incorporated in the standard model or some extension of it. If there were an instant, at a "big bang," when our universe started expanding, it is not in the cosmology as now accepted, because no one has thought of a way to adduce physical evidence that such an event really happened.

Parenthetically I'll add that some scientists are now actively trying to see if they can find evidence before the "big bang".
Unfortunately, too many people, both laymen and scientists, seem to talk and write as if science has now proven philosophy wrong and the Bible's account of creation has been confirmed. From what I've been reading, a closer examination of the science shows that the issue of the eternity of the universe remains a philosophical issue. Science can only trace back the evolution of the universe to a certain point in time -- it cannot establish that that point represents a "beginning" or a "creation event". I hope to read more in this book and gain a clearer understanding of the theories involved (particularly General Relativity).

(רבקה שרגר -- הבריחה אל החיים)Escape to Life by Rivka Shrager

This is the true story of a little girl who escapes the Nazis during World War II. My dad gave me this book as she happened to be born and lived in the same little Polish village that my dad had been born in and had lived during those terrible times. The author is that same little girl who by now is a grandmother. So far she has recounted the happy times before the war had started.

Prager evades Christian Love

In his most recent column Dennis Prager writes down some relatively reasonable thoughts on love. Here's an excerpt that caught my eye:

...But in the love of equals -- i.e., the love between a man and a woman and the love of friends -- it is not only all right to seek to be loved, it is a good thing. Taking the love of a spouse or friend for granted is perhaps the single greatest cause of marital divorce and the breakup of friendships. "What can I do to ensure his/her continuing love?" is a wonderful thing to keep in mind.

3. That is one reason the notion of "unconditional love" is foolish. The fact is, we all earn love, and it is a good thing to have to do so. What possible good purpose can the belief that your spouse loves you unconditionally -- i.e., no matter how you act -- serve? If we believe our spouse loves us no matter what we do, what would motivate us to be on our best behavior at all times? Why be kind even when we are in a foul mood? Why work to stay attractive if he will love me no matter how much I neglect how I look? Why continue to pay attention to her -- like regularly calling her from work -- if I know that even if I ignore her, she will continue to love me?

Unconditional love is not a good idea. I don't know where it originated, but I am quite certain it's relatively recent, a product of an age that has put primary importance on feelings.[emphasis added]

Relatively recent? That is a truly bizarre statement to make for someone who is as enthusiastic about religion as Prager is. Hasn't Christianity has advocated such "unconditional love" for all its history? Here's a relevant passage from the Catholic Encyclopedia on love:

The expression "to love the neighbour for the sake of God" means that we rise above the consideration of mere natural solidarity and fellow-feeling to the higher view of our common Divine adoption and heavenly heritage; in that sense only could our brotherly love be brought near to the love which Christ had for us (John 13:35), and a kind of moral identity between Christ and the neighbour (Matthew 25:40), become intelligible. From this high motive the universality of fraternal charity follows as a necessary consequence. Whosoever sees in his fellow-men, not the human peculiarities, but the God-given and God-like privileges, can no longer restrict his love to members of the family, or co-religionists, or fellow-citizens, or strangers within the borders (Leviticus 19:34), but must needs extend it, without distinction of Jew or Gentile (Romans 10:12), to all the units of the human kind, to social outcasts (Luke 10:33 sqq.), and even to enemies (Matthew 5:23 sq.). Very forcible is the lesson wherein Christ compels His hearers to recognize, in the much despised Samaritan, the true type of the neighbour, and truly new is the commandment whereby He urges us to forgive our enemies, to be reconciled with them, to assist and love them.

And here's another one from a Sermon on love by Martin Luther:

Third, the commandment names, as the sphere of our love, the noblest field, the dearest friend--our neighbor. It does not say, "Thou shalt love the rich, the mighty, the learned, the saint." No, the unrestrained love designated in this most perfect commandment does not apportion itself among the few. With it is no respect of persons. It is the nature of false, carnal, worldly love to respect the individual, and to love only so long as it hopes to derive profit. When such hope ceases, that love also ceases. The commandment of our text, however, requires of us free, spontaneous love to all men, whoever they may be, and whether friend or foe, a love that seeks not profit, and administers only what is beneficial. Such love is most active and powerful in serving the poor, the needy, the sick, the wicked, the simple-minded and the hostile; among these it is always and under all circumstances necessary to suffer and endure, to serve and do good.

No, Mr. Prager it is unconditional love is not a recent idea. It's been around for about 2000 years.

The Future of the Evangelical Movement and the Religious Right

A fascinating article by David D. Kirkpatrick is in the October 28, 2007 NY Times Magazine. Some of the themes are illustrated on the cover
Kirkpatrick describes his experiences with the Christian Evangelical movement in recent years and notes that ever since the 2004 election there has been a definite loss of enthusiasm for the Bush presidency and the Republican Party in general:

“There was a time when evangelical churches were becoming largely and almost exclusively the Republican Party at prayer,” said Marvin Olasky, the editor of the evangelical magazine World and an informal adviser to George W. Bush when he was governor. “To some extent — we have to see how much — the Republicans have blown it. That opportunity to lock up that constituency has vanished. The ball now really is in the Democrats’ court.”

There are definite signs that many Evangelical Christians are moving to the left on many issues:

For the conservative Christian leadership, what is most worrisome about the evangelical disappointment with President Bush is that it coincides with a widening philosophical rift. Ever since they broke with the mainline Protestant churches nearly 100 years ago, the hallmark of evangelicals theology has been a vision of modern society as a sinking ship, sliding toward depravity and sin. For evangelicals, the altar call was the only life raft — a chance to accept Jesus Christ, rebirth and salvation. Falwell, Dobson and their generation saw their political activism as essentially defensive, fighting to keep traditional moral codes in place so their children could have a chance at the raft.

But many younger evangelicals — and some old-timers — take a less fatalistic view. For them, the born-again experience of accepting Jesus is just the beginning. What follows is a long-term process of “spiritual formation” that involves applying his teachings in the here and now. They do not see society as a moribund vessel. They talk more about a biblical imperative to fix up the ship by contributing to the betterment of their communities and the world. They support traditional charities but also public policies that address health care, race, poverty and the environment.

I recommend reading the whole article which is quite good. What I find most interesting is that while there doesn't seem to be a lessening of Christian enthusiasm, there's seems to be definitely a broadening of what that enthusiasm consists of: A moving away from ideas that might be called Conservative and more toward a broader mixture of altruistic (and hence Liberal) themes of concern for the poor and the like. This is far more in line with what I understood Christianity to be about from my readings of C. S. Lewis's Mere Christianity, in which Lewis mentioned that a state governed according to Christian principles would be quite socialistic.

I, for one, would love it if we could separate Christianity from the Right. I would love it if no one would confuse the positions of advocates of reason, egoism, and capitalism with the advocates of faith, humility, and charity. Or perhaps, dare we hope, we can return to treating religion, in Ayn Rand's words as "a private matter". Still, it is not clear to me that we have seen the end of that particular movement.

On Stark's Victory of Reason

I have mentioned before that at the Forum for Ayn Rand Fans a fascinating book discussion has taken place on the new book Victory of Reason by Prof. Rodney Stark. The book argued for the controversial thesis that "Christiantity led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success." I have been following this discussion week by week as they covered each chapter of this book. The more formal discussion has now concluded with the thread open to comments by all. I highly recommend people interested in the history and influence of ideas take a look. Here is an excerpt from moderator's Burgess Laughlin's conclusion:

Prof. Stark declares, “Christianity created Western Civilization.” Unfortunately he has never told us what he means by “Western Civilization.” If he, like most scholars, means simply European culture as a mix of Greek, Semitic, Roman, and Germanic streams, then trial by ordeal, witch-hunts, the Inquisition, “post-modernism,” Marxism, and environmentalism are all elements of Western Civilization, alongside the development of logic, the founding of the U. S., the discovery of penicillin, computers, the science of genetics, and the ideal of constitutional government. Such a definition – Western Civilization as European culture -- is bound mostly by geography and the accidents of history. It is a definition by nonessentials.

If Western Civilization is instead defined by its philosophical fundamentals (the “Civilization” part) within a certain historical context (the “Western” part), then Prof. Stark’s statement is false. Christianity did not create Western Civilization, though it had an enormous influence on European culture.

Philosophically defined, Western Civilization is an interconnected set of cultural elements whose philosophical foundation (cause and explanation) is a philosophy of reason. Historically, the origin of this civilization is not Christianity but the best elements of Greek philosophy as it emerged in Classical Greek culture. By this definition, logic, the sciences (from physics to history), advanced technology, rule by law, representative government, the concept of rights, and romantic-realism in art are all elements of W. Civilization. Why? Because they are products of reason explicated and sanctioned by a stream of philosophy going back to Aristotle and, to a lesser extent, some of his predecessors.

Christianity – the religion advocated by Jesus and Paul (who is sometimes called the “second founder”) was in no way, shape, or form a philosophy of reason. Whether some Christians -- living in the following centuries and receiving a thorough pagan education before converting to Christianity -- helped preserve some elements of a Greek respect for reason (itself diluted and conflicted) is another question. That question is a historical question, specifically a question for the fields of history of philosophy, history of ideas, intellectual history, and cultural history.

I hold that some Christians did (and still do) help preserve a sort of respect for reason (though in a vague, fragmented, and conflicted form). Diverse examples are Pelagius, Boethius, Bernard of Chartres, Peter Abelard, Thomas Aquinas, Christine de Pisan, John Locke, and others, including more recent individuals such as Gregor Mendel, Pope John Paul II, and Robert George.

Judeo-Christian Illusions

In Dennis Prager's latest column in his series defending "Judeo-Christian values," Prager argues that

The cultural civil war in which America is engaged is, in large measure, about American exceptionalism. Conservative America generally believes in the concept; liberal America generally finds it chauvinistic and dangerous.

I'm certainly sympathetic to the Conservative side of this debate, or perhaps more accurately, I'm vastly more opposed to the Liberals on this than to the Conservatives, even if I do find American moral judgment at times inadequately "chauvinistic". What prompted me to write about this column however is not its main topic but a throwaway line at the end of the column in which Prager notes that

Too bad more Europeans did not place a Judeo-Christian morality above secular law. There would not have been a Holocaust.

I have no problem with the fundamental principle involved here, namely that the moral and legal are separate domains and that there are clearly times when the legal code of a given locality is morally wrong and therefore, morally, ought to be opposed, sometimes even violently opposed. That is after all, the point of the Declaration of Independence which essentially argued that a legal authority can and ought to be changed if it violates the higher moral law.

My issue is with the claim that specifically a greater allegiance to "Judeo-Christian morality" would have provided the necessary resistance to the goals of the Nazis and thus prevented another Holocaust. If "Judeo-Christian morality" is to have an influence in the culture, it would have to be through its two main component religions, namely Judaism and Christianity, and of the two Christianity would be the more important since to the extent that Europe was religious on the eve of WWII, it was Catholic or Protestant. Judaism, only recently emancipated, did not, I dare say, play a significant role in shaping the ideas of most Europeans.

Let's assume the following assumptions of Prager are true: That Europe was largely secular on the eve of WWII and that a greater allegiance to "Judeo-Christian values" would have stopped the Nazis. Well, if the representatives of "Judeo-Christian values" in Europe were the Christian clergy, whether Catholic or Protestant, then we would expect them to be the centers of opposition to Nazism. We would expect them to have been the voices in the wilderness opposing the Nazis in the name of "Judeo-Christian values" that they support. What is the historical record?

Mixed, at best, as it turns out. Paul Johnson's History of Christianity is instructive in this respect. On the Catholic attitude toward Hitler he writes:

...Catholics felt no loyalty to Weimar; it was not 'nationalist' enough. And towards Hitler, who was, they were ambivalent. It is true that some bishops were initially hostile to the Nazis...In any case some of the Bishops refused to take a stand against the Nazis, and especially against Hitler, who was becoming increasingly popular...The fact is that most of the bishops were monarchists. They hated liberalism and democracy much more than they hated Hitler...Moreover once Hitler attained power, German Catholicism dropped its 'negative' attitude and assumed a posture of active support. This was carried through by the bishops as early as 28 March 1933, on a firm indication from Rome (advised by Pacelli) that there would be no Vatican support for a policy of opposition.

There's more that could be said and interested readers can read some of the details of Catholic response to Hitler in Johnson's book. Turning now to the Protestants, Johnson informs us that

...if the Catholic attitude toward Hitler was apprehensive and pusillanimous, many of the Protestant clergy were enthusiastic. The collapse of 1918 and the end of the Protestant monarchy had been a disaster for the Lutherans...most Lutherans were afraid their church would collapse once state support was completely removed. So they hated Weimar...Some of them, therefore, looked on Hitler and his movement as saviours.

Johnson also details various attempts by Lutherans to remove "the Jewish background to Christianity." The Lutherans, apparently, would resist any description of their values as "Judeo-Christian."

Nevertheless, even if we grant that much of what passes for Christianity at that time was hypocritical, it remains true that for a large number (the majority?) of devout Christians, Nazism presented little or no moral difficulty. Perhaps Prager should keep that in mind the next time he argues that that an increase in religious values can protect us from the evils of this world.

I think I will limit my comments to Prager's third hour. First, I have to say, as someone who does not believe in an afterlife, the idea that I might not get salvation in this alleged afterlife if I don't believe in Jesus, may provoke various reactions in my psyche but offense is not one of them. Thus, like Prager, I am not offended by this doctrine. And I fully agree with Prager's other broader point about the exclusivity of belief. However, that raises an interesting question: What kinds of ideas would justify taking offense? This is a question worth pondering.

In Prager's third hour he addressed the view of Christian Evangelicals that without a belief in Jesus salvation is not possible. Prager asserted that he was not offended by this and proceeded to criticise people who are offended. He pointed out that it is a broad truth that anybody who passionately believes in a specific way to salvation, whether in this life or in the next will necessarily conclude that others who are not following that way will not be saved. In other words this type of exclusivity is not limited to Evangelicals.

Correction: The utilitarians are a kind of combination of Epicurus and a certain aspect of Christianity, not Kant as such. Epicurus was a hedonist. He advocated that the standard of moral value is happiness. Christianity, among other things, advocates "love thy neighbor as thyself." If one puts the two together one gets that the standard of moral value is your neighbor's pleasure or as the utilitarians usually put it, "the greatest happiness of the greatest number." Of course one is allowed to count one's own pleasure but only as one among all the others.

On to Jimmy Carter. While Prager addressed every argument in Carter's article, Prager's criticism seemed to refer mostly to the following passages:

As a Christian and as a president who was severely provoked by international crises, I became thoroughly familiar with the principles of a just war, and it is clear that a substantially unilateral attack on Iraq does not meet these standards. This is an almost universal conviction of religious leaders, with the most notable exception of a few spokesmen of the Southern Baptist Convention who are greatly influenced by their commitment to Israel based on eschatological, or final days, theology.
...

The unanimous vote of approval in the Security Council to eliminate Iraq's weapons of mass destruction can still be honored, but our announced goals are now to achieve regime change and to establish a Pax Americana in the region, perhaps occupying the ethnically divided country for as long as a decade. For these objectives, we do not have international authority. Other members of the Security Council have so far resisted the enormous economic and political influence that is being exerted from Washington, and we are faced with the possibility of either a failure to get the necessary votes or else a veto from Russia, France and China.

Prager was very much upset that Carter seemed to claim his religious values are part of reasons for opposing a war against Iraq. Prager argued that there is no religion that decides the morality of a war based on the number of countries that support its prosecution. I think the broader point is also true: Moral principle (regardless whether its source is considered religious or not) is not decided by a popularity contest.
The idea that moral principles come from the majority seems to have ultimately come from Immanuel Kant (who made collective subjectivism a substitute for objectivity), via a long series of intermediate philosophers. More on that some other time.

Frankly, I don't want to spend too much time on Carter, the worst President in U.S. history, as Prager has accurately characterized him.