Old Time Religion

I’ve had a student begin a sentence in a response paper on “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” by noting “If Jonathan Edwards had been a Christian….”

That darling nugget was left by a commenter on The Edge of the American West where I first read about the Texas School Board’s desire to add religion to the history curriculum. Although I think that religion in science class is a travesty, religion in history class is a wonderful idea. But religion is too important to be a short imprecise reference about how the “foundational principles of our country are very biblical.” Let’s bring it out front and center. I’m so excited by all the things these kids are going to learn I can barely contain myself.

Before we get to beliefs of the founding fathers, we should discuss what religions were practiced in which colonies as well as which ones were forbidden.

Shall we start by comparing and contrasting the beliefs of the Jamestown settlers with those of Massachusetts Bay? I find young people today are woefully ignorant of the tenets of Calvinism and mistakenly believe that the Episcopalian Church was founded by gay Catholics. A tidbit not to be missed: The Massachusetts Bay colony discussed whether or not women should wear veils. That famous liberal progressive, John Winthrop, was against it. Everybody loves the action-packed story of Ann Hutchinson, but do we ever discuss what she actually believed? Can you call yourself a proud American without being able to hold your own in a debate on antinomianism? Personally, I think it’s long overdue for a revival. In any case, it would really help us understand people like Governor Sanford and that Ensign guy.

Now that leads us to other forms of Christianity which were suppressed in one or another colony at one time or another. This includes Quakers, Catholics, of course, and Baptists.

The very phrase “The Great Awakening” conjures up fond images of my high school history teacher. The origins of the political thought behind our form of government is important to understand and, yes, there was a religious element, though it was far from the only element. There is no reason to ignore it or fear it. It’s part of our history, so let’s put it all, Deism included, on the table and take a look at it. However, advocates on both the left and the right might have to give up any fantasies about telling the students what to believe. You can teach them how to think or what to think, but not both at the same time.

The United States has been, frankly, a hotbed of religious innovation. Apparently that famous American know-how applies to religion as much, or perhaps more, than anything. Let’s talk about the Utopian movements. Oh, and let’s not forget American Transcendentalism and the very American Mary Baker Eddy. But since Evangelism has become such an important strain in America today, let’s not forget to discuss the first evangelical congregation in what is today the United States. Marble Collegiate’s minister in the mid to late twentieth century, Norman Vincent Peale and his power of positive thinking, had an effect on our culture well beyond the small numbers of Reformed Church in America members. I nearly forgot the Jehovah Witnesses and Pentecostalism. Mormonism. Scientology.

At the end of the Wall Street Journal Article about the subject some of the specific recommendations:

Emphasize study of original documents

The three reviewers appointed by social conservatives on the board all say students should study more original documents, rather than relying on a textbook author to interpret them. The current standards rely too much on supplementary material such as poetry, folktales and art, they say, and too little on original documents and historical narratives.

As I understand it, social conservatives see themselves as opposed to the trained academics. The curriculum under discussion covers grades K-12, so that’s a pretty diverse group of students, but I find it odd that the “trained academics” want to emphasize “poetry, folktales and art” rather than original documents. Of course, I don’t know what original documents the social conservatives want the students to study. However Lybeth Hodges is quoted as saying, “There appears to me too much politics in this,” a statement which strikes me as disingenuous since she supports the multiculturalism against which the conservatives are fighting. This is a political fight on both sides and there’s no use in denying it.

I find myself in the uncomfortable position of disagreeing with everyone. Of course, if there were an infinite amount of time and everything could be covered I would love to have my hypothetical child learn about the history of women, Latinos, African Americans, native Americans and every immigrant group, even the ones without enough political clout to get into textbooks. But since we have to pick and choose, I’d rather have that child learn about the origins of our system of government than the multicultural thing. However, I’m not so sure that the outcome of that emphasis would be what the conservatives hope.

Here’s a parting quote to make your flesh creep:

Replace references to America’s “democratic” values with “republican” values. Reviewer David Barton suggests swapping out “republican” for “democratic” in teaching materials. As he explains: “We don’t pledge allegiance to the flag and the democracy for which it stands.”

 

 BTW: I wrote this off the top of my head. If I made a factual error, let me know and I’ll be happy to correct it.

Reality Bites Back

Over the past few days there were a few things I wanted to comment on, but I wanted to stay happy over the holiday weekend.

Cultural Change

Frequently one gets the sense that culture is changing, but it is hard to prove this point. Therefore, it’s always helpful to know if someone else also sees what you see. I nearly ignored Bob Herbert’s column because Michael Jackson was in the title.

I’ve always thought of W. as our first post-modern president. However, Herbert sees the traces of this starting much earlier.

In many ways we descended as a society into a fantasyland, trying to leave the limits and consequences and obligations of the real world behind. Politicians stopped talking about the poor. We built up staggering amounts of debt and called it an economic boom. We shipped jobs overseas by the millions without ever thinking seriously about how to replace them. We let New Orleans drown.

This increasing disconnect has consequences.

Krugman Doesn’t Know

 Well, it seems that I don’t need to feel lonely about a couple of other points. The other day, Krugman asked a question that I’ve wondered many, many times about prominent intellectuals of the conservative persuasion. The most recent prompt for this question was the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page.

I mean, they’re not stupid — life would be a lot easier if they were. So they know they’re not telling the truth. But they obviously believe that their dishonesty serves a higher truth — one that is, in effect, told only to Inner Party members, while the Outer Party makes do with prolefeed.

The question is, what is that higher truth? What do these people really believe in?

In addition, I would like to add that many of them must want what they believe is good for the country and the world. That a poor, little pleb like me wouldn’t have a clue about what they really think doesn’t surprise me, but I thought someone like Krugman would be less puzzled by it.

Though I just had a discomfitting thought; maybe there is nothing behind it.

I Hope They’re Happy

A headline on MSNBC.com caught my eye: “Car Guys retrain but downshift to lower pay” . It reminded me that just a few short months ago our congress was upset and outraged over the high pay and gold plated health insurance of the auto workers. The article describes how the former auto workers are taking classes to get new jobs that pay significantly less and have fewer benefits. Some adults have even had to move back in with their parents. So our elected representatives can rest easy.

My store of received wisdom contains a nugget which associates the auto workers with Reagan Democrats and Rust Belt Republicans. If that’s right, apparently the result of eating prolefeed is living in your parent’s basement when you turn forty.

Much Maligned Malthus

Krugman has a couple of recent blog posts about Malthus. Unless I’m missing something, he doesn’t seem to be saying anything I haven’t heard before:  “And here’s the sense in which Malthus was right: he had a fundamentally valid model of the pre-Industrial Revolution economy, which was one in which technological progress translated into more people, not higher living standards. This homeostasis only broke down when very rapid technological change finally outstripped population pressure for an extended period.” However, Krugman’s conclusion, although by no means unique, is worth highlighting, “Technological takeoff was the product of a newly inquisitive, empirically-minded, scientific culture — the kind of culture that could produce people like Malthus.” This is exactly why I can’t stand people who, for ideological or religious reasons, refuse to confront the cold, hard facts.

Tipping Points

Speaking of cold, hard facts, you’ve probably heard about tipping points a lot within the past few years due to that book buy Malcolm Gladwell. According to Mark Thoma:

Its original application was to racial segregation. Nobel Laureate Thomas Schelling developed a beautifully simple model for this. Suppose that whites have different degrees of racism – some would “tolerate” higher shares of nonwhites than others. Schelling showed that the less racist whites would still wind up exiting during tipping because of a chain reaction. At first only the most extreme racist whites exit. But their departure causes the white share to go down, making the second most extreme racist whites uncomfortable, so they also exit. The white share goes down some more, and so now even less racist whites will be uncomfortable being a white minority, and they will wind up exiting too. So the remarkable prediction of the tipping point model is that just a little bit of integration that directly bothered only the most racist whites wound up causing ALL of the whites to exit.

I’ve taken this for granted since I first heard about it, despite going to high school in a stable, integrated community. Well, here’s the fun part:

The tipping point stories are fascinating, but do we observe them in the real world? I got intrigued with this question a while ago, and eventually published a paper testing the predictions of the tipping point story. . . for its original application: racial segregation of US neighborhoods. . . The basic prediction is that mixed neighborhoods are unstable but segregated neighborhoods are stable. Data on American neighborhoods from 1970 to 2000 rejected these predictions – it was the segregated neighborhoods that were unstable.

We need models, ideas and abstractions to understand the world, but we must not fall so in love with these ideas that we can’t change or abandon them when stubborn facts contradict them. If we don’t, reality will certainly bite us.

It’s Independence Day!

The Aurora's Rising

Some poorly digested, incoherent thoughts on our national natal day.

This painting occurred was while I was listening to “Fourth of July, Asbury Park.” Sometimes, when I fall into a groove while painting and I happen to be listening to a particular song, I hate to break the spell, so I keep playing the same song over and over. The neighbors must love me. At the time I was thinking of the Jersey Shore and horizontal lines made me think of the shadows of adolescent boys across the sand. Later, I realized that it sort of resembled an American flag, so a made the white a little whiter.

It makes me think of the plastic nature of the word freedom. It’s related to Independence, but they’re not the same. Albion’s Seed is indispensable reading for understanding American culture. In it the author gives four different notions of freedom. I think he pushes the symmetry a bit, but still, it’s really enlightening if you’ve ever listened to one of your fellow Americans talking about what this country represents and wondering if you are even from the same planet.

That said, I think one of the important things to remember is that to defend your own freedom is nothing compared to defending your neighbor’s freedoms. You have no freedom of speech unless the people with whom you disagree also have freedom of speech. You have no freedom of conscience unless everyone has freedom conscience.

I hope everyone’s having a happy Fourth of July. Now I’m headed out to go watch the fireworks with, approriately enough, a historian.

Upper Eastside Shocker

I’m very upset by something I just read and I wanted to tell someone. I know it’s the kind of news you’d rather not hear. A man on the Upper East Side was beaten nearly to death because he was, or was presumed to be, gay. Perhaps because it happened in a neighborhood I’m familiar with, I’m especially upset by it. I don’t know. It’s a level of barbarity you just don’t expect to find around the cornor.

Dr. Rand Will See You Now

I found this in the comments section of a doctor’s blog in which he wrote mockingly of healthcare reform:

Char said…

The reason why health care is so expensive is because of government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid and laws which drive the cost up (such as the law that hospitals have to treat everyone free of charge in the emergency room). The solution is to get government interference out of health care and get back to the free market system we had in this country more than 100 years ago.

Socialized medicine is immoral because it enslaves doctors. this quote says it all: “I have often wondered at the smugness with which people assert their right to enslave me, to control my work, to force my will, to violate my conscience, to stifle my mind — yet what is it that they expect to depend on, when they lie on an operating table under my hands? … Let them discover the kind of doctors that their system will now produce. Let them discover, in their operating rooms and hospital wards that it is not safe to place their lives in the hands of a man whose life they have throttled. It is not safe, if he is the sort of man who resents it — and still less safe, if he is the sort who doesn’t.” — Dr. Hendricks in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.

Wed Jun 17, 08:31:00 PM CDT

Yes, let’s get back to the free market system of 100 years ago. 1909. Life expectancy at birth: 51.5. But why stop there? Do you prefer the health care of 200 years ago? Why not 300? Why isn’t my barber a surgeon anymore?

Get the government out of health care? Yes, let’s do!

Get rid of laws regulating insurance! Get rid of requirements that drugs be tested! Get rid of the laws that allow only doctors to prescribe! Get rid of the laws that require medical training!   Licensing enslaves me. Who are the smug people who tell me I can’t practice medicine?

Tell me that you believe the free market is so important that you are willing to die for it. Tell me that you believe that I should die for it. Tell other people that their children should die, and die as children, for it. But don’t lie. Lying means you don’t believe your own rhetoric.

We have discovered the kind of doctors that socialized medicine will produce. They are doctors with results as good or better than ours.

Let’s not forget the first rule of the free market: CAVEAT EMPTOR.

Destroying Cities

The Telegraph has an article about some plans to shrink Flint, Michigan and Detroit.  Baltimore is also mentioned as a city which may need to have neighborhoods destroyed in “US cities may have to be bulldozed in order to survive .”

 

I’m not sure what I think about this. At the bursting of the housing bubble last fall, quite a few people mentioned that one shame about the recent housing bubble was that, unlike previous bubbles like the railroads or internet, the housing bubble didn’t leave much useful in its wake. Now we’re seeing the one tangible thing created during the bubble, housing, destroyed. We didn’t insist that we move backward in the penetration of internet service after the tech bubble burst.

 

Although I wouldn’t jump to the conclusion that Dan Kildee’s ideas are wrong based on one article, a few questions spring to my mind.

1. The cities which need to be shrunk are “former industrial cities in the “rust belt” of America’s Mid-West and North East” including ”Detroit, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Baltimore and Memphis.” These cities, as far as I know, have, or rather had, a pattern of settlement that is the opposite of sprawl. Will this sort of demolition exacerbate or reduce it?
2. The decline in these cities should not necessarily be connected to the current decline in house prices since these cities were suffering long before 2008.

Apparently Detroit already has a plan to shrink. Does Baltimore have a similar plan?

The Loony Left

Well, Peter, the other day I had a brush with our favorite breed, the loony left. I came across a concise summary of the religious positions of the United States’ founders on a blog kept by someone named Chuckman. I thought it was useful and I left a comment to that effect. Afterwards, I looked around Chuckman’s site to see if there was anything else interesting. Since the Democrats have decided they actually like winning elections and have muzzled the worst fringe elements, we no longer see really fine examples of the loony left. Chuckman reminded me of the reasons why they frustrate me.

Stephen the Librarian once related an anecdote in which a friend, when a controversial subject was raised, said, “I always assume that the United State is in the wrong.” From what I can tell, Chuckman would agree with her.

It’s always a strange feeling to see this sort of leftist interpretation of history because it’s not so much that there are specific facts or ideas that that are a problem, although I would contest one or two. The larger problem is a matter of perspective, emotion and focus.

He has apparently lived in Canada for quite a long time, however all he writes about is the United States. There are plenty of things to write about in Canada. While I lived in Canada, I was much more focused on Canadian politics because, at the time, the Canadian government had a greater impact on my life. Occasional criticism was inevitable. Canadians have all the same failings as people all over the world. He apparently knows a great deal about American History, but after reading more of his site, I wonder if he knows any history outside that of the United States, which of course he deplores. The expulsion of the Acadians, Louis Riel, the Patriots, the treatment of Native Canadians - oh yes, slavery, too, the history of Canada is not a history of unmitigated brotherhood and love. Which is not meant to be a criticism of Canadians. It is, unfortunately, a human fault.

Before finishing this post, I went back onto Chuckman’s blog to verify some of what I thought I remembered and I was treated to a July 4th holiday screed in plenty of time to avoid the dreadful error of planning a celebration. Here’s a treat for you about the Declaration of Independence:

Despite the document’s stirring opening words, if you actually read the whole thing, you will be highly disappointed.

The bulk of it has a whining tone in piling on complaint after complaint against the Crown. Some would say the whining set a standard for the next quarter millennium of American society.

Well, actually, it’s really the second paragraph that everyone quotes and, although  I agree that the complaints against the crown seem a little less pressing in the 21st century, to call it whining seems a tad judgmental.  But it is all about judgement. The problem is not with the bare facts. The problem is with the light in which they are cast and the conclusions he seems to draw about the present and future of the United States.

The cause of the Revolution is also interesting and never emphasized in American texts. Britain’s imposition of the Quebec Act created a firestorm of anti-Catholicism in the colonies. They were afraid of being ruled from a Catholic colony.

I have a very standard, one volume, American history book from when I was a teenager which I would describe as pro-American. Among the five or six reasons listed for the revolution the Quebec Act is #1 if I recall correctly. So, yes, he is correct, the Quebec Act was a primary cause of the Revolution. But he is wrong in implying that this information is somehow suppressed.

He’s very fond of stating how few Americans seem to know anything at all.

Few Americans even understand that Johnson’s first reference was to their sacred Founding Fathers (aka Patriots).

Again, few Americans know that Jefferson kept his better than two hundred slaves to his dying day.

All Americans I know are aware of that. It’s virtually impossible to say something, anything, positive about Jefferson without somebody mentioning this.

Few Americans know it, but it was the practice for many, many decades to burn the Pope in effigy on Guy Fawkes Day along the Eastern Seaboard. Anti-Catholicism was quite virulent for a very long time.

Many Americans, especially Catholic Americans, are aware of the history of anti-Catholicism in this country. However, I’m very glad that Chuckman corrected my mistake in thinking that Guy Fawkes Day had British origins.

Just one more example:

By the way, in the end, without the huge assistance of France, the Colonies would not have won the war. France played an important role in the two decisive victories, Saratoga and Yorktown. At Saratoga they had smuggled in the weapons the Americans used. At Yorktown, the final battle, the French were completely responsible for the victory and for even committing to the battle. Washington had wanted instead to attack New York – which would have been a disaster – but the French generals then assisting recognized a unique opportunity at Yorktown. 

Oh, no, I didn’t know that France helped us. I thought that so many roads, plazas and schools were named Lafayette because materialistic Americans love department stores.

Well, I’m so glad that Chuckman set us all right about how the world was an peaceful, egalitarian, democracy without religious strife until those horrible Americans came along. Perhaps we should all just kill ourselves now so world peace can reign.

I’m sorry to go on about this when Chuckman is just a stand in for so many like him we’ve met over the years. I remember back around 1990 after a Supreme Court verdict on whether or not burning the American flag was symbolic speech and therefore protected I was talking to a few people most of whom I did not know. A skinny girl was talking about how a man punched her when she burned a flag at a demonstration. I responded that she must be feeling very happy about the verdict. No, it didn’t matter, the U.S.A. was still a horrible society that suppressed free speech and no Supreme Court decision could change that essential truth.

The problem is that in this far left view the fault doesn’t lie in a specific action, mistake or error. The error reveals something inherently and uniquely evil in America or in the American people. Misunderstanding the argument, some people on the loony left will read that statement and begin listing evil things that the United States has done. The question is not, “Has the United States ever committed a bad act.” It is not even “Has the United States committed more bad acts than other countries.” The question is is the United States irredeemable, is it resistant to improvement.  The greatest problem with seeing the United States as irredeemably evil is that it is then unchanging.

Here is a question: Would you like to see the United States be a prosperous country the does good in the world? If not, what would you like?

Alternative Entry on Alternative Medicine

Hi there,

I spent quite a few hours over several days writing something on the subject of alternative medicine. I really didn’t want to just spout off a  bunch of half baked stuff, so I took some time and tried to refine my notions and provide links where appropriate. Tonight, I settled back in my chair with a glass of wine hoping to finish it off. Well, I opened it up and all was fine for a moment. Then I tried to switch to the full screen mode. I guess I must have clicked something by accident. Anyway, all my writing disappeared. It would have been my first reasonably well considered entry. I spent so much time on the subject because I have some strong feelings about it. However, I feel a little dispirited to see so much work disappear so I don’t feel up to rewriting the whole thing right now. As a sort of compromise, I’ll go back to unsubstantiated speculation. If anyone expresses interest in the subject, maybe I’ll feel motivated to rework it more carefully.

Superstitious health and diet related information is so widely promoted that it is virtually indistinguishable from real information. In the media, the two are often mixed together. Often it seems as if it would be difficult for someone without any expertise in the field to be able to distinguish between the true, the false and the exaggerated. Since medicine is one area in which scientific information has an imminent, direct and vital effect on our lives, it is strange to me that so much superstition is acceptable in this area. On the one hand, it is easy to see why some “spiritual but not religious” beliefs are easier to swallow. They are much more vague. On the other hand, they make more provable claims regarding health, so it is hard to see why more people don’t abandon them.

Complaints among skeptics seem to concentrate around the more grotesque examples of frauds and charlatans; however, just as the more extreme forms of religious belief are sheltered from criticism by the benign appearance of the more liberal forms, less controversial alternative treatments habituate us to accept claims about health without appropriate critical evaluation. “What’s the harm,” the statement frequently evoked to excuses all sorts of muddled-headed thinking, is used to excuse snake oil as well, often to deadly effect. 

Advocates of alternative medicine prey upon a partial understanding of science and pseudo-scientific explanations are rife. Also abundant are questionable credentials. Vitamins, the immune system and the mind-body connection are all superficially familiar subjects which are twisted woefully out of shape. Having no medical background, all I know about these subjects is what I read in the popular press and, although I like to flatter myself that I am an intelligent, well-informed person, I could be taken in by many phony explanations.

When we mouth platitudes we don’t fully understand about “positive thinking,” ”natural remedies” and “healthy eating” we increase the familiarity of these explanations and make them seem more legitimate. Unwittingly, we are aiding and abetting the charlatans.

Many alternative therapies suggest the patient is responsible for his own illness due to spiritual, psychological, cognitive or dietary errors. Although one would think this blame would make these alternative ideas distasteful, perhaps the illusion of control has even greater appeal.

Incorrect notions about the proper role of anecdotal evidence are also instrumental in helping people dupe themselves.

Alternative Medicine appears among a cluster of notions that thrive in the absence of critical thinking. Although it may be necessary for the law to intervene in the most extreme cases, the best defense would be a better understanding of how to evaluate medical claims.

Too Much Freedom

Quick Thought

I’ve wondered that religious groups didn’t seem to always understand the necessity of defending other group’s religious freedom. I suspected that it was just shortsightedness, that they couldn’t see that their own freedom of religion was intimately bound up with everybody else’s. But the attention the Hauser case has brought to that Nemenah Band religion made me realize that this diversity is in fact threatening because it reveals the flimsy foundation of all religion. Perhaps I missed something, but it seems to me that the frankly ridiculous  nature of this religion has been let to pass without significant comment. The entire case revolved around the notion that the Hauser family’s religion doesn’t permit chemotherapy, yet no one has asked what the tenets of this religion are.

One month he has chemo. The next month he doesn’t. If his tumor grows, maybe he’ll have it again. Well, does the religion permit chemotherapy or not? If he, backed by his mother, is going to refuse chemotherapy on the basis of religion, isn’t it reasonable for society to know what that religion’s position on chemotherapy is?

Who has not said, or heard a friend say, “Maybe I’ll just make up my own religion?” It’s a joke, of course, and it is almost always proposed as a way of acquiring a perk, a day off from work, preferred foods or perhaps just money.

The United States has always been a breeding ground for new religious movements, and our laws regarding the freedom of religion have sheltered them. We don’t like the government determining which ones are legitimate and which ones aren’t, which means they are all legitimate. And if they are all as legitimate as the religion I make up tomorrow, whose tenets change everyday, then our deference towards religion means nothing at all.

Perhaps we should not wonder at the great diversity of religions in the world. Perhaps the true wonder is that there are so few.

What to Concede

From “The S Word: To find common ground on abortion, let’s talk about sex” by Lisa Miller on the Newsweek website:

To reduce the number of women who seek abortions, culture warriors on both sides need to sit down together and talk about the values—Biblical, cultural, and traditional—that have led them to where they are on sex, especially teen sex, premarital sex, and single parenthood. This will be difficult, for in this matter the distance between what we do and what we believe we should do is great. And then each side needs to give a little. Perhaps the left could start by conceding that sex is an activity best enjoyed by mature people in a committed, loving relationship. And then the right might concede that teenagers do have sex even if it’s not in their best interests and that a condom, easily obtained, might prevent a lot of heartache down the road.

It is simply not possibly for me to talk about my Biblical values, because as someone who was not raised in a Judeo-Christian religion I don’t have any Biblical values. It is also impossible for me to concede that “sex is an activity best enjoyed by mature people in a committed loving relationship” without lying because I don’t believe that statement to be true. I could compromise, in the interest of making sure that accurate sexual education is taught in the schools, and not object to that value laden content being added to the curriculum, but I don’t know why it should be deemed necessary for anyone to falsify his or her beliefs.

Is the distance between what we do and what we believe we should do great, or does the distance really lie between what we believe and what we say we believe we should do? And how often is silence taken as tacit agreement? I know that when people piously tsk tsk about other people’s sexual habits I often remain silent or give a quiet, easily overlooked, demurral. I would really like to know what percentage of people who made love to his or her high school sweetheart regret,  as adults, that decision. I did and I don’t. As I recall, it was a wonderful experience and if I am truly honest I have to say that it would be good for most adolescent girls to have a similar experience.

Earlier in the article, she quotes Obama as saying “Let’s make adoption more available. . . .” Is adoption currently unavailable to pregnant women? This would be news to me.