If God Had Created Facebook Before He Created Creation...

...it might have looked something like this. (Click here for the version you can actually read.)

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I Am Not an Imposition, Part 4 (The Jewish View, Part 3)

Are cities “bad”? Is Nature “good”? Should we curtail our actions in order to protect endangered species? The Jewish view of the creation mandate provides an interesting perspective on these questions, as shown in this excerpt from Environmental Stewardship in the Judeo-Christian Tradition:

The general hostility toward industrial development that is often evidenced by environmental activists is frequently rooted in a pantheistic opposition to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and is as old as the Tower of Babel. Judaism takes note of how industrial development tends toward the spiritual and away from the merely material. In our own times, this is quite clear as we see development lead societies past the manufacture of steel and large machinery to the creation of data and knowledge. . . . Judaism views this as a movement toward human recognition of the primacy of the spiritual over the material. It is no coincidence that this tendency for society to move toward the spiritual also brings along with it less disruption of nature. Instead of imposing barriers to industrialization upon the developing world, we could be better served to assist developing nations in moving through this early phase of growth. In this fashion, each part of the world can make its own decisions and judgments about how it will balance its own needs . . . . Those of us in the developed world may not want a rubber-tire factory next door. However, if we lived near Cairo and presently were neighbors to the world’s biggest garbage dump, which is populated by ghostly skeletons rummaging through the filth to find food for another day’s existence, we may welcome the arrival of a tire plant to displace the garbage dump. Judaism has great faith in the ability of ordinary human beings to make their own decisions and to find ways to overcome tragic circumstances.

This faith comes from another religious conviction not shared by many environmentalists. Again, if we are nothing but sophisticated animals, it is only right that important decisions should be made of us by an elite group of people playing the roles of zookeeper or farmer. In this view of reality, we are not capable of determining for ourselves just how much prosperity we are willing to sacrifice to halt development. Since nature is the ultimate good, our zookeepers will determine that no burden is too heavy for us to shoulder in service to our god of nature. . . .

The basic Jewish principle of balance and middle path also conflicts with the contemporary environmental doctrine that preserving each spotted owl and each kangaroo rat is more important than any costs borne by humans and any sacrifices made by people. Judaism would never countenance loggers suffering the indignity of joblessness in order not to disturb the nesting habitat of the owl. . . . People need not justify their needs or desires to nature. They are warned only against destroying things for no good purpose. . . .

Our task is, in essence, to subdue nature and redirect it for holy purposes. . . . Your labor is welcome, and its results are pleasing to me, says the Lord. For this reason, Judaism is prouder of man’s skyscrapers than of God’s swamps, and prouder of man’s factories than of God’s forests.

- pp. 24-26

See the previous post on this subject by clicking here.

I Am Not An Imposition, Part 2 (The Jewish View, Part 1)

Continuing the series which I began September 17 . . .

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In the book, Environmental Stewardship in the Judeo-Christian Tradition, I found the Jewish discussion the most provocative. In this first excerpt, the authors differentiate between rights and responsibilities, between Creator and created, between ownership and stewardship, and between humans and everything else:

The Torah unhesitatingly prohibits cruelty to animals. This is not because animals also have rights; it is because only human beings have obligations. In the Torah’s depiction of moral reality, nobody has rights – only obligations. Naturally, if everybody discharges their obligations, we all end up enjoying those things we vainly attempted to obtain by claiming them as our rights.

The animal rights movement can best be understood by viewing it as an attempt to undo the opening chapters of the biblical Book of Genesis. The Torah and its accompanying oral transmissions insist that Genesis describes more the beliefs underlying Creation than its facts. This is to say that the Bible’s central premise is that humans and animals are qualitatively different, a contention violently opposed by the animal rights movement. . . .

The Bible teaches that the human person is the apex of God’s creation and that all creation is there for the human person to develop and use as a responsible steward. The principle at work here is, of course, precisely the same biblical principle that prohibits self-maiming, destroying a rented apartment, or even having an abortion. This is to say that tenants do not have the same rights as owners. We, as humans, do not own the world, our bodies, or the habitations we rent. Thus, we may improve them but not destroy them. According to the Torah, not only do women not have the right to do with their bodies as they wish, but neither do men. Our bodies are given to us by a gracious and generous God so that we may occupy them for a certain period of time. During that time they are to be treated with the same deference that a tenant should employ in caring for his rented premises. Similarly, we humans are granted use of the world and all it contains. We may hunt animals for food or clothing, build homes out of the wood we cut from trees, and mine the earth to extract the minerals it holds. However, we may not wantonly destroy anything at all.
- pp. 20-21

More from the Jewish tradition in an upcoming post.

Brownback Has a Brain

Sam Brownback's running for the Republican nomination for President. I don't know too much about his political positions, but what I know, I like. When's the last time you heard a presidential candidate speak (or write) so intelligently about something like the interplay of faith and science? I think he must have read the Pope's Regensburg address (the one that set off the Muslim rioting but was really about answering the question, "What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?" - in other words, "What has reason to do with faith?").

The original NY Times op-ed is here, or you can read it below in its entirety.

What I Think About Evolution
By SAM BROWNBACK
Published: May 31, 2007 Washington

IN our sound-bite political culture, it is unrealistic to expect that every complicated issue will be addressed with the nuance or subtlety it deserves. So I suppose I should not have been surprised earlier this month when, during the first Republican presidential debate, the candidates on stage were asked to raise their hands if they did not “believe” in evolution. As one of those who raised his hand, I think it would be helpful to discuss the issue in a bit more detail and with the seriousness it demands.

The premise behind the question seems to be that if one does not unhesitatingly assert belief in evolution, then one must necessarily believe that God created the world and everything in it in six 24-hour days. But limiting this question to a stark choice between evolution and creationism does a disservice to the complexity of the interaction between science, faith and reason.

The heart of the issue is that we cannot drive a wedge between faith and reason. I believe wholeheartedly that there cannot be any contradiction between the two. The scientific method, based on reason, seeks to discover truths about the nature of the created order and how it operates, whereas faith deals with spiritual truths. The truths of science and faith are complementary: they deal with very different questions, but they do not contradict each other because the spiritual order and the material order were created by the same God.

People of faith should be rational, using the gift of reason that God has given us. At the same time, reason itself cannot answer every question. Faith seeks to purify reason so that we might be able to see more clearly, not less. Faith supplements the scientific method by providing an understanding of values, meaning and purpose. More than that, faith — not science — can help us understand the breadth of human suffering or the depth of human love. Faith and science should go together, not be driven apart.

The question of evolution goes to the heart of this issue. If belief in evolution means simply assenting to microevolution, small changes over time within a species, I am happy to say, as I have in the past, that I believe it to be true. If, on the other hand, it means assenting to an exclusively materialistic, deterministic vision of the world that holds no place for a guiding intelligence, then I reject it.

There is no one single theory of evolution, as proponents of punctuated equilibrium and classical Darwinism continue to feud today. Many questions raised by evolutionary theory — like whether man has a unique place in the world or is merely the chance product of random mutations — go beyond empirical science and are better addressed in the realm of philosophy or theology.

The most passionate advocates of evolutionary theory offer a vision of man as a kind of historical accident. That being the case, many believers — myself included — reject arguments for evolution that dismiss the possibility of divine causality.

Ultimately, on the question of the origins of the universe, I am happy to let the facts speak for themselves. There are aspects of evolutionary biology that reveal a great deal about the nature of the world, like the small changes that take place within a species. Yet I believe, as do many biologists and people of faith, that the process of creation — and indeed life today — is sustained by the hand of God in a manner known fully only to him. It does not strike me as anti-science or anti-reason to question the philosophical presuppositions behind theories offered by scientists who, in excluding the possibility of design or purpose, venture far beyond their realm of empirical science.

Biologists will have their debates about man’s origins, but people of faith can also bring a great deal to the table. For this reason, I oppose the exclusion of either faith or reason from the discussion. An attempt by either to seek a monopoly on these questions would be wrong-headed. As science continues to explore the details of man’s origin, faith can do its part as well. The fundamental question for me is how these theories affect our understanding of the human person.

The unique and special place of each and every person in creation is a fundamental truth that must be safeguarded. I am wary of any theory that seeks to undermine man’s essential dignity and unique and intended place in the cosmos. I firmly believe that each human person, regardless of circumstance, was willed into being and made for a purpose.

While no stone should be left unturned in seeking to discover the nature of man’s origins, we can say with conviction that we know with certainty at least part of the outcome. Man was not an accident and reflects an image and likeness unique in the created order. Those aspects of evolutionary theory compatible with this truth are a welcome addition to human knowledge. Aspects of these theories that undermine this truth, however, should be firmly rejected as an atheistic theology posing as science.

Without hesitation, I am happy to raise my hand to that.

Sam Brownback is a Republican senator from Kansas.

Douglas Wilson On: Richard Dawkins, "The God Delusion," and Creation-Evolution

Douglas Wilson is, among other things, a pastor in Moscow, Idaho. Although I don't consider myself a "Wilsonite," I find this recent entry from his blog to be an excellent response to some statements in Richard Dawkins' book, "The God Delusion."

Not surprisingly, Richard Dawkins places the evolutionary process at the center of his argument.

"This book will advocate an alternative view: any creative intelligence, of sufficient complexity to design anything, comes into existence only as the end product of an extended process of gradual evolution" (p. 31, emphasis in the original).

This might be hard for scientific laymen to grasp, so I will try to provide a couple illustrations. This factory, for example, full of fantastically complex machinery and robots for the manufacturing of various ingenious devices of intricate design, is something that cannot itself be designed. For when confronted with a world full of designed things, it is not unscientific to allow that many of them were in fact designed, so long as you insist that the most intricate and complicated one, the one making all the others, happened all by itself. This Swiss watch exhibits design, to be sure, and we can allow that it was made, on purpose, in the factory. But the factory for making Swiss watches, far more complicated than any of the watches made in said factory, had to have been the result of a huge explosion in a nearby auto salvage yard. If you don't follow this argument, you probably didn't take enough science courses in high school.

If you need to hang some really heavy things from your sky hook, make sure to fasten the socket for that sky hook at least fifteen feet higher in the air than you otherwise would. The bolts work better a little bit higher like that.

Before I get some comments from scientists who think that I am not being sufficiently Respectful, let me defend myself by quoting Dawkins, quoting Thomas Jefferson.

"Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus" (p. 34).

I am glad that Dawkins taught me this principle, for I have long failed to comprehend any distinct notion of something that travels like a wave and arrives like a particle. Or maybe it is the other way around, traveling like a particle and arriving like a wave. See? A positively indistinct concept. I don't think it could be me.

The backdrop for many of Dawkins' worries is his idea that the United States has turned into this huge Theocracy. And, by European standards, maybe we have, but that is not saying much.

"The paradox has often been noted that the United States, founded in secularism, is now the most religiose country in Christendom, while England, with an established church headed by its constitutional monarch, is among the least" (p. 40).

Dawkins swallows the standard propaganda about the deism of the Founders, and laments how far our fair republic has fallen.

"The genie of religious fanaticism is rampant in present-day America, and the Founding Fathers would have been horrified" (p. 41).

Horrified, aye. The preachers at the time of the American Founding were the kind of men who spit on their hands before they started to preach, and taking one thing with another, they made the average Religious Right evangelical today look like the Rev. Caspar Milquetoast. At Yorktown, all George Washington's colonels (with one exception) were elders in Presbyterian churches. Horace Walpole said "cousin America has run off with a Presbyterian parson," referring to Witherspoon. Over half the Continental Army were Presbyterians, and the rest were Congregationalists and Baptists, fellow Calvinists all. The black robed Presbyterian preachers were called "the black regiment" because of their importance to the war effort. One of the names for the war in England was "the Presbyterian Revolt." I could go on, but Richard Dawkins seriously needs to strike up a friendship with Gary Demar and try to sneevel some free books out of him.

All that may be, but luckily it doesn't matter.

"Whether Jefferson and his colleagues were theists, deists, agnostics or atheists, they were also passionate secularists who believed that the religious opinions of a President, or lack of them, were entirely his own business" (p. 43).

Here is Jefferson's famous wall of separation, the wall that separates, as every intelligent school child knows, the right side of the brain from the left side of the brain. This wall, so important in modern secular politics, prevents us from thinking straight, for, as we all know, thinking straight would lead us into Difficulties.

I am fond of the following thought experiment. A man is running for high office, and in the course of the campaign he says this, in response to a question: "You know, my faith is very precious to me -- too precious in fact to mix with the secular duties that are connected with this office. If elected, I pledge to the American people that I will not allow my private religious convictions to affect in any way how I discharge my duties." Two years later when he is found with two hundred thousand dollars in his freezer, a mistress in the Bahamas, Jack Abramoff in his closet, and dry rot in his soul, certain penetrating questions are asked at a press conference. But the best defense is a good offense, and I would love to see Sen. Snoutworst stick to his guns. "There is nothing to apologize for in this. I openly promised the American people in the campaign that my personal relgious convictions, which are very precious to Cathy and me (not to mention Kimberly), would not be allowed to intrude into how I conducted myself in office." Secularism defined this way is not just wrong, it is incoherent.

But this is a book about atheism, and so we get back to the God-issue. Dawkins brings forth Bertrand Russell's argument concerning the burden of proof. If someone were to assert that between Earth and Mars a china teapot was orbiting the sun eliptically (p. 52), and that it was too small to be detected by our most powerful telescopes, it would be impossible to prove the theory wrong. But Russell argued that the burden of proof remains on the teapot enthusiast. And okay, I can go for that. So why is this a bad example on the God question? Why are the outer space teapot and the God who created all things not comparables? The reason they don't compare is that God does things, and He says things. If the teapot were out there and sending messages, we would know how to decode those messages. Dawkins actually acknowledges this in his discussion (in this same chapter) of the search for extraterrestial intelligence. While talking about our attempts to understand messages coming toward us, he asks, "A good approach is to turn the question around. What should we intelligently do in order to advertise our presence to extraterrestial listeners?" (p. 71).

Very good. And if someone in this cosmic teapot were sending SOS messages because the cosmic tea cozy got stuck and he could not get away in the standard teapot escape pod (as the apostle Paul would put it, I am out of my mind to talk like this), we would know how to decode his distress messages because we have the ability to distinguish information from background noise. We know what information looks like. Now, what if the universe we live in has information embedded in it throughout? What if the triune God who spoke it all into existence has left notes everywhere? What if every living cell contains a library that makes the Library of Congress look like my grandkids' coloring books collection?

Dawkins gets one thing right.

"As I shall argue in a moment, a universe with a creative superintendent would be a very different kind of universe from one without. Why is that not a scientific matter?" (p. 55).

"I return to the point: a universe in which we are alone except for other slowly evolved intelligences is a very different universe from one with an original guiding agent whose intelligent design is responsible for its very existence" (p. 61).

He is quite right. A universe spoken into existence by God is a very different place than a chaotic multiverse that has just staggered onto the cosmic stage and is looking around bewildered. "What is this?" it whispers frantically. "Waiting for Godot" the prompter hisses back.

"Like nothing else, evolution really does provide anexplanation for the existence of entities whose improbability would otherwise, for practical purposes, rule them out" (p. 61).

Right. Libraries write themselves, factories build themselves, and bridges design themselves. This doesn't usually happen, to be sure, and if it weren't for evolution, it would be reasonable for us to rule such things out. In fact, I think the only person who wouldn't rule them out would be the guy in the teapot.