Who Were the Sea Peoples?

Attempts to formulate a naturalistic epistemology are often anchored by the notion that undirected evolution would lead us naturally to have accurate beliefs. Some people have doubted this approach works, but let's say it does. It basically says that we perceive, say, tigers and lions as a threat to us because, well, they are a threat to us, and heights make us cautious because falling from a great height will kill us, we think sex is good because sex propagates the species, we seek out food because we really do need food, and so on. Isn't it odd, then, that went evidence turns up for an evolutionary basis for religion, this approach is thrown right out the window, and the ubiquity of religion in human societies is explained by everything other than evolution leading us to accurately perceive a spiritual dimension to life? It is almost as though these researchers had had their minds made up about religion in advance!

I will be teaching probability and statistics in the autumn. I've begun reviewing my textbook ( Introduction to Probability , Freund), and in the introduction I find this claim: "everything relating to chance was looked upon as divine intent ... Thus, it was considered impious, or even sacrilegious, to try to analyze the 'mechanics' of the supernatural through mathematics; indeed, some of the mathematicians connected with the early study of probability theory were persecuted for this very reason." The author does not cite a single source to back his claim that studying probability was considered "impious." He does not mention a single actual person who was ever persecuted by anyone for studying probability theory. I studied the history of science at the graduate level for a year at King's College in London, and our lecturer assured us that on any scientific topic that did not seem to directly impact the interpretation of scripture, the Catholic ...

By the way, although it sometimes drives people a little nutty, the way I use "religion" is hardly unique to me. The great anthropologist Clifford Geertz defined religion as "(1) a system of symbols (2) which acts to establish powerful, pervasive and long-lasting moods and motivations in men (3) by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and (4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that (5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic." Thus, it is not quite right to say "scientific materialism is a religion." Some people may be scientific materialists in a offhand sort of way, and find their life motivation in some other fashion. What is more correct is to say that "scientific materialism functions as a religion for many people." In particular, when we find someone claiming something like "We must face up to the fact that our lives are the product of random chance, and that we are alone in...

"It was the genius of Cicero to discern the forces of disintegration as well as the necessity of protecting the truth through language symbols, through a 'word' that incarnates the truth of divine presence in reality. In the pursuit of this problem, Cicero developed the older Latin term religio into the symbol that comprehends protectively both the truth of existence and its expression through cultic observance and doctrine... "The awareness that religion is not an analytical concept of anything but a topical response to certain problems in the Roman subsection of an ecumenic-imperial society is practically lost... As a matter of fact, the Stoics could not turn to religion because religions did not yet exist..." -- Eric Voegelin, The Ecumenic Age , pp. 92-93

Here is a very good John McWhorter piece about " white privilege ." I agree with almost everything he says: this obsessing over white privilege, or constant self-auditing as to whether one was ever scared of a few black people , is just self-indulgence, and a means to feel OK about continuing to hang out with one's white liberal friends in Park Slope because one keeps confessing to how privileged one is. McWhorter hits the heart of the issue: "For example, it’s a safe bet that most black people are more interested in there being adequate public transportation from their neighborhood to where they need to work than that white people attend encounter group sessions where they learn how lucky they are to have cars." Yes, yes, yes. But McWhorter does say something he takes for truth but is instead "true of the way people like to think about this today": "Politics is about society. Religion, however, is personal." No society in the wor...

Here, I consider the difference between a religion and an ideology. Of course, as is always the case, someone may define these items differently, and no one can say their different definition is wrong .  Definitions cannot be right or wrong, they can only be more or less helpful. So please, please, don't post a comment arguing about my definitions as being different than yours! Of course, someone could define these terms so that all religions are "ideologies," if by "ideology" they mean a somehow connected nexus of thoughts, images, and so forth. And someone could define "ideology" in such a way that every single person on earth has an "ideology," if that just means "how they think about things." I am only trying to say that here is what I have found to be a fruitful differentiation of these terms, and certainly not "the correct" differentiation of them! And further I will note that I am here following in the footsteps ...

"The overtaking by history of the antireligious attitude of liberal­ism is so well known that a brief indication will be sufficient. The liberal attack was directed against dogmatism and the authority of revelation. If only these influences on thinking and public life could be removed, then the free human being would order society rationally with his autonomous reason. "However, if in practice Christianity is successfully driven out of men, they become not rational liberals but ideologues. The undesirable spiritual order is replaced not by liberalism but rather by one or the other of the emotionally as-intensive ideologies." -- Eric Voegelin, Collected Works

Typically, when someone is pointing to "the evolutionary roots of religion," they are doing so to dismiss it. (Note: I said "typically.") What a curious line of thinking! Our feeling a desire to eat no doubt evolved as well: Does that mean we should dismiss that desire also?

to a man (sorry, in those days they were all men), all thought like this: The chief aim of all investigations of the external world should be to discover the rational order and harmony which has been imposed on it by God and which He revealed to us in the language of mathematics.… Just as the eye was made to see color and the ear to hear sounds, so the human mind was made to understand quantity. -- Johannes Kepler The success of science was yet more proof of the reality of God, and was in no way seen to be in conflict with religion. That sense of conflict only arose in the nineteenth century, and the reasons were not scientific, but political: progressive politics was (often) anti-religious, and scientists did not wish to seem backwards in their politics! (Hat tip to Thomas Treloar. )

"Like most summer activities, the frogs' vocal signaling requires an impressive expenditure of energy, and therefore presumably has an advantage." -- Bernd Heinrich, Summer World , p. 40 So, here is a prominent biologist stating a general rule for evaluating traits: if the trait is expensive in terms of energy required, by default we should assume it provides something important to the species in question. And, of course, the more widespread the trait is, the more we should suspect it is adaptive. So, someone who believes evolutionary biology is the cat's meow, and finds a widespread human practice, so widespread that we have never encountered a single culture where it is absent, and one into which a huge amount of energy is poured, would have to say it is most likely adaptive, right? Wrong! Not if the practice is religion! Then this universal, high-energy consuming activity turns out to be a social pathology ! Everyone does it not because it has helped us to s...

"Religions are human creations. When they are consciously designed to be useful, they are normally short-lived. The ones that survive are those that have evolved to serve enduring human needs - especially the need for self-transcendence. That is why we can be sure the world's traditional religions will be alive and well when evangelical atheism is dead and long forgotten." -- John Gray

so long as you don't take it seriously . Or at least that seems to be Andrew Sullivan's position. The issue is Mormons' practice of posthumously baptizing those of other faiths. Now, if Mormons seriously believe this will help the souls of the departed, and it is little trouble for them, then it would seem to be morally obligatory for them to continue this practice. But Sullivan will have none of that: "It's deeply disrespectful to and invasive of other faiths to be posthumously co-opted in this fashion." Respecting other faiths (so long as they are kept in the private sphere) and non-invasiveness of such private spheres are values that sustain the liberal polity: they are key tenets of the liberal faith . To be a good liberal, you can have a secondary faith, but all of its tenets must be potentially trumped by the central tenets of liberalism. If you are more worried about, say, the eternal salvation of others' souls than you are about their priva...