going to church vs. seeing a psychologist

Okay last post for the day...

A while back I spoke with a friend who used to be a church pastor but who now does one-on-one (psychological) counseling with people.  I asked her which one she preferred.  "Oh being a counselor is soooo much better than being a pastor!" she said. Surprised, I asked her why.  She explained that when people come to church, they are looking to sit back and be entertained.  When someone goes for counseling, they are looking to do work, they are looking to grow and change and become a better person. 

That conversation has really stuck with me because it rings true from my experience. 

And it got me wondering whether perhaps, the purpose of religion is NOT to help people become more ethical, but rather to make people feel righteous about stuff they are already doing (usually homophobia, male domination, reinforcing the status quo, etc.)

Because really when you think about it, religious people are some of the LEAST ethical people in society.  Ask any waitress in America about the horrible tips from people who come to brunch straight from church and you'll see what I'm talking about.  And people who really want to grow, who really want to challenge themselves, and who really want to change who they are to become better people -- almost always go see a counselor/therapist to help them get there.  It's really quite fascinating. 

The role of fractional reserve banking in propelling the growth of capitalism in Protestant countries

Friends who know me know that I'm a huge fan of Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. I discuss this book so often in person that I was surprised the other day when I did a search of my blog and discovered that I've never gone into much depth about the book here on the site. So today I want to rap down the basic thesis of The Protestant Ethic & The Spirit of Capitalism and then expand upon Weber's theory using data from Niall Ferguson's The Ascent of Money. (There is an excellent Wikipedia article on The Protestant Ethic & the Spirit of Capitalism for anyone who is looking for a more complete overview of the book.)

First published as a two-part article in 1904-5, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism is one of the cornerstones of the field of sociology. In the book, Weber is trying to figure out why it is that capitalism developed faster in countries that adopted Protestantism while the development of capitalism in Catholic and other non-Protestant countries lagged behind. And what he finds is this:

The central question for a Christian is whether he/she is going to heaven. In Catholicism, for hundreds of years, the path to heaven was very clear -- pay "indulgences" to the church, and your sins are forgiven and when you die, you go to heaven. Indulgences were basically a way for the Catholic Church to tax all of Europe for hundreds of years. But Martin Luther and John Calvin hated the practice of indulgences (and many feudal princes in Germany and other provinces hated them too). Luther and then Calvin argued that God is so great, no human works could possibly be enough to earn his (sic) favor. Rather, everything is predestined, determined ahead of time by God. They argued that those who go to heaven are saved through God's grace alone, not human works (read: indulgences).

Which is fine as far as that goes, but people naturally want to know if they are one of the chosen, one of the elect who will be going to heaven. Weber writes:

"The question, Am I one of the elect? must sooner or later have arisen for every believer and have forced all other interests into the background." --The Protestant Ethic & The Spirit of Capitalism, p. 110.

This was no small matter either. Luther argued that only 144,000 people were going to heaven, so there were a limited number of seats on the bus, so to speak. So people started to look around for signs that one is "chosen." And what are the signs? Well according to Luther and Calvin, the chosen are those who dedicate their lives to creating God's will on earth. So the signs are that one works without ceasing -- and here's the kicker -- and one never spends much on the sins of the flesh. Luther and Calvin hated the sensuality of Catholicism, that peasants could get drunk, dance, and have sex with each other on Saturday and then pay their indulgences on Sunday and be forgiven. The mark of Protestantism became those who so ordered their lives so that they NEVER gave in to the sins of the flesh and never spent their earnings on bodily desires. Hence the Protestant Ethic was born.

"On the one hand it is held to be an absolute duty to consider oneself chosen, and to combat all doubts as temptations of the devil, since lack of self-confidence is the result of insufficient faith, hence of imperfect grace... On the other hand, in order to attain that self-confidence intense worldly activity is recommended as the most suitable means." --The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, p. 111 and 112

"The God of Calvinism demanded of his believers not single good works, but a life of good works combined into a unified system. There was no place for the very human Catholic cycle of sin, repentance, atonement, release, followed by renewed sin.... [Protestantism] had developed a systematic method of rational conduct with the purpose of overcoming the status naturae, to free man from the power of irrational impulses and his dependence on the world and on nature." p. 117 - 118

"Sebastian Franck struck the central characteristic of this type of religion when he saw the significance of the Reformation in the fact that now every Christian had to be a monk all his life.... By founding its ethic in the doctrine of predestination, Protestantism substituted for the spiritual aristocracy of monks outside of and above the world the spiritual aristocracy of the predestined saints of God within the world." p. 121

Just to be clear, the relentless work ethic of Protestants was not a means to attain salvation but rather a system of self assurance (a method of existential anxiety control if you will) that simply affirmed one had already attained salvation through grace.

But something curious happens when people work extremely hard and rarely spend money. For the first time in human history you have large accumulations of capital. And large accumulation of capital naturally lead to banks (places to store that capital), which then provides the catalyst (and the capital) for the emergence of capitalism in all of the Protestant nations.

The explanatory powers of the theory are so strong that indeed, a whole academic discipline, sociology, emerged in its wake. And the writing in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism is both so direct and searing that it has endured as one of the great academic treatises of all time.

And yet, as great as The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism is, I wonder if there are some additional factors that also help to explain the rise of capitalism in Protestant countries.

In an earlier post, I asked whether in fact, slavery, not Protestantism, was the catalyst for the emergence of capitalism? Indeed Eric Williams makes that point in his book Capitalism & Slavery and Eduardo Galeano builds upon that idea in, Open Veins of Latin America.

But I don't think it's an either/or situation. I think it's a both/and. Protestantism led to the accumulation of capital that developed the bourgeois class that accumulated even more capital that paid for the ships that participated in and profited from the African slave trade that further fueled the growth of capitalism.

After reading The Ascent of Money, I think I may have stumbled upon another important facet of the story: fractional reserve banking. I'll explain:

The early Christian Church and Islam too forbade the lending of money and charging interest. It was called usury and was considered one of the worst possible sins.

"For Christians, lending money at interest was a sin. Usurers, people who lent money at interest, had been excommunicated by the Third Lateran Council in 1179. Even arguing that usury was not a sin had been condemned as heresy by the Council of Vienna in 1311-12. Christian usurers had to make restitution to the Church before they could be buried on hallowed ground." --The Ascent of Money, p. 35

The earliest forms of modern banking began in Italy with the emergence of the powerful Medici family serving as an intermediary between various businesses.

"Of particular importance in the Medici's early business were the bills of exchange (cambium per literas) that had developed in the course of the Middle Ages as a way of financing trade. If one merchant owned another sum that could not be paid in cash until the conclusion of a transaction some months hence, the creditor could draw a bill on the debtor and use the bill as a means of payment in its own right or obtain cash for it at a discount from a banker willing to act as broker. Whereas the charging of interest was condemned as usury by the Church, there was nothing to prevent a shrewd trader making profits on such transactions. That was the essence of the Medici business. There were no checks; instructions were given orally and written in the bank's books. There was no interest; depositors were given discrezione (in proportion to the annual profits of the firm) to compensate them for risking their money. " --The Ascent of Money, p. 43-44

But it wasn't until the Reformation that modern banking and the modern capitalist system really took off. And Martin Luther and John Calvin were key in revising church teachings on lending with interest.

"From 1515 until early 1524, Luther's works indicate that he was completely opposed to lending money at interest. In the second time period, from late 1524 until his death in 1546, while still principally against usury -- especially among Christians -- Luther's writings indicate that he allowed for the practice of lending money at interest, albeit with certain restrictions." --Reforming the Morality of Usury: A Study of the Differences that Separated the Protestant Reformers, David Jones p. 52

In 1524, just 4 years after surviving the Diet of Worms and excommunication (but not execution) by the Catholic Church, Luther displayed a notable shift in his writing on usury:

"Luther's writings reveal that he tolerated and even suggested guidelines whereby usury may be practiced in the kingdom of this world. These guidelines include a call for itemized collateral, shared risk, and governmental oversight of usurious transactions." -- Reforming the Morality of Usury: A Study of the Differences that Separated the Protestant Reformers, p. 61

So too, Calvin's views on usury also represented a break from earlier church teachings. In Calvin's letter on usury in 1545 he makes a biblical case that usury might be permitted under certain circumstances:

"Calvin knew there were two Hebrew words translated as “usury.” One, neshek, meant “to bite”; the other, tarbit, meant “to take legitimate increase.” Based on these distinctions, Calvin argued that only “biting” loans were forbidden. Thus, one could lend at interest to business people who would make a profit using the money." -- Norman Jones, Utah State University

As a result of these theological shifts, the modern banking system began to emerge in Protestant countries in Europe.

"It was in Amsterdam, London and Stockholm [all cities that broke from Catholicism during the Reformation] that the next decisive wave of financial innovation occurred, as the forerunners of modern central banks made their first appearance. The seventeenth century saw the foundation of three distinctly novel institutions that, in their different ways, were intended to serve a public as well as a private financial function. The Amsterdam Exchange Bank (Wisselbank) was set up in 1609 to resolve the practical problems created for merchants by the circulation of multiple currencies in the United Provinces, where there were no fewer than fourteen different mints and copious quantities of foreign coins. By allowing merchants to set up accounts denominated in a standardized currency, the Exchange Bank pioneered the system of checks and direct debits or transfer that we take for granted today. This allowed more and more commercial transactions to take place without the need for the sums involved to materialize in actual coins. One merchant could make a payment to another simply by arranging for his account at the bank to be debited and the counterparty's account to be credited. The limitation on this system was simply that the Exchange Bank maintained something close to a 100 percent ratio between its deposits and its reserves of precious metal and coin....

It was in Stockholm nearly half a century later, with the foundation of the Swedish Riksbank in 1656, that the barrier was broken through. Although it performed the same functions as the Dutch Wisselbank, the Riksbank was also designed to be a Lanebank, meaning that it engaged in lending as well as facilitating commercial payments. By lending amounts in excess of its metallic reserve, it may be said to have pioneered the practice of what would later be known as fractional reserve banking, exploiting the fact that money left on deposit could profitably be lent out to borrowers. Since depositors were highly unlikely to ask en masse for their money, only a fraction of their money need to be kept in the Riksbank's reserves at any given time." --The Ascent of Money, p. 48-49

Think about how important fractional reserve banking is to the history of the world. I deposit $100 in a bank that is required to hold 10% reserves. The bank then lends out $90 to a business that spends that $90 on equipment to run their business and make a profit. The seller of that equipment deposits that $90 in a bank that then lends out $81 and so on. In just 3 transactions, the original $100 has been turned into $271 of economic activity.

Basically, while the Catholic countries (Spain, Portugal, Italy) were still thinking that money was metal and building far flung empires to dig the metal ore out of the ground, the Protestant countries of Europe figured out how to make money out of nothing more than trust. And in the end, money based on credit (trust in business relationships) proved to be more resilient than money based on metal. How crazy is that!?

The important point to note here is that, it was not just the Protestant ethic that led to (capital formation which caused) the emergence of modern capitalism. It was also the theological openings by Luther and Calvin to allow usury, to allow lending with interest that sparked the emergence of capitalism in Reformed countries as well. Free from the dictates of the Vatican, the Protestant countries quickly liberalized lending rules in ways that reshaped the balance of power in the world and gave birth to our modern capitalist economy.

Final thought: it's interesting to reflect on how different church doctrines lead to different lending patterns in the economy. Basically, the Catholic ban on usury led to the rise of mafia-style families like the Medici -- informal financial intermediaries who don't charge interest but take a cut of each transaction. By contract, Protestant support for usury can be said to lead to the development of the multinational banks. They both have their problems of course, but it's fascinating to reflect on the role of theology in dictating the direction of the economy.

Update #1: A number of researchers have noted that the ban on charging interest in Islam has impeded the economic growth of the Middle East, leading in part to the millions of young men with limited financial futures (who are then a target for recruitment by radical Islamic organizations). Also I think it's interesting to note that religions that tend to de-emphasize the importance of the physical world and give priority to the spiritual or invisible world, for example Buddhism and Hinduism, both lead to economic structures that are a complete disaster -- basically leaving the society stuck with a stone age economy. Western liberal support for Tibet is always something of a mystery to me given that Tibet was a theocracy with a population left destitute by a theology that paid little attention to the need to improve living standards. The Indian economy has shown remarkable growth in recent years but I would argue that Hinduism is not driving that growth -- rather as the country has become more secular, it has devoted more resources towards economic development (investing heavily in education and infrastructure).

I shouldn't have watched Religulous again, but...

Okay this is not gonna go over well, but, that's never really stopped me before. [Actually, social disapproval is one of the ways that our minds become colonized, circumscribed, and constrained.  And it is only through risking social disapproval that we break through those chains to see the world as it really is.]  So here goes:

By any standard modern definition of mental health, the founders of most of the major world religions were  mentally ill.  Matching our modern understanding of mental health up against the written accounts of the actions of these religious figures, one would observe that:

Siddhārtha Gautama, the Buddha, appears to have suffered from anti-social personality disorder.  He abandoned his family and avoided most personal relationships with other people, preferring instead to live under a tree with his eyes closed for most of his life. 

Abraham, the patriarch of the Israelites and the Jewish faith, appears to have suffered from paranoid schizophrenia: he heard voices, thought God was talking to him, and tried to murder his own son because of the voices in his head.

Jesus of Nazareth, the founder of the Christian faith, appears to have suffered from narcissistic personality disorder.  He thought he was the son of God, told people to abandon their families, give everything away, and follow him.

I know less about the life and works of Muhammad ibn ‘Abdullāh, the founder of Islam.  But he too, claimed that angels sent by God spoke directly to him and is said to have transcribed an entire book, the Qur'an, based on these messages from God.  Today we would call that sort of thinking schizophrenic. 

More recently:

Martin Luther (who started the Protestant Reformation), St. Ignacius of Loyola (founder of the Jesuits), and John Bunyan (author of Pilgrim's Progress which formed the cornerstone of Puritanism) all suffered from obsessive compulsive disorder.

Joseph Smith Jr., founder of Mormonism, was a well known con man.  [Read Jon Krakauer's book, Under the Banner of Heaven to learn more.]  I don't know where being a con man fits in the DSM-IV but needless to say, it suggests that Smith's mental health was not 100%. 

What this suggests is that 1) our tradition of holding the medical practice of psychiatry in high esteem; and 2) our tradition of respecting various religious traditions -- are fundamentally incompatible with each other.  To the extent that we hold that the DSM-IV is the best approximation we have for what constitutes mental health and mental illness -- then we necessarily conclude that the followers of the various major religions traditions are following the teachings of people who were likely suffering from mental illness.  And to the extent that we conclude that religion is a good and true depiction of life on earth (and beyond) -- then we necessarily conclude that the DSM-IV is invalid.  And yet, most respectable, modern people in Western society hold these two fundamentally incompatible sets of views ('religious tolerance is good and modern psychology is good') without noting the severe dissonance between these two sets of views.

Said simply -- it seems that we either we need to respect crazy people more, or respect religious traditions less.

The first law of religious adherence

In my continuing quest to document the human condition I've come up with what I call:
The First Law of Religious Adherence:

The success of any religion is directly proportional to the size of what it promises, divided by the cost of attaining that promise.

It's really quite remarkable how well this works. Check it out:

	Religion	Promise	/Cost	Number of Adherents
	Christianity	eternal life w/an optional golf package (high promise)	follow no other Gods (low cost)	2.1 billion (jackpot!)
	Islam	72 virgins (great promise!)	martyrdom (ouch, very costly!)	1.5 billion
	Secular/Agnostic/Atheist	free from dogma and religious b.s. in this life (great promise)	no eternal life (costly, but not as costly as Islam)	1.1 billion
	Hinduism	six heavenly levels	live a pure life with many paths to reach that goal	900 million
	Buddhism	enlightenment in this life; maybe, or perhaps in the next (good promise)	sit on your ass with your eyes closed for your whole life, beg for food & renounce sex and worldly pleasures (wow, very high cost!)	376 million

Based on this chart, I think there is perhaps another great religion just waiting to be started -- one that combines the best promise (Islam's 72 virgins -- but it can be equal opportunity this time -- 72 virgins for both men and women!), with the lowest cost participation (Christianity's 'follow no other gods but me'). We can call it Christilam or Islianity. I think it could break 3 million adherents easy! [That's marketing synergy, baby!]

For a more serious look at changing attitudes towards religion in the U.S. check out Lisa Miller's article, "We Are All Hindus Now" in the most recent issue of Newsweek.

I bet there is a corresponding 1st Law of Politics:

The success of a political party is directly proportional to the size of the promise divided by the cost of attaining that promise [multiplied by a constant that represents the trust we have that the party will actually be able to deliver?]

In fact, I bet that's exactly why our economy and political system are such a mess right now. The Two Santa Claus theory that has defined U.S. politics for the past 30 years really is a version of Christilam -- the best promise (government services and tax cuts) combined with the lowest cost (more tax cuts). Except it only works as a theory of getting elected not as an actual method of governance. Religion doesn't have that problem -- they just get to sell the product -- it's up to God to deliver on the promise.

Some thoughts on "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins

I've started reading The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. It's really thoughtful and helpful, I think, at tearing down some of the old myths that are preventing the world from moving to a more peaceful plain. Dawkins is not as engaging a writer as Sam Harris (but few people are), but he's much more accessible than Dan Dennett and more pleasant than Christopher Hitchens. As I've said before, in general I think the new atheists (Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens, and Dennett) are doing some important plowing that will ultimately make the world a better place.

That being said, I WISH Dawkins (and some of the other modern atheists) would do three things:

1. Acknowledge just how strange and wonderful it is that there is something rather than nothing. There was nothing and then there was something and existence is very strange and very awesome.

2. Acknowledge just how terrifying the thought of not existing is for most people. The brains of atheists must be wildly different than the brains of the rest of us. They seem to lack the connections between various regions of the brain that trigger the blinding panic at the thought of not existing. They seem nonchalant to the point of never mentioning what I think it probably a very real emotion for most of us. In fact the terror of not existing might be one of the most powerful emotions in the human experience and one of the primary reasons for the enduring (so far) power of religion.

3. Stop over-applying evolution (and the process of natural selection) to questions it does not answer. Evolution is correct, true to the best of our knowledge, and explains the history of life on earth. But evolution tells us nothing one way or another as to whether there is a God. There was a big bang then everything else happened. Okay, so what!? Evolution does not tell us if there is an ultimate creator of the universe or not. All it tells us is that Biblical literalists are incorrect and dumb. Okay, but we already knew that. I feel like, for every problem, Christian fundamentalists pick up a Bible and start waving it. And I feel like for too many problems, too many modern atheists pick up Origin of Species (or something by Stephen Jay Gould) and start waving it. And in neither case does the text explain all that its supporters claim it explains. Evolution tells us what -- it does not tell us why and as a result scientists ('The What is all there is!') and religious folk ('The Why is all that really matters!') are too often talking past each other.

Look, calculus has only existed for 300 years. Modern medicine has only existed for about 75 years -- since the advent of antibiotics (1928). Democracy in its modern form (without slaves and with universal suffrage) has only existed since the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The pill has only existed since the 1960s. Humanity and human thinking is really just in its infancy. Isn't it at least possible that some sort of spiritual technology, some sort of spiritual practice, some sort of spiritual breakthrough could happen as big as calculus, antibiotics, democracy, or the pill? Something so big that it would make all the previous attempts at the question seem silly (just as antibiotics made blood-letting seem silly). It seems to violate the very open-minded, evidence-based approach of rationality to claim that atheists (probably) know the answer to the ultimate question when, in many respects, the human race is really just beginning to figure things out.

The case for atheism, part 1

I hope this post blows your mind. It blew my mind when it came to me so I thought I'd share it with you:

The moral and ethical case for vegetarianism is not difficult to make. There are probably hundreds of different ways to make the case but let's examine one:

No animal wants to die. In particular, no animal wants to be killed by another animal. Turn on any nature show and see the gazelle running in terror to escape the cheetah and you'll know this is true. Even the lowly cockroach seems to follow our gaze and dash from the underside of our angry shoe. Now, different animals have different pain thresholds and different levels of intelligence but it is obvious to everyone but a psychopath that no animal wants to be killed by another. Can we all agree on that point?

So there is a strong moral and ethical case to be made for vegetarianism: it is obvious that the killing of any animal is cruel. We want to live in a humane world with less cruelty and violence. So we choose to eat only plants. It's a pretty strong case. And indeed if we all had to kill our food ourselves, many of us would likely become vegetarians pretty quickly. Nothing complicated about that argument, correct?

Okay but here's the thing. The earth is designed for animals to kill other animals. Cheetahs eventually do catch a gazelle or a zebra. The shark is never gonna become a vegetarian -- it has to eat other fish in order to survive. The history of this planet is filled with lots and lots of predators -- animals who kill other animals against their will.

So God if there is a God, designed a world filled with predators.

But as I just showed above, even the most basic understanding of morality shows that it is cruel to kill another animal.

So by even the most basic definitions of morality -- YOU (or at least people who can understand vegetarianism -- which is pretty much everyone) have a HIGHER system of morality than God does (if there is such a thing).

That's an idea that is incredibly painful to comprehend -- there may indeed be a God and that God might just be an asshole. Most ancient people could understand this concept -- indeed pantheistic religions -- with multiple gods often in conflict with each other, have the ability to account for whimsical deities whose ethics are worse than our own. But the moment people embrace monotheism -- we experience the theodicy problem -- why do bad things happen to good people (the good and the bad of creation are located in one creator causing cognitive dissonance for the rest of us). The All Loving Santa Claus God (TM) that is popular in America today seems to leave no room for the fact that the hand we were dealt by creation can be incredibly violent and cruel (and totally lovely other times, it's true).

The alternative of course is to say that we can't explain creation through appeals to anthropomorphized God(s).

I'm not saying I have an answer, only that whatever answer we come up with for how we got here and why we are here necessarily needs to also explain all the evil, violence, and cruelty that seems built into the natural world.

Update #1: Indeed, isn't that what the Genesis story attempts to explain? Faced with the possibility that God is just an asshole (how else to explain all the violence and cruelty around them) the ancients took one for the team and said, 'oh no no, God is really good and things were really peaceful here once -- but then WE messed up by eating an apple and now we're gonna be punished for eternity.' Ya gotta hand it to them for trying -- a lifetime of guilt being a more desirable emotion than existential dread I suppose. But as we unearth dinosaur bones with really really big teeth for eating other dinosaurs -- we see that there likely never was a peaceful time -- violence and cruelty were the plan BEFORE we ever showed up on the scene.

Understanding evolution: Stephen Jay Gould vs. Ken Wilber

I believe Ken Wilber's Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution is perhaps the best spiritual treatise ever written. Ever. In human history. Better than the Bible, better than the Torah, better than the Koran, better than the Bagvagita (as frequent readers of this blog will know, I find those other sacred texts rather woeful so perhaps that's not the best comparison). Published in 1995 -- Sex, Ecology, Spirituality (SES) benefits from the wisdom inherent in modernity but I believe it is also better than any of the modern spiritual treatises (Tolle, Chopra, Chodron) that have been put out over the last few decades as well.

SES represents one of the most ambitious intellectual undertakings ever attempted. Wilber's approach goes something like this: he argues that within any academic discipline (chemistry, sociology, psychology, economics, etc.) there are a generally agreed upon set of facts -- and there topics on the edges of the discipline that are still subject to dispute and disagreement. In Sex, Ecology Spirituality, Wilber attempts to take the generally agreed upon facts -- from EVERY discipline -- and map what we know to be true -- from the Big Bang, until today. As I understand it (and this may just be my read, not Wilber's intention) the unspoken hope in creating this map is either to reveal God (if we plot enough data points does it show us the outline of God perhaps -- like a sort of constellation of stars?) or point to God (the universe seems to be going in THIS direction so that must point to the omega point of human existence).

Wilber's map, also know as the 4 Quadrants, looks like this:


It won't make sense until you read the book. Regardless of where you come out in terms of his conclusions, I think you'll find that the 4 quadrant map is extremely cool.

But (you knew there was a But coming right?) there's something very strange that happens when you talk to people who are into Wilber's "integral theory":

• If you talk with a psychologist who is into integral theory, he/she will often say, 'I really like SES and integral theory, but he doesn't really get the psychology part right -- but I really like the rest of it.'

• If you talk with a sociologist, you'll often hear, 'I really like the map, I think SES is genius, but he doesn't really understand the sociology that he writes about.'

• As someone who studies politics, I find Wilber's writings on politics to be dangerously naive -- the sort of thing someone would write who has never tried to move a piece of legislation or made a call or knocked on a door in a campaign.

• I imagine a similar sort of thing happens in other disciplines as well.

Now some of this may just be professional jealousy. Wilber put this brilliant tome out into the marketplace of ideas and it's natural that some folks would try to knock it a bit -- in the hope that some of his greatness might rub off on them through association. I'm sure some of that is going on -- but I don't think that's the whole story. I really think SES is a case where the WHOLE is greater than the sum of the parts. Wilber constructs this elaborate house made up of plywood understandings of the various parts that make up the whole. And that's probably fine -- the house is beautiful -- and it's the most beautiful house on the block. The world needs generalists and the world needs specialists -- and they are two different kinds of people.

Recently, I started reading Stephan Jay Gould, because I felt like I wanted to better understand evolution, evolutionary biology, and evolutionary psychology. And in a few short sentences, Gould undercuts not only Wilber's understanding of evolution but the ENTIRE THESIS of Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality. Gould is not writing in reply to Wilber -- he's just writing about the evolution of life on earth, but he comes to every different conclusions than Wilber. I want to chew on a few quotes and then talk about what all of this might mean [you can read Gould's whole piece here]:

One might grant that complexification for life as a whole represents a pseudo-trend based on constraint at the left wall but still hold that evolution within particular groups differentially favors complexity when the founding lineage begins far enough from the left wall to permit movement in both directions. Empirical tests of this interesting hypothesis are just beginning (as concern for the subject mounts among paleontologists), and we do not yet have enough cases to advance a generality. But the first two studies - by Daniel W. McShea of the University of Michigan on mammalian vertebrae and by George F. Boyajian of the University of Pennsylvania on ammonite suture lines - show no evolutionary tendencies to favor increased complexity.

Moreover, when we consider that for each mode of life involving greater complexity, there probably exists an equally advantageous style based on greater simplicity of form (as often found in parasites, for example), then preferential evolution toward complexity seems unlikely a priori. Our impression that life evolves toward greater complexity is probably only a bias inspired by parochial focus on ourselves, and consequent overattention to complexifying creatures, while we ignore just as many lineages adapting equally well by becoming simpler in form. The morphologically degenerate parasite, safe within its host, has just as much prospect for evolutionary success as its gorgeously elaborate relative coping with the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune in a tough external world....

Then this:

Although interesting and portentous events have occurred since, from the flowering of dinosaurs to the origin of human consciousness, we do not exaggerate greatly in stating that the subsequent history of animal life amounts to little more than variations on anatomical themes established during the Cambrian explosion within five million years. Three billion years of unicellularity, followed by five million years of intense creativity and then capped by more than 500 million years of variation on set anatomical themes can scarcely be read as a predictable, inexorable or continuous trend toward progress or increasing complexity.

And then my favorite quote:

Sigmund Freud often remarked that great revolutions in the history of science have but one common, and ironic, feature: they knock human arrogance off one pedestal after another of our previous conviction about our own self-importance. In Freud's three examples, Copernicus moved our home from center to periphery, Darwin then relegated us to "descent from an animal world"; and, finally (in one of the least modest statements of intellectual history), Freud himself discovered the unconscious and exploded the myth of a fully rational mind. In this wise and crucial sense, the Darwinian revolution remains woefully incomplete because, even though thinking humanity accepts the fact of evolution, most of us are still unwilling to abandon the comforting view that evolution means (or at least embodies a central principle of) progress defined to render the appearance of something like human consciousness either virtually inevitable or at least predictable. The pedestal is not smashed until we abandon progress or complexification as a central principle and come to entertain the strong possibility that H. sapiens is but a tiny, late-arising twig on life's enormously arborescent bush - a small bud that would almost surely not appear a second time if we could replant the bush from seed and let it grow again. [Full article by Stephen Jay Gould here.]

Wilber's entire thesis rests on complexification -- on the idea that the increasing complexity we see in evolution points us towards God. And here Stephen Jay Gould, one of the world's leading experts on evolution, in just a few short sentences says, 'nope, evolution likes simplicity just as much as complexity.'

Look, I don't know who's right, Gould or Wilber (and I imagine some integral theorist out there has found a way to harmonize the two) -- but it is alarming to say the least to see Gould, one of the world's experts on evolution look at the same data -- and come away with the opposite conclusion (from Wilber).

I just want to make two notes about this:

1. This simple exercise points to the dangers of being seduced by a theory. Oftentimes we look at a theory on paper -- and it just feels right and so we become passionate about it. But are we qualified to evaluate the merits of the theory? Do we have data to back up the theory? And are we equipped to evaluate the merits of that data? In the modern world, we are all completely in over our heads -- we rely on tools and technology that we don't understand. And by necessity we take most things on faith -- even the most rational scientifically minded of us -- because we can't all be specialists at everything.

2. What I LIKE about Gould's point above is the way that it destroys ego. That's one of the biggest problems of integral theory -- it is so goddamn egocentric. Integral theory seems to wish for a world where the wise meditative theocrats rule over the ignorant tribalists. [We've seen what that world looks like actually -- it's Tibet prior to the Chinese invasion -- it's a feudal world with stone age technology where a handful of theocrats rule over the desperate and permanently impoverished population.] It is no surprise then that problems of ego cripple the integral movement every time it seems on the verge of a major breakthrough in popular consciousness.

So again, I don't know who's right or wrong on this issue of the evolutionary merits of complexity vs. simplicity -- but I think there's great food for thought in the dissonance between these two writers. I think it also suggests that the next great spiritual work won't be the product of any one person. Increasingly, even the world's smartest person is no match for Google and the modern world's capacity for parallel processing. What would SES look like as a collaborative project with each of its pieces written by the experts in each particular field? Would the thesis still hold or would we end up with a very different map of the universe? [Said slightly differently would it be possible to MAP all of the knowledge on Wikipedia -- and if so, what would it tell us?]

Update #1: I see that that others have plowed this path before I had (which of course, I should have figured out BEFORE I start writing this post). But if you google: Stephen Jay Gould and Ken Wilber, you'll find lots of interesting further reading.

Update #2: I actually find Stephen Jay Gould's writings on "non-overlapping magisteria" to be unhelpful. So I think Wilber is right to whack him on that.

It's a tough call

Evidence FOR the existence of God:

creation
puppies
dolphins
frogs
children
laughter
flowers
pie
water
sex
love
friendship


Evidence AGAINST the existence of God:

childhood leukemia
1 billion extinct species
violence
genocide
rape
war
religion
loneliness
Nazis
disease
death
dinosaurs
meat
the end of creation
The Boston Celtics

I don't know, it's a tough call.

They asked the Buddha, what is the meaning of all this, and he holds up a lotus flower and people are all like, yep, that's it!

Then you ask Richard Dawkins, what is the meaning of all of this, and he can point to the second list and say, 'really, your all loving all powerful god is into all of this?' And that's pretty convincing too.

And they're both right and yet it doesn't necessarily tell us anything about what's behind the curtain or whether there is anything behind the curtain at all.

Things that seem normal but aren't, Part 1

[editor's note: I've been meaning to do this post for a while. I imagine it's the sort of post I could keep adding to for years and years.]

It seems to me that there are lots of things that SEEM normal in society that, when you actually stop to think about them, are actually very very strange. Here are a few:

1. Holy Communion (aka The Eucharist). The Roman Catholic Church teaches that through the process of transubstantiation the wafer and wine are LITERALLY turned into the body and blood of Jesus -- and then EATEN by the members of the congregation. That's not a typo or a misuse of the word "literally." Catholics believe that the wafer and wine are literally the body and blood of Jesus. So that means that 1.1 billion people on the planet practice cannibalism on Sundays to honor their creator. That's some crazy shit. And Protestant communion really isn't that much better is it? "Take and eat, this is my body broken for you." Really? Did I ask you to do that? I'm supposed to eat a representation of your body to honor a decision you made without consulting the rest of us? Really? What if I would have actually preferred for you to build an army, overthrow the government, and then pass universal health care instead?

2. Cheer leaders. At major sporting events, heck even at high school and junior high sporting events (and pee wee football games!) we take the prettiest girls from the surround area, dress them in the skimpiest outfits imaginable, and have them act as public emotional fluffers for the boys/men playing in the sporting event and the partisans who watch them. That's some crazy shit. And culture is powerful enough that many girls/women actually seek to perform these roles -- the task is seen as desirable and status producing. When I see college sports, with male "yell leaders" hoisting young women up for display or throwing them in the air, I feel like it is some weird Druidic taunting of the opponent -- like 'look at how hot our women are -- you can't have them because our warrior men (athletes) are so fierce.' But really, it seems that cheer leaders are the prize that the two teams are competing for -- because everyone knows that women prefer the alpha males. Cheerleaders are like the brief case full of cash that gets put on the table in the final round of the World Series of Poker -- letting everyone know what they are really playing for. And that is really really weird when you think about it.

3. Horror movies. In our country and indeed around the world, people pay money for entertainment which consists of moving images of young women (some young men, but mostly young women) being tortured and killed in the most gruesome ways imaginable. It is considered normal to consume this entertainment with friends or even a "cool" date. And often, these brutal sadistic images are considered funny. Again, that's some really weird shit when you think about it.

That's what I got for now. I'm sure other examples will come to me. If you have any examples of "thing that seem normal that aren't" I'd welcome them in the comments.

Completely fascinating religion research

Today, I googled "people killed by God in the Bible." A wealth of resources came back that provided for some fascinating reading. Here are some links you just gotta check out (the discussion in the comments to these posts are often fascinating too):

How many people did God kill in the Old Testament?

In a previous post, I've listed and counted God's killings in the Bible. But I only included those that said exactly how many were killed by God. I came up with 2,301,417. But that didn't include some of God's most impressive slaughters. How many did God drown in the flood or burn to death in Sodom and Gomorrah? How many first-born Egyptians did he kill? The Bible doesn't say, so there's no way to know for sure. But it's possible to provide rough estimates in order to get a grand total. (New total: 34 million.)

Who has killed more people -- God or Satan? [This one is no contest.]

I've tried to assign numbers to the un-numbered killings in the Bible. You can see the detailed list here. The results were even more lopsided: 33 million (plus or minus a few million) for God; 60 for Satan.

Which is more violent, the Bible or the Quran? [Turns out it depends on how one measures it -- total violent passages or violent passages as a percentage of the whole.]

So the Bible has more cruel or violent passages than the Quran. But the Bible is a much bigger book. How do they compare when size is taken into account?

	Violence and Cruelty	Total verses	Percent
Bible	907	31173	2.91
Quran	520	6236	8.34

When expressed as a percentage of cruel or violent verses (at least as marked in the SAB/Q), the Quran has nearly three times that of the Bible. (8.34 vs. 2.91%).

These posts (from Dwindling in Unbelief) often link to:

The Skeptic's Annotated Bible,
The Skeptic's Annotated Quran, and
The Skeptic's Annotated Book of Mormon.

These sites index these "sacred texts" according to fourteen different categories (Absurdity, Injustice, Cruelty and Violence, Intolerance, Contradictions, Science and History, Interpretation, Family Values, Women, Good Stuff, Prophecy, Sex, Language, Homosexuality). There's some really good research here -- and the sites are user friendly and easy to navigate.

But just so you don't think these are just hater sites, note that one of the categories is "Good Stuff" -- they don't overlook the good stuff, they just show how few "good stuff" passages there relative to all the awful stuff.

Good stuff in the Bible.

Good stuff in the Quran.

Good stuff in the Book of Mormon.

For his tireless (and helpful!) research, Steve Wells is hereby named The RFK Action Front Person of the Week!

Update #1: Look, I'm not saying spirit doesn't have a place in this world. I'm agnostic on that point. But what I am saying is that a spirituality written by violent primitive people based on a brutal and cruel god, does not move the world forward. Indeed if we are going to reduce suffering in the world, we're gonna have to find another way.

Update #2: One of the fascinating things about doing a post like this is how terrifying it is. It really shows the way that culture impacts ideation when even the thought of posting something contrary to the prevailing myths gives one pause.

You're doing a heckuva job Bishop DiMarzio

So the NY Times reports today that Catholic Bishop Nicholas A. DiMarzio of Brooklyn is getting involved in politics! Oh that's great! Is he working to pass a bill to feed hungry families? Maybe he's working to support universal health care or maybe a program to create jobs? Nope. Bishop DiMarzio is throwing all of his energies into stopping a bill that would temporarily lift the statute of limitations on child sex abuse cases. You read that right -- Bishop DiMarzio is getting involved in politics to try to prevent child sex abuse victims from getting their day in court:

Bishop Nicholas A. DiMarzio of Brooklyn repeated a warning this week that he has leveled at lawmakers for months: If the statute of limitations on child sex-abuse lawsuits is temporarily lifted, as pending state legislation proposes... his Roman Catholic diocese and others will go bankrupt. [Full article here.]

Did you catch that? He's saying there are so many pedophile priests in his diocese that if every person (usually children) who was abused by the church was allowed to have their day in court -- then the church would go bankrupt.

Seriously, why is ANYONE still a Catholic knowing what we know now about the extent of the abuse perpetrated by the church!? Why not just become an Episcopalian? Just think of Episcopalianism as Catholicism without all the pedophilia.

do unto others...

I saw Obama's speech from Cairo today. It was absolutely brilliant. Obama is genius and deserves our loyalty and gratitude. (And it was fun to see him say Assalamu Alaikum if for no other reason than because no other American President has probably ever said those words. Send me a link if I'm wrong about that.)

But I do want to quibble with one point. Late in the speech Obama said:

There is also one rule that lies at the heart of every religion -- that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. This truth transcends nations and peoples -- a belief that isn't new; that isn't black or white or brown; that isn't Christian, or Muslim or Jew. It's a belief that pulsed in the cradle of civilization, and that still beats in the heart of billions. It's a faith in other people, and it's what brought me here today. [Full text of the speech here.]

It's a great point. It's true. I'm glad he said it.

But "do unto others" doesn't come from religion. It comes from biology. We see rudimentary forms of "do unto others" and other cooperative behavior in the animal kingdom (see for example, The Evolution of Morality by Richard Joyce or The Moral Animal by Robert Wright). I don't see why Christianity or Judaism or Islam always gets credit for the genius of "do unto others" when in fact, "do unto others" came pre-loaded with the operating systems we are all born with. The craziest thing about religion is that, in fact, religious zealots often exhibit precisely the sort of behavior that VIOLATES the principle of "do unto others" (think for example about suicide bombers or the Catholic Church moving pedophile priests from one church to another) -- and they often take these sociopathic actions in the name of their religion. Don't get me wrong, I love "do unto others" and indeed I DO think it is the foundation of morality and ethics across all cultures. But we gotta give credit to Mother Nature -- not Jesus, Abraham, Mohamed, Buddha, or Krishna.

[And another time I imagine we can debate whether the phrase is actually "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" or rather "do NOT do unto others as you would have them not do unto you" (I've heard it both ways but the meaning between the two is slightly different if you think about it).]

Monasticism and morality

[editors note: some people are gonna hate this post but fuck it, here goes.]

Question: if you want to be a great basketball player, what should you do? Answer: play a LOT of basketball. Look great coaching helps, but Pele won his first championship without the benefit of ANY coaching or even shoes. He became the greatest player in the world simply through playing lots and lots of soccer with the other kids in his neighborhood.

Question: if you want to be great in bed, what should you do? Answer: fuck a lot. Listening is good, being curious is good, asking questions, maybe reading a few books on the subject. But mostly you just gotta log a lot of hours between the sheets. [That's for our 18 to 34 year-old reader demographic.]

Question: if you want to be a great writer, what should you do? Answer: write a lot. Most writers and writing instructors say one should write at least 1,000 words a day over the course of years and years (a lifetime really) to become a great writer.

That is just common sense right? There are no shortcuts in this life. To be great at something, one just has to put in the time. Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers argues that to be great at anything one has to log at least 10,000 hours of practice.

Which leads me to my next question:

Why would anyone take moral or ethical advice from a Buddhist monk (or any monk for that matter but I'll get to Catholic monks in a later post, for the purposes of this discussion let's focus on Buddhist monks).

Yep, I said it.

I know, gasp! how dare me! whatever. But seriously, what are monks good at? What do they practice for hours and hours and hours? Sitting. Do you need help with sitting or are you already proficient at that? "Breathing" you might say. Okay, again you've been doing that your whole life, how's that working out for you? Pretty good? Okay. You want to breathe deeper, okay, breathe deeper. Done. "Stop being a jerk!" you might say, "it's about focusing on the breath to quiet the mind." Okay. Look I fully appreciate that for people who are experiencing depression or an anxiety disorder or some sort of mental illness, the mind IS a source of TREMENDOUS suffering. Indeed for people suffering from these disorders, quieting the mind is liberation. Point taken -- meditation is wonderful when applied for that purpose.

BUT, morality and ethics are about actions -- usually actions involving how we relate to other people in the world. And Buddhist monks, particularly the archetypal monk sitting in a cave for years and years, have almost ZERO experience working things out with other people. They simply have NONE of the training we would want for moral and ethical decision makers. Asking Buddhist monks about morality and ethics is like taking your broken computer to a repair person who has never seen a computer before.

Everybody says the Dalai Lama is a great guy. I don't know. But I would wager his skill on the international stage did NOT come from sitting alone and breathing, it came from negotiating and trying to work things out with other world leaders (and even that has produced NO results over the last 50 years -- other than building a large audience for the Dalai Lama brand itself. But I digress). I get that sitting and breathing helps calm the Dalai Lama in preparation for talking with other world leaders and that's nice. But that is not the SOURCE of his wisdom. The source of his wisdom comes from actually trying to work things out with other people in the real world. That's how morality and ethics are shaped -- by being in the game and playing with other people and trying to find a path that works for everyone. The notion that we can figure out how to get along with other people by separating ourselves, closing our eyes, and just stilling our minds, seems really quite nonsensical.

It seems to me that it's not just Christianity and Islam that have been exempt from critical analysis and critique over the years -- Buddhism has gotten a pass too. And even as secular progressives (as O'Reilly calls us) and the new wave of atheists (Harris, Dawkins, Hitchens, and Dennett) begin to unravel the absurdities of Christianity and Islam -- it seems that so far Buddhism has continued to get a pass (Harris in particular decimates all religions EXCEPT Buddhism). But really, on closer examination, I think we're gonna find plenty of irrational ideas and practices in Buddhism (ahem, like sexism and homophobia to name two) that are also preventing the world from moving forward in peace and harmony. And the sooner we can take apart ALL of these limiting beliefs and replace them with ideas that WILL actually promote conflict resolution, cooperation, and peace, the better. Peace, by definition, will involve getting along with other people and I don't see how we learn that in isolation with our eyes closed in a cave (or a monastery or a temple).

Update #1: See this post translated into French and then back into English again. It's kinda funny.

Update #2: Bam! just like that, Nicolai Ouroussoff of the NY Times says in one simple elegant sentence what I was trying to say above. He writes:

...enlightenment comes from the free exchange of ideas, not just inward contemplation.

Which I think is really what most of us believe in a democratic society. But then we see some dude in a saffron robe and we're all like 'oooh, he must have something figured out that I don't!'

Damn I'm full of snark these days! I probably need to meditate more or something...

Quote of the week

I read this review of "Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America — and Found Unexpected Peace" in the NY Times Book Review last Sunday and there is this one paragraph from the review that has tagged along with me since then so I wanted to pass it along:

To Lobdell, it began to seem not just that religious institutions were no better than secular ones, but that sometimes they were much worse. After all, school systems and Little Leagues don’t defend molesters as tenaciously as the Catholic Church did, and parents aren’t as reluctant to believe the worst about teachers and coaches. It was precisely the cultivation of religious awe — with its traditions, rituals and ceremonies — that made priests seem holy, and thus allowed so much evil to go unreported or disbelieved.

I think really that's the paradox of our present moment: religious people in society think they are significantly MORE moral than the rest of society and AT THE SAME TIME secular people believe (and indeed have ample evidence to prove) that they are significantly MORE moral than religious people. Both sides claim a higher morality and think the other are a bunch of neanderthals. That's what I was trying to get at with my "I and Thou" post last summer (which continues to be one of my all time favorite posts).

The NY Times gives away the first chapter of the book for free (here).

The curse of the axial age

Can I just make an observation? And it's an observation that's gonna make a lot of people, including myself uncomfortable.

But here's what I want to say...

All major religions (Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism), it seems to me, are all based on the same notion. The notion is that someone (or a group of people) figured it all out 2500 to 1500 years ago (or had a direct transmission from God during that time), that somehow we forgot the thing that they figured out, and now we're all supposed to look backwards (to ancient texts and teachings) for wisdom.

It's hard for me to overstate just how problematic and troubling that is.

• It's a gross misreading of history -- a retro romanticism that glosses over the fact that many elements of the best moral and ethical systems of those eras are now considered criminal because they are so backwards.
• It discounts two thousand years of hard-fought progress on human rights, civil rights, women's rights, and environmental protection.
• It seems to give short shrift to the extraordinary breakthroughs in art, literature, medicine, the sciences (obviously), and psychology.
• It seems to deny the divinity of every age and inside every person except those from an era that can only be partially understood through archeology.
• It's an infantilizing notion that excuses us from taking responsibility for our own moral and ethical decisions here and now.

It seems to me that at best we are setting up a screen -- like hanging a sheet back across history -- and projecting all of our modern wisdom and greatness back on an earlier age (that we really don't understand at all -- nor can we really hope to, nor should we want to). At worst, and this is certainly the case with the Taliban and certain Christian fundamentalists in the U.S., we are permanently tying our modern political, economic, and moral systems to a genocidal 1st or 5th century morality -- which is insane.

It just seems to me that it's no wonder our modern world is so screwed up -- we keep walking backwards into the future. I think the challenge is to name and to own the rather advanced moral systems we practice daily (starting with affirmation of equal rights for all people) that has come to us not through religion, but rather through politics, pluralism, democracy, and modernity.

The enduring value of monasticism

Perhaps the enduring value of monasticism is that it takes the most religious people in society -- the zealots and the fundamentalists -- removes them from the general population, silences them, and causes them not to reproduce.

From a sociological standpoint, what if the actual contents of their practice don't contain any wisdom at all -- but rather the value of the tradition comes from its unintended Darwinian outcome of gradually removing religious extremists from the gene pool?

Notice that the the two centers of religious extremism in the world right now -- the U.S. and the Middle East -- don't have a monastic tradition.

When did the Catholic Pedophile Priest Problem begin?

(updated two times, see below)

I've been meaning to do this post for a while so here goes...

By now, most folks who own a TV or subscribe to a newspaper know about the Catholic Pedophile Priest Scandal. Even the Catholic Church's own numbers from the scandal are shocking:

• 4,392 US clerics accused of abuse from 1950-2002:
• About 4% of the 109,694 priests serving in the U.S. during those 52 years were charged with abuse.
• Over $1 billion in settlements to victims of these priests.

The likelihood is that these numbers are a dramatic UNDERCOUNT of the actual problem. John Walsh reports that more reliable estimates peg the number of pedophile Catholic priests in the U.S. at closer to 10,000.

Okay but here's my question: When did the problem of pedophile priests begin in the Catholic Church?

We know from accounts of survivors and confessions by priests of cases that go back as far back as the memories of anyone living today (basically to the start of the 20th century). The statute of limitations is such that once an accused priest has died, the pending cases against him are dropped (which limits our ability to know about cases going back further in time). But surely the problem didn't magically start 80 years ago. Rather it seems more likely that this has been going on for a long long long time.

Those who know they can get away with a crime are more likely to commit one aren't they (power corrupts and all that)? So it seems likely that when the Catholic Church ruled all of Europe, taxed people through indulgences, and routinely tortured and burned people at the stake (particularly women) -- that sexual abuse was likely widespread too. When the church is the law and above the law at the same time, wouldn't abuse have been rampant -- even worse than today? And if the person abused is more likely to become an abuser, isn't it likely that the cycle of abuse in the church has been going on for over a thousand years? Literally.

So what's changed is NOT that the church suddenly developed a pedophile priest problem overnight (or even in the last 80 years). Rather, what HAS changed is that the rights of victims and the rights of children have become more advanced in the last 50 years -- allowing a problem that has always been there in the church to finally come to light.

The craziest thing to me in all the reporting on the pedophile priest problem is NOT ONCE have I ever heard a reporter ask the question as to when the problem began. It would seem in fact that any common sense guess as to the origins of the problem would trace it back to a time when the church first gained the power to commit abuse and get away with it -- which would trace it back at least a thousand years and even as far back as 1700 years ago.

Update #1:  Melinda Henneberger, on the March 19, 2010 Real Time with Bill Maher (Episode 177) on HBO said two things that support the assertions in this post.  Henneberger, a practicing Catholic, is the editor-in-chief of PoliticsDaily.com and was the Rome bureau chief for The New York Times.  She said: 1.) that 'Catholic priests don't view sex with boys as actual sex' -- just as some American politicians don't view oral sex as actual sex.  2.) 'that it has always been thus'; namely that the Catholic Church has had a problem of priests molesting boys for its entire history.  I found both of those details shocking, but Henneberger presented the information in a nonchalant -- everybody already knows this -- sort of way. Wow.

Update #2:  So now we have confirmation that Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict) was aware that a pedophile priest would be returned to pastoral work and did nothing to stop it.  "Pope Was Told Pedophile Priest Would Get Post: Informed as Cardinal Document Trail Shows Benedict Got Copy of Church Memo." March 25, 2010.  "The priest was later convicted of molesting boys in another parish."   If you drive the get away car in a bank robbery, you go to jail because you are an accessory to the crime.  So too, Pope Benedict, by not preventing a known pedophile priest from being transferred to another parish where he would strike again, should go to jail. 

"This is your brain on morality"

Gosh this is good:

Sam Harris discussing "Bounded Utility."

Harris is such a great speaker, it seems like a simple idea. But it's really a revolution -- in just 15 minutes Harris articulates a higher order morality, beyond post-modernism, that brings the best brain research to bear on the most important questions in the world.

Can we talk about the Siddhartha Gautama's attitudes towards women?

So I just finished reading Karen Armstrong's biography of Buddha. I never quite know what to think about Karen Armstrong's work. On the one hand, she's clearly a brilliant writer, she's one of the foremost experts in the world on religion, and she invests massive amounts of time and energy into researching her subjects. But the problem I have when I'm reading her writing is that I don't know where she ends and the facts begin. In my experience, she retells the history of Christianity as if it's all been a bunch of post-modern mystical Unitarians getting together from the beginning -- and I have a hard time believing that's true. It seems to me she does the same thing with "Axial Age" world religions as well -- importing modern values back into the historical narrative -- and not separating out the two.

That being said, I really enjoyed reading Buddha, and was thankful for someone to take me through the entire story in 187 pages. I've studied a lot of Buddhism and done a fair amount of meditation but I've never read the story of the Buddha's life start to finish (Siddhartha back in high school doesn't count).

But what struck me most about the book was the following passage concerning the Buddha's attitudes towards women:

While he was living in the Nigrodha arama, the Buddha was visited by his father's widow, Pajapati Gotami: she was also the Buddha's aunt, and had become his foster-mother after the death of his own mother. Since she was now free, she told her nephew, she wanted to be ordained in the Sangha. The Buddha adamantly refused. There was no question of admitting women to the Order. He would not change his mind, even though Pajapati begged him three times to reconsider and she left his presence very sadly. A few days later, the Buddha set out for Vesali, the capital of the republic of Videha on the northern bank of the Ganges. He often stayed in the arama there, which had a hall with a high-gabled roof. One morning, Ananda was horrified to find Pajapati sobbing on the porch with a crowd of other Sakyan women. She had cut off her hair, put on the yellow robe and had walked all the way from Kapilavatthu. Her feet were swollen, and she was filthy and exhausted. "Gotami," cried Ananda, "What are you doing here in such a state? And why are you crying?" "Because the Blessed One will not have women in the Sangha," Pajapati replied. Ananda was concerned. "Wait here," he said, " I will asked the Tathagata about this."

But the Buddha still refused to consider the matter. This was a serious moment. If he continued to bar women from the Sangha, it meant that he considered that half of the human race was ineligible for enlightenment. But the Dhamma was supposed to be for everybody: for gods, animals, robbers, men of all castes--were women alone to be excluded? Was rebirth as a man the best they could hope for? Ananda tried another tack. "Lord" he asked, "are women capable of becoming 'stream-enterers' and, eventually, Arahants?" "They are Ananda," The Buddha replied. "Then surely it would be a good thing to ordain Pajapati," Ananda pleaded, and reminded his master of her kindness to him after his mother had died. The Buddha reluctantly conceded defeat. Pajapati could enter the Sangha if she accepted eight strict rules. These provisions made it clear that the nuns (bhikkhunis) were an inferior breed. A nun must always stand when in the presence of a male bhikkhu, even one who was young or newly ordained; nuns must always spend the vassa retreat is an arama with male monks, not by themselves; they must receive instruction from a bhikkhu once every fortnight; they could not hold their own ceremonies; a nun who had committed a grave offense must do penance before the monks as well as the bhikkhunis; a nun must request ordination from both the male and the female Sangha; she must never rebuke a bhikkhu, though any monk could rebuke her; nor could she preach to bhikkhus. Pajapati gladly accepted these regulations and was duly ordained, but the Buddha was still uneasy. If women had not been admitted, he told Ananda, the Dhamma would have been practiced for a thousand years; now it would last a mere five hundred years. A tribe with too many women would become vulnerable and be destroyed; similarly, no Sangha with women members could last long. They would fall upon the Order like mildew on a field of rice.

What are we to make of this misogyny? The Buddha had always preached to women as well as to men. Once to had given permission, thousands of women became bhikkhunis, and the Buddha praised their spiritual attainments, said that they could become the equals of the monks, and prophesied that he would not die until he had enough wise monks and nuns, lay men and lay women followers. There seems to be a discrepancy in the texts, and this has led some scholars to conclude that the story of his grudging acceptance of women and the eight regulations was added later and reflects a chauvinism in the Order. By the first century B.C.E., some of the monks certainly blamed women for their own sexual desires, which were impeding them from enlightenment, and regarded women as universal obstacles to spiritual advance. Other scholars argue that the Buddha, enlightened as he was, could not escape the social conditioning of the time, and that he could not imagine a society that was not patriarchal. They point out that despite the Buddha's initial reluctance, the ordination of women was a radical act that, perhaps for the first time, gave women an alternative to domesticity.

While this is true, there is a difficulty for women that should not be glossed over. In the Buddha's mind, women may well have been inseparable from the "lust" that made enlightenment an impossibility. It did not occur to him to take his wife with him, as some of the renouncers did, when he left home to begin his quest. He simply assumed that she could not be the partner in his liberation. But this was not because he found sexuality disgusting, like the Christian Fathers of the Church, but because he was attached to his wife. The scriptures contain a passage which, scholars agree, is almost certainly a monkish interpolation. "Lord, how are we to treat women?" Ananda asked the Buddha in the last days of his life. "Do not look at them, Ananda." "If we do not see them, how should we treat them?" "Do no speak to them Ananda." "And if we have to speak to them? "Mindfulness must be observed Ananda." The Buddha may not have personally subscribed to this full-blown misogyny, but it is possible that these words reflect a residual unease that he could not overcome.

--Karen Armstrong, Buddha, p. 151-154 [Armstrong uses the Pali spellings rather than the Sanskrit than many are used to seeing in writings about Buddhism.]

I want to make a few caveats before sharing my thoughts on this passage. To begin with there are a couple things we don't know. 1.) We don't know if Karen Armstrong got this section correct (that's a caveat we make with any author). 2.) We don't know if the various original authors of the sacred texts got the story correct (or if this was added later by overzealous and chauvinistic monks perhaps). Furthermore, it does seem that despite his initial reluctance, the Buddha did break important new ground. I imagine 2500 years ago it was a pretty tough sell to tell folks that women and men were equal (at least a tough sell to the men who benefited from patriarchy).

But here's what I want to say: IF this passage is a correct reflection of Siddhartha Gautama's views on women, it means that he never attained enlightenment. (As Chris Rock would say, Yeah, I said it!) Indeed it calls into question the entire concept of enlightenment -- because if the Buddha wasn't enlightened then who is? Buddhists are not simply claiming that Siddhartha Gautama was a great teacher who was ahead of his time. They are not claiming that he was a really swell guy who broke new ground. They are claiming that he attained enlightenment -- that he broke through to a timeless, universal, truth that transformed his whole being. But if this supposed enlightenment also retained a hatred of women, or a preference for patriarchy, or however you want to say it -- then by definition it's not timeless, universal, or true. It's not fucking enlightenment if you still discriminate against women.

Let's put an even finer point on it. There has never been a female Dalai Lama. Monks sitting in meditation for their whole lives, have never figured out what any six year old can tell you -- that women are just as good as men. By definition then, no Dalai Lama has attained enlightenment. The whole things starts to unravel at that point. If meditation can't teach you what a few hours of actual human experience can teach you -- then why place an emphasis on meditation?

Furthermore, those who brought the dharma to the U.S. aren't enlightened. Notorious alcoholic womanizer Chogyam Trungpa wasn't enlightened. I'm not saying he wasn't smart or charming -- I'm just saying you have to actually live your transformed self not just talk about it. His dharma heir Osel Tenzin sure as fuck wasn't enlightened.

Look, I love meditation and yoga and the whole nine. But it seems to me that the whole enlightenment industry, pales by comparison to the wisdom of actually living an ordinary modern life of experience.

In the end, Buddha the book and Buddha the man just felt terribly sad to me. I know Buddha claimed that by seeking nothingness he could experience a universal love for all of humanity. But I wonder if for most people it's not the reverse -- that through a particular love we experience a universal timeless love.

Update #1: Descartes' Error is often read as an indictment of Western rationalism (indeed, it's a very effective indictment of the rational tradition). But it seems to me that Descartes' Error is an equally effective indictment of Buddhism and Buddhism's denigration of the body, emotion, and the created world.

I and thou

In my experience, Christian fundamentalists view themselves as more moral than those who are not religious. In fact, in many cases, it seems that Christian fundamentalists believe that they have adopted a high moral standard and that non-religious people live by no moral standards at all (hence their frequent references to terms such as "anarchy" and "moral relativism"). But here's where it gets interesting -- it seems to me that not only do Christian fundamentalists believe this about themselves -- they believe that other people (i.e. non-religious people) also share this same view (that Christian fundamentalists live by a higher standard and that non-religious people have no moral standards).

I'm here to dissuade them of their smug self-assurance.

In fact, as I showed in my earlier post, "Why Secular Society Makes Better Moral Decisions than Organized Religion" not only does secular society have a moral code, on the three biggest moral issues over the last 200 years -- slavery, equal rights for women, and equal rights for people who are LGBT -- secular society has displayed a HIGHER moral code than traditional fundamentalist religious society. What is more, in my experience when people in secular society look at Christian fundamentalists -- they don't see people adhering to a higher moral code -- rather they see people loudly practicing bigotry, intolerance, and hatred in the name of religion.

To put this in perspective, perhaps it's best to use an analogy from the world of sports. Let's take golf. By analogy if you will, Christian fundamentalists think they are the greatest golfers in the world. And not only that, they think that no one else even plays golf and that the rest of the world admires their golf prowess. This self perception is fueled by the fact that they only read Christian Fundamentalist Golf Digest, only watch the Christian Fundamentalist Golf Channel, and only play against other Christian Fundamentalist golfers. Meanwhile, in reality the world is filled with really great (secular) golfers. Millions and millions of people play it, there is a highly competitive televised pro tour, and the rules of golf are understood well and widely. And when the rest of the world looks at the way Christian fundamentalists play golf they see a bunch of hacks who repeatedly call mulligans, fail to replace their divots, cheat on their scorecard, are boorish in the clubhouse, and are exclusionary in their membership. That's the gap we face as a society.

While it is true that are some truly amoral people in society -- I believe they are a tiny fraction of the population (and represent a pathology rather than the natural state of humanity). Indeed, recent evidence from the world of the animal sciences shows that morality and ethics are likely hardwired into our DNA (see for example Primates & Philosophers by Frans de Waal, The Moral Animal by Robert Wright, and The Evolution of Morality by Richard Joyce). Adherence to some sort of moral code is nearly universal -- atheists, agnostics, soldiers, teachers, hit men, and religious followers of all varieties all operate according to a moral code. The question is not (as Christian fundamentalists would have you believe) moral code or no moral code. Rather, the question is which moral code is truly best for society.

I think it's all well and good that the Democratic Party and the progressive movement in general have made efforts to reach out to evangelicals and other religious conservatives in recent years. But I have a different proposal. Let's not reach out to religious communities simply for the sake of diversity. Rather, I suggest we have a battle of ideas and that we start a conversation about what exactly constitutes a higher moral code and why. I will gladly put my 21st century secular moral code -- developed through thousands of years of religious and philosophical debate, scientific discovery, and social efforts to overcome intolerance and hatred -- up for comparison against a moral code developed by an ancient tribe that was always calling for god to rain genocide down upon neighboring tribes.