Why Carl Sagan is awesome – post script.

One more point about Carl Sagan and Cosmos – in the last episode, Sagan makes explicit the connection he appears to draw throughout the series between the value of critical thinking in the scientific realm and the value of critical thinking in all human endeavors. While standing in a recreated library of Alexandria, he asks why the knowledge of the Ancients failed to bring us swiftly into the Enlightenment and instead disintegrated into the Dark Ages, only to reemerge hundreds of years later.

I cannot give you a simple answer, but I do know this. There is no record in the entire history of the library that any of the illustrious scholars and scientists who worked here, ever seriously challenged a single political, or economic, or religious assumption of the society in which they lived. The permanence of the stars was questioned – the justice of slavery was not.”

I’ve written several times before on the connection between atheism and social justice, the skeptical movement and other political movements. I’ve argued that anyone who cares about the religiosity of a society also needs to care about politics – that the two are intertwined and cannot be untangled, and that perhaps it is even the political and social arrangements of a society that have the greatest impact on the level and destructiveness of its religiosity. I can’t say how pleased I was to see Sagan invoking the same point – science without a social conscience cannot justify itself all on its own, and if we challenge the irrationality of theism but not of oppression, it is quite possible we will, in the long run, accomplish very little indeed.

A quick review of Cosmos

Over the past few weeks I have been watching Carl Sagan’s epic 13 episode series, Cosmos (which is also a book). Of course, I found it to be awesome in multiple ways, and I wouldn’t be adding much to go into detail about how well Sagan invokes scientific wonder or how articulate and inspiring his language is. However, I’ll hazard a few observations based on my perspective as someone who works in the humanities.

My favorite thing about Cosmos is its breadth – while clearly, science and the physical nature of the universe is the focus of the series, Sagan takes long detours to buttress scientific exploration with the history of science. We learn about the library of Alexandria, the Heikegani crabs of Japan and the legend that produced them, the life story and struggles of Johannes Kepler, the decoding of the Egyptian hieroglyphs, and much more.

This extensive storytelling has not only the effect of heightening the drama and effectiveness of the series, but of also giving it a feel of being almost as much a historical documentary as a scientific documentary – and therefore, science is not presented as an isolated, bracketed off enterprise that has no relationship to the human spirit or the human story. As a historian, I was surprised and delighted to learn history from this series I never knew before. These days, it seems most science documentaries stick rigidly to the science being explored, although there are a few that put a lot of effort into dramatizing the lives of the scientists they explore. But Sagan’s series has the intellectual creativity and courage to make connections where none are obvious – such as the extended segment on Egypt’s hieroglyphs that feeds into Sagan’s contemplations on communicating with an alien civilization.

As a lover of classical music, I also thoroughly appreciated the extended uses of some of the best classical music ever written. At one point we are treated to a depiction of all of evolutionary biology passing before our eyes in a few minutes, with a beautiful piece by Bach playing in the background. Beethoven and other well known composers also make appearances, always in places where they seem entirely appropriate. It is almost as if Sagan was aiming to make Cosmos not just a reflection on human scientific achievement, but a meditation on the entirety of human culture, accomplishment, and beauty.

One more thing about Cosmos – it’s rather funny, in a loveable way. From the somewhat frightfully bare “spaceship of the imagination” to the frequently awful synthesizer music, its very earnestness makes you a little self-conscious and snarky at first. But before you know it, you’re getting sucked into the spacescapes and the extended keyboard notes wailing in the background – and there you are, feeling all the cheesy wonder and appreciation you were supposed to. It is stealthy, and it gets under your cynical skin. Now that is quite an accomplishment – and I’m very sorry that I’ve finished the series and there are no more Cosmos evenings ahead of me.

Nietzsche and Atheism

Preface: The below post is inspired by a course on Nietzsche I am currently the teaching assistant for; however, Nietzsche has always been my favorite philosopher. The reasons why, however, are complex – no, I don’t agree with everything he says, far from it – and wonderfully, Nietzsche actually presents a great challenge to us in the atheist and skeptical movements; an opportunity to think in the most critical ways possible about why we care about these issues at all.

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God is dead, Nietzsche famously wrote. Based on these three words, one might assume that Nietzsche would be an atheist’s best friend. Think again.

Nietzsche was, of course, himself an atheist, if we are simply talking about whether or not he believed in God. But he harshly criticized the group of people he labeled “atheists,” along with scientists and rational skeptics. Why? If we are going to understand that, we first have to understand Nietzsche’s critique of Christianity.

Nietzsche believed that Christianity grew out of the resentment, or ressentiment, of the weak in society – hence his famous phrase, “slave morality.” The genius of Christianity, according to Nietzsche, is its ability to take the will to power – which simply means the universal urge of man to express his spirit and impress himself upon the world – and turn it against itself. The values of Christianity, as captured in the Sermon on the Mount, celebrate humility and weakness – they argue, in other words, that the weak is good and the strong is bad. Moreover, Nietzsche argues, the priests of Christianity took the suffering of the masses and explained to them that they themselves were responsible for this suffering – the doctrine of original sin, obviously, clearly says as much. Moreover, not only does Christianity preach a worthlessness of human beings and consequently, the worthlessness of the earthly world itself, but it posits a self-sacrificing God (in the form of Jesus) that had to suffer and die for all these worthless human beings – thus, the doctrine of the crucifixion, rather than alleviating any guilt believers may suffer from, only increases it by adding to the heavy burden of debt we all owe to God. The consequence has been hundreds of years of scrupulous self-denial and the shaming of all our noble, passionate instincts – the will to power turned in wretched self-loathing against itself.

So this all sounds rather unpleasant, and I think it is in this highly psychological analysis of Christianity that some of the most brilliant (and accurate) insights of Nietzsche can be found. But why, then, would Nietzsche be critical towards atheists, scientists, and skeptics? Wouldn’t he see their focus on the physical, real world, and their rigorous skepticism of Christian theology as freeing, as liberating? Why in the world would he actually posit the opposite - that atheism and science, rather than being a way out of Christianity, are actually the product of Christian values - indeed, are Christian values in their most refined form?

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“I know you are but what am I?” says God.

Recently I came across a facebook discussion that revolved around this quote:

Sometimes I would like to ask God why He allows poverty, suffering, and injustice when He could do something about it. But I’m afraid He would ask me the same question. – Anonymous

The quote was posted by The Christian Left, and the comments that followed were pretty much what you would expect – expressions along the lines of “how true!” and “we are so prepared to point fingers, but never ask ourselves what we can do.”

So alright – I am all for calls for social justice. Really. In fact the one other topic that takes up as much of my mental time and energy as atheism is social justice. And I am also for Christians not being on the right – regardless of whether the historical Jesus was really this super peaceable guy (which he probably wasn’t), the Jesus depicted in scripture tends to say some pretty clear things about the poor being blessed and the greedy being sinful. So I appreciate Christians who take their faith and put it towards making our society better, rather than spreading prejudice and tribalism.

But of course the logical side of me has to take serious issue with this clever way of getting around the question of evil. For sure, we all bear responsibility for social injustice – atheists would be the last people to deny this, believing as we do that this world is only what we make of it.[1] But if we are positing an all-loving, all-powerful God – as even liberal Christians continue, by and large, to do – the question of evil still remains. All this comforting quote does is distract us from the problem by chiding us not to be too self-righteous – in fact, it is as if God is employing the old school-yard taunt, “I know you are but what am I?” That is not a valid or logical response.

Much more similar nonsense rests at the deeply contradictory core of liberal Christianity. On the upcoming podcast, we discuss the old accusation that atheists only focus on the Fundies because the Fundies are the easiest to criticize and ridicule, and we ignore all those nice, liberally Christians out there because they would seriously complicate our view of what religion is. Of course, this is a flawed argument, for several reasons we discuss on the podcast; however, it is not totally without merit. I would hazard to say that it would be a worthy project that we do in fact talk more often about liberal theology and liberal Christianity – if for no other reason than this kind of logical fuzziness is extremely frustrating.[2]

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Can belief kill? - Exploring the mind-body connection

Several years ago, I was dozing in and out of an afternoon nap in the back of my car. While chatting away with the endless dialogue that often typifies my dream experience, I realized that my eyes were open, and I could see my arm and my hand and the back of the front seat in front of me. I tried to move – but nothing happened. I tried again, and yet I remained unable to budge. It felt as though I was trapped inside a rock.

My first thought was that I was dying. For a brief moment this seemed like a mere interesting observation, “Huh, maybe I’m dead” but then as the seconds ticked away my inability to move started to build up panic inside me. Finally, I focused all my energy on being able to move and in one final push, was able to suddenly burst awake, sitting straight up. That was my first experience with sleep paralysis.

Visitations from witches are another traditional interpretation of sleep paralysis.

Anyone who has experienced sleep paralysis knows it is a deeply terrifying experience, especially the first time it happens. However, once I looked up what had happened to me, and learned it is a universal, and perfectly normal, experience, my future encounters with sleep paralysis were not nearly half so bad. True, they were still frightening and frustrating, but at least I could think calmly to myself in the midst of them, “this is sleep paralysis, and it will pass.”

But what if you didn’t know what sleep paralysis was? And even worse, what if the explanation you did have understood sleep paralysis as a visitation from an evil spirit, or a demon? Traditionally, this is how cultures of various stripes have accounted for sleep paralysis – in the Christian tradition it is often known as “the devil sitting on your chest.”[1] Now this is an explanation that is likely to make the experience of sleep paralysis not less, but considerably more horrifying. Indeed, perhaps this could even contribute to your horror so much, that it might actually kill you – that, at least, is the argument of a new book by Shelley Adler, called Sleep Paralysis: Night-mares, Nocebos, and the Mind Body Connection.

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On having your cake and eating it too: the legacy of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

As many of you probably know, today marks the end of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the 18 year old policy of the armed forces that required homosexuals to keep their sexual preferences a secret, and discharged them if they did not. Until today, the United States was the only industrialized nation that forbade open homosexuals from serving in the military.[1]

Almost everyone in the atheist community, of course, recognizes the connection between America’ s backward attitude towards homosexuality and our backward attitudes towards other issues, such as evolution, global warming and stem cell research. The religiosity of the United States is one of the primary forces blocking the moral enlightenment and scientific literacy of this country.

This is easy to see when say, watching a video about the Westboro Baptist Church. However, the effect of Christianity on Americans’ attitudes towards homosexuality is sometimes much more subtle, but only slightly less frustrating. I was recently engaged in a conversation with a Christian who believes, not surprisingly, that homosexuality is a sin. However, she tried to frame the conversation in a way that would distinguish her from the more vehement Fundies – she doesn’t understand, she insisted, why some churches obsess so much about homosexuality and she even has a dear gay friend whom she has known since high school and fully recognizes that he is, in fact, gay and quite happy being gay. Nonetheless, his homosexuality, she maintained, creates a “tension” between himself and God.

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Religion & Societal Sickness: A chicken and egg question.

I recently watched Jerry Coyne’s presentation at the Atheist Alliance International 2009 conference. The majority of the presentation deals with the evidence for evolution, and is enjoyable watching in and of itself. However, what really impressed me was an argument Coyne made at the end of his lecture.

Coyne first establishes what atheists well know, that the level of religiosity in a society tends to correlate very strongly with the rate of acceptance of evolution. He then went on to discuss, however, how those societies with high rates of science literacy also tend to be what Greg Paul, in a study on religiosity, labeled “successful societies,” in that they have low rates of homicide, low rates of incarceration, quality widespread health care, and so on. The United States, by Paul’s metrics, is not a very successful society at all – we have high homicide rates, large prison populations, and shitty health care, just to mention those three metrics.

Our first impulse, Coyne says, is to view religion as one of the major causes of our society’s flaws and to therefore aim for the reduction of religion as the obvious way to increase the quality of the society. However, Coyne asks, what if it is the other way around? What if unsuccessful societies have a tendency to produce religiosity? After all, unsuccessful societies are marked by economic and social insecurity, a lack of a unifying social goal and many other ailments that widespread alienation produces. A country full of anxious, insecure and fearful people is a country full of people who are likely to be very attracted to the comforts religion provides. Why have you worked hard all your life and failed to make it? God’s plan. Why do you feel like the culture is going to shit around you? Must be because of all those Godless liberals and homos. What is the point of your life, especially considering the fact that your surrounding countrymen don’t seem to care much about your health or well-being? It must be to glorify God.

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