The Truth War thoughts.

Since we never did get to meet regarding The Truth War, I decided to post some of my personal thoughts on the book over on my personal blog before it had been too long since reading the book. I'm hoping we can get this reading group rolling again. Having been in contact with most of the regulars, I know that it's been a busy past few months for all of us. Over the next few weeks, I'm hoping to get through The Question of God and perhaps in the new year we'll be able to meet and discuss.

September 20 - Meeting to discuss 'Truth War'

Due to scheduling issues we have had to postpone the August 16 meeting to Discuss the July book "Truth War" by John MacArthur. The new date for the meeting is Saturday September 20th at 8:30 AM. We'll keep the location at Dunn Bros. Coffee at 8975 Metcalf, in Overland park, KS. See you there.

September 2008 Book - The Question of God by Armand Nicholi

Due to scheduling issues and general Busyness we didn't select a new book for the month of August, which is perfectly OK since we wanted this group to be somewhat casual.

Jeremy has picked our next book for September called "The Question of God" by Armand Nicholi. We'll try to arrange a meet up to discuss this one around the end of September, or the beginning of October. The book has been out for a few years so you should have no problem finding it used at either half.com or at used book stores such as half price books which has locations all around the KC metro area. The Johnson County Library also has copies available to check out.

A little bit of background about the book. Nicholi is a psychiatrist who teaches at Harvard, for several years now he has taught a class which compares and contrasts the views of C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud, in particular their views on God. These two thinkers both lived and wrote in the time surrounding World War II (though Freud died just as WWII was beginning in 1939), they both lived through and witnessed similar world events such as the First World War, the Great Depression, and the rise of Facism. Both came to different conclusions about God. Lewis is best known for his allegorical 'Chronicles of Narnia' series of children's fantasy novels, but he also wrote a great deal of theologically inspired Christian apologetics (i.e., 'The problem of Pain', 'Mere Christianity', 'Miracles') and parables (i.e., 'The Screwtape Letters', 'The Great Divorce').

Freud, on the other hand, was an Athiest. He's best known for founding of the psychoanalytic school of psychology along with his various ideas about the subconcious human mind and it's influence on our conscious behavior. While many of his ideas are based on anecdotal evidence and innacurate presumptions, many have been useful in modern psychology as they have provided insights in areas as diverse as the treatment of psychological disorders to offering testable hypotheses for the scientific understanding of 'normal' human behavior. Freud also wrote a handful of books examining religion (i.e., 'Totem and Taboo', 'The Future of An Illusion', 'Civilization and It's Discontents', 'Moses and Monotheism') in which he discusses religion as a natural phenomenon that results from our most basic human desires and urges, coupled with intentional control mechanisms put in place by a Marxian Bourgeois Class in order to maintain societal order.

From what I understand Nicholi approaches his book as if observing a dialogue between the two authors and their divergent ideas. PBS also aired a special a few years ago in which they had a round table discussion, moderated by Nicholi, about the ideas of Lewis and Freud. I've watched about half of it and found it to be a very interesting discussion (also available at the Johnson County Library). I'd encourage each of you to watch the video as well, at some poitn. This book sounds it should be a very interesting read and ought to provide great discussion. Thanks for the pick Jeremy, I'm looking forward to reading it.

Evolution Survey

I recently came across a survey online called 'A Survey of Public Understanding of Evolution'. It's sponsored by the skeptic society and asks questions about people's knowledge, understanding, and attitudes towards the theory of evolution. As a social scientist, I'm interested in what they might find out through this survey (even if it's methodology doesn't exactly adhere to strict standards of scientific rigor). While my worldview probably differs a fair amout from the majority of people who might tune in to the skeptic society from time to time, I do think they have a generally good perspective when it comes to our scientific understanding of the world. My guess is that the sample they get for this survey will probably have far greater numbers of athiests and non-religious people respond, but what they will need are more respondents who have faith of one sort or another in order to balance out the sample demographics. I have nothing to do with the creation of the survey, but am interested in the results and think they could be far more interesting if the sample is somewhat more representative of the real world than say 90% atheist/agnostic. So if you have a few minutes, please take the time to answer their questions (link is embedded in the survey name above). I'll make sure later to let you know what findings they report.

Truth War: Chapters 1 and 2

What a great discussion that we had for Kenneth Millers book: Finding Darwins God. The book The Truth War is intended to be a piggy-back off that discussion in what I feel is a broad issue of looking at the world through a post-modern lens. What I'd like to do is to use this book as a springboard for a discussion that encompasses more than just our spiritual lives but, also, our interactions as a general society. This book does a good job at detailing the effects of a post-modern view on the church but what I'd like to see us do is answer this question: What effects do the post-modern view have on our society and what are the ramifications of these effects. Here are a few of my thoughts from Chapters 1 and 2 Basically, if you viewed the world through a lens with a post-modern view essentially you'd be saying that there is no absolute truth as every truth is changed from individual to individual; What is true for me may not be truth for you. What I find interesting about the post-modern (PM) view is how you answer the question: Is anything truly wrong. With this viewpoint, one could justify just about anything in the name of their moral code. I see a stark difference between those who view the world through the PM lens vs. using the bible as their standard. Many of those who do not profess to be christian, use the bible as the "measuring stick" of truth. Why? I believe that we have a innate desire for truth that is immovable and unwavering. Theoretically speaking, if everyone had a PM view, the world would be in total chaos as everyone would be "justified" in their actions. Everyone would feel that they were right. John MacAuthur gives several scriptures to justify his view of using the bible as the standard. Which I will not go into detail here but, one thought that I found interesting was Orthodoxy Vs. Orthopraxy. Orthodoxy (right thinking and opinion of the bible) and Orthopraxy (right practice of the bible) are, many times, separated in our churches. We've seen the Emergent Church focus more on the Orthopraxy and shy away from the Orthodoxy. Why?.... Just like society, it makes our churches feel better to fill a need in the world than to share the truth that comes from scripture. This is why we see churches stepping up efforts to help with things like world hunger, AIDS, inner-city health care, Habitat for Humanity, etc. but not spending time teaching sound doctrine. But if these churches would live out scripture, they'd see that they have to do both. Otherwise, you'd have a lot of poor folks in the inner-city with heath care but without salvation. What's the point in that? Anyway... just a couple of random thoughts..... what are yours?

Darwin's God Conversation: Follow up and Resources

We had a great time discussing the book this morning, a lot of interesting insights and comments. I wanted to follow up the discussion (and each future discussion) with a list of possible resources for further investigating the ideas discussed each month. Below is a list of some books/pamphlets/videos that I think could provide interesting further investigation into ideas surrounding evolution and faith. I'll try to include a variety of perspectives and ideas in these suggestions, but could use help from anyone with further suggestions too. Please add any of your own suggestions in the comments section.

Books

1. "Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul" by Kenneth Miller. His newest book that was released just last month.
2. "Saving Darwin: How to be a Christian and Believe in Evolution" by Karl Giberson is a new release written by a professor at Eastern Nazarene University, sounds like it has a similar premise and purpose as Miller's book. An interview with the author can be viewed here.
3. "The Edge of Evolution" and "Darwin's Black Box" by the notable ID proponent Michael Behe.
4. "Reclaiming Science from Darwinism" by Kenneth Poppe, another proponent of ID.
5. "Thank God for Evolution" by Michael Dowd popped up as a suggestion for me from Amazon, it also has a website that looks interesting (and a little hokey).
6. "God After Darwin" and "Science and Religion" by John F. Haught a Catholic theologian at Georgetown University.
7. "Random Designer" by Richard Colling another professor at a Nazarene school, this book has stirred up a little bit of controversy in the Nazarene church.
8. "Evolution: What the fossils say and why it matters" by Donald Prothero looks at the fossil record and other evidence for evolution. I have an extra copy of this one if anyone is interested in borrowing it.
9. "Your Inner Fish" by Neil Shubin is another recent book looking at a variety of paleontological, anatomical, and embryological discoveries in an attempt to understand several human medical issues through the lens of evolution. This book also provides a fantastic description of the method used for predicting the location and discovering fossils of intermediary species.

Videos

1. "Judgment Day - Intelligent Design on Trial" is a PBS video describing the trial in Dover PA a few years ago. I own this one and am happy to loan it out.
2. "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" the recent movie featuring Ben Stein in which he presents the argument that alternatives to evolution are unfairly discriminated against in academia and elsewhere.
3. "Evolution: Fossils, Genes, and Mousetraps" and "Evolution: Constant Change and Common Threads" both available for free from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, or for loan from me, the first one features Kenneth Miller.

Pamphlet

Templeton foundation recently released a pamphlet discussing the question of "Does Science make belief in God obsolete?" in which a variety of public intellectuals have written essays to deal with the question, one of which was written by Ken Miller, I'd also recommend the essay by William D. Phillips. You can order a bound copy of all the essays for free or read PDF versions of each online at this link.

Hopefully you'll find some of these resources interesting and insightful, and hopefully you'll add other suggestions of items you've either read or saw and thought they'd look interesting.

Darwin's God Discussion 4: Chapters 8-9

To round out the book, Miller uses the final 2 chapters to discuss how he reconciles his scientific understanding of the material universe with his understanding of God according to the traditional view held by the great western monotheistic religions, a God that created us, loves us, and intervenes in our lives. He first points to the definitive limits to our capacity to understand the universe using science, there is no way we will ever be capable of knowing anything about the universe prior to the moment of it's conception at the Big Bang (pg. 225). So, God may be the generator behind such an event. He then points to the fact that the constants that exist in the universe (such as gravity) are set at just the right values to allow for the existence and evolution of life (pg. 228), giving the appearance that they've been chosen with intention for such a purpose. He also reminds us of the indeterminate behavior of matter itself which ultimately allows room for a God to work in subtle ways that are undetectable to us (pg. 233). He discusses how miracles, by definition are beyond scientific understanting. For believers, miracles (i.e., resurrection, virgin birth) point to a spiritual reality that makes sense religiously but not scientifically. Thus, a loving God who intervenes in the affairs of the world could do so without us being capable of understanding His means for doing so. This conception of God not only allows for Miller's understanding of the scientific data, but it also affirms his belief that God has endowed us with free will to choose our own attitudes and behaviors.

Miller asserts that true knowledge comes only from a combination of faith and reason. Through reason we can scientifically understand God's creation to a great extent, but science is incapable of assigning meaning and purpose to the universe it explores. Additionally, while evolution can explain our basic drives and desires, we look to our faith to understand the proper way to act in response to our drives and desires. In saying all of this, he is simply repeating the theme that he has been asserting throughout the whole book; acceptance of evolution is not incompatible with deep and meaningful faith in a personal and loving God. If a person's reason leads them to accept the evidence supporting evolution, they need not abandon their faith, and their faith may even be affirmed by their understanding of natural history.

Miller's integration of his faith and scientific understanding provide a concrete point at which we can now discuss whether or not his conception of God is satisfying to our sensibilities. I also think that generally speaking I'd be interested to discuss our thoughts about the book; did it provide any great insights? Does the book make any assertions that we fundamentally disagree with? As always, I'll put my actual 'discussion' thoughts in the comments section for this post, please do the same with your own.