The National Day of Prayer for the Coronavirus

5/5/2020—Three weeks ago, there was a national day of prayer for victims of the virus. The Proclamation was issued on Saturday, March 14, right after President Trump’s issuance of an national emergency declaration. You could say that it was at that moment that the President finally realized how serious the virus was.

Was there ever a proclamation taken less seriously? It was a busy time. Friday was the last time I would meet my classes in person. That Monday I began to teach to an empty classroom with my stuffed animals.

The world has changed quite a lot for everyone in these past three weeks. As of this morning, there have been over 300,000 cases and over 8000 deaths attributed to COVID-19.

So, maybe I overlooked the national day of prayer because I was so distracted. But, until yesterday, I did not know such a thing had happened. I only found out because of a snarky tweet by Richard Dawkins, pointing out that deaths only began to climb right after the Day of Prayer.

Here we have the real proof that God is Dead. This invocation was a perfect example of what is called in law, ceremonial deism. This is a reference to God that no one takes seriously as a theological expression. No one expected anything from God. No one thought God had anything to do with the virus.

My column this week is about the virus’s meaning. And I suggest three possibilities. One is materialism—the virus doesn’t mean anything because there is no such thing as ultimately meaning anything. The universe is random forces and matter.

The second is a new view of nature as alive. The virus is part of nature’s story. Maybe the virus is a natural feedback loop preventing temperature rises.

The third is the traditional monotheistic view. But what would that be? Something this stupendous would have to be the work of God. Jonathan Rosenblum points out that this viruses that jump from animals to humans could be a divine “hint” that we are losing our humanity. That kind of thinking is a still-functioning monotheism.

But, mostly, we invoke God just to say we will be OK. This is not nothing, but it is close.

Thinking of the Virus and the Earth in a Different Way

3/29/2020—Brian Swimme tells a very strange and mysterious, indeed impossible, story in the documentary, Journey of the Universe. During the past 4 billion years, the heat radiation coming from the sun increased by 25%, because of changes in nuclear fusion in the sun.

This should have caused problems for life on Earth, because life only exists in a narrow band of temperature.

It turns out that the temperature did not increase by 25%, because at the same time, the concentration of carbon in the atmosphere dropped, allowing the Earth to cool.

But why should this have happened? Swimme says that you could think of the Earth not as dead or mechanical, but as a kind of living system designed for the flourishing of life. One way that happens is if carbon becomes the shells of animals and sinks to the bottom of the ocean.

But if we think in terms like those, why should not the virus be another natural response to increasing temperature? We know that greenhouse gas emissions will now actually fall because of the catastrophic effect of the virus on all economic and social life.

I am not claiming this is the case. I don’t understand how such things could happen without the kind of intervention that Christians used to call God’s judgment.

But that just raises the question of the virus in a different way. Five hundred years ago, Christians would have called the virus a purposive act of God and would have looked for the cause of such an action—like the sailors inquiring of Jonah what he had done to cause a storm at sea.

Where are the Christians calling the virus God’s judgment for the abuse of the natural world that is leading to climate change? The Bible says that if God’s will is not obeyed, the rain will not fall. Well? In many places, the rains are already beginning to fail.

The absence of a robust theological response to the virus is the clearest indication that God is Dead.

Heidegger and the Jewish Question

1/14/2015—An exchange in the December 4, 2014 issue of the New York Review of Books shows once more how we need to understand the philosopher Martin Heidegger in order to confront the condition in which humans find themselves today. Specifically, Peter Gordon had written in the October 9, 2014 edition a story about new publications of Heidegger’s notes. Bruce Henley wrote a letter to the editor in December noting “Martin Heidegger’s bizarre metaphysical equivalence between mechanized food production and death camps.” Gordon responds and notes Heidegger’s opposition to the “racial breeding” of the Jews.

Since I rely so heavily on Heidegger, it may seem I come to his defense. Well, yes and no. Heidegger’s action in the 1930’s were not courageous, insightful or even honorable. He clearly hoped that Hitler and the Nazi movement would represent a third way between America and the Soviet Union. He joined the Party and became Hitler first Rechtor—University President.

But he resigned his post by 1934 and during 1935 to 1936 wrote his Contributions to Philosophy, some of which would have gotten him shot if it had been made public. Contributions is now available in English and there is no excuse to ignore what it tells us. Heidegger criticized racial politics and the manipulations of mass media—pretty clear references to the regime. He may have felt the same way about the racial orientation of the Jews—I don’t know. But in the 1930’s it would have been impossible not to think in racial terms considering the emphasis in German society. Heidegger was not supporting the final solution—undoubtedly he was horrified by it.

And this is the point about industrial farming. Heidegger saw the roots of mass murder not in individual guilt but in the foundation of technology itself. Here is the quote, from a lecture in 1949:

"Farming is now a motorized food industry, in essence the same as the fabrication of corpses in gas chambers and extermination camps, the same as the blockade and starvation of the peasantry, the same as the fabrication of the hydrogen bomb."

People who find this outrageous are not understanding Heidegger’s point. He is saying that these matters are beyond individual guilt. Technology is destroying the world. I would have thought that in the world of global warming that may kill millions, if not billions, Heidegger’s point would be better understood.

The Return of the Cicadas

6/13/2013—One of the amazing spectacles nature is the return of the cicadas on the eastern coast the United States every 17 years. When you think about the last time the cicadas emerged, in 1996, and the return now, in 2013, and then the next time they will emerge, in 2030, you have a 34 year cycle—the main part of an adult lifetime.

The next time the cicadas come, I will be, if I’m alive, 78 years old. Even given the way law schools work, I will be retired, my productive years probably over. I hope Patt and I will be enjoying a dual retirement.

This natural rhythm is far more encompassing that any human life. And like all the great cycles of nature, dwarfs human creativity. The lack of recognition of this kind of clock is one of the flaws of humanism. It is in fact one of the flaws of modernity itself.

Once, you could’ve said this is a flaw in secularism. But today religion itself, especially in its Christian varieties, emphasizes the human to as great an extent as any secularism does. But the human, by itself, this not amount to that much. It certainly does not refresh and reassure the way the return of the cicadas does.

If the Higgs Boson Particle Affected Capitalism

7/8/2012—Have you considered that the alleged discovery of the Higgs Boson particle might be a hoax perpetrated by scientists who get larger grants if they can claim to have discovered it? How about the fact that no one has actually seen the HB and yet they claim that they have found it? How come no scientists who oppose the HB have been interviewed?

If corporate profits were somehow involved in finding the HB, that is how the news would have been reported that the particle had been found. And there would have been a critic of the report of the found particle prominently featured in all the stories.

The actual reports about the HB demonstrate the way we usually relate to science stories. Most of us know nothing about the HB and the process by which the evidence was evaluated. Apparently, it was a delicate process and it took awhile to be sure.

This week’s hot weather is a reminder that global warming has not gone away. But in the case of global warming, corporate power is working very hard to sow doubts. There is a report today that, although more Americans than ever believe that global warming is happening and that humans are causing it, fewer than in 2007 consider it important. This is the result of our politicians not sounding warnings. Naturally, people take that to mean it is not important.

And as for all those people who love to point out that it gets hot every summer and that this heat is not quite unprecedented, that is true. The face of global warming is not just heat and melting ice. It is also the absence of record cold. When was the last year of global below average temperatures? I don’t know the answer. But since global monthly average temperatures have been above the 20th century average for 327 consecutive months (see NOAA website), it had to have been over 27 years ago.

Boy, is that a coincidence! Greenhouse gases go up and temperature goes up.

Cut Off from Blame and Punishment

6/10/2012—On Friday, I think, Accuweather reported a startling statistic about the past twelve months in the US—they were all above average to a great extent so that the average temperature was 3.6 degrees F over the long term average. The odds of something like this happening due to chance were 1/341,0000. Something like that.

It was another indicator of global warming that could have been natural. But piled on top of all the other warming stories, seemed like pretty good evidence to me.

The reaction, however, was vociferously negative and three reactions stood out to me. (By the way, I cannot today find this whole story and exchange on the site, but since the details don’t matter to the point here, I’m not going to double check. If I’m wrong on the details it won’t change the essense. Something of the same story is reported here with some different negative reactions).

One person wrote, remember Climategate; maybe we’re being lied to by the scientists. Another wrote that man cannot change the planet’s climate. Man is too puny and the planet too vast. A third actually wrote, Blah Blah Blah—get over it. (Somewhere else, the temperatures were attributed to the peak of the solar cycle, not warming gases).

In all this, the only religious reaction is the Christian remnant that man cannot change the climate. This idea in its original context was a condemnation of man’s pride. It is being resorted to here, however, to prevent repentance rather than to encourage it, quite different from its original setting.

What is missing from all this is how religious people might have heard this message two generations ago. A Martin Luther King, Jr., or a Reinhold Niebuhr, or a Karl Barth might have heard a message of God’s punishment for the greed of man. The rich create an economic system that serves no one but themselves, sacrificing the poor and also the middle class, and practices violence toward God’s creation. God has now sent warnings of his wrath, but as usual, men intent on business as usual ignore the signs.

This account of global warming perfectly encapsulates prophetic messages from the Old Testament. It is so obviously fitting to our situation that it would discomfort the weird marriage of the religious right with capitalism.

But there is seemingly no one to deliver this message. Liberal Christianity is weakened by its felt bad faith over gay rights and its uncertainty over just what kind of God it believes in. It lacks the power of conviction.

Obviously secularists like me cannot resort to this narrative when we deny the existence of a God who rewards and punishes.

Maybe something can be thought through the view of karma. Or Emerson’s Compensation. All I know is that the Old Testament promise remains true. If you misuse the poor, if you ignore creation in pursuit of wealth, the rain does not fall—and the temperature goes up and the whole human world, including the rich, the children of the rich and the grandchildren of the rich, will suffer.

Are Things Getting Worse or Better?

10/13/2011—Since I am a critic of things—whether it is what I call the crisis in secularism in my book, or my call for a new look at Marx—it is good to be reminded of just how much progress there actually has been in human affairs over the past few centuries. The book is The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, by Steven Pinker, professor of psychology at Harvard. The book was reviewed in the New York Times on Sunday, October 9, by the well-known professor of bioethics at Princeton, Peter Singer. As Singer puts it, “[t]he central thesis of [the book] is that our era is less violent, less cruel and more peaceful than any previous period of human existence.” According to Singer, to whom this argument does not come easily, Pinker makes a careful and persuasive case.

Not as clear, even to Pinker, are two questions that are more important than how we are doing right now. First, if Pinker’s claims are accurate, how and why did they happen? A lot of it has to do with the Enlightenment, according to Pinker, which is important, considering how much bad press the Enlightenment has been getting.

Second, will these positive trends continue? Pinker thinks they will, but he is not certain about that and admits that they may not.

But I want to raise a different issue, without having read the book. Just judging by the review—and I have a lot of confidence in the thoroughness and integrity of Peter Singer—there does not seem to be much in the book about the current environmental crisis. Yes, there may be less physical violence, but if we cannot manage to avoid ruining the Earth’s capacity to sustain human life well, that decline will not mean much.

What if the same Enlightenment thinking that has given us so much, is also at the heart of our inability to appreciate the common good that the earth represents? After all, the Enlightenment gave us, or helped give us, individualism and it is individualism that is hindering us from seeing this collective threat.

The Promise of Religious Naturalism

6/23/2011—The Institute on Religion in an Age of Science seems quite dominated by devotees of what is called Religious Naturalism. Prominent authors are here—Ursula Goodenough and Loyal Rue among others. Three days have been devoted to Michael Cavanaugh’s manuscript “Religious Naturalism: the Next 100 Years”. Tuesday night we watched the beautiful and moving movie, “Journey of the Universe”. And Gerald Robertson gave a presentation yesterday on the Science/Religion dialogue in Religious Naturalism.

Until I got here, I would have said that Hallowed Secularism and Religious Naturalism were the same thing, more or less. I certainly felt right at home with Jerome Stone’s book, Religious Naturalism Today. Stone even wrote a blurb for my new book, which applied Hallowed Secularism to Establishment Clause issues. For me, naturalism was natural and was what caused me to leave Judaism.

There is the rub, however. For me, naturalism was just a veto on religious truth. Nothing in my religious understanding could actually contradict something science had shown to be true. For example, if mind is what the brain does, then my mind could not survive the death of my brain. So, no after life, at least for my personality. But Our Religions generated the truths by which we could seek to live.

Stone’s religious naturalists were consistent with this approach. They were basically philosophers and theologians.

But the people here, not surprisingly, start with science. In the movie, Brian Swimme describes the trouble humans are now in as we abuse the planet. He says that “wonder will get us through”. If you believe that, then it is really important to teach the beautiful and awe inspiring universe story.

It’s not that I disagree exactly. Our Religions have all taught the insignificance of the human from the power and beauty of nature. Maybe this new insight is even better.

But science is ultimately value neutral. Even the story Swimme tells is value neutral in and of itself. My reaction to the movie was, if humans screw this up, nature will just start over.

The Reaction to Daniel Quinn

9/4/2010—One reaction to the hostage-taking by James Jae Lee at the Discovery Channel headquarters, in which Lee demanded that the network present certain of the ideas of Daniel Quinn, is to emphasize Quinn’s stand against human population growth. Obviously, Lee’s own violence, which led to his death and fortunately harmed no one else, has nothing to do with the ideas of Daniel Quinn, a point Quinn himself has been making. The more significant question is whether Lee’s anti-human perspective, in which humans are viewed are parasites of nature, is a genuine outgrowth of Quinn’s views. (The Catholic News Agency for example reported that “A pro-life group which believes Lee started an argument at one of their protests said his ‘utter disdain for human beings’ is at the core of the mindset pro-lifers oppose.” [story here] The idea is that if you do not view population growth as positive, you must inevitably end in violence against humans, either figuratively or, as in Lee’s case, literally).

It is true that Quinn is a kind of Malthusian, for whom the agriculture race cannot ultimately be won. More food just leads to more people. The only answer is to let people die when food supplies prove inadequate. Quinn never hides his view on this matter, but it is not central to the book Ishmael and plenty of people, myself included, have been influenced by Quinn’s ideas without adopting that particular one.

The basic idea of Ishmael itself is that the world is not made for human beings but that humans became human through living in dependence on the natural world. In other words, the western view, including the view of many forms of monotheism, that humans are higher than nature is itself anti-human and a form of oppression. We evolved into what we are now only by being part of nature. If we do not return to our earlier understanding of ourselves, we will destroy ourselves and will destroy much of the current form of the natural world along with us.

It is in this context that Quinn suggested that in the Americas before the European invasion experiments were taking place in large-scale sustainable civilization. The indigenous worldview of the Mayan, Inkan, and Aztec civilizations, as well as smaller experiments taking place elsewhere in the Americas, can serve as a reminder that humanity as part of nature is not a dream but has been a functioning reality throughout human history.

Of course it is true that sustainable human civilization cannot absolutely privilege the growth of human population above everything else. But it is odd that religious thinkers who insist that human beings must live within all sorts of other limits on their behavior balk at this one limit: that we cannot endlessly reproduce without destroying ourselves and others.