Mere Christianity - Not Impressed So Far

I'm on Chapter 4. I'm continuing even though Lewis has instructed me to stop reading. (He says anyone who doesn't agree with his first argument should give it up.)

It boils down to this: because most people feel some sense of fairness and overarching morality (not only "I don't want you to do that" but "You shouldn't do that - it's wrong."), that means there must be an immaterial Lawgiver who put a sense of Moral Law in each of us. I think all of this is perfectly explicable by evolution and socialization. And supported by the indications we see that other animals have "moral codes," such as "Don't eat before the higher-ranked wolves" or "Don't have sex with anyone but the Alpha chimp, unless you can be really sneaky about it" (guilt!).

He also completely overlooks the selfish value of benefiting society. He starts well, saying, "[Human beings] see that you cannot have any real safety or happiness except in a society where every one plays fair," But three sentences later has completely forgotten this concept, and says it's silly to say it's good to benefit society, because wanting to benefit society is unselfish, so it's just begging the question. Except he started the conversation with an admission that helping society helps the individual!

He also misses the fact that human behavior all takes place in roughly the same environment, and this was probably even truer when evolutionary pressures were at their greatest, so it's not a supernatural-level surprise that we are hard-wired and socialized via long tradition to adopt similar cooperative behaviors. It becomes a (granted, complex) series of "if-then" statements: If no one in a clan can trust each other, they fail to cooperate and all die; If most people in a clan feel significant psychological pressure to be trustworthy, they can cooperate and survive.

If Lewis considered engineering, one wonders if he would find an extra-universal entity that bestows the Law of Design. "Look, all people throughout history have made boats that displace more water than that equal to their weight. Clearly this means there is a God of Boat Design!"

Talking About Death

Humanist Homeschool Mom has a post referring to her article, "Mommy, what happens after I die?" It prompted me to compile some of my favorite bits & pieces about a naturalistic approach to death.

First, the quote I commented with: ""I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it," traditionally attributed to Mark Twain.

Then there's this lovely bit by Aaron Freeman, which can be heard at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4675953.

You want a physicist to speak at your funeral. You want the physicist to talk to your grieving family about the conservation of energy, so they will understand that your energy has not died. You want the physicist to remind your sobbing mother about the first law of thermodynamics; that no energy gets created in the universe, and none is destroyed. You want your mother to know that all your energy, every vibration, every Btu of heat, every wave of every particle that was her beloved child remains with her in this world. You want the physicist to tell your weeping father that amid energies of the cosmos, you gave as good as you got.

And at one point you'd hope that the physicist would step down from the pulpit and walk to your brokenhearted spouse there in the pew and tell him that all the photons that ever bounced off your face, all the particles whose paths were interrupted by your smile, by the touch of your hair, hundreds of trillions of particles, have raced off like children, their ways forever changed by you. And as your widow rocks in the arms of a loving family, may the physicist let her know that all the photons that bounced from you were gathered in the particle detectors that are her eyes, that those photons created within her constellations of electromagnetically charged neurons whose energy will go on forever.

And the physicist will remind the congregation of how much of all our energy is given off as heat. There may be a few fanning themselves with their programs as he says it. And he will tell them that the warmth that flowed through you in life is still here, still part of all that we are, even as we who mourn continue the heat of our own lives.

And you'll want the physicist to explain to those who loved you that they need not have faith; indeed, they should not have faith. Let them know that they can measure, that scientists have measured precisely the conservation of energy and found it accurate, verifiable and consistent across space and time. You can hope your family will examine the evidence and satisfy themselves that the science is sound and that they'll be comforted to know your energy's still around. According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of you is gone; you're just less orderly. Amen.

Finally, there's a nice scene in the movie Houseboat, with Cary Grant and Sophia Loren, that expresses the same kind of sentiment. The widower explains to his grieving son that nothing is ever really destroyed or gone, only changed in form.

Do you have Krismas in France? Kriiiiiismaaassss!

Maybe Ricky's mom was actually asking a coherent question there!

Well, probably not, since Krismas was named only a few years ago. But I kind of like the idea. It's what we've been celebrating lo these many years - a Christmas-type celebration without any religious belief.

It seems a little blasphemous at first, but heck, Christmas is just a hijack of pagan solstice festivals, grafted on to the birth of Jesus.

So Merry Krismas, in addition to Solstice and Humanlight!

Drop-side cribs too dangerous

The ASTM is issuing new (voluntary) guidelines for manufacturers that exclude drop-side cribs. Toys R Us will no longer sell drop-side cribs. About.com has a good article outlining all the issues.

We have a drop-side crib (which is not recalled), and I gave it a good once-over to assure myself that it is safe. We seem to be fine (metal hardware, no indication a gap could form), but I think when we are done, we will junk this crib, rather than re-selling it. Drop-sides are particularly hazardous when purchased second-hand, as it increases the risk of the crib being put together wrong or with missing parts.

Scary stuff! But I am thankful we live in a world where such marginal risks are a big deal, since we have conquered so many risks that once killed babies and children.

The Catholic Church hypocritical? Nah, couldn't be!

So the Catholic Church is having a snit fit at Washington D.C., threatening to withdraw social service programs that help thousands of people. Why? Because D.C. is considering a non-discrimination ordinance that would require the church to provide equal benefits to gay and straight married couples. "Oh noez," says the church, "this might force us to participate in publicly support um, be vaguely associated with gay marriage, which is totally against our precepts!"

But the church has evidently been providing employee benefits to spouses of straight people who have divorced and remarried all along. Divorce and remarriage is supposedly just as much of a sin as homosexuality. Why the difference? Gee, could it be that the Catholic Church is run by a bunch of bigoted idiots who are mortally terrified of teh gay?

How to be a good Christian man

According to Steven L. Anderson, "real Christian men" can't sit down to pee. He has this bizarre rant about the bible demanding that men stand up to pee, because it uses "those that pisseth against the wall" as an occasional epithet referring to men.

He details how no man in Germany stands to pee (I'll give you a moment to drag your eyebrows back down from your hairline here), and he's seen signs in private homes and public restrooms that say "No Standing to Pee." This is obviously a sign of the apocalypse. He's fighting it, though. The next time he goes to Germany, he declares he Shall Never Sit to Pee!

Aside from the question of his ah, factual accuracy here, something really strikes me. He boldly states that the way to show you are a Real True Christian is to ignore societal rules and your host's gentle request, and be a rude, self-centered, splashing-on-the-tile boor. Yep, that's about my impression of Christianity in America.

Another reason why proselytizing sucks

I've mused about the psychological underpinnings of witnessing before. But recently I had a personal experience that made me think about it in a slightly different light.

We have a Nursing Nina toy - a stuffed cat with three kittens, with magnets that let the kittens "latch on" to the mother cat's nipples. It's totally adorable and funny. I had been meaning to share it with my friend who was coming over for a visit, since I thought she would get a kick out of it and, frankly, I wanted to show it off.

The morning of the visit, she called to apologize for being late. One of their dogs had attacked one of their kittens that morning, and she had rushed the broken and bleeding little thing to the vet, only to have it expire in the car. After we got off the phone, and my mind had turned to humdrum house stuff as I tidied up, I came upon Nursing Nina and my first thought was of how cool it is. Then I checked myself and realized of course I'd better put it away to avoid rubbing salt in my friend's wounds.

I think hard-sell witnessers are in part like kids wanting to show of their cool toys, without any regard to the interests or feelings of the people they're showing them to. Even if their intentions are good, there's an underlying self-centeredness that's really off-putting.