Groping Toward a New Spirituality

In Saturday's New York Times, columnist Charles Blow drew attention to a remarkable new survey about spirituality in America. In his piece, Paranormal Flexibility, Mr. Blow wrote...

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life released a report on Wednesday that is bound to stir conversation about the increasingly complicated cacophony of spirituality in America — a mash-up of traditional faiths, fantasy and mythology.

Entitled “Many Americans Mix Multiple Faiths,” the report points out that many Americans are now choosing to “blend Christianity with Eastern or New Age beliefs..."

The report is further evidence that Americans continue to cobble together Mr. Potato Head-like spiritual identities from a hodgepodge of beliefs — bending dogmas to suit them instead of bending themselves to fit a dogma. And this appears to be leading to more spirituality, not less.

As the author of The Mustard Seed - a novel that expresses a vision of "Spiritual Rationalism" - this is wonderful news, indeed. The need to harmonize faith and reason is the most urgent task for human beings today on a personal level, and for society at large. Our goal should be to modernize and deepen Christianity to take account of objective logic and Eastern spirituality. Thankfully, the Pew survey reveals that up to 25% of Americans are incorporating this goal into their religious practice. They are - dare I say - groping toward a new spirituality.

The Pew report includes the following statistics...

*24% of the public overall and 22% of Christians say they believe in reincarnation…

*23% believe in yoga not just as exercise but as a spiritual practice. Similar numbers profess belief in elements of New Age spirituality, with 26% saying they believe in spiritual energy located in physical things such as mountains, trees or crystals…

*Among Protestants, high levels of religious commitment are associated with lower levels of acceptance of Eastern or New Age beliefs…Among Catholics, by contrast, frequency of church attendance is linked much less closely with these kinds of beliefs…

*Older people (those over age 65) consistently express lower levels of acceptance of these kinds of beliefs compared with younger people…

*29% of Americans say they have felt in touch with someone who has died. Nearly one-in-five say they have been in the presence of a ghost (18%), while 15% say they have consulted a fortuneteller or a psychic.

*The proportion of Americans who say they have interacted with a ghost has doubled over the past 13 years (9% in 1996 compared with 18% today). The number saying they have felt in touch with someone who has died has also grown considerably, from 18% in 1996 to 29% today…

*In total, 65% of adults express belief in or report having experience with at least one of these diverse supernatural phenomena (belief in reincarnation, belief in spiritual energy located in physical things, belief in yoga as spiritual practice, belief in the "evil eye," belief in astrology, having been in touch with the dead, consulting a psychic, or experiencing a ghostly encounter)...

*In response to a separate question, 49% of Americans say they have had "a religious or mystical experience - that is, a moment of religious or spiritual awakening." This is roughly the same as the number that said this in 2006 (47%), but it represents a sharp increase over the past four decades. In 1962, only 22% of Americans reported having had such an experience, which grew to 31% in 1976 and 33% in 1994...

*Among the unaffiliated, 3-in-10 have had a religious or mystical experience.

**UPDATE, DEC. 17, 2009**


Justin has written about the Pew survey too. I posted the following comments…

I’m genuinely surprised that 1 out of 4 Americans believe in reincarnation. Considering that reincarnation is persona non grata in our churches, media, and popular culture, that seems like a high number to me. Where are people learning about reincarnation? And how does it affect their opinion of other religious issues?

Second, the racial breakdown was also surprising to me. I would have thought whites would be most likely to believe in reincarnation. They seem to be predominant in the New Age movement. And yet whites are the bottom and blacks are at the top. How do you account for that? Perhaps the low support among white Evangelicals suppresses the total for whites as a whole.

Then…

I just did some research. The first poll on reincarnation was done in 1968 by Gallup. 20% said they believed in reincarnation, 64% said they didn't, and 16% had no opinion.

Those numbers have barely moved in the last 40 years. Nearly every poll conducted over the last 4 decades has the number of believers at between 20-25%.

John Derbyshire: A Collection

Over the years, National Review columnist John Derbyshire has written some excellent articles on science, religion, and philosophy. While I don't agree with him on the Darwin/I.D. debate, and I find him a little too eager to advance Reductionism, I find him congenial on most other issues. So without further ado, here are some of his best articles, along with a few highlighted tidbits.


God and Me: Faith FAQ: "Religious feeling just is, there in human nature, unremovably and inescapably…It’s there, and decent societies have to incorporate it somehow, to the general advantage…The trick, if you want a reasonably happy and stable society, is to corral human nature into useful, non-socially-destructive styles of expression… Any aspect of human nature can get out of hand, as we see with these Muslim fanatics that are making such nuisances of themselves nowadays. That doesn’t mean the aspect is bad, just that some society has done a bad job of corraling it.


What's So Scary About Evolution? — For Both Right and Left, a Lot: "A Darwinian view of human nature really is quite sensationally revolutionary. In particular, it makes a hash of intrinsic human equality. We may of course — and we should, and I hope we ever shall! — hold equal treatment under the law to be an organizing principle of our civilization; but that is a social agreement, like driving on the right, not a pre-existing fact in the world."


The Rapture for Nerds: "Hopes for AI have been around as long as hopes for fusion power…Some folk at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute are tackling the fruit fly brain. This may actually be more promising, as fruit flies are the most studied of all creatures, especially by geneticists. Still, the scale of the project is intimidating. A fruit fly brain is barely visible — about one-eightieth of an inch from side to side. Yet the full mapping of one such speck will need, the researchers are estimating, about a million gigabytes of data storage, and 'To get any good data, you'd have to compare hundreds of fruit-fly brains.' Says the project director: 'In a hundred years I'd like to know how human consciousness works. The 10- or 20-year goal is to understand the fruit-fly brain.'"


Toward a Science of Consciousness, Part 1: "Down at the quantum level, things get radically weird, we all know that. The issue here this morning was: Do brain processes partake of the weirdness? Sheehan believes they do. He offered some arguments from physics, and some experimental results. Most startling of the latter were experiments that seemed to show presentiment. In brief: You show your suspect a blank screen. Then you randomly display a picture, either an 'emotional' one, that will evoke a strong neuro-response (e.g. naked woman) or a 'calm' one (e.g. seascape). Then you quickly go back to the blank screen. You are monitoring neural reactions all the time. The 'emotional' pictures show a strong reaction after they are shown, of course; but they seem to show a measurably stronger reaction before being show, too."


Toward a Science of Consciousness, Part 2: "How far do we still have to go 'toward a science of consciousness'? A long way yet, was my parting impression. In his 2007 Teaching Company lecture series Consciousness and its Implications (which I recommend), philosopher Daniel Robinson remarks that: 'Despite the tremendous growth of knowledge over recent decades, the problem of mental causation … is pretty much where it was in the time of the ancient Greek philosophers.' That matches my own conclusions from the Tucson meeting."


The Dream of A.I.: "Artificial humans? We could not create an artificial ant, with all its complex social behavior based on scent and visual clues. Even in fields where there is obviously a great deal of money to be made, progress has been barely perceptible. Anyone who could get a computer to drive a car as safely as a human being does would certainly clean up, yet the news from the auto manufacturers, who are throwing a lot of resources at this, is that we are not even close. Yet driving a car is a very low-level function of the brain, as proved by the fact that you can think about several other things while you are doing it."


Islamophobophobia: "Inside every Muslim today there is a voice whispering: 'Our faith is so pure and true, our civilizations lasted so long and ruled so many, our God was so potent: yet here we are in the modern world, backward and poor except where accidents of nature have blessed us, our rulers corrupt, our culture mocked or ignored, our people squabbling among themselves, or fleeing the homelands to work as taxi drivers and menials in the great glittering cities of the infidels, those homelands themselves part-stolen by the wretched Jews. It's all wrong, wrong, wrong! Grrrrr!!!' That's the Islam we're up against. I don't myself believe we can do much to reform it. Muslims have to do that for themselves."


March of the Godless: "Outside the sphere of religion, it is difficult for most of us to get a firm grip on the big questions, the questions that have agitated mortals since Achilles moped in his tent before Troy: 'How shall we live?' and 'Why must we die?' These matters, dealing with the foundations of morality and the place of human life in the grand scheme of things, color political issues here in the U.S.A., and so are constantly discussed and debated. This gives a depth and gravity to national political discourse that in other countries, I think, is mainly lacking. Now that I have acclimatized myself to this aspect of American public life, in fact, I find myself thinking, when I read newspapers and magazines from England, that there is something frivolous and shallow about the way matters are presented over there. (And China, where they are not spoken of in public at all, seems a very dark place.)"


Don't Blame Islam: "In our current conflict, our enemies are all Muslims. I don't believe that our enemy is Islam, though. Islam came up in a primitive, tribal society that has never since enjoyed any real political progress. The Arabs are still primitive and tribal today; but their failure to create modern nation-states arises from their ancient habits of thought, behavior and social exchange, and from geographical constraints, not from anything in Islam. Indeed, those Arab countries — Iraq, Syria — that are established on secular principles are even more degraded and corrupt than the theocracies…Instead of mocking or dismissing Islam, we should appeal to believers to look to the nobler and more generous texts in their scriptures, the texts that emphasize a common humanity. We have nothing to gain from alienating honest Muslims, any more than they have anything to gain by being enemies of the West."


Note: For my other articles on Derbyshire, click here.

Survival of the Most Pious?

In his Nov. 11 NRO column, Survival of the Most Pious?, John Derbyshire reviews Nicholas Wade's new book, The Faith Instinct: How Religion Evolved and Why It Endures.

While most of Derbyshire's column is "chloroform in print," the ending is worth sharing...

Religion will presumably survive as long as we are recognizably human. What will it look like, though?

In a thoughtful closing chapter Wade peers forward into the possible future of religion. He thinks that traditional religion has lost too many of its bouts against modernity and rationality, and needs some radical reworking if it is to fulfill human religious yearnings as it used to. He asks: "Is there not some way of transforming religion into versions better suited for a modern age?" If there is, can we discern the shape of whatever rough beast is slouching towards Bethlehem?…

The various attempts to establish "ethical religions," from Emerson's Transcendentalism to Scientific Buddhism, have in any case fallen flat, offering only cold temples to their followers. A transformed religion, Wade tells us, must "touch all the senses and lift the mind … find a way to be equally true to emotion and to reason, to our need to belong to one another …" The transformation, he says, needs to be similar in scope to the transition from hunter gatherer religion to that of settled societies.

What may actually happen, it seems to me, will be a partial reversion to Paleolithic styles. The dissolution of the power relations that prevailed until just a generation or two ago — hierarchies of class, race, sex, age, and behavioral inclinations — has returned us to the egalitarianism of our remotest ancestors. Perhaps our religion will likewise regress.

Such a regression, if it occurs, will only be approximate. We are not now what we were then.

The Rise of Deism???

After years of public debate about "The Rise of Christian Fundamentalism," then "The Rise of Islam," then "The Rise of Atheism," are we are about to confront "The Rise of Deism?"

Steven Waldman, the Editor-in-Chief of Beliefnet, makes that case in his new piece, Deism - It's Back!

Inspired by the new Trinity College study on religion, Mr. Waldman writes...

When historians refer to some of the Founding Fathers as "Deists," it's as if they're talking about an extinct philosophy, like alchemy or phrenology. Very few Americans go around describing themselves as Deists.

Perhaps that ought to change. A new study reveals that a rapidly growing number of Americans hold the belief system that used to be described as Deism...

Barry Kosmin, one of the authors of the study, points out that an earlier study that looked at Nones as well as those who did "affiliate" with a religion found that 12% were Deistic. That would make Deists bigger than all of the aforementioned groups combined, and one of the largest spiritual groupings in America]

And that's if you use a pretty narrow definition of Deism. In my book, Founding Faith, I argued that even the so-called Deists of the 18th Century were a bit more religious than we think. Both Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin believed that God intervened in history. A recent study by the Pew Religion Forum, revealed that 35% of Nones pray weekly or daily.

Mr. Waldman's book looks very interesting, and I've added it to my Amazon Wish List.


Also, just for the record, I don't consider myself to be a "Deist," because - as Mr. Waldman points out - most Deists believe that God "created the universe and its laws but then receded from the action." Needless to say, that doesn't leave much room for a personal God, and I do believe in a personal God. However, I'm glad that the Founding Fathers - who are usually labeled as "Deist" - also, apparently thought that "God intervened" in human affairs and "were a bit more religious than we think."

New Survey: 1 in 4 Americans Could Claim 'No Religion' in 20 Years

Yesterday, Trinity College released its American Religious Identification Survey plus a new report: American Nones: The Profile of the No Religion Population.

Dan Gilgoff at U.S. News describes some of the key findings....

Americans who identify with no religious tradition currently comprise 15 percent of the country, representing the fastest growing segment of the national religious landscape.

If current trends continue, a quarter of Americans are likely to claim "no religion" in 20 years.

While the numbers portend a dramatic change for the American religious scene—"religious nones" accounted for just 8 percent of the population in 1990—the United States is not poised adopt the anti-religious posture of much of secularized Europe. That's because American religious nones tend to be religious skeptics as opposed to outright atheists. Fewer than ten percent of those identifying with no religious tradition call themselves atheists or hold atheistic beliefs, according to the new study.

"American nones are kind of agnostic and deistic, so it's a very American kind of skepticism," says Barry Kosmin, director of Trinity's Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture. "It's a kind of religious indifference that's not hostile to religion the way they are in France. Franklin and Jefferson would have recognized these people."

The new study found that, in addition to seeing relatively strong retention numbers, American nones are quickly gaining new members.

"Twenty-two percent of the youngest cohort of adults self-identify as nones and they will become tomorrow's parents," according to the report. "If current trends continue and cohorts of non-religious young people replace older religious people, the likely outcome is that in two decades the nones could account for around one-quarter of the American population."

What is responsible for the growth of the "Nones?" Andrew Sullivan speculates...

The intellectual collapse of Christianity under the leadership of Protestant fundamentalists and Catholic theocons is surely relevant. The well-deserved inability of literalists to win many converts among educated people is also surely salient. The emergence of the politicized Christianist right - and its assault on Christianity as a freely chosen spiritual process - will surely lead to a continued and accelerating flight from organized religion.

In 1990, the Nones were mainly Independents but were equally spread among Democrats and Republicans. Today, the proportion of Independents who are Nones has leaped from 12 percent to 21 percent; and the percentage of Democratic Nones has doubled from 6 percent to 16 percent. In stark contrast, the GOP share has fallen from 8 percent to 6 percent. I'd say that's a function of the GOP becoming an essentially Christianist fundamentalist party; and the Democrats having lots of Irish, Jewish and Asian supporters, who are the strongest groups in the None cohort.

The Nones are not wealthier than average, but they are more male. Almost 20 percent of American men are Nones, compared with 12 percent of women.

61 percent of Nones find evolution convincing, compared with 38 percent of all Americans. And yet they do not dismiss the possibility of a God they do not understand; and refuse to call themselves atheists. This is the fertile ground on which a new Christianity will at some point grow. In the end, the intellectual bankruptcy of the theocon right and Christianist movement counts. Very few people with brains are listening to these people any more. They have discredited Christianity as much as they have tarnished conservatism.

A few other points worth mentioning...

*In a previous essay, I speculated that there was a quiet "Sexual Revolution" during the 1990s. According to this report, there was also a quiet "Spiritual Revolution" during the same decade. To quote the report: "The 1990s was the decade when the "secular boom" occurred - each year 1.3 million more adult Americans joined the ranks of the Nones.

*According to the report, while "in terms of Belonging (self-identification) 1 in 6 Americans is presently of No Religion... in terms of Belief and Behavior the ratio is higher - around 1 in 4.

*The gender ratio among Nones is 60 males for every 40 females.

*Most Nones are 1st generation - only 32% of "current" Nones report they were None at age 12.

*24% of current Nones (and 35% of 1st generation or "new" Nones) are former Catholics.

*Class is not a distinguishing characteristic: Nones are not different from the general population by education or income.

*The specific beliefs of the "Nones" in contrast to "U.S. adults" as a whole can be broken down as follows:

"Regarding the existence of God, do you think...? "There is no such thing" (Atheist)

Nones 7%
All 2%

"There is no way to know" (Hard Agnostic)

Nones 19%
All 4%

"I’m not sure" (Soft Agnostic)

Nones 16%
All 6%

"There is a higher power but no personal God" (Deist)

Nones 24%
All 12%

"There is definitely a personal God" (Theist)

Nones 27%
All 70%

"Don't Know/Refused"

Nones 7%
All 6%

Personally, I would put myself in the "Theist" category (although I'd prefer to say, "There is almost certainly" [not "definitely"] a personal God. That position is also shared 70% of all Americans. Interesting, only 7% of Nones are "Atheists." That's amazing. And 51% feel comfortable stating that there IS a "higher power" (whether it's personal or not). An additional 35% are real agnostics.

*One final point: The survey results about evolution (cited by Sullivan) are misleading. The poll question was, "Do you think that human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals?" As I've discussed before, the idea of "common descent" is not equal to "Darwinian evolution." In fact, many critics of Darwinism (such as Dr. Michael Behe) support the idea of "common descent." Thus, while its likely that the "Nones" are more favorable toward Darwinism than the American population as a whole, I wouldn't conclude that "61% of the Nones support Darwinism."

I've written about the "Nones" a few times, including here and here.

The Birds and the Bees and Allan Carlson

When I wrote my original piece, Sex, Love, and Marriage in Modern Society, I intended it to be the first in a series of articles exploring the relationship between men and women - what that relationship has been, what it is today, what it will be tomorrow, and what it should be always.

Instead, the discussion veered off into related issues - Game, the Human Bio-Diversity Movement, Reductionism, etc. These are all fascinating topics, but it's worth admitting that the blogosphere debate - day by day - descended further and further from the original goal of developing a comprehensive philosophy regarding the proper roles for men and women today (which puts all those related issues into better perspective).

Right now, I am still in the process of sorting our my opinions, although I would wager that I am somewhere between a traditionalist and a libertarian (more specifically, a traditionalist in culture; a libertarian in politics - if that makes sense). But, like I said, my feelings remain in flux.

In the process of making a proper judgment, a friend of mine sent me some articles by Dr. Allan Carlson, President of the Howard Center, a traditionalist advocacy group.

I've clipped out some of the highlights from 2 of Dr. Carlson's articles...

From Vive la Difference!, a review of Dr. Stephen Roades' book Taking Sex Differences Seriously (National Review, July 12, 2004)...

"The culture wars," Rhoads notes with some justice, "are really about the role of women." He shows that while men are all about the same when it comes to the masculine traits of competitiveness, aggression, and dominance (even "computer nerds" enjoy the frenzied clashes of "BattleBots"), women are divided into two camps: a majority who are traditionally feminine with a yearning for nest-building and children; and a minority, exposed to higher levels of testosterone, who show more male attributes. The tension between these two kinds of women becomes a recurring theme in the book.

All the same, the profound differences between the two sexes are the author's primary story. For example, the human hormone, oxytocin, is "the kindest of natural opiates," but it operates differently on the sexes. Men experience it at the moment of sexual release. Women, though, feel the same euphoric exhilaration while breastfeeding. Indeed, some of the oxytocin reaches the child through the breast milk. This creates a special bond between mother and child in which they become "one continually interacting, merged organism" with "a pleasant fog descend[ing] upon the brain."

No "Mr. Mom" can replicate this experience. Indeed, Rhoads shows that despite the media hype, there are actually few such men around. In candid surveys, even the best-earning, highest-status women reject role reversal in favor of a partner who is superior in power, earnings, and status. So too among female academics. Homemaking men are simply not sexually attractive to women.

A return to traditional "breadwinner"/"homemaker" homes, the author implies, would be of benefit to children. Fewer work hours by mothers increase student achievement; fewer work hours by fathers decrease it. Similarly, high maternal job satisfaction is linked to lower psychological well-being of daughters, while a higher level of job satisfaction among fathers is tied to the psychological health of daughters.

Regarding day care, for example, Rhoads reports that "two-career families who put children in subsidized day care apparently produce a near tripling of the odds that these children will be disobedient and aggressive-hardly a trend the government should support financially."

The feminist cause is floundering. Recent polls show that most women believe that feminism has made it harder, not easier, to combine jobs and families. A 1998 survey reports that five times as many men and women believe that "changing gender roles" have made it more difficult for marriages to succeed as believe these changes have made it easier.

Rhoads shows that men bound to homes as husbands and fathers are vital to the healthy development of children. Female power is of another, subtler order, the force that crafts relationships, forges family bonds, and creates societies. Grounded in these truths, Taking Sex Differences Seriously should help to restore social sanity to a nation still disoriented by extended exposure to feminist ideology.

And....From Dr. Carlson's article, The Family Factors: Lessons from History About the Future of Marriage & Family in the United States...

American exceptionalism is real and social creativity remains possible here. Europe is dying. So is Japan, also being done in by a broad rejection of children. However, unlike forty years ago, when America was leading the global retreat from marriage and children, something different is now happening here. The United States is the only developed nation in the world that recorded an increase in its total fertility rate between 1981 and 2000: from 1.81 in 1981 to 2.13 in 2000, an increase of 18 percent, to a point slightly above the replacement or zero-growth level.

This was not, as some suggest, only a function of a rising number of births out-of-wedlock. Between 1995 and 2000, even marital fertility rose by 11 percent, the first sustained increase in that number since the mid-1950s. Nor was this a function of America’s greater ethnic diversity. Fertility among Americans of European descent actually climbed by 21 percent after 1981, to a total fertility rate of 2.114 in 2000.

The Economist…predicts a US population of up to 500 million by 2050, compared to a Europe in demographic freefall, with barely half as many people.

The best explanation for America’s greater fecundity—this openness to children—is the higher degree of religious identification and behavior shown by Americans. Forty-five percent of Americans in the year 2000 reported attending religious services during the previous week; in Europe, only about ten percent did. And believers usually do have more babies. Alas, outside of recent Hispanic immigrants, overall Catholic numbers today are not impressive, but “white fundamentalist Protestants” who attend church weekly show a fertility rate 27 percent above the national average, and the fertility rate of active American Latter-Day Saints, or Mormons, is about double the national average.

Dr. Carlson gives us a lot to chew on. While he is definitely a traditionalist, he doesn't ground his traditionalism in Christianity, per se, which makes it appealing to me. And while he bases his arguments on science (which I like), he doesn't descend into Reductionism (I hate Reductionism).

I'm tempted to scan through Dr. Carlson's speeches (which can be found here). If I find anything worth-while, I'll update this post.

-Todd

Why Game is Just the Beginning

Today, Lawrence Auster pushed the blogosphere debate over "Game" to a new level by asking, Is Human Bio-diversity the Next Conservatism? Since many Game advocates are inspired by the HBD movement while choosing to remain politically conservative, the true compatibility between HBD and conservatism is an inevitable line of inquiry.

At the start of the debate, "The Undiscovered Jew" declares…

As a frequent poster at Darwinian right websites like the Audacious Epigone, OneSTDV and Parapundit, I want to give you a heads up that Roissy is only one segment of a new generation of young (OneSTDV is a Gen-Yer, and Audacious Epigone and myself are still in college), white, college educated, Darwin friendly, conservative bloggers the political world will have to contend with who were inspired by Steve Sailer and who closely follow public intellectuals such as Steven Pinker and Charles Murray, i.e., my fellow HBDers…

I invite you to explore HBD writings on subjects other than game because we are the new kids on the block and you will be seeing much more of us in the future as genetic science confirms the hereditarian worldview [...]

Game is just the tip of the iceberg and that you should focus your attention on us because we have the most political potential and we have the most intellectual firepower on our side.

Auster forcefully replied:

Insofar as HBD is materialist reductionist it is a disaster for mankind, for our civilization, and for conservatism. I recommend that you acquaint yourself with my writings on why the right-Darwinist and Sailerist views, while they contain some truths, are, when seen as a whole, false, inadequate to the problems we face, and deeply harmful.

To back up Auster, I sent him my essay, The Happiness of the People, which criticized Charles Murray's speech of the same name. I wrote...

In his acceptance speech, Mr. Murray correctly diagnoses the "bag of chemicals" philosophy as the source of the "Europe Syndrome," but he doesn't recognize that the syndrome can't be defeated by only treating the symptoms (in this case, rolling back the welfare state). The syndrome itself (reductionism) must be treated, as well. In some of the best unintentional comedy ever found in a political speech, Mr. Murray thinks reductionist science will help advance the conservative movement and facilitate the "happiness of the people!" Ha!

Auster replied (and posted on his website)...

Absolutely amazing. As you point out, Murray attacks the material-reductionist view that human beings are a collection of chemicals, correctly describing that view as the source of Europe's leftist, anti-human policies. And then what does he do? He turns around and endorses—as the supposed cure for this leftist anti-humanism—the same material reductionism that he just condemned. And I thought Murray was smart.

The speech is remarkable evidence for the difficulty that atheist materialist conservatives will always have in being consistent in their criticisms of leftism, because at bottom they share key leftist premises.

Indeed. But I'd like to make a few additional points...

First, I do agree with "The Undiscovered Jew" that the HBDers - at least from their perspective - have "the most political potential" while "offering a comprehensive vision of human social organization that could attract intelligent people." In that sense, Game (their philosophy applied to relationships) is - to quote TUJ again - "just the tip of the iceberg."

Yes, the HBD/Gamers are a smart, aggressive, ambitious, and self-confident bunch. They are a force to be reckoned with. And I'm sure they love to hear that.

But they may not like to hear this: The Gamers are also narrow-minded and intellectually sloppy.

Why?

A few articles set the tone: Does the Church Have a Future? and One for the Nones.

These articles show - statistically and anecdotally - how my generation (age 30 and under) is spiritually impoverished while also remaining spiritually hungry.

To quote the first piece...

New research shows young Americans are dramatically less likely to go to church -- or to participate in any form of organized religion -- than their parents and grandparents [...]

Putnam says that in the past two decades, many young people began to view organized religion as a source of "intolerance and rigidity and doctrinaire political views," and therefore stopped going to church [...]

Given that today's young "nones" probably would be in church if they didn't associate religion with far-right political views, he says, new faith groups may evolve to serve them [...]

However, he says, it's possible that the current spike in young people opting out of organized religion could also prove to be an opportunity for some [...]

This "stunning" trend of young people becoming less religious could lead to America's next great burst of religious innovation.

I agree with Putnam, Campbell, Gerson, and others that the low church totals for my generation doesn't reflect a lack of spiritual passion. It just shows the lack of focus for that passion. That's one of the reasons I wrote The Mustard Seed.

A few week into this "Game" debate, I continue to believe that hunger exists. But I'm starting to realize that - at least for a growing number of young men - their hunger is over. The reductionist slime in their brains is too thick to dislodge. As a wise man once said, "They don't know what they don't know." And to that, I would add, "And they don't want to know!"

Of course, I was already aware of this phenomenon. In Chapter 10 of The Mustard Seed, Brian Raines reflects on his nihilist friend, Troy Dawkins...

I was offering Troy a chance to see the world in a new and better way – to escape the prison he had built for himself. But he didn’t care. He was strangely comfortable inside those prison walls. In fact, the only time he seemed uncomfortable was when someone opened the door, turned on the light, and offered him a chance to walk out. While Troy claimed to be an “intellectual arsonist,” the truth was the opposite: he was a moral and mental imbecile. But would he ever realize the errors of his way? Would he ever choose to change his perspective? I honestly didn’t know.

Will the Gamers ever change their perspective? I honestly don't know.

-Todd

**UPDATE, AUG. 30, 2009**

Lawrence Auster's essay, Is Human Bio-diversity the Next Conservatism? has led to a feisty exchange between Mr. Auster and Dennis Mangan, a conservative who is sympathetic to the HBD movement. At one point, Mr. Mangan wrote the headline, Auster to Bio-Cons: Drop Dead.

Since I thought this was out-of-line, I wrote on Mr. Mangan's site...

Dennis: I don't think Auster told you to "drop dead." And if he did, I wouldn't support it. I think he's encouraging you to see the limits of the HBD paradigm to advance the cause we all share--protecting Western civilization. In that cause, we are all allies, and we need to work together. However, in addition, it's perfectly legitimate for Auster (and others) to critique you when your judgment is flawed (as in the most recent case: the debate over "Game"). The HBD paradigm has enabled many conservatives to justify "Game" (including the Roissyite version) when common sense and critical thinking should dictate opposition. That's all. No more, no less. To quote many moms throughout history: "I criticize because I care."

[END]

The Best of Spengler

Recently, I discovered a treasure trove of social commentary by David R. Goldman - a former musician and financial analyst who now serves as the Associate Editor of First Things, a thoughtful (and highly-recommended) religious magazine.

Goldman (who formerly wrote under the pen name "Spengler") has a vast library of knowledge on history, geopolitics, and - as it pertains to The Mustard Seed - the influence of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam on the modern world.

I don't agree with all of his conclusions (for example, I don't share his optimism about the spread of Christianity in China), but even when I disagree with him, I remain impressed by his rational (yet passionate) arguments.

I've posted links to some of his best articles below. A full list of his writings can be found here, here, and here.


Death by Secularism: Some statistical evidence (8/2/05): "My analysis, preliminary as it is, supports the conclusion that religious belief strongly influences fertility after controlling for wealth and education... Underlying the demographic crisis of the industrial world, I believe, is a spiritual crisis."


Why Radical Islam Might Defeat the West (7/8/03): "Not a single Western strategist has proposed an ideological response to the religious challenge of Islam. On the contrary: the Vatican, the guardian-of-last-resort of the Western heritage, has placed itself squarely in the camp of appeasement. Except for a few born-again Christians in the United States, no Western voice is raised in criticism of Islam itself. The trouble is that Islam believes in its divine mission, while the United States has only a fuzzy recollection of what it once believed, and therefore has neither the aptitude nor the inclination for ideological warfare."


Christianity Finds a Fulcrum in Asia (8/7/07): "China may be for the 21st century what Europe was during the 8th-11th centuries, and America has been during the past 200 years: the natural ground for mass evangelization. If this occurs, the world will change beyond our capacity to recognize it. Islam might defeat the western Europeans, simply by replacing their diminishing numbers with immigrants, but it will crumble beneath the challenge from the East."


Mideast: Lessons from Classical Warfare (11/7/06): "Islam cannot withstand the final dissolution of traditional society that comes with the triumph of globalization. Its entire raison d'etre is a stubborn refusal to adapt, in the fashion that the Chinese have adapted, to a new world with new ground rules. To intervene in the Islamic world is to hasten the dissolution of traditional society and with it the world of Islam."


Ayatollah al-Sistani and the End of Islam (9/8/06): "Islam is the focal point of the civilizational crisis, precisely because the sudden leap into the modern world puts the severest test to Islamic faith. Christianity barely survived the end of traditional society in the industrial world, flourishing as a religion of personal conscience only in the United States. Yet Christians had half a millennium to prepare for the transition. Islam's prospects for survival outside of traditional society are poor. It is a fallacy to imagine that a deeply religious Muslim world confronts a secular West. On the contrary, Islamic radicalism is a response to a deep - I believe fatal - crisis of faith in the Muslim world."


Lessons for Islam from Quebec (8/30/05): "Should the Islamists fail in this generation as badly as the Arab nationalists failed during the generation of Gamel Abdul Nasser, it is quite possible that the Islamic world will sink into demoralization as its population growth falls...Islamist sentiment has surged in face of the threat of a sharp decline a generation hence. That is why the first half of the 21st century may be the time of maximum danger for confrontation between Islam and the West."


Harry Potter and the Decline of the West (7/20/05): "Harry (like young Skywalker) draws his superhuman powers out of the well of his 'inner feelings'...The spiritual tradition of the West, which begins with classic tragedy and continues through St Augustine's Confessions, tells us just the contrary, namely, that one's inner feelings are the problem, not the solution. The West is a construct, the result of a millennium of war against the inner feelings of the barbarian invaders whom Christianity turned into Europeans...Western tradition demands that the individual must draw upon something better than one's inner feelings. Narcissism where one's innermost feelings are concerned therefore is the supreme hallmark of decadence."


They Made a Democracy and Called it Peace (3/08/05): "For today's Europeans, there is no consolation, neither the old pagan continuity of national culture, nor the Christian continuity into the hereafter...Europe will offer no resistance to Islam, which will triumph in that continent no later than 2100...I do not believe that the Islamic world will abandon its long-developed sense of collective identity in favor of US-style democracy without tragic consequences."

The Blasphemy Challenge

Recently, I stumbled across a website called “The Blasphemy Challenge.” What’s the challenge? Basically, you simply upload a video of yourself in which you stare at the camera, state your name, and then repeat the line, “I deny the existence of the Holy Spirit.” Why that line?

"Because, according to Mark 3:29 in the Holy Bible, 'Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; he is guilty of an eternal sin.' Jesus will forgive you for just about anything, but he won't forgive you for denying the existence of the Holy Spirit. Ever. This is a one-way road you're taking here."

I watched some of the videos (you can find all of them here), and I have to say, I’m quite saddened and perplexed. If you don’t believe in God, why is it a “challenge” to deny His existence? If there is no need to fear God’s wrath (because He doesn’t exist), why is denying His existence considered to be an act of courage? Looking at it “logically,” the whole activity is a total waste of time. Even so, these self-professed “blasphemers” sincerely believe that by "denying the Holy Spirit" they are paragons of courage.

How do we explain the discrepancy?

Well, I’m reluctant to psychoanalyze over different 1,000 people en mass, but I would wager that most of these folks were either 1) raised in a deeply Christian family, and therefore their “courageous act” is simply the act of disobeying their family, or 2) at one point, they held a deep faith in Christ, but through disenchantment with life itself, they lost their faith (although they regret that circumstance, and wish it could be rectified - even now). By denying God, they are expressing their childish rage against their Father (in a desperate plea to get His attention).

Two examples:

From a guy wearing a shirt saying, “Fuck Jesus:”

“My name is Christopher Love, and I’m from Marietta, Georgia. My grandfather is a Southern Baptist preacher. My father, mother, 4 sisters, and all of their husbands are all very, very Christian. I was raised Baptist. I believe that every person to whom I am related is a Christian. I found freedom from religion about 6 years ago and I haven’t looked back….The crucifixion is fiction. So I, Christopher Love [cue scary music], vehemently deny God the Father, Jesus the Son, and their magical flying sidekick, the Holy Spirit.”

From another guy:

“Hi, my name is Alex, and about a year ago, I was a hard-core Christian fanatic, until after extensive research, I finally came to the realization that there is no God, only ignorant bliss, and I’ve liberated my mind. I’m here to take the Blasphemy Challenge, and here it goes: I, Alex, deny the existence of the Holy Spirit. And if Hell is a place for good people, then make a spot for me, cause here I come.”

I can only wonder…What constituted Alex’s extensive research? Did he read a book that pointed out all of the Bible’s contradictions? Did he find Leviticus' dictim that a man who “lies with a menstruating women” must be"‘cut off from among his people” a bit unjustifiable? Did he find the virgin birth a lot to swallow? Well, I am sympathetic to all of those concerns. Personally, I have no interest in defending Christian fundamentalism. But, at the end of the day, what do those concerns have to do with his statement “There is no God; only ignorant bliss?” The existence of God is a separate issue from Christianity. Furthermore, if Christianity is false, why is “ignorant bliss” the only alternative? Alex’s spiritual path has been blocked by an unnecessary wall. And the tragedy is, Alex can't see that wall!

Truth be known, I can relate to these people. As Brian Raines would say, they are “seekers.” They obviously care deeply about religious and moral questions (if they didn’t care about them, they wouldn’t make those videos)!

It’s precisely because I understand their experience that I feel sorry for them. I think they’ve incorporated society’s overarching flawed assumption that there are only 2 possible sources of truth: 1) Christian Revelation, or 2) nihilistic atheism. And if the first choice is so obviously untrue, then the second choice is all that remains.

Could there be a third choice? A third way?

To quote Heather Manning (Chapter 9):

“Right now, we have two separate philosophies about life– the first is traditional religion, and the other is nihilism. They seemingly have nothing in common – except the rejection of man’s mind. The first insists on blind faith, and promotes the literal reading of Scripture as the only path to morality. The second rejects faith and morality as illusions, and requires obedience to whims and instincts as the only path to pleasure in a random universe. Sadly, this is the intellectual battlefield of our culture today. There is also a battle inside our very souls, as most people swing back and forth between both views, leading to confusion, inadequacy, and despair.

“But where are the defenders of man’s mind – the only organ that can process reality? Where are the promoters of reason – the only tool that has raised mankind up from the swamps to the stars?

“Reason is the only safe home for faith in the twenty-first century. The days of blind faith are over. It’s simply too vulnerable to the rapid increase in human knowledge, and the existential doubt that knowledge inevitably produces. But if faith is conjoined to reason, it has nothing to fear from a person’s intellectual advancement. This partnership is the only way to preserve an honest faith in a rapidly-changing world.

“Reason and faith are allies, and they’re most powerful when used in tandem, although I will say that reason must come first, now and always. It is reason – and reason alone – that provides evidence for God, and the immortality of the soul. From those facts come faith – faith that God loves us, and that love is the highest expression of the soul. Looking back, it wasn’t easy to see how losing my parents, or any of the setbacks in my life, were inherently ‘good for me,’ but through faith in the power of love, I can rise above that sorrow, and believe that the world – even now – is designed perfectly and blessed.”

Later, Heather says…

“I’m confident that these ideas will be regarded as self-evident within our lifetime.

“However, this paradigm shift – as remarkable as it is – will be, for most people, nothing more than a curiosity, unless it’s accompanied by a personal life philosophy – a new approach to living in light of this revolutionary information. That’s why I’ve constructed this idea of ‘spiritual rationalism,’ which includes the concepts of self-interest, integrity, and love – everything that I’ve explained here today.

“I know it’ll be challenging to advance these ideas into society – but I’m certain that, with enough time, we can open enough minds to their wisdom.

"I’m especially hopeful about the new generation – young men and women like you and me – whose spiritual needs aren’t being met by today’s stale choices. They are hungering for a faith that is worthy of the name.”

For more on that faith, read The Mustard Seed.

-Todd