Alex’s Heresies – embracing a physical reality

Around 110 CE Emperor Trajan appointed Pliny the Younger, Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus, as Governor of Bithynia-Pontus, on the southern coast of the Black Sea in modern-day Turkey. He was to investigate financial and administrative problems and deal with political unrest. Pliny was a successful middle-ranking bureaucrat from the Equestrian order, the lower of the two aristocratic classes, below that of Patricians. Remarkably, Pliny collected many of his letters and responses, made over his lifetime to friends, superiors, and juniors whom he encouraged. His letters were organised as a series of books in which number ten contained official correspondence with Trajan, where Pliny sought administrative advice during his time in Bithynia-Pontus.

One such problem was dealing with Christians. Pliny told Trajan that Christians, who were recognised as a problem elsewhere in the empire, prayed to a Christ as a form of divinity. Some had been worshipping so for some twenty years. He discussed their religious practices of praying in morning followed by a later common meal on fixed days. Pliny noted that they were otherwise law-abiding. Though Christians were disliked and distrusted by Roman authorities and the society in general, Trajan rejected systematic persecution, especially based on unsubstantiated claims.

What do these letters provide us? Mostly they offer a wonderful look at the administrative concerns and processes of early second century Roman empire. However the two letters, reproduced below, showed there were groups, identified as Christians, who worshipped Christ as a form of a god. The letters was written around 111CE with Pliny dating some of their worshipping up to twenty years previous. We need to remember that Paul, according to orthodox Christian traditions, evangelised throughout this area some 50 to 60 years before. He had a similar message of Christ as god. However these letters say nothing of the historical Jesus; only people believed in his divinity 80 years after his death.

A more interesting question is why Christians beliefs and practices were considered illegal by the Roman authorities? Unlike Christian and Jewish beliefs, the dominant pagan religions of the empire were polytheistic, usually accepting and modifying gods with different origins, like Greek, Roman, and Egyptian. Unlike today, religions emphasised ritual practices towards the gods rather the acceptance of correct beliefs. Life was precariousness 2000 years ago with common-place occurrences, like tooth absences, being death sentences and, so, protection of the gods was of prime importance.

Communities had to be particularly careful to appease the local city gods to ensure the city’s well-being. Regular public festivals were for precisely that purpose and everyone was expected to attend. Not doing so would be like Americans today refusing to take the pledge of allegiance. Ironically Christians were, in some respects, similar to followers of other eastern mystery religions: they typically believed in salvation through special knowledge and cultic practices Even though these mystery religions were of great fascination to Romans, the Christians were different. Their religious practices were exclusive and, more importantly, they would not participate in the public religious festivals. Local communities resented Christians and feared the consequences of insulting the city gods and, not surprisingly, most persecutions came from broader communities than from official actions.

Alex McCullie

Free download – letters of Pliny the Younger (Project Gutenberg)

(Letters below – I separated sentences for easier reading.)

XCVII

To the Emperor Trajan

It is my invariable rule, Sir, to refer to you in all matters where I feel doubtful; for who is more capable of removing my scruples, or informing my ignorance?

Having never been present at any trials concerning those who profess Christianity, I am unacquainted not only with the nature of their crimes, or the measure of their punishment, but how far it is proper to enter into an examination concerning them.

Whether, therefore, any difference is usually made with respect to ages, or no distinction is to be observed between the young and the adult; whether repentance entitles them to a pardon; or if a man has been once a Christian, it avails nothing to desist from his error; whether the very profession of Christianity, unattended with any criminal act, or only the crimes themselves inherent in the profession are punishable; on all these points I am in great doubt.

In the meanwhile, the method I have observed towards those who have been brought before me as Christians is this: I asked them whether they were Christians; if they admitted it, I repeated the question twice, and threatened them with punishment; if they persisted, I ordered them to be at once punished: for I was persuaded, whatever the nature of their opinions might be, a contumacious and inflexible obstinacy certainly deserved correction.

There were others also brought before me possessed with the same infatuation, but being Roman citizens, I directed them to be sent to Rome. But this crime spreading (as is usually the case) while it was actually under prosecution, several instances of the same nature occurred.

An anonymous information was laid before me containing a charge against several persons, who upon examination denied they were Christians, or had ever been so.

They repeated after me an invocation to the gods, and offered religious rites with wine and incense before your statue (which for that purpose I had ordered to be brought, together with those of the gods), and even reviled the name of Christ: whereas there is no forcing, it is said, those who are really Christians into any of these compliances: I thought it proper, therefore, to discharge them.

Some among those who were accused by a witness in person at first confessed themselves Christians, but immediately after denied it; the rest owned indeed that they had been of that number formerly, but had now (some above three, others more, and a few above twenty years ago) renounced that error.

They all worshipped your statue and the images of the gods, uttering imprecations at the same time against the name of Christ.

They affirmed the whole of their guilt, or their error, was, that they met on a stated day before it was light, and addressed a form of prayer to Christ, as to a divinity, binding themselves by a solemn oath, not for the purposes of any wicked design, but never to commit any fraud, theft, or adultery, never to falsify their word, nor deny a trust when they should be called upon to deliver it up; after which it was their custom to separate, and then reassemble, to eat in common a harmless meal.

From this custom, however, they desisted after the publication of my edict, by which, according to your commands, I forbade the meeting of any assemblies. After receiving this account, I judged it so much the more necessary to endeavor to extort the real truth, by putting two female slaves to the torture, who were said to officiate’ in their religious rites: but all I could discover was evidence of an absurd and extravagant superstition.

I deemed it expedient, therefore, to adjourn all further proceedings, in order to consult you.

For it appears to be a matter highly deserving your consideration, more especially as great numbers must be involved in the danger of these prosecutions, which have already extended, and are still likely to extend, to persons of all ranks and ages, and even of both sexes.

In fact, this contagious superstition is not confined to the cities only, but has spread its infection among the neighbouring villages and country. Nevertheless, it still seems possible to restrain its progress.

The temples, at least, which were once almost deserted, begin now to be frequented; and the sacred rites, after a long intermission, are again revived; while there is a general demand for the victims, which till lately found very few purchasers.

From all this it is easy to conjecture what numbers might be reclaimed if a general pardon were granted to those who shall repent of their error.

XCVIII

Trajan to Pliny

You have adopted the right course, my dearest Secundus, in investigating the charges against the Christians who were brought before you.

It is not possible to lay down any general rule for all such cases. Do not go out of your way to look for them.

If indeed they should be brought before you, and the crime is proved, they must be punished; with the restriction, however, that where the party denies he is a Christian, and shall make it evident that he is not, by invoking our gods, let him (notwithstanding any former suspicion) be pardoned upon his repentance. Anonymous informations ought not to he received in any sort of prosecution.

It is introducing a very dangerous precedent, and is quite foreign to the spirit of our age.

I shall be running a six night course, late May 2010, at the Council of Adult Education in Melbourne, Australia, on searching for the historical jesus, looking at the historical figure behind the religion – what do we know?

Link to CAE details and bookings

Alex McCullie

Some time back AtheistNexus (http://www.atheistnexus.org/), a very active social network for atheists, hosted a forum question on the existence of a historical Jesus. The posting offered possibilities from ‘actually existed’ including all miracle claims to ‘purely fictional’. As you can imagine, pure fiction was a popular choice amongst the atheists. Moreover one contributor said, quite definitively, that she “[did] a lot of research many years ago and found nothing to support the existence of such a person.” Doesn’t get much clearer than that.

The whole notion of the historical Jesus, in fact of any historical person or event, raises such questions as “what is history and historical research?” and “how does it find truth, if at all?” A common and, perhaps, naive view is that historical research is ‘archeological’, an objective process of uncovering immutable facts of the past. History is an unchanging or static story of events and people, revealed through objective research independent of social and personal prejudices. Getting to the single “historical truth” is a clear aim of such a research. In this paradigm Jesus would clearly have existed or not existed. This similar view is often held of the natural sciences.

Most practising historians would reject doing history is simply uncovering static facts from the past. A popular term of ‘dialogue’ acknowledges the dependency between the researcher’s personal social context and attitudes and the subject of the research. So a twenty-first century U.S. researcher may view first century Palestine differently to that of a nineteenth century European, even if the source data were unchanged. So we should not be surprised to see different analyses from historians from different time periods and cultural backgrounds without one being obviously right. On the other hand, all interpretations should not be treated as equal. Historians expect to find explicit reasoning from publically verifiable evidence that can be analysed and criticised. Like the sciences this is treated as open process of academic discourse.

Here are some points for us laypeople to consider with thinking about history and historical research.

1. Knowing when(the time) and where(the place) are fundamental to knowing history. 100CE Jerusalem is different to 100CE Rome and to 2010 New York City. I’m not suggesting revisiting school days of memorising historical dates for their own sake – how we hated that! Still it is important to know the overall sequence of events and where they happened.
2. Though often framed as narratives, modern research emphasises causes and effects, the “whys” of past situations. Remember that earlier histories, prior to 1800s, often sought to teach lessons as well as tell historical narratives.
3. Historical events are invariably complex with multiple causes and effects. It is not surprising that different historians arrive at different plausible explanations for any event. As H. L. Mencken once said “For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.”
4. Historians rely on physical records – artifacts and writings, although oral histories are included as well. Artifacts can be unearthed pottery, ruins, wall paintings, and even toys. Written documents can be administrative records – taxation, births, deaths, marriages, and business transactions – and personal letters and earlier histories. Remember that written records were invariably maintained by the elite of societies especially in those of very low literacy and so presented a narrow view of society.
5. Historical interpretations are under constant review and scrutiny. Therefore we need to think in terms of probabilities and likelihoods.
6. Historical records can be separated into ‘primary’ (writings by people of themselves or contemporaries), ‘secondary’ (writings later than the events), and even tertiary (compilation of secondary sources with some primary). There are no known ‘primary’ sources for the historical Jesus.
7. Historians are very conscious of their time, economic, and social circumstances compared to subjects under study. Twenty-first century, middle-class, well-educated professors are a far cry from first century rural Gallilee of a Jewish Jesus.
8. Most historians consider miracle claims outside of scope of historical research. One argument centres around assessing the likelihood of past events. Miracles are by definition highly improbable or impossible and therefore as such are beyond the capability of histories to assign any sort of realistic possibility. Furthermore historical research should be understandable to all people regardless of religious faith and religious non-belief, for that matter.
9. Be wary of coincidences as an explanation of cause and effect. More evidence is needed to draw conclusions of any relationships.

These pointers are starter only to help put historical research into perspective.

Alex McCullie

Some links to ponder over

http://www.history.ac.uk/ihr/Focus/Whatishistory/munslow6.html

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1998historydebate.html

http://www.open2.net/historyandthearts/history/natureofhistory/index.html

http://www.christiancourier.com/articles/1332-the-nature-of-history

http://www.uncp.edu/home/rwb/history.htm

http://www.historyguide.org/history.html

http://www.uncp.edu/home/rwb/hst451w1.htm

http://www.uncp.edu/home/rwb/hst451w2.htm

http://courseweb.stthomas.edu/gwschlabach/10commnd.htm

http://writing2.richmond.edu/training/project/history/fpbody.html

http://personal2.stthomas.edu/gwschlabach/docs/core_qs.htm

http://personal2.stthomas.edu/gwschlabach/sources.htm#HHGen

Atheism & Agnosticism:rejecting the god delusion: Tuesday 6.00-7.30pm: 16 March to 13 April 2010 (5 nights)http://www.cae.edu.au/?course=DNT800

Searching for the historical Jesus – what do we know?: Tuesday 6-7.30pm 25 May to 29 June 2010 (6 nights)

Naturalism – a complete world-view without god: Tuesday July 6-7:30pm 6 July to 20 July 2010 (3 nights)

Alex McCullie

Problem of suffering as seen within a religious view – will of God

Unlike naturalism, a traditional Christian religious view conceives of a conscious, eternal reality over-arching our mundane world. This reality is conceptualised as God – a God who created our transient world; who is needed to maintain it; and who is intimately involved in all its workings. As God is perceived as all-perfect, our world must have also been created all-perfect and, most importantly, for a purpose. So why do we have suffering?

Humans were created physical, like other animals, but also uniquely endowed with the ability to “find” God, a spiritual side. However God wants people to freely choose him and so gave us free-will, the ability to choose or reject God freely. So, within a religious view, people are freely able to do good or to create harm and suffering. That is the cause of “moral evil”. “Natural evil”, suffering from natural causes and suffering of other animals, is the dramatic backdrop or environment needed for true human moral growth, so-called “soul-making”.

An alternate explanation involves achieving a greater good. Like a caring parent who administers bad tasting medicine to a sick child, God has to allow some suffering to achieve a greater goods that more than compensates to associated evils.

If all this seems confusing, we need to realise that it is presumptious and arrogant to apply human moral standards and expectations to God’s will. By nature we are limited physical beings with finite knowledge of our physical existence. God’s will is infinite and so far beyond our comprehension.

So, ultimately, a religious response to the problem of evil is to suggest people were created with “free-will” so that we would willingly find God. The apparent imperfections of the world arise from the choices we freely make – good and bad – and from our inherent lack of understanding of God’s infinite motives and workings.

Alex McCullie

Suffering and the concept of God – a naturalist view from induction

Verdict: the concept of God, though reassuring, is unsupported by evidence of pain and suffering and therefore seems an unnecessary explanation.

Observation: there is extensive pain and suffering amongst human and non-human animals regardless of age, sex, and circumstances.

Reasoning: all evidence suggests pain and suffering occurred for millions of years prior to the evolution of the human species.

Observation: there are many causes of pain and suffering. Some are from “natural” causes such as adverse weather and diseases and others from human and non-human animal actions, both deliberate and inadvertent.

Observation: we have natural explanations for most causes of pain and suffering. This has been one of the great intellectual achievements of humanity.

Observation: there seems to be no discernible overall pattern to occurrences of pain and suffering. Age, sex, genetic history, previous history, and physical location all play chance roles in potential pain and suffering. Our moral assessments and aspirations appear to have no bearing.

Conclusion (1): the “indiscriminate” nature of pain and suffering is consistent with natural “chance and circumstance” explanations of their causes. There seems no evidence of any overall purpose or moral objective in the distribution of pain and suffering. Humans often contribute to pain and suffering of others, including animals, but there is no evidence that we are, in some way, the true beneficiaries of such pain and suffering.

Conclusion (2): an overlay of a powerful anthropomorphic-style being contributes nothing to our understanding of pain and suffering despite placating some people about vagaries of life.

Alex McCullie

The ‘Problem of Evil’ powerfully challenges a belief in God. It argues that the existence of God, implicitly taken as all-powerful, all-knowing, and morally perfect, contradicts the presence of evil in the world. Such a God should be able to stop or prevent evil occurring and being morally perfect would will it so. Suffering continues so God does not exist.

The evil (or suffering) is pervasive and not just resulting from human immorality. People of all types and ages as well (as other living things) suffer terribly from natural disasters and diseases as well as the immoral acts of others. Suffering is distributed across the innocent and guilty, the religious and the irreligious with no obvious patterns. A similarly behaved parent, class teacher, military leader or political leader inflicting such pain would be charged with a string of heinous crimes. By any human moral standards the inflicted suffering would be comprehensively condemned. However God is supposed to be better than any person, morally perfect beyond our moral capabilities by an infinite measure.

This argument against the belief in God is compelling. The simplest logical argument is:

If you affirm (2), (3) and (4) you are denying (1) or, alternatively, (1) contradicts (2), (3), and (4).

Most philosophers do not support this harshest form of the Problem of Evil: any evil or suffering  disproves the existence of God. Most allow for some suffering for a specific greater good, similar to a parent giving a sick child some bad-tasting medicine. Many support a probabilistic view that with the extensive and indiscriminate suffering in the world the Christian God is highly unlikely to exist.

The strength of the Problem of Evil has forced Christian thinkers for many years to justify the rationality of believing in the existence of such a God while accepting the presence of evil or suffering.

Comments

The ‘Problem of Evil’ attacks antiquated concepts of God and Evil, both inexorably linked to the Middle East of some 2000 to 3000 years ago. These ancient peoples were far removed from today’s protected lives – largely illiterate, tribal societies with superstitions, demons and evil spirits dominating short, hard, and brutish lives. Thirty years or more was old-age; five children per family were needed just to maintain the population; and a tooth absence was a death sentence.

Originally people worshipped gods to survive precarious existences with little interest in or conception of an after-life. They needed protection against a palpably real Evil. Worshipping one all-powerful god introduced problems of responsibility. How could a morally-perfect god create so many everyday hardships and calamities? Warring immoral gods never had that problem. Over time evil spirits and demons transmuted to a personified Evil, a powerful (not as much as God of course) Satan, seeking to undo God’s fundamental goodness. Even the after-life, never a personal part of most polytheist pagan religions and only a later development of Judaism, helped to shore up faith amongst seemingly indiscriminate hardships. Paul’s Christianity later institutionised that as an intrinsic part of Christian faith.

Over the years Christian thinkers have twisted and adapted God and Evil to suit the sensibilities of changing societies. St. Augustine rightfully de-objectified Evil to avoid a devastating dilemma – God, a morally-perfect being, having created Evil. So Evil, at least for the theologians, moved from fearful objective existence to “lack of goodness”, a deprivation – the metaphorical hole in the doughnut of God’s goodness.

So why study the Problem of Evil when the underlying concepts are so irrelevant to today’s secular society? Firstly, it is interesting intellectual puzzle-solving. Brilliant minds have contributed intricate arguments weaving newer and newer clothes for the emperor. Also, secondly, millions of conservative Christians still hold to these concepts.  Famously George W. Bush was one of those who saw very-real Evil lurking around every corner, only kept in check by faith in a super-human God.

Alex McCullie

References

Peter Kreeft, Christian philosopher

Notes on the Problem of Evil (Sandra LaFave)

Problems of Suffering (further arguments) Trevor Major

Video of a debate at University of Melbourne (Last month)

Audio debate on God and suffering with William Craig

Staff at Cambridge University have a web-site with Darwin’s correspondence (see site) and one specific section dedicated to Darwin and Religion (site).

Alex McCullie

As soon as you jetison the supernatural, you as a naturalist are forced to see human morality as strictly human affair without divine fear or favour. If unlike most, you want to think about morality and moral decision-making, here are naturalised resources that may help. You’ll need to think about the type of decisions that qualify as moral ones and, as Steven Pinker points out below, the boundaries of moral and non-moral issues shift and change. Also you should look at how how we currently make these decisions and typically they are make at a subconscious level. And, finally, what methods or tools can be used to reflect on moral decisions. Don’t forget that ethics and morality is a big part of philosophy and can provide useful ideas for reflection.

Neuroscience is doing a lot of research today on how we make moral decisions – links below. I’ve also provided links for some interesting research areas about humans in a physical world – (1) Marc Hauser and moral grammar; (2) Lakoff and Johnson “Embodied realism” and (3) evolutionary psychology.

A good place to start is with Steven Picker’s article The Moral Instinct (NYT, 13 Jan 2008).

Alex McCullie

Neuroscience

Scientific American – Mind Matters (see feed on this site) regularly covers recent research. Like the rest of science, neuroscience is about describing how we make moral choices and not the best ones for a good life. Here is some recent research to whet your appetite – Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Thinking about Morality.

Joshua Green, Harvard University, conducts neuroscience research into moral decision-making using iMRI scanning techniques. You can download his PhD thesis and other papers.

Patricia Churchland, Philosophy University of California. To quote her website “I explore the impact of scientific developments on our understanding of consciousness, the self, free will, decision making, ethics, learning, and religion and issues concerning the neurobiological basis of consciousness, the self, and free will, as well as on more technical questions concerning to what degree the nervous system is hierarchically organized, how the difficult issue of co-ordination and timing is managed by nervous systems, and what are the mechanisms for the perceptual phenomenon of filling-in. Also check my links sections for links to YouTube videos.

Moral Minds – Marc Hauser

Marc Hauser, Psychology & Biology Harvard University proposes that we evolved a common moral grammar enabling rapid moral decision-making at a subconscious level.

Radio broadcast              Interview with Discover magazine

Complete an online moral sense test (hosted by Harvard)

Book reviews – (NYT by Richard Rorty) (The Guardian)

Embodied realism – George Lakoff and Mark Johnson

George Lakoff Linguistics, Berkeley and Mark Johnson Philosophy Oregan University with others have developed a theory from neuroscience, linguistics and philosophy that sees the brain, correctly, as an embodied within our bodies and, therefore, brain processing should be seen as a natural consequence of our interactions with our environments. Furthermore our cognitive processing is seen as metaphoric with the higher-level concepts being processed metaphorically by the same responses used by lower level perceptions.

Books:

Lakoff, G and Johnson, M 1980, Metaphors We Live By, University of Chicago

Lakoff, G and Johnson, M 1999, Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought, Basic Books

Johnson, M 2007, The Meaning of the Body: Aesthetics of Human Understanding, University of Chicago

Book reviews: (NYT)  (Steen)

Edge interview with George Lakoff

Evolutionary Psychology/Biology

This applies the implications of evolution on our behaviour including moral decision-making. Even though a controversial area the area of study contributes to our understanding of human moral behaviour.

Steven Pinker Evolutionary psychology, Harvard – many articles available

Other articles

Jon Haidt, Psychology Virginia - Moral Psychology article (The Edge)

I’d like to discuss one or two topics as part of the final session. Here is a suggestion:

• Are the “new atheists” just like other religious fundamentalists?
• Are we naturally religious and, if so, are atheists really evolutionary mutations?

Feel free to email other suggestions.

Alex McCullie