Flushing Korans

Am I the only one who sees "flushing a Koran down the toilet" as funny? It seems this image is just too much for everyone, not just some traditional Muslims. I wonder... had there been no violent outrage about this by Muslims in Afghanistan and other regions, would there be much attention given to this "event"? Would the American media have bothered? Would any media have bothered?

Would the American government have bothered to express outrage? It seems likely that most all the drama around this "event" has more to do with "face" and manipulative posturing than sincerity. And on some level everyone knows it, even the players themselves. Everyone is caught in spin.

And now to top it off, we don't even know whether the offending incident ever happened! Is this latest revelation just more political "spin"? Even the White House, a bastion of Christian belief and not at all viewed as a defender of the values of traditional Islam, is expressing outrage at this event. And now it seems even more so at its possible/probable fabrication! Can there be anything in any of this except posturing?

And their description of what happened: ABHORRENT.

Amazing how infrequently we hear this word "abhorrent", as body counts rise and people's homes and lives are blasted away in this dispute, or in some other Middle East violence or in clashes elsewhere. Those events are not particularly abhorrent, it seems.

Perhaps imagining the passage of a copy of the Koran squishing down a deep porcelain throat amid a sucking gurgle, the White House saw that it might instead have been a copy of the Bible. What to say about all those other faiths and their holy texts? ...well you get the idea.

Now we live in a world where "religious feelings" are of more importance than life itself. People are killed for religious feelings. Yes, I realize this is hardly news. But am I the only one who sees this as just a tad off-balance?

Then there's that really important religious issue, which, it seems, no imam dares to discuss. You see, Islam is particularly against idol worship. In fact, if you check the history of Mohammed and how Islam arose, you will find it was particularly against idol worship from its outset, as that was a prominent practice at that time of history. I think it is fair to say idol worship was abhorrent to Muslims then. And I believe, if I am not mistaken, the avoidance of idol worship is required quite clearly by the Koran. The basic message: Muslims are not to be idol worshippers.

So why now is a copy of the Koran viewed as something worthy of worship? Why is the a copy of the Koran to be defended as if it were Mohammed himself? Why has the Koran become effectively an idol? OK, I understand it is not a statue or some other anthropomorphic representation, but it certainly SEEMS to be an object of worship today. What are Muslims defending? And why? It's not as if the words will be lost forever if a copy of the Koran is destroyed. Have the Muslim clergy across the world become blind to how they have made into an idol one of the icons of their practice? What would Mohammed say?

This of course says nothing about that other idol so central to Muslim belief: the Kaaba. But I'll not go into that.

It remains peculiar that people have become so skewed about their values, that a non-Muslim living in a country not considered even close to Islamic, has to point out these inconsistencies. How many people have died because of these practices? How many more are sure to?

If the Middle East and the West ever plan to find their common humanity, there will need to be a meaningful conversation between all parties involving belief, its place in life, and how absurdities like the one revealed by recents events such as the "toilet incident" can occur. This of course is going to unmask the contradictions in every belief system. How unsettling. How liberating.

OK, so that won't happen. I guess we will just have to keep on killing and hating and fearing each other.

Right To Life Issues

So now the Right to Life (RTL) movement has entered into a new health care area. Health care providers whose religious beliefs include Right to Life precepts are now refusing to provide components of health care that have any link to fetal harm. This has resulted in pharmacists refusing to fill prescriptions for medicines that can harm a fetus (so far just the abortifacient RU486 and birth control pills) as well as resulting in physicians refusing to administer vaccines they claim were manufactured on cell lines derived from fetal tissues (ostensibly from aborted fetuses). Rubella is one, apparently.

It seems this could be the tip of the iceberg. How many medicines have been developed or require production on cell lines that are linked to fetal cells? Some of these practices are decades old I'll bet. This is a problem for righteousness.

The RTL movement has provided a powerful venue for people who want to live "in righteousness". It even might be accurate to say the whole fundamentalist movement involves righteousness. Righteousness has been the rallying cry for evangelical Christians, and a cornerstone on which they justify their promotion of belief to non-believers. It also seems to be a claim to purity. Righteousness seems to be central to a believer's preparation to meet God. Righteousness is preparing for the Rapture (being received into God's grace).

Religions of all types offer methods of purification through which the devout can be cleansed of their sins. Of course these methods start by claiming human nature is sinful, coarse, dirty and impure. "We are all born sinners," is the assertion of many fundamentalists. This may explain the appeal these religions have for people who have become lost in abuse (drug abuse or people abuse), violence, and criminality; these congregants know they are bad or have done bad things, and they appreciate a religion that speaks to their situation.

So these religions have developed a model of purity and find support from holy writings that encourage discarding sinful ways. And what is sinful? For the RTL movement, it is, among other things, harming other human beings. It certainly doesn't seem to include pridefulness itself. It even seems to endorse that false pridelessness called piety.

But these religions maintain their righteous posture for a price. Issues that might be complex or multifaceted are reduced to simple black and white positions, a kind of "posterizing" of the nuanced. This black/white does not necessarily involve race although at times that too can become part of this "posterizing" process, and lead to white supremacy groups and the "satanizing" of effective non-believers.

In the US, the RTL movement functions as a vehicle of righteousness. And it continues to enlarge. Now it has entered into some new areas of medical care. It seems the RTL movement will obtain legal protection for acts of conscience by RTL advocates. It's unclear whether these same protections will help others who don't share RTL beliefs but also feel to act in a certain way out of conscience. If the RTF agenda unfolds fully, contraceptive methods other than barrier devices will be banned, since they all could conflict with the sanctity of life of the zygote.

The issue here is when life starts. A fertilized egg is a zygote. RTL argues the sanctity of life becomes relevant with the union of sperm and egg. This viewpoint is really the sanctification of the individual human creature. I don't say "human being" since RTL proponents have in practice asserted even the body of a human without evidence of beingness is sacrosanct. Now of course we all revere the individual, from newborn to the elderly. The RTL movement has extended this reverence to the zygote, and with some merit. Who doesn't feel some protective concern toward the pregnant woman and her unborn child?

But the RTL movement has not declared its support for all the consequences of this position. For instance, fundamentalist couples probably should forego IVF (in vitro fertilization) since that procedure sets up all sorts of conflicts with RTF ideas. For starters, often many eggs are fertilized in preparation for implanting. What happens to those not implanted? They are frozen. Tens of thousands of frozen embryos sit in freezers across the US today. Suspended animation is not just a science fiction idea any more, at least for the RTL proponent.

Of course only one or two eggs could be fertilized at one time but then that would decrease the chance of successfully implanting them into the womb and thus raise considerably the cost of a successful IVF endeavor for RTL couples.

Then there's the problem of embryo culling. Because many embryos are commonly implanted (or many eggs induced, if the infertility problem is approached by only enhancing the woman's ovulations using drugs), the health care procedure has been at times to select a few to continue to birth, and to destroy (i.e., kill) any others. Of course this is against RTL principles. Never mind not doing so will often yield deformed babies from a multiple-baby birth.

So the simple solution for the infertile RTL couple is to forget about IFV and adopt. Certainly if the RTL ideas against contraception become the law of the land, there will be plenty of babies available for adoption. Infertile RTL couples can adopt these babies.

As for the elimination of vaccines grown on fetal cultures, one vaccine that may be affected is Rubella (I think). Since the illness from Rubella has not been eradicated by vaccine use (it only protects), the cessation of Rubella vaccination will result in a great increase in Rubella cases. This infection particularly causes fetal harm, so pregnant women who contract Rubella will either miscarry (directly contravening RTL policy) or produce a deformed brain-damaged child. These children will also need care, and infertile RTL couples may find their options for adoption will include these damaged children.

And for those kids who aren't adopted, orphanages will be needed, which will offer good employment for the righteous who will surely see merit in so directly working to preserve the sanctity of life.

Now all this is only to point out the RTL movement exists ONLY because technologies, including some apparently quite contrary to RTL concepts, have made a comfortable social and cultural situation -- a "nest" -- in which RTL ideas can be conceived (?recognized) and grown. It seems the RTL movement, despite its claims of holding the higher moral ground, exists only because human social development has now created a society where such concepts as RTL can gain nourishment. This may even be the situation for the total agenda of every fundamentalist religious movement today, that each exists only because social development has advanced enough to indulge such idealism.

Now the problem for the RTL people is how to refine and advance their movement without destroying the social incubator in which it has developed. If it fails to do so, the most likely outcome will be for human society to enter a period of social oscillation in which RTL ideas will recurrently exchange prominence with a sort of secular pragmatism across large time periods (decades to centuries).

Beyond Tradition, Maybe

There may be a place for religion even if superstition is abandoned. But it will not be your father's religion...

Typical religions rely upon belief, supernatural explanations, and other hocus-pocus. But the questions religions supposedly answer remain, even if the supernatural and hocus-pocus is abandoned. Are these questions to be dismissed as immature or deluded?

The simple question of "who am I?" comes to mind. It's an interesting question if only because of the many answers it can trigger, all correct in their way and yet none somehow comprehensive or satisfying.

Now some assert philosophy contains religion, the essence of religion. However, philosophy seems a bit too intellectual most of the time. One of religion's appeals is its connection to visceral experience. We feel passion in religion, but hardly ever are we so moved by philosophy.

While some say it's good that philosophy avoids the morass of human emotion and passion, and offer arguments that these are primitive aspects of our make-up, few with these opinions have parachuted.

And even on a strictly intellectual basis, philosophy fails to engage the concerns people feel when they consider personally just who and perhaps even more importantly WHAT they are. Glib answers of being human fail to inform or illuminate associated issues like persistence and origin, even for those who recognize both the reality of their conception and that death ends their life. Even these people wonder (when they find time) just what they are -- What is being alive? And the common answers to this question seem more to demonstrate contemporary paradigms than they point to any enduring or comprehensive reality.

For instance today the non-religious person often answers this question (of who/what we are) by discussing neurological epiphenomena: I am only a construct of my nervous system, with self-awareness and internal modeling of my external circumstance including remarkably, modeling of my internal modeling! Such recursive descriptions manage to convey the ephemerality of existing intellectually, and even a bit of the paradox, but fail to explain how few if any of us PERCEIVE our ephemerality. We are ephemera conversing and acting on the world as if we are not ephemeral! And even more confounding, our ordinary definition of the ephemeral does not include the ability to act on matter. But we certainly do so.

So we may be tempted to resort to that old label "soul", but its considerable baggage of predestination and afterlife, let alone the persisting question of origin, hardly make this label rewarding. More recently the term "being" -- "I am a being" -- has appeared. It too gives no hint about persistence, nor offers any explanation how we manage to control the body and change the world we live in.

So these reifications seem inadequate if not obstructive deceptions. Some term, some model must be more precise and comprehensive than these. Another framing of this question involves dismissing "thingness" in lieu of process, which certainly makes a better match with our existence than more traditional ideas. But when we try it out -- "I am a process (of my nervous system's functioning)" -- we don't FEEL ourselves as a process. Might this be some sort of deception perpetrated by our own nervous systems, the very mechanism that has created (and evolutionarily invented) us? And if so, why? Why do we see ourselves as an object even though we actually are an ongoing process?

An obvious explanation invokes basic survival issues: we are more effective, and we have a greater chance of surviving, if we view ourselves as beings, as things (humans) rather than as processes, even though we are processes!

Of course all this could be viewed as philosophy. But it seems better categorized as some hybrid of philosophy and neurology, admixed with experiencing. It seems this is quite exactly what religion has been (admittedly with far too little information most often mixed with a great deal of fantasy and even politics).

From the perspective of this process model we are obviously just another natural phenomenon, albeit a sentient one. Also by this model we are different from other creatures on the planet only by degree. Lastly, our "place in the universe" becomes both a lot more obviously tenuous as well as quite miraculous.

In addition, aspects of existing such as ethics become "simple" pragmatics, despite the howls of protest from every rank that fears it will likely lose its place in the sun.

So perhaps there can be a religious perspective that incorporates these elements without falling into fantasies or vestments. Perhaps even this is more purely religious than previous efforts. So also might it be philosophy, if one can allow wet factors like neurology in the mix. And finally, perhaps it is even a special sort of physiology, one that requires a catechism whose goal is no different from those of tradition: to help us see past our "base", i.e. animal, natures.

Contemporary American Religious Struggles and Atheism

First, for atheists, these struggles are a boon. Who had given any thought about atheists before disputes about evolution, gay "marriage", school prayer or other iconic issues now championed by evangelists? Atheism has been held up as the demonic archetype against which these traditions must prevail. As a result, "What's atheism, mommy?" may replace "Where do babies come from?" as the most-feared question from a child that a devout parent will hear. Atheists thank you.

There is a policy in neighborhoods across the US regarding atheism: "Don't ask; don’t tell." Yes, that same mantra used by the military regarding homosexual soldiers serves the whole religious US to salve its unease with atheism. (Incidentally, "mantra" is not a Christian word, though for this purpose Christians have adopted it wholesale. A stowaway from another faith system.) Because of this social policy, every community where religious fervor predominates wonders about its closet atheists. What are they up to? Are they going to sabotage vulnerable minds? They may be secretly infecting the community with their point of view and understanding. Heaven forbid!

Fortunately the vitriol against atheists and atheism rarely boils over into violence, so people who understand the human predicament from a perspective different from the religiously devout mostly move through the culture without jeopardy. Like repressive regimes across history, religious people understand that 90% of their work is accomplished by demeaning alternative viewpoints. If the child doesn't ever hear about or explore atheism, then he or she will reach the age of mental crystallization without coming across any alternatives to traditional ideas. Once crystallization has occurred, only the rare individual manages to escape the conditionings of early life. This allows the traditions to perpetuate.

But for the atheists, the beauty of the "Don't ask; don't tell" is how it permits ordinary people to rub up against the rationalism of atheism without realizing it, and benefit thereby. Atheists, because they are unencumbered by the pantheon of beliefs borne by religious people, often can perceive new solutions because they see what actually is going on. Communities of tradition are thereby spared involution.

So the basic message is:
Evolution or Involution -- Take Your Pick

What do atheists get in return from the religious other than some acceptance? They get an affirmation the subjective has relevance, that despite our having not (yet) modeled the inner world we each live, we all are deeply shaped by it. Arguably, we are it. Explaining this side of ourselves, really explaining our self -- how it is we exist, what exactly we are, and how that part of us is altered by death -- this topic the religions have expressed far better than atheism has, in part, if not mostly, because we lack illuminating science about this.

Atheism does rely upon science and the unfettered observation of what is. Some say science will never manage to illuminate self, for the simple reason its field of effectiveness is the objective, the reproducible. Still, science now has initiated an inquiry into self and consciousness and it gives every indication its results will be as disruptive of traditional thinking as any other scientific endeavor people have pursued.

Toward Reconciling Science and Belief

The struggle between science and belief continues now in Kansas with another assessment by the state's education board regarding how and what children should be taught about human origins. Two positions are being presented: intelligent design (ID) and evolution. Both assert they are sciences. So far there has been no discussion before the adjudicators about what science is, so it remains unclear whether these two points of view are legitimately comparable. This sets up the likely absurdity that the board is viewing two things as if they are of one type -- i.e., they are making an apples-vs-oranges comparison.

Of course the ID proponents are saying they are scientists. Perhaps these folks imagine science to be something it is not. Said another way, IDers may be viewing themselves as doing science because they don't understand what science is. Thus it is possible (likely?) the concerns of ID proponents may not be comparable to those of non-ID science. Yet, as long as ID proponents view themselves as doing science, they will see themselves in opposition to non-ID science. This shackles their options.

But they have taken this position because others they have tried -- for instance, supporting the inclusion of prayer into school curriculum -- have failed. However, their choice now is causing the formal presentation of two different ideas as if they can be compared. It's hard to find a meaningful analogy to this situation. But here's one (alright, a feeble one):

What if this struggle were about whether the sunrise was beautiful or whether it was warming? (In a way, this is not so far from what is occurring in this dispute.) The aesthetes would argue for the former while the thermologists would argue for the latter. One point of view is entirely subjective (perhaps not entirely) while the other is objective (perhaps entirely).

It appears from the education board's point of view, these two positions are equally valid regarding their educational content, and further, both are versions of the same thing. Why else might the board wish to have both points of view presented together?

It's useful to ask why this dispute and debate continues? Because at its core it is about how we view ourselves. And the ID proponents feel their point of view is not receiving emphasis and support in the culture overall comp

Chimeras #2

4/29/05: CNN
"Particularly worrisome to some scientists are the nightmare scenarios that could arise from the mixing of brain cells: What if a human mind somehow got trapped inside a sheep's head?
The "idea that human neuronal cells might participate in 'higher order' brain functions in a non-human animal, however unlikely that may be, raises concerns that need to be considered," the Academies report warned."


Nightmare scenarios? This quote demonstrates how much today we misunderstand the connection between the brain and consciousness, between our nerves and our "am-ness" and all we consider human. The replacement of one species' nerve cells for another's, or the inclusion of one species' nerve cells with another's, is viewed as tantamount to mixing the consciousness of these two species. What this level of understanding fails to appreciate or acknowledge is that the connection pattern of nerve cells determines their "higher level" effects, like consciousness, not the cells' origin. This is going to be a paradigm shift for much of humanity.

“Nobody’s proven that!" I can hear someone say... You're right of course, but that is the way it is. And sooner or later (probably sooner) someone will do the experiment to prove it. Interestingly there are those who would prohibit this experiment, as if they know the result!

To be clear, one could replace the nerve cells of a human with nerve cells from a pig, and if the pattern of connection were the same as it was originally, the consciousness of the resulting individual would be the same as it was prior to the substitutions (except, perhaps for a new propensity to wallow in the mud...). Of course this experiment will not occur soon for several reasons, not the greatest of which is the discomfort people have with placing another species' neurons in a human being. A more practical obstacle to managing this effect is our quite total lack of understanding how brain cells connect both initially (as the body is constructed) and later in life as the brain matures and learns.

However, at some point, it may be possible to place one species' neurons in a different species in sufficient amounts that functions linked with neurons in that brain area will be from a species different than the host species. This accomplishment, while of little practical value in and of itself, will no doubt be a challenge for anyone who regards our human-ness as requiring a human genotype.

In this way, science and research are sure to press our old ways of thinking about ourselves into new form.

What is important to realize in this situation is how our current ideas about self and consciousness may interfere with us learning just how self and consciousness arises from a clump of neurons. Those who might wish to prohibit such explorations may justify their positions based upon "nightmare scenarios" of their imagining. It will be necessary to point out (again, since this is a common habit of righteous ignorance) that their premise is baseless without data, and may (likely) prevent us from learning precisely what we need to know to "improve our lot", as the Brits might say it. Since proving by experiment the primacy of organization over substrate will shatter our imaginings about who we are as humans (we are actually beings, not humans, when it comes to this level of considering), it seems likely it will be an important reason people will hinder research of this type: to protect their paradigm, their belief and traditional understanding, even if (and perhaps because) it is shallow and erroneous.

Dealing with such attitudes contributes to the shape of the path of human advancement.