Preachers who don’t believe in God

Daniel Dennett and Linda Lascola have published a paper called, "Preachers who are not Believers." The authors extensively interviewed five active preachers who don't believe in God. They are all closeted in this regard. Fascinating reading. Why not just come out of the closet and admit that they no longer believe? You'll see that they believe that they can still do an important job without that core belief. Interestingly, the participants expressed that lack of belief in God is common among active preachers. When asked his opinion of why ministers do not pass on their seminary-learned knowledge of Christian history to parishioners, one of the participants had this to say:

They don’t want to rock the boat. They don’t want to lose donations. They want to keep their jobs. They don’t want to stir up trouble in the congregation. They’ve got enough trouble as it is, keeping things moving along. They don’t want to make people mad at them. They don’t want to lose members. What they will often do is bring in someone like me to be a lightning rod, and teach it, and they’ll follow up on it.
I myself have spoken with at least four active members of the clergy over my lifetime (all of them Catholic priests) who admitted that they don't believe in the God that they describe at the pulpit. They each admitted that this is not an impediment to doing good work as a priest. Dennett's paper parallels his contention (in his book, Breaking the Spell), that most believers don't actually believe in God. Rather, they believe in belief in God. They say they believe because they think it's important to say it, whether or not they actually believe. I have often discussed Daniel Dennett's work at this site (e.g., here). He has a track record of being extraordinarily able to thoroughly think through many topics regarding religion and express his conclusions succinctly.

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Shut up and fly the plane

I agree with these observations by Patrick Smith, writing at Salon:

[T]here is an awful lot of yammering going on. There can be up to a half-dozen cabin P.A.s before your plane even reaches the runway, sometimes in multiple languages. Is this really necessary? To some of these announcements we grant a pass. Surely there's nothing out of line about a brief welcome-aboard speech, for example, or other practical reminders. However, if there is one hideous and glaring example of excess, it has to be the pre-departure safety briefing. Is there anything more tedious? . . . With a pair of shears and some common sense, the average briefing could be trimmed to half its length, resulting in a lucid oration that people might actually listen to.

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FCC disappointment on broadband

Tim Karr of Free Press reports that the FCC's newly released broadband plan is severely lacking on some of the most pressing issues:

Judging from the back-slapping and high fives over at the FCC, you’d think that America’s Internet was sailing smoothly into the future. Think again.

With much fanfare on Tuesday, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski delivered the National Broadband Plan to Congress, saying it will help make Internet access faster and cheaper for everyone in the United States. Getting more people connected to high-speed Internet -- from the 65 percent currently online up to 90 percent of households by the year 2020 -- is Job One, according to Genachowski.

There are a lot of good things in the plan’s 376 pages, including pledges to reform the Universal Service Fund and to re-allocate spectrum for broadband. But the plan glosses over some of thorniest problems plaguing U.S. Internet users: high prices, slow speeds and a lack of choices among providers.

Internet access in America is held captive by powerful phone and cable interests. And regardless of what the laissez-faire editors at the Wall Street Journal think, doing nothing to protect people from getting ripped off is not an option.

I haven't yet reviewed the FCC plan, but this report concerns me--Free Press is a highly trusted source regarding media reform. Once again, it appears that the needs of individual citizens are about to take the back seat to corporate interests.

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Using the U.S. census as a teachable moment

I received my census form in the mail today. I don't generally think twice about it - I understand why the government needs this information to allocate representation, funding, etc. But the insert caught my eye: the Census Bureau took the time to tell me that I don't need to worry about what they're going to do with my personal information. It is, after all, protected by law. Here's an excerpt from the Census Bureau website:

We depend on your cooperation and trust, and promise to protect the confidentiality of your information. Title 13 of the U.S. Code protects the confidentiality of all your information and violating this law is a crime with severe penalties. In addition, other federal laws, including the Confidential Statistical Efficiency Act and the Privacy Act reinforce these protections.
Obviously the Census Bureau considers these assurances regarding the legal protection of privacy to be crucial to getting honest answers. I'm not surprised - the information could certainly be used to identify likely tax evasion, immigration status, even occupancy codes. It is very sensitive information in its raw, unaggregated form. This isn't my first census form. I've had the opportunity to participate in the previous two censuses. But for me, for the first time, I am not reassured by their claim. After all, I'm pretty sure that warrant-less wiretaps are illegal too. As is torture - isn't it? I believe the evidence is strong that our government has authorized or allowed both activities. Certainly it was necessary to pass legislation giving telecommunications companies immunity from prosecution for participating in wiretaps. I'm no legal expert but to this citizen that means that the wiretaps are acknowledged to be illegal - we just won't do anything about it. So, how can I have any faith that the Census Bureau would live up to it's claims? How can anyone? But it's an opportunity. This is one of those "teachable moments" that a parent, or teacher would apply to an unruly child. What more natural consequence could there be for lawless behavior by the government than to say "You know what? I won't tell you that information because I don't trust you to act in good faith with it." The census, as an opportunity for civil feedback, is a perfect time to teach that lesson. I only wish that it could be recognized as civil feedback instead of the apathy that it would undoubtedly be labeled as.

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Dangerous Intersection is 4 years old!

Back on February 21, 2006, I created the first post for Dangerous Intersection. Somehow, it got to be 4 years later all too quickly. Since that first post, DI authors have now published 3,840 posts. And many of you have created one or more of those 18,913 comments that you can still read at the site (all of our posts and comments are available at DI). Our traffic indicates that we're not small and we're not big (yet). We typically get about 140,000 visitors per month (about 5,000/day-- 1.7 million visitors over the past 12 months), including about 85,000 monthly unique visitors. Over the past 12 months, we dished out more than 7 million pages. Quantity doesn't mean much, in and of itself, of course. But I'd like to think that those of us who have participated in the writing and reading at this site have also learned some important things along the way, along with more than a few laughs. I'd also like to think that DI offers some perspectives that you don't find in most other places, and that we have contributed to the blogosphere and beyond in a significant way. My plan is to carry on, to learn from past mistakes and to make the site better in the future. One thing I've learned during the past few months is that digging into the news cycle too hard and too often can bring me way down, and that's not good for anyone. Therefore, when I'm feeling a paroxysm of cynicism in the future, I will make sure that I pull out of the news cycle for awhile in order to detoxify (thanks, to Ebonmuse for the encouragement and the terminology). In the future, I will also try harder to think of a take-away for those posts that concern ignorance, corruption and incompetence. It's not that we're going to solve society's big problems quickly--most of the time, it's going to be about baby steps if we see any progress at all. That's not going to be an easy task to present a take-action to every one of society's woes, but I'm going to give it more effort. The ultimate goal should be to figure out how to make some real-life progress whenever we identify social dysfunction. I'd like to give thanks to each of the authors, Mark, Brynn, Mindy, Dan, Erika, Mike, Lisa, Ebonmuse, Tony, Tim, Zoevinly, Grumpy, Hank and all the rest for provoking us with your postings and musings. And I really need to thank all of our comment-writers of whom there have been so incredibly many thoughtful people who have offered their own writings to keep the DI authors honest (special commendation to Niklaus). Yet I do know that there are many of you out there who read but don't write--thank you so much for visiting! Maybe this will be the year that you jump in and write your first comment (remember that you can do so anonymously, if you wish--many comments are anonymous). Almost all of the submitted comments get published (I even publish some of the comments that tell me that I'm going to go to hell!). If nothing else, post a comment to this post just to say hello and join in this modest fourth year celebration. I would ask for two little favors. If you know someone who might enjoy the kinds of writing you find at this site, please consider sending our home page link to them. Equally important, if a particular post seems well-written to you, please do follow the green-colored directions on the right side of the page and recommend that post to one or more social sites (e.g., Facebook, Reddit, Digg, StumbleUpon). Doing this really kicks up the traffic. It brings a wider (and hopefully a more diverse) audience to the site, which can benefit all of us thanks to more diverse comments. A larger audience would also help me to pay for the hosting costs and the other expense of running this site. I'll be candid. My hosting costs $100/month, and I'm extremely happy with it (thanks, Josh). The ads you see on the site recoup about 75% of that cost. It would be nice to break even financially, and that's my main financial goal here. BTW - none of the authors is paid. None of us has made a cent from writing at this site. All of us have day jobs--writing for DI is purely a labor of love. My overall goal is to present information and opinions that you can trust, but that also challenge you, even though you might disagree with us. In fact, when I tell people on the street about DI, I tell them to visit the site and to comment "especially if you disagree with us." One of my favorite in-person comments came from a well-accomplished lawyer who was also extremely conservative. He said, "Erich, I sometimes visit your site. It is fascinating and well-written. But I disagree with almost everything you say." That comment was a prelude to a good conversation over lunch--this kind of comment often is the beginning of something interesting. I'll end this "happy birthday" post by suggesting that I love to get email with interesting links. I know that this is true of all of the authors. If you find an good link, do write to us and you'll likely see it published at DI. Many of our email addresses can be found at the "About" page. Considerable amounts of the links you see here have been recommended by our readers. My own email address is erichvieth@gmail.com (You can also hit the "Contact" link at the top menu). If you want to reach one of the other authors, but you don't see their email addresses, send me an email and I'll pass it on. Once again, thank you. It has been a privilege to write as part of this thoughtful, iconoclastic and kind-hearted community.

Continue ReadingDangerous Intersection is 4 years old!