Making this the year of the Bible might make people read it

Some in Congress are pressing to make 2009 the "National Year of the Bible." As Politics Daily points out, such a pronouncement might encourage people to actually read the Bible before extolling its virtues. And lots of people do extol its virtues (93% of U.S. homes have at least one Bible). But do they read it? Polls suggest that it is not read often or well by millions of Americans:

A 2000 survey showed that even 60 percent of those chapter-and-verse-quoting Evangelicals thought Jesus was born in Jerusalem rather than Bethlehem. Similarly, a 2004 survey of high school students found that 17 percent thought "the road to Damascus" was where Jesus was crucified and 22 percent thought Moses was either one of Jesus' 12 apostles or an Egyptian pharaoh or an angel. Half of high school seniors also thought Sodom and Gomorrah were married . . . But before you pile on the slacker generation, consider that one in 10 of all Americans believe that Joan of Arc was Noah's wife, and 60 percent can't name five of the Ten Commandments.

But here's more:

Only three out of five Christians can recall the names of the first four books of the New Testament. Only half of the Christians polled correctly identified the person who delivered the Sermon on the Mount. And a full 42% of the Christians said that without the government's laws, there would be no real guidelines for people to follow in daily life.

And more:

A Gallup survey shows that fewer than half of Americans can name the first book of the Bible (Genesis), only one-third know who delivered the Sermon on the Mount (many named Billy Graham, not Jesus), and one quarter do not know what is celebrated on Easter. . . A 1997 Barna Research poll showed [that] eighty percent of born-again Christians believe it is the Bible that says "God helps them that help themselves."

These polls substantiate what I've been seeing and hearing. Many of the people who argue with me about religion (they come to my door a couple times each year) know almost nothing about the Bible. Most believers know absolutely nothing about the history of the Bible--how the Bible came to be the Bible. It's a truly fascinating story and there's no excuse that a Believer wouldn't know many of the details. See this post on Bart Ehrman setting for many quotes mistakenly attributed to Jesus. Consider, also, a book I am currently reading, Robert Wright's The Evolution of God, with makes a strong argument that Jesus didn't really say, "Love your enemies" or extol the Good Samaritan. These stories were inserted many decades after the crucifixion (e.g., see p. 260). I was raised Catholic and I know many Catholics (many of them good-hearted and thoughtful people). Almost none of them read the Bible with any familiarity. They hear passages on Sundays, but that's about it. I've spoken to dozens of serious Catholics who have no idea that there are any contradictions in the Bible and they freely admit that they don't read it on their own. So much for the "Word of God" among a large group (dozens) of educated and committed Catholics. If they really believed that the Bible was divinely inspired word of God, how could they possibly have time for anything else?

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Defending Blasphemy

The Center for Inquiry has just announced a new campaign to help defend free speech--particularly speech critical of religion--from suppression. The Campaign for Free Expression includes a website designed as a forum to report and monitor censorship. The site also publishes the kind of religious (and political) criticism likely to find itself censored. http://www.centerforinquiry.net/newsroom/center_for_inquiry_launches_campaign_for_free_expression/

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PBS bans new religious TV shows

As reported by the Washington Post:

The Public Broadcasting Service agreed yesterday to ban its member stations from airing new religious TV programs, but permitted the handful of stations that already carry "sectarian" shows to continue doing so. . . Until now, PBS stations have been required to present programming that is noncommercial, nonpartisan and nonsectarian. But the definition of "nonsectarian" programming was always loosely interpreted, and the rule had never been strictly enforced.

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More evidence of the upside of religion . . . and the downside.

I don't deny that there is an upside to being "religious." USA Today recently published "This is Your Brain on Religion," by Andrew Newberg, a professor of radiology and psychiatry. Here are some of the benefits to religion, in a nutshell:

The research that I have come across, if not definitive, seems clear: Religion and spiritual practices generally have a positive effect on one's physical, emotional and neurological health. People who engage in religious activities tend to cope better with emotional problems, have fewer addictions and better overall health. They might even live longer than those who lead more secular lives. Indeed, many studies document that religious and spiritual individuals find more meaning in life.
Here's one of Newberg's sources for the increased longevity of religious folks. Lots to consider here. Every time I read such studies noting the benefits of religion, I suspect that it is the greater committed social interconnectedness of believers that accounts for most of the benefits. I don't have statistics to back me up here, but consider this. We have a very fine blogging community here at DI. Now, imagine one of our authors falling terribly ill for a long period. What is the likelihood that another co-author or a visitor would commit to providing long-term care for that ill author? My hypothetical is not meant as an insult, but I would find it surprising if us skeptical/philosophical types would do that. Now consider what often happens when a member of a congregation falls ill: other members of the congregation often jumpt to the rescue, providing food and other care, even to people they don't know well. I suspect that this occurs because congregations are flesh and blood gatherings of people who put in the time, week after week, to make displays of their willingness to commit to each other and to their "God." I don't think it's religion per se that lubricates this willingness to help each other, but that this willingness results from physically rubbing elbows with a specific group of others on a regular basis. I've seen enough studies to be convinced that there are benefits to being religous, but I doubt that it has to do with anything supernatural. In fact, it relates largely to in-group dynamics, I suspect, and that members of Religion A are far more likely to help each other than to help members of Religion B or to help people who are not religious at all. On the whole, though, be religious, right? Not so fast! Newberg warns that the net effect of religion depends on the type of god in which one believes.
[W]hen people view God as loving, forgiving, compassionate and supportive, this more likely results in a very positive view of themselves, and of the world around them. But when God is viewed as dispassionate, vengeful and unforgiving, this can have deleterious effects on one's physical and mental health.
The cynical me thinks that people create their own version of God, aqnd that even the people who worship together have dramatically different conceptions of God (just ask people who all worship at the same church and you'll be amazed. Since people wield this power to create the version of God that they worship, they ought to each create a benevolent, empathetic God for the sake of all of the rest of us.

Continue ReadingMore evidence of the upside of religion . . . and the downside.

Michael Shermer talks patternicity and agenticity

In the June 2009 edition of Scientific American, well-known skeptic Michael Shermer discusses human tendencies to find things and agency where they don't actually exist:

Patternicity [is] the human tendency to find meaningful patterns in meaningless noise. Consider the face on Mars, the Virgin Mary on a grilled cheese sandwich, satanic messages in rock music. Of course, some patterns are real. Finding predictive patterns in changing weather, fruiting trees, migrating prey animals and hungry predators was central to the survival of Paleolithic hominids.

Thomas Gilovich conducted a now classic study regarding our tendencies toward patternicity. The subject was the "hot hand" that many people assume that basketball players get. You know . . . give him the ball. He's got the hot hand going . . . But we are also a bit too good at inferring agency:

We infer agency behind the patterns we observe in a practice I call “agent­icity”: the tendency to believe that the world is controlled by invisible intentional agents. We believe that these intentional agents control the world, sometimes invisibly from the top down (as opposed to bottom-up causal randomness). Together patternicity and agent­icity form the cognitive basis of shamanism, paganism, animism, polytheism, monotheism, and all modes of Old and New Age spiritualisms. Agenticity carries us far beyond the spirit world. The Intelligent Designer is said to be an invisible agent who created life from the top down.

Why do we claim to see things that don't exist? Shermer concludes that we are "natural born supernaturalists."

Continue ReadingMichael Shermer talks patternicity and agenticity