"Pope Francis this week charged that certain policies of the global
financial system are tyrannizing the poor. In a speech to new
ambassadors to the Vatican, Francis warned against a “cult of money.” He
said money should serve and not rule. Before becoming pope, Francis was
widely known as an advocate for the poor in his native Argentina."
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/headlines/pope-condemns-%E2%80%9Ccult-of-money%E2%80%9D/16554/?utm_source=feedly
more here and here
Does this mean that the Vatican Bank will undergo scrutiny and change in its function towards a policy of serving the poor?
Germany's Merkel visits Pope Francis to talk about Globalisation
Saturday, May 18, 2013
Vine Deloria Jr.
"knowing what others have observed about another culture does not mean
that the scholar emotionally understands that culture."
- Vine Deloria
Jr. p. 218 'Anthros, Indians, and Planetary Reality'
*William James: "Is Life Worth Living?"
His essay can be found here:
http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/23344/
A couple days ago, in the 'Spirituality, Theology, and Health' seminar, Prof. Carrette came and gave a talk on William James' essay 'Is Life Worth Living?'
The seminar itself posed the question, as William James addresses a Christian student group at Harvard, and invites an engagement with the lonely dark corners of being.
In addressing the question, Carrette begins by considering the context and background of William James. He looks at William James' father, Henry James Sr. as well as his grandfather, who at one point was one of the wealthiest men in the U.S. of A. acquiring his wealth through the salt business.
A few points stick out before reaching William James' answer to the question, I'll spare the suspense: Yes, life is always worth living.
One was the point that William James "inherited" depression. Now this is a weird way to put it but it does make sense if we consider the inheritability of serotonin levels from parent to child.
Interdisciplinarity is a great thing and philosophy can benefit greatly from literature and the poets. William James who often wrote like a novelist and Henry James (his younger brother) wrote his novels like a psychologist. James highlighted and emphasized this interdisciplinarity as any one discipline is insufficient to examine the full depths of our psychology, our culture, and our interrelationships with others and our worlds.
That we should ground ourselves in the study of our physiology. Too often we talk about "human nature" without even knowing much about our own biology. I find this to be extremely true. Philosophers, psychologists, psychiatrists, and especially psychoanalyists with their theories of ego, id, and superego, or even worse with Jungian archetypes (which becomes more akin to literary analysis and metaphors for thought as opposed to an adequate psychology), do not know enough about our brains, physiology, and so on. This tends to be the case with scholars of other disciplines as well.
And the final point, which answers the question: Yes. We should be open to life experiences and the life currents that send us in certain directions and ways of life. He ended his talk with a Zen like statement about thinking and doing, that we should achieve a state of non-thinking and emersing ourselves in doing and being. This reminds me of the story about the monk who could not follow the teachings of the Buddha and so was told to sweep the steps to the temple everyday. He achieved enlightenment by doing. In a way this is also to say that we should immerse ourselves in our work and stay focused with the present task (*ahem, I should be writing a differnt paper but here I am). When you walk, you walk. When you eat, you eat. And so on with any other activity. Don't think about anything else. "It's all zen!" as, underground rapper, Sage Francis would put it. To be "at one" with what you are doing.
And while I completely agree with everything the speaker mentioned. The point that's been bothering me is this romanticization with life. That if you're at one with what you're doing everything becomes so easy and life just opens up for you. I would beg to differ. Give this talk to people who experience terror and warfare everyday. Tell this to the person who can't make enough to feed his family. To the people who don't have enough water. Being open to one's life experiences does not solve the harsh conditions of life around the world. To those who commit suicide because they cannot bear the guilt and shame from failing to meet certain social expectations. To those who go homeless because they decided to be what they think is true to themselves. Being open with life is, in a way, a philosophy for those with comfortable lives and opportunities are abound. Of course with the exception of our "first world problems" - the latte wasn't right or I can't get internet or whatever. Being open with life is not so easy for everybody. Economic hardship is real. Poverty is real. Global hunger is real. Genocide is real. Corruption and distortion is real. Shit is happening everywhere.
So William James, is this a practical answer for people outside of the Christian student group at Harvard? Or is there a different set of pragmatics and a different answer to this question depending on who we address?
http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/23344/
A couple days ago, in the 'Spirituality, Theology, and Health' seminar, Prof. Carrette came and gave a talk on William James' essay 'Is Life Worth Living?'
The seminar itself posed the question, as William James addresses a Christian student group at Harvard, and invites an engagement with the lonely dark corners of being.
In addressing the question, Carrette begins by considering the context and background of William James. He looks at William James' father, Henry James Sr. as well as his grandfather, who at one point was one of the wealthiest men in the U.S. of A. acquiring his wealth through the salt business.
A few points stick out before reaching William James' answer to the question, I'll spare the suspense: Yes, life is always worth living.
One was the point that William James "inherited" depression. Now this is a weird way to put it but it does make sense if we consider the inheritability of serotonin levels from parent to child.
Interdisciplinarity is a great thing and philosophy can benefit greatly from literature and the poets. William James who often wrote like a novelist and Henry James (his younger brother) wrote his novels like a psychologist. James highlighted and emphasized this interdisciplinarity as any one discipline is insufficient to examine the full depths of our psychology, our culture, and our interrelationships with others and our worlds.
That we should ground ourselves in the study of our physiology. Too often we talk about "human nature" without even knowing much about our own biology. I find this to be extremely true. Philosophers, psychologists, psychiatrists, and especially psychoanalyists with their theories of ego, id, and superego, or even worse with Jungian archetypes (which becomes more akin to literary analysis and metaphors for thought as opposed to an adequate psychology), do not know enough about our brains, physiology, and so on. This tends to be the case with scholars of other disciplines as well.
And the final point, which answers the question: Yes. We should be open to life experiences and the life currents that send us in certain directions and ways of life. He ended his talk with a Zen like statement about thinking and doing, that we should achieve a state of non-thinking and emersing ourselves in doing and being. This reminds me of the story about the monk who could not follow the teachings of the Buddha and so was told to sweep the steps to the temple everyday. He achieved enlightenment by doing. In a way this is also to say that we should immerse ourselves in our work and stay focused with the present task (*ahem, I should be writing a differnt paper but here I am). When you walk, you walk. When you eat, you eat. And so on with any other activity. Don't think about anything else. "It's all zen!" as, underground rapper, Sage Francis would put it. To be "at one" with what you are doing.
And while I completely agree with everything the speaker mentioned. The point that's been bothering me is this romanticization with life. That if you're at one with what you're doing everything becomes so easy and life just opens up for you. I would beg to differ. Give this talk to people who experience terror and warfare everyday. Tell this to the person who can't make enough to feed his family. To the people who don't have enough water. Being open to one's life experiences does not solve the harsh conditions of life around the world. To those who commit suicide because they cannot bear the guilt and shame from failing to meet certain social expectations. To those who go homeless because they decided to be what they think is true to themselves. Being open with life is, in a way, a philosophy for those with comfortable lives and opportunities are abound. Of course with the exception of our "first world problems" - the latte wasn't right or I can't get internet or whatever. Being open with life is not so easy for everybody. Economic hardship is real. Poverty is real. Global hunger is real. Genocide is real. Corruption and distortion is real. Shit is happening everywhere.
So William James, is this a practical answer for people outside of the Christian student group at Harvard? Or is there a different set of pragmatics and a different answer to this question depending on who we address?
*Practice
So after looking over and over at a paper, and then questioning whether the structure of the essay should be presented differently, and then looking over again. Writing a little bit and then questioning my abilities as an academic writer, I've stepped away from the essay...again.
It's been dawning on me, about the luxuries we now have as a consequence of a longer life. It wasn't too long ago that the life expectancy was sixty and if you made it that far, you were considered blessed. As a consequence of shorter life spans, people advanced in stages quicker. By that I mean that people would get married younger, they found a job, and sought to establish themselves sooner rather than later on in their life. By the age of 30, many were married, found a job, and were at the peaks of their careers. I'll often look back at a scholar or writer of sort and see that they've published these great works in their early twenties. In comparison, I've achieved little by my early twenties let alone where I'm at now.
Perhaps this is the consequence of living longer. There's a sense of ease by which we live our lives. We don't need to rush into anything anymore. That urgency in the race with life and death is no longer. The life expectancy is now set at an average of eighty-something. I remember my father telling me one day that because humans live longer now, he didn't feel like he had to enforce his wisdom about a certain path. But that we could now experiment and find what we wanted to do. Turns out, my interest went from neuroscience to the study of religion. Like, whoa.
The extended period of life we now have certainly allows more time to cultivate our craft and get distracted in the many other interests we have altogether. It would seem that we now must practice more and more in perfecting or achieving that state in which we would like to see ourselves. Polishing, in a word.
I've been looking into the theories of moral development recently. Just for fun in a way. Something that I hope to study more intensively at one point or another. Beginning with Piaget and then Kohlberg, and then Gilligan's criticism of Kohlberg for being androcentric, which created a debate about an ethics of Justice vs. an ethics of Care (the former being Kohlberg and the latter Gilligan) and then Turiel and in the contemporary sphere with Haidt and a few others (Stich, Prinz, Knobe, Gallagher, Mallon, etc.) who have been bringing more and more awareness to the place of emotions in morality. But with the earier theorists like Piaget, Kohlberg, and Gilligan (in other areas there is Erikson and Maslow) there was a trend of doing stage theory. Putting ages and developmental stages of cognition or moral reasoning together and saying that at this age period this happens and so forth. While my own research in the past has confirmed studies of the language miracle at 2 years of age, theory of mind capabilities at 4, and other benchmarks for development, I wonder if some of these stage theories extend their suggestions too rigidly. In other words, if they had a stage regarding adulthood would this mean that those of the past who had a lower life expectancy never reached such a point in moral reasoning? And conversely, does this mean that today we reach those stages much later on in life? I would certainly be interested in seeing a contemporary model of this kind of stage theory, which would also incorporate cross-cultural variance and consider the differences as well as the similarities. But then again, stage theory may no longer be useful to capture the evidence that is presented; a different model may be required.
One thing that I do find quite promising for the future is the malleability and adaptability of human nature. That if we shape the right cultural conditions - social, political, environmental, economic, and so on - human nature will adapt and be shaped by them as well. That is, human nature allows for the reproduction and perpetuation of culture. In this sense, the argument of human nature is good or bad is an antiquated and an irrelevant debate. If the conditions that shape human nature are "good" then so will be the outcome and vice versa with "bad". However, this does not mean that the discussion about human nature is no longer relevant, I think it is, but rather that we have to reconsider and reshape the way in which we talk about human nature. Some forms of discourse views human nature as if it is some kind of fixed thing. Far from it, our biology allows change. Identical twins who come into this world with an identical set of genes, turn out to be distinctively different by the time they reach 50. Their genes have changed as well (epigenetics has yet to take hold in the discussion on human nature). We still talk about Hobbes and aggression as if we are inherently evil. If culture shapes persons, and persons shape culture, then this means there is an active component by which we participate in and are shaped by society, whether it is active, passive, passionate, or apathetic. To paraphrase Howard Zinn, you can't be neutral on a moving train. In one way or another we are participating and perpetuating culture. And with longer and longer life spans, we have longer to do it albeit it may be at a slower rate.
It seems that timing is an important element. A premature move can break an attempted shift. A quickly cooked stew will not taste as good as one that has been given the time to release its flavor and draw out in conjunction with other ingredients. There is an art to timing.
대기만성(大器晩成)
big. bowl. late. creation: It takes time to make a big bowl.
It's been dawning on me, about the luxuries we now have as a consequence of a longer life. It wasn't too long ago that the life expectancy was sixty and if you made it that far, you were considered blessed. As a consequence of shorter life spans, people advanced in stages quicker. By that I mean that people would get married younger, they found a job, and sought to establish themselves sooner rather than later on in their life. By the age of 30, many were married, found a job, and were at the peaks of their careers. I'll often look back at a scholar or writer of sort and see that they've published these great works in their early twenties. In comparison, I've achieved little by my early twenties let alone where I'm at now.
Perhaps this is the consequence of living longer. There's a sense of ease by which we live our lives. We don't need to rush into anything anymore. That urgency in the race with life and death is no longer. The life expectancy is now set at an average of eighty-something. I remember my father telling me one day that because humans live longer now, he didn't feel like he had to enforce his wisdom about a certain path. But that we could now experiment and find what we wanted to do. Turns out, my interest went from neuroscience to the study of religion. Like, whoa.
The extended period of life we now have certainly allows more time to cultivate our craft and get distracted in the many other interests we have altogether. It would seem that we now must practice more and more in perfecting or achieving that state in which we would like to see ourselves. Polishing, in a word.
I've been looking into the theories of moral development recently. Just for fun in a way. Something that I hope to study more intensively at one point or another. Beginning with Piaget and then Kohlberg, and then Gilligan's criticism of Kohlberg for being androcentric, which created a debate about an ethics of Justice vs. an ethics of Care (the former being Kohlberg and the latter Gilligan) and then Turiel and in the contemporary sphere with Haidt and a few others (Stich, Prinz, Knobe, Gallagher, Mallon, etc.) who have been bringing more and more awareness to the place of emotions in morality. But with the earier theorists like Piaget, Kohlberg, and Gilligan (in other areas there is Erikson and Maslow) there was a trend of doing stage theory. Putting ages and developmental stages of cognition or moral reasoning together and saying that at this age period this happens and so forth. While my own research in the past has confirmed studies of the language miracle at 2 years of age, theory of mind capabilities at 4, and other benchmarks for development, I wonder if some of these stage theories extend their suggestions too rigidly. In other words, if they had a stage regarding adulthood would this mean that those of the past who had a lower life expectancy never reached such a point in moral reasoning? And conversely, does this mean that today we reach those stages much later on in life? I would certainly be interested in seeing a contemporary model of this kind of stage theory, which would also incorporate cross-cultural variance and consider the differences as well as the similarities. But then again, stage theory may no longer be useful to capture the evidence that is presented; a different model may be required.
One thing that I do find quite promising for the future is the malleability and adaptability of human nature. That if we shape the right cultural conditions - social, political, environmental, economic, and so on - human nature will adapt and be shaped by them as well. That is, human nature allows for the reproduction and perpetuation of culture. In this sense, the argument of human nature is good or bad is an antiquated and an irrelevant debate. If the conditions that shape human nature are "good" then so will be the outcome and vice versa with "bad". However, this does not mean that the discussion about human nature is no longer relevant, I think it is, but rather that we have to reconsider and reshape the way in which we talk about human nature. Some forms of discourse views human nature as if it is some kind of fixed thing. Far from it, our biology allows change. Identical twins who come into this world with an identical set of genes, turn out to be distinctively different by the time they reach 50. Their genes have changed as well (epigenetics has yet to take hold in the discussion on human nature). We still talk about Hobbes and aggression as if we are inherently evil. If culture shapes persons, and persons shape culture, then this means there is an active component by which we participate in and are shaped by society, whether it is active, passive, passionate, or apathetic. To paraphrase Howard Zinn, you can't be neutral on a moving train. In one way or another we are participating and perpetuating culture. And with longer and longer life spans, we have longer to do it albeit it may be at a slower rate.
It seems that timing is an important element. A premature move can break an attempted shift. A quickly cooked stew will not taste as good as one that has been given the time to release its flavor and draw out in conjunction with other ingredients. There is an art to timing.
대기만성(大器晩成)
big. bowl. late. creation: It takes time to make a big bowl.
John Barclay on 'Paul and the Gift'
Guest lecture for the Inauguration of St Mary's Centre for the Social Scientific Study of the Bible
Thursday, May 16, 2013
vatican spring?
Comments on the new pope from the Social Science Research Council
http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2013/05/10/the-vatican-spring/
http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2013/05/10/the-vatican-spring/
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Suicide and Utah
http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=24937434
One of the "elephants in the room" in this discussion on suicide in Utah is the effect of the Mormon ethos on sexuality and self-worth (revolving around notions of purity and worthiness)
LGBT Homelessness in Utah
http://affirmation.org/news_2013/2013_010.shtml
"Several research studies have gleaned the following information about gays and suicide:
the stats need to be updated...
Thursday, May 2, 2013
Religion & Society Faith Debates
Some good stuff here: a contemporary glance at what's happening in the UK on 'Religion and Society'
http://www.religionandsociety.org.uk/faith_debates
http://www.religionandsociety.org.uk/faith_debates
Cross-Cultural Variance of Muslims around the World
http://www.pewforum.org/Muslim/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-overview.aspx
"A new survey of Muslims from across the world shows that American Muslims are much more likely than Muslims in other countries to have non-Muslim friends, and to believe that many religions (not just Islam) can lead to eternal life in heaven. The survey, which involved 38,000 face-to-face interviews in more than 80 languages with Muslims across Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, and was conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, shows that American Muslims feel more at ease in contemporary Western pluralistic societies than their co-religionists in other parts of the world."
http://publicreligion.org/2013/05/new-survey-illuminates-differences-among-the-worlds-muslims/
Views on Sharia law:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2013/04/daily-chart-20?fsrc=scn/fb/wl/dc/Shariadolikeit
Muslims sheltered Jews during Holocaust
"Photographs of 70 Muslims who sheltered Jews during World War II will
be displayed alongside stories detailing their acts of heroism.
The exhibition hopes to inspire new research into instances of collaboration between the Muslim and Jewish communities.
Yad Vashem, Israel's official memorial to victims of the Holocaust, honours nearly 25,000 so-called "righteous persons" who risked their lives to protect the Jewish community during Nazi Germany's reign of terror."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-22176928
The exhibition hopes to inspire new research into instances of collaboration between the Muslim and Jewish communities.
Yad Vashem, Israel's official memorial to victims of the Holocaust, honours nearly 25,000 so-called "righteous persons" who risked their lives to protect the Jewish community during Nazi Germany's reign of terror."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-22176928
U.S.: "Fifty percent of young christians think marijuana should be legalized"
"Submit to your husband": Ephesians 5:21-33
Curious about the responses of the Christians who take a literal interpretation of the Bible...
A poll of Muslim women on a similar question is shown below
A poll of Muslim women on a similar question is shown below
Ephesians 5:21-33
King James Version (KJV)
21 Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.
22 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.
23 For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.
24 Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.
25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
26 That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,
27 That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.
28 So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.
29 For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church:
30 For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.
31 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.
32 This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.
33 Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.
For parallel translations with the New King James Version (NKJV) and the New International Version (NIV)
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ephesians+5%3A21-33&version=KJV;NKJV;NIV
Muslim women vary in their responses from country to country:
The link below shows a few other polls as well
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/05/where-the-most-muslims-think-women-should-obey-their-husbands-in-charts/275450/
22 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.
23 For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.
24 Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.
25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
26 That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,
27 That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.
28 So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.
29 For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church:
30 For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.
31 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.
32 This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.
33 Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.
For parallel translations with the New King James Version (NKJV) and the New International Version (NIV)
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ephesians+5%3A21-33&version=KJV;NKJV;NIV
Muslim women vary in their responses from country to country:
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/05/where-the-most-muslims-think-women-should-obey-their-husbands-in-charts/275450/
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
Documentary trailer on Belief
Right Between Your Ears
documents before and after the doomsday followers of Harold Camping who predicted the end of the world on May 21, 2011 and then again on October 21, 2011 - both of which did not come true.
this would be another case of Festinger's 'When Prophecy Fails'
documents before and after the doomsday followers of Harold Camping who predicted the end of the world on May 21, 2011 and then again on October 21, 2011 - both of which did not come true.
this would be another case of Festinger's 'When Prophecy Fails'
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