The psychology of “faith the substance of things hoped for” wouldn’t let go of Goines. He wondered about scientists who believe in the divinity of Jesus. Do they accept Christianity’s doctrine of salvation out of a deep need to know things beyond science’s reach, things they can then expect God to reveal to them someday?
Remembering his college logic studies, Goines thought of another thing the writer of the letter to the Hebrews in Jerusalem could have been doing with the “faith is evidence” maneuver – establishing an axiom to throw in whenever he couldn’t prove something any other way.
Goines’ notion the day before, that faith itself could somehow seem to amount to evidence, kept nagging at him. He now remembered a Bible verse to that effect, the opening verse of Chapter 11 of a letter to the Hebrews in Jerusalem, thought to have been composed about 30 years after Jesus’ crucifixion: “...faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” – as though faith, or true-belief alone could transform a thing believed into a fact. The resurrection of Jesus, for example, which the letter writer seemed to think lacked other evidence. Otherwise, why the need for faith?
The day after remembering the Jesus experiment, Goines thought of a corollary, or reverse experiment, one that would seek to establish whether a stand-in for Jesus could elicit the same sort of experience. If so, then that would suggest that it wasn’t the nature of Jesus (or of his stand-in) that produced the Jesus-experience phenomenon, but something about people’s psychology.
Inside the McDowell book Goines’ nephew had placed a cordial handwritten note that suggested Goines might “start with the table of contents and go to the chapters that pique your interest.” That didn’t sound too daunting, and Goines was bound to try it.
Goines’ nephew reported that his mother was much improved, “thank the Lord Jesus for that,” and Goines had automatically said amen, for he too was glad his sister was doing better. But Goines knew that his nephew was aware he didn’t subscribe to the divinity of Jesus, and Goines felt a tinge of regret that he had said amen. Perhaps unwisely, he clarified, “I meant amen to your mother’s improvement, not to Jesus’ having anything to do with it.”
It’s Sunday, and more than a few of my neighbors have gone to church. I know they have good reasons for going (and possibly a few not-so-good ones – “What might the Joneses, or my parents, think if I don’t go?”).
Thor was going to take the day off, thinking that if people either believe in a god or not – and that’s an end to it – then what’s a god to do but take the day off?
Episode 5 in Season 1 of Breaking Bad ("Gray Matter," which aired on February 24, 2008) features a speech by high school chemistry teacher Walter White that could have informed Sam Harris's thinking about free will.
In the first episode, Walter was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and resorted to selling crystal methamphetamine to provide for his family when he is dead. But he didn't let his wife (Skyler) know he was sick until the fourth episode.
Having learned the news, Skyler becomes determined that Walter will undertake chemotherapy, and she doesn't hesitate to let Walter's wealthy former graduate school research partner know or to urge Walter to accept his old colleague's offer to pay for everything.
But Walter resists.
In an emotional power play, Skyler engineers an intervention to show Walter how much his family loves him and needs for him to do the therapy. Her sister and brother-in-law don't behave as she expects, they think it should be Walter's decision.
But can it be Walter's decision? That's the question Sam Harris raises.
Walter responds in as affecting a speech as you can hear in television drama (or in feature film):
Sometimes I feel like I never actually make any of my own choices. My entire life, it just seems I never had a real say about any of it. With this last one—cancer—all I have left is how I choose to approach this...What good is it to just survive, if I am too sick to work...?I choose not to do it.
[I didn't think I could quote that verbatim, given the difficulty of writing down dialogue from a Netflix download, but then I thought of YouTube, where you can actually see the scene:]
So, Walter refuses...until, as usually happens with all of us, the balance of forces shifts in favor of the stronger ones' tending toward our compliance. "I'll do the therapy."
Friday I askedwhat if Judeo-Christian ethics had been all-life affirming (rather than in-group-affirming)?
A friend commented simply that not enough people think and feel the way I do.
And probably no one in ancient times thought or felt that way. The forces that produced the Judeo-Christian ethic could have produced no other ethic than the one it did produce. And the forces working now can but have us slaughtering and eating animals, fighting to control oil, tearing down mountains to mine coal, driving just the fuel-inefficient automobiles we do, building pipelines across tracts of wilderness, decimating rain forests, continuing to overpopulate the planet.
Like Walter, we might individually resist—or become conscious that something in us seems to want to resist—but happenings both within us and around us continue to roll on just the way they individually and collectively always have done and always will do. According to the laws of nature.
_______________ Wiktionary on "Them's the breaks"
[follow-up]
The 80-20 rule states that for many events 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. The rule applies to everything from 80% of income's going to 20% of a population, to 80% of sales' coming from 20% of clients, to our wearing 20% of our most favored clothes 80% of the time, to our spending 80% of our time with 20% of our acquaintances, to 80% of a company's resources' typically being used by 20% of its operations, to....[Source for examples: Wikipedia]
But 90-10 might be the rule for religion. For example, 90% of the general population of the United States (which of course includes those who believe that the fall of the Twin Towers was divine retribution for homosexuality and other "sins") claim to believe in god, whereas only 10% of leading scientists (the ones whose findings about global warming are finally being acknowledged) admit to it. [Source: Scientific American Magazine, September 1999]
Religion is so polarizing and rancorous that polite company usually honors the unspoken rule not to raise the topic—so as not to occasion some people's going for other people's throats.
By Moristotle
