Dawkins on tipping points

Having recently read Malcolm Gladwell's book, The Tipping Point, as well as currently discussing with my friend Jim Rix ways to nudge sales of his book Jingle Jangle: The Perfect Crime Turned Inside Out to a tipping point (and even having watched an episode of the TV program "Mad Men" last night—about Madison Avenue advertising in the 'sixties), I was fascinated this morning to come across the following passage in Richard Dawkins's book, The Blind Watchmaker (about how Darwinian evolution can produce complex organisms like the human brain):

It appears to be a fact that many people will buy a record for no better reason than that a large number of other people are buying the same record, or are likely to do so....
    To a lesser extent, the same phenomenon of popularity being popular for its own sake is well known in the worlds of book publishing, women's fashions, and advertising generally. One of the best things an advertiser can say about a product is that it is the best-selling product of its kind. Best-seller lists are published weekly, and it is undoubtedly true that as soon as a book sells enough copies to appear in one of these lists, its sales increase even more, simply by virtue of that fact. Publishers speak of a book "taking off," and those publishers with some knowledge of science even speak of a "critical mass for take-off." The analogy here is to an atomic bomb...When a book's sales "go critical," the numbers reach the point where word-of-mouth recommendations et cetera cause its sales suddenly to take off in a runaway fashion. Rates of sales suddenly become dramatically larger than they were before critical mass was reached, and there may be a period of exponential growth before the inevitable levelling out and subsequent decline. [from Chapter 8, "Explosions and Spirals," pp. 219-220]

Theologically speaking, that is

For her light piece, "Dinner Companions," inside the back cover of the March 8, 2009 New York Times Book Review, Leanne Shapton asked some writers what authors they would take to dinner. Daniel Kehlmann replied:

Schopenhauer's World as Will and Representation is the most enjoyable, and the funniest, of all the major works of philosophy, perhaps because it's the bleakest—a reminder that a world in which living beings have to survive by eating each other can hardly be called a good place [theological emphasis mine].

Twelve-week birthday

April 17

Neighbor Killdeer

There's a nest of killdeer eggs out behind our place, on the bank of the drainage pond.

The eggs look (without disturbing the mother to examine them closely) to be at least an inch in diameter. See how Mother Killdeer tried to distract us (predators) by feigning at a distance from her nest to be wounded (and hence easy prey, so why go after her eggs?).

I estimate I was 8-10 feet from the nest and 20-25 feet from the mother when I took the photos, using a Nikon D60.

Apotheosis

Funny thing. I don't believe in god or heaven, but this morning I was feeling so extraordinarily buoyant that, quite spontaneously, I exclaimed to my friend Jeff, "I feel so good—as though I've been apotheosized!" [The painting shown to the right is "The Apotheosis of St. Ignatius" by Giovanni Battista Baciccio (1639-1709). Ignatius is still, I suppose, believed by some to have been literally apotheosized after being killed by one or more lions for the entertainment of the citizens of Rome.]

The latest Grisham cup of tea

On Monday night I reached about page 284 in John Grisham's 2009 legal thriller, The Associate. If the book was a cup of tea, it still had heat to that point. But last night, as I read the last ninety pages, the heat fled, and I was let down to realize that for all the tea's comforting warmth for three-fourths of the cup, it had little flavor or body. Just not that good a tea.
    I'm left wondering, though, whether Grisham's depiction of big law firms as using the best and brightest young law school graduates to operate a sort of billing mill is accurate. Do they really set their associates to spend long hours doing research they know will likely never be used but for the purpose of billing a client for the privilege?
    Also, since the bad guy....No, I can't go there. I might spoil whatever plot enjoyment you could otherwise slurp from Grisham's latest disappointing cup. (The ending is reminiscent of the unsatisfactory, if clever, way Nelson DeMille ended his 2004 novel, Nightfall.)
    For a much fuller bodied, more savory tea, I recommend John Le Carré's latest, A Most Wanted Man. It actually gets hotter as it goes along, up to the very last delectable sip, so apt a comment on the Bushevik foreign policy it delivers a kick to the American groin.

Definition of theology

Webster defines theology as "the study of God and his relation to the world." Since "God" almost certainly does not exist (and theology so defined has no subject matter), we need a more realistic definition, and I've thought of one:

The invention of loopholes¹ for trying to step around the moral, psychological, scientific, and philosophical problems that arise from the almost certainly false belief that "God" exists.

For example,

Problem to Avoid: Bad guys often make it big while good guys suffer and die young.
Loophole: There will be a day of judgment, after which the bad guys will burn in hell and the good guys will have seventy virgins—or is it raisins?

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1. [7-18-2009] Or, as Christopher Buckley suggests: half-gainers. But he agrees on loophole.

Sunday morning's invisible friend

When we occasionally have eggs for breakfast, it's usually on the weekend, and this Sunday morning was our rare day to have them. I scrambled three eggs, heated three sausage patties in the microwave, and toasted three blueberry waffles. As I served the eggs onto our plates, I was of course thinking that I should be raking some of them into Wally's bowl....Siegfried hasn't begun to eat people food yet, as I suppose he will at some point.
    Wally, though no longer with us in a tangible way, remains our invisible friend. And, this being Sunday, it occurred to me that many people today in America and throughout the world are hastening to church to commune with their own invisible friend, the dog spelled backward whom they fall down and worship, pray to, expect big things of, and know as "God." Though that particular invisible friend never was with anybody in a tangible way, not having existed outside these and earlier people's minds, "he" has, as a fable on the order of a child's secret friend, been in residence for a long time in imaginations. So it is perhaps as natural for them to remember their invisible friend this morning as it was for me to remember Wally.

Photo taken February 17, 2008

Remembering a beloved companion

Have a blessed day

I said on Saturday that while in Atlanta last week I had a couple of times slipped and "created god" by uttering formulas like "Thank god" and "What a godsend." I of course made no believing reference to "god"; the utterances were habitual in the same way a person might automatically say "Fine" in response to a "How are you?" The interesting thing about my slips was that they didn't bother me. That's a good thing. It seems to indicate that I'm becoming at least somewhat desensitized to the possibility that someone might infer I'm a believer, even though it's important to me both that I am not and that the people I care about know it.

But anyway, this morning, as I stepped out of my commute van in Chapel Hill, I intentionally said to my fellow passengers, "Have a blessed day." That blessing (for it's literally a blessing, a good wish for another person) doesn't involve the word "god" but I think it's fair to say that it's more often than not taken as invoking "god's blessing."

I of course didn't mean it that way, given that I believe there is no god to bless anybody. People who depend on god to take care of them are routinely disappointed. When things turn out their way there are always more reliable explanations, if only the laws of chance. I meant something more like, "Be lucky today" or "May good things happen to you today." In that regard, perhaps my favorite saying (blessing) is "Good on you," or even "Good on you to overrunning cup" (a reference to the Twenty-third Psalm¹, for which I don't apologize, nonbeliever or no, the image is so poetically inspired).

In choosing to say "Have a blessed day," I consciously (and deliberately) used a formula that resonates with my audience. If you read me here consistently, you may remember that most of the members of my commute van pool are believers, even regular church-goers.

It strikes me that in using their language, I made a step toward reconciliation. Without compromising my nonbelief, but also without flaunting it.
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1. "my cup runneth over." –Psalm 23:5

Off San Francisco

Don't you wish it were you?

Sweet or not

Sitting in a window seat on my flight to Atlanta Thursday morning for an overnight professional meeting, I was itching so uncomfortably to get back to my blog and say more about Leonard Pitts, Jr.'s statement that "God and religion are not synonymous" that I was pleasantly distracted by a remark from the traveler sitting next to me, a man I judged to be perhaps a couple of years older than my son.

He was a big guy and I had been glad I was already seated when he and another big guy arrived. They were bantering pleasantly about how they'd once had to sit next to some really big people, and they chuckled amiably when I remarked that they were pretty slim guys themselves.

The plane took off and they discovered that they worked in similar industries and proceeded to talk matter of factly about finance and insurance, as though everything in those industries was normal and nothing had changed.

What led up to the middle guy's diverting remark was that the server came along and asked what beverage we wanted. When I ordered coffee (not to mention orange juice and water as well), she said, "Cream or sugar?" and I said black. After she had poured and delivered all our beverages and peanuts and proceeded up the aisle, the middle guy said, "When my dad is asked how he wants his coffee, he usually says, 'I like my coffee the way I like my women, black or white, sweet or not, so long as it's hot.'"

That sort of put things back in perspective for me, although I don't think I could have explained why. It no longer seemed so urgent to elaborate on Pitts's statement, which I initially said I agreed with (because, as I said, god doesn't exist and religion does). It no longer even seemed particularly important to point out that the statement, "God and religion are not synonymous," is a paradox: god and religion are actually precisely synonymous, because god only "exists" because religion created "him" (or "it" or "her") and continues to do so with every act of prayer, worship, oath, etc.

In Atlanta, at least twice in conversation with my colleagues, I had similarly "created god" by uttering formulas like "Thank god!" and "What a godsend!" with only the slightest sense of discomfort at having slipped.

So, it's good to be home with Siegfried and his hot mama this morning.

Remembering Wally

Aside from his human family, no one knew Wally better than the people at the vets. When I picked up his ashes last week, I was also given a card from the staff with these handwritten messages:

Dear Family,
    I was so saddened to hear of your loss. I see so many dogs each day, but Wally was special! He made my day every time he came into the clinic. I will miss seeing him & you also. You gave Wally a great life!
                Take care —
                Alicia

Dear Family,
    I am so sorry for your loss. Wally was such a sweet boy & will be missed by everyone who knew him. He was certainly lucky to be a part of your family for all those years! Please call us if you need anything. Jennifer

Dear Family,
    I am so sorry for your loss. We all loved seeing Wally and spending a little bit of time with him when he was here. He had a great life with you, and I know you will cherish your memories of him.
                ♥
                Kate

The Family,
    Wally was such a lucky boy to have you as his owners. He lived a wonderful life because of the great care you provided for him.
                ♥
                Candie[?]

Dear Family,
    I'm so sorry for your loss. Wally was a wonderful dog and lived a wonderful life because he had you all! Deepest sympathy,
                Elaina

If Wally was lucky and had a good life because of us, we were lucky and had some good life because of him.

At Pawleys Island, South Carolina, June 2005

The growing denomination "None"

Heartening news from Frank Rich's op-ed piece ("The Culture Warriors Get Laid Off") in yesterday's New York Times¹:

The latest American Religious Identification Survey, published last week, found that most faiths have lost ground since 1990 and that the fastest-growing religious choice is “None,” up from 8 percent to 15 percent (which makes it larger than all denominations except Roman Catholics and Baptists). Another highly regarded poll, the General Social Survey, had an even more startling finding in its preliminary 2008 data released this month: Twice as many Americans have a “great deal” of confidence in the scientific community as do in organized religion. How the almighty has fallen: organized religion is in a dead heat with banks and financial institutions on the confidence scale.
    This, too, is a replay of the Great Depression. “One might have expected that in such a crisis great numbers of these people would have turned to the consolations of and inspirations of religion,” wrote Frederick Lewis Allen in “Since Yesterday,” his history of the 1930s published in 1940. But that did not happen: “The long slow retreat of the churches into less and less significance in the life of the country, and even in the lives of the majority of their members, continued almost unabated.”
    The new American faith, Allen wrote, was the “secular religion of social consciousness.” It took the form of campaigns for economic and social justice — as exemplified by the New Deal and those movements that challenged it from both the left and the right. It’s too early in our crisis and too early in the new administration to know whether this decade will so closely replicate the 1930s, but so far Obama has far more moral authority than any religious leader in America with the possible exception of his sometime ally, the Rev. Rick Warren.

I'm of course cavalier in calling the decline in church affiliation "heartening." But my regular readers will know why I say this. For example, just this morning on NPR, I was listening to a commentary about the need for Christians and Muslims to cooperate to further human rights. True enough that cooperation would be nice, but the commentary might more usefully have included some information about how both religions stand in the way of various human rights. Christians in the way of rights for gays, for example. Muslims in the way of rights for women. And on and on.
    As Sam Harris rightly recommended in his 2004 book, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason, progress demands that religion not be given a free pass when it comes to criticism.
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1. It has come to my attention that columnist Leonard Pitts, Jr. has also written about these findings, in his syndicated article, "Wake-Up Call for Organized Religion," in the Miami (FL) Herald, March 14, 2009.
       Pitts allows that "God and religion are not synonymous." I agree; god doesn't exist, religion does.

Siegfried: b. January 24, 2009

The standard poodle pup pictured Friday (and referred to as "Dark Cream Boy") came home with us yesterday.


For a seven-week-old (the next day), he made the 300-mile automobile trip well. After only about eighteen hours in this new place, he seems to be feeling at home. (As are his new mama and papa. It's still new here to us too; the back yard hasn't been fenced yet.)

And here are Siegfried's sire (Gem, who looks very much like Wally, but at seventy pounds is even larger):

...and dam (Blair, about half as heavy as Gem):