Democracy and Religion?

I realized yesterday that we have half a year left to spring now in Sweden. First week of April is a common spring initiation around here. Took a walk today in the early fall with fresh leaves fallen on the ground. The smell of fall was evident in the air. The lawn has slowed down.

Reading a book about Religion in America by a French author, Denis Lacorne from 2011. It is originally written in French in 2007 but contains an afterword that comments on Obama’s “Faith-friendly Secularism”. Lacorne talks about the American civilization and makes some corrections on Tocqueville’s Democracy in America from 1835. He does not think, like Tocqueville, that democracy took off from the Puritans in New England but rather had a secular origin from the Founding Fathers.

Lacorne thinks evangelism was the religious origin of the national walls of America and suspected atheist Jefferson was elected 1800 with the help of evangelical votes that objected to the bullying of the then established churches. The romantic American historian George Bancroft did however also point at the Puritans as a source of democracy and religion in the US like Tocqueville.

What I think is interesting in this context is that Thomas Jefferson, the drafter of the Independence Declaration and the third President of the US, had three favorite historic persons in mind when he acted namely: Francis Bacon, John Locke, and Isaac Newton. Maybe he pictured a future country in the name of science more than he pictured it religious even if he probably was realistic enough to feature a religious context for his country. Jefferson was a lawyer like Bacon.

The question then is if Americans have become, or always been, so different from the Europeans that we can’t keep Atlanticism going? The relative success so far on the Libya mission of NATO will of course help for a while. Economically France and Germany have started a battle against Anglo-America. They, for some reason, don’t think you should make money on money. A Tobin tax is the latest aim in suppressing the City of London.

The US is more religious than Europe currently. It has been possible to assume that this could give the US its higher growth rate, although I have not ever seen that in writing. However, the non-religious China is doing fine on growth even if this growth to a large extent so far is a proof of the success of Western globalism. Some Chinese academics say that the lack of Christianity was what made the West stronger and there are attempts right now to restore Confucianism, a new Confucianism, as a moral precept for the masses. Marx would probably turn in his grave. Marxism is still the official dogma of the Chinese communist party.

Tocqueville thought democracy needed religion to function. Contrary to his contemporary American historians he advocated Catholicism as the optimal form of Christianity. He viewed the multitude of more “enthusiastic” Protestant sects as having a divisive effect on government. In other words he thought of religion as a societal stabilizer just like China is searching for right now. Without democracy, however, religion is a competing organization and with Poland in mind Catholicism probably has a hard time in China. I understand that the Party is appointing bishops.

Today I read about the Swedish Church in Svenska Dagbladet. They have to start getting rid of church buildings for economic reasons. Many are standing empty and demand heating and maintenance. The Christian Democrat party in Sweden is in jeopardy not to make the 4% level needed for entry into Parliament in the next election and their larger brother in Germany is also losing votes. I can’t help asking Tocqueville’s question: is democracy in trouble in Europe? Angela  Merkel is losing power being the most important person to hold the EU together. The obvious follow up question is if it is good for democracy if the Euro and thereby, as Merkel is fond of pointing out, the EU will fall?

Mental Attitude?

I was interested in comparing the pantheistic Shinto to Religious Humanism which is also pantheism but only materialistic. Read The Essence of Shinto from 2006 by Motohisa Yamakage who is the 79th descendent of Shinto Masters in Yamakage Shinto and also a graduate in Economy.


Shintoism is an originally Japanese spiritual movement that blended with Buddhism when it came to Japan around the 6th century from China and therefore also has Confucian and Daoistic elements. It is pantheistic and non-personal in character but spiritual not religious since there is not really any canon or doctrines. There is a head God or Kami that is closely linked with Nature but also other inferior Kamis which to some mean a polytheistic character although the head Kami gives it a pantheistic touch. There is a clear supernatural component and as Descartes said about Christianity you don’t need intelligence or knowledge to practice Shintoism. It is all about mental attitude. Ethics and esthetics are closely intertwined.
Shinto has no founder. The mental attitude—as opposed to the words and sermons—of the priests that are deeply committed to the devout life can move many hearts. Shinto has no idols. Shinto has no organization. They don’t have temples but shrines. Shinto begins and ends with harai. The art of restoring balance. Also central in Shinto is misogi or purification. There are four types of purification, seimei seichoku: clean, bright, right and straight. Bright also means happy whereas straight means honest. Seimei means a clean and happy attitude of inner mind that is achieved by purification. Seichoku means right action or behavior as well as the social aspect of being right, not committing any crime or offense, and behaving with honesty openness and frankness towards others.
There is life after death and the body is in essence just discarded as unclean after death. Burials are too unclean for taking place at shrines. Purifying the mind means purifying our words and thoughts and straightening our way of thinking and way we experience reality. For it is always so easy for human minds to expand lazily and limitlessly and in so doing lose stability.
The priest of Shinto is therefore supposed to radiate a certain charisma which he or she obtains from generating a mental attitude where words and thoughts are purified. It is more important that they radiate this attitude than that they impress people with words. I can’t help thinking about if it is possible to clean one’s thoughts or not. How do we know what to discard in order not to lose creativity? In my mind it would be important to have one’s mind as a laboratory for the preparation of speech and writings so one cleaning procedure is what to retain in the spoken language or writings. It is obviously possible to remove profanities from processing but not from memory so they might still have unknown effects. By keeping one’s mind active on more noble pursuits it would seem one could generate better ideas?
It is not clear from the book whether or not thoughts are supernatural or part of the body. You go to a shrine to have a Kami descend on you after having cleaned yourself but there is talk of a dualism with body and spirits. Thought processes might therefore be spiritual in character. In Religious Humanism, like Spinoza originally suggested, they are part of the body but might not be material in the sense of consisting of atoms but rather being results of atom processes. In Shinto they might think they want to harmonize thoughts with Kami and thus the need for purification. In Religious Humanism this would not be so important.

Lars Vilks shows pornographic film and photos at Uppsala University?

Well, it is of course barbaric to attack somebody that gives a lecture at a University. People that do this are criminals. There is never an excuse for this. A discussion of the topic is always warranted. But on the other hand, I would not myself hold a lecture at a University with pornographic images. It represents bad taste.

Whether or not there is a prophet on display at the same time is not so important. The dog with a prophet head is a better example if you want to discuss the religious problem. I'm one of those that claim that it should be possible to paint such a dog without getting death threats. Again, death threats are illegal. However, at the same time I don't think blasphemy, in general, is a good idea and something one should refrain from in respect for religious people.

I don't think there should be a law against blasphemy, though. As a religious humanist, ie, a pantheist that think God is Nature and science the means of searching for God, I don't think there should be a law against creationism or atheism. Because some people happen to believe in this fasion from their nature. In other words, bad taste cannot be made illegal.

It could of course be discussed whether the pornography was art. Someone said, how do you define pornography--I know it when I see it. So, if there are people in the audience that think it is pornography, it probably is.

Are you Spiritual or are you Religious?

Survey: 72% of Millennials 'more spiritual than religious' - USATODAY.com: "If the trends continue, 'the Millennial generation will see churches closing as quickly as GM dealerships,' says Thom Rainer, president of LifeWay Christian Resources. In the group's survey of 1,200 18- to 29-year-olds, 72% say they're 'really more spiritual than religious.'"

Americans do not seem to become more secular. Rather they distance themselves from the Church into something spiritual if the above poll is correct. I wonder if it is the traditional Congregation, 50% of Americans are known to go to Church every week, that is losing the grip on the young? This could mean that the family unit is breaking up and that individuals are becoming part of other groups?

Henri Bergson (1859-1941) talked about a direction in life. Striving to higher forms. Striving to consciousness. Indeed, life represents an increase in order against the thermodynamic law that states that everything is striving to less order.

Spirituality, can be interpreted as what Nature is. We are not talking about ideas as such but about the phenomena that constitutes Nature, which are not only a substance. The God of Bergson is creativity. It is interesting because business today, more than before, strives after "innovation". Maybe the youth of today are trying to catch this high-speed train which mean they have to shake the Church and its dogmatic character?

People have opinions on the interpretation of the second law of thermodynamics.

Politics and Religion

Defectors Say Church of Scientology Hides Abuse - NYTimes.com: "Mr. Davis, the church’s current spokesman, said Scientologists are no different from Mormons, Catholics, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Amish who practice shunning or excommunication.
“These are common religious tenets,” he said. “The very survival of a religion is contingent on its protecting itself.”"

Found this comment on the practices of the Church of Scientology. I must say that mixing power and religion leads to this kind of political religion and it is therefore I firmly believe in having a private faith and then participate in whatever political circumstance that one might belong to. I hope faith is becoming something personal rather than something that other people shove down your throat. Being part of a politically oriented Church must be very difficult. Many conflicts with society. If this becomes prevalent, it might mean that society will fragment totally. Small popedoms all over the place.

When it comes to the meaning of life, it would be interesting to know if mankind could agree upon such an issue. Probably different people have different meanings that makes them tick. It is therefore ecumenics is a questionable goal. Some people might believe that enlightenment comes from advances in science whereas others might believe having a good time is more appropriate. You can make a pile of money and then help fund science or you can participate yourself in the actual pursuit. A Religious Humanist can also participate giving moral support and pay their taxes.

Spirituality or Religious Humanism

Bosse är troende fast utan Gud Existentiellt SvD: "Enligt Antoon Geels handlar spiritualitet om en förändring i kulturen, en rörelse i tiden. Begreppet har förstås sitt ­ursprung i engelskspråkiga länder. Där säger många: ”I am spiritual, not religious.” De tror på något ”högre”, ”en kraft”, ”kärleken” – exakt vad är inte fastslaget, fast vad det än är finns det nära, närmare än den egna halspuls­ådern, och det är inneboende i naturen."

Is this a development of religion, of Judeo-Christianism, or is it something distinct? Considering the psychology of religion God is created in our minds and therefore exists as part of Nature. "God is love" says the Pope, actually, so this is nothing new. For me it is very straight forward to imagine love as a force of Nature. However, I have preferred to consider only that which is yet unknown as a replacement of supernatural forces. I call it scientific discipline. It fuses science and religion.

Bo Ahrenfelt is a little fuzzier than myself on the third existence, what Ahrenfelt call "medvetandet". What he discusses can easily be called divine inspiration. After some study of the Philosophy of Mind it became clear to me that people seem to think that thoughts cannot be reduced fully onto physiology. Philosophy thus leaves a supernatural touch to consciousness. I have called it the third existence in my blog as a hypothesis where the first existence in materia and the second existence is life as biological tissues. The third existence is consciousness or human life. I have speculated that further human development will occur from the third existence into a fourth existence.

In summary, if you prefer to talk about something "higher", "a force", or "love" which is inherent in Nature without calling it God is a matter of preference. However, I see my non-personal, materialistic pantheism as a development of the Judeo-Christian God concept. I am fully aware that this might get me killed in Mecca and that it might irritate people of the Book in general. It follows from the biology of religion though.

Eurabia?

Blond bombshell Geert Wilders returns to Britain, looking for a fight - Times Online: "On February 20 the Dutch centrist coalition Government collapsed, deeply divided over keeping troops in Afghanistan, paving the way for a general election in June in which the Freedom Party is expected to do extremely well. Polls suggest that the party will triple its tally of seats, becoming at least the second-biggest parliamentary party and quite possibly the overall winner. Mr Wilders is likely to be a key player in any coalition, with a profound impact on the political agenda."

Last time Wilders was not allowed to enter the UK. This time he is back and more popular at home. I must say I have problems with a person that wants to ban the holy book, the Quran, of a world religion. This is not serious. Furthermore he wants to slam head-scarf wearing Muslim women with a €1,000/year tax. "A head-rag tax". Not very serious either.

He is a person that equals Islamofascism with Nazism. That is not so far out, since the Israel prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu compares Ahmadinejad's Iran with the Nazi Germany of the area. Wilders is getting good press in The Jerusalem Post. However, what is such a person capable of executing and with what public support once he would be elected? There is definitely a whiff of future racist persecution over what I just wrote. On top of this we are one minaret ban vote in Switzerland and a call against Switzerland for Jihad from Muammar Gadhafi later at this point.

In other words this looks like a problem that is not going away by itself. What can be done about it? Personally I don't feel threatened by Islam and I am for freedom of religion but I intensely dislike the habit some of Islam's practitioners have to field these death threats. This is fascist methods. And it apparently works on people. There was a recent apology by the journal Politiken in Denmark for the Muhammad cartoons. Many disliked the apology though. I would not have apologized. Freedom of the press is one of the corner stones of our civilization.

How large a proportion of mankind believe in God?

Myt att kristendomen byggt Sverige Brännpunkt SvD: "Många tror att en majoritet av svenska folket är kristna. Det stämmer inte. Samtliga undersökningar visar att så inte är fallet. Sverige är ett av världens mest sekulära länder där mindre än 20 procent tror på någon eller några gudar. En överväldigande majoritet av de svenska med- borgarna är således ickereligiösa."

I want to investigate this further but from a preliminary survey it does seem to be a false statement to say that all investigations demonstrate that a majority of Swedes aren't Christian. It is important for Christer Stumark and the Humanists to claim that is possible to eradicate religion which I firmly believe is not possible due to the natural interest of the Divine among the majority of people.

First of all, Dagen published a Gallup study where it was asked if religion is important in your life and only around 20% claimed this in Scandinavia. However, this question is not the same as if one ask if people believe in God. In a genetically fairly similar country like the United States almost 50% go to Church once a week, the Pew Forum lists answers on the question if religion is important in your life and the national average is 56%.

Wikipedia gives information that 46%-85% of the Swedish population does not believe in God. Difficult to get a firm answer on this question in other words. However, as many as 65% baptise their child in Sweden and it is very difficult to believe that they would do this and not believe in God. Furthermore, as many as 84% bury their dead via the Church, also indicating that people become a little more religious at older age, or admit it more willingly, and that quite a few in actuality have a belief in God.

It is also interesting to speculate in the possibility that spirituality is a genetic trait and that the predilection for religiosity might vary on Earth. The Chinese, for example, managed to eradicate religion totally during their Maoistic era but it is coming back currently. The question is to what degree?

The James Watson debacle

"There is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so."
Says James Watson, the co-discoverer of the DNA double helix and the 50 year chief of the prestigeous Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a job he left after the debacle. It so happened, I said something similar earlier today, because most people with my background probably would.

Watson defends himself in an article two days later October 19, 2oo7: To question genetic intelligence is not racism.

Because what Watson also said was that Africans were not as intelligent as Westerners. This is of course politically very difficult to say. He also said that there had been tests that confirmed this. It does not say what tests this was but one might guess that it should be possible to formally test this with regular intelligence tests. Personally, I have no information as to the accurracy of this claim but people are not contradicting Watson with facts but rather with harsh words. However, Watson said that he did not claim that Africa as a continent was genetically inferior.

"Science is no stranger to controversy. The pursuit of discovery, of knowledge, is often uncomfortable and disconcerting." These words of James Watson are interesting from the point of view of Religious Humanism that claims that scientific pursuit is equivalent with the search for God.

Another hot question that especially religious people seemingly hate to discuss is that of the possibility that not only intelligence but also spirituality is genetically determined and normally distributed. Religious people seem to prefer a nonbiological approach to spirituality. A supernatural approach.

Watson argues that before long the nature versus nurture debate will be settled more firmly. It is possible that this debate is so sensitive that its pursuit will be blocked.

SvD.se wrote this on October 18, 2007
USAbloggen wrote this on October 25, 2007
I don't find anything in Dagens Nyheter which surprises me.

What is good for Religious Humanism?

Kristendomens ställning i skolan - P1-morgon - sr.se: "Det nya förslaget till kursplan i religionskunskap har väckt starka protester- eftersom texter om kristendomens betydelse tagits bort. Debatt mellan Jan Björklund, utbildningsminister (FP) och Lars Ohly (V) om kristendomen i skolan."

Jan Björklund has the feeling that there should be more stress on Christianity than on other religions because in our part of the world is immersed by Christianity and has been for a thousand years. Lars Ohly argues that we are entering a secular era and that our schools should be a protected area for children where they are equally inspired by all religions and also other life philosophies.

Religious Humanism is thought of as a relatively tradition-free religion based on science and humanism. As such, during the next 100 or 200 years, many will gradually reorient themselves to a materialistic God concept that is fully compatible with science as the importance of scientific results become more and more valued. God is Nature. The supernatural is replaced by yet unknown discoveries by science. It is important to realize that most people want to believe and that secularity might not be the answer for more than some 25% of the population. In this sense we are not globally entering a secular era. However, the state and the churches must be separated. In a multicultural environment religion is more private.

Teaching all religions equally must then be considered the best way. Because it will lead to an understanding of religion in terms of human psychology. Common denominators become evident and the subject Psychology of Religion is the forerunner to Religious Humanism. The Christian heritage is also learned from studies of literature and movie art and is reaching the students in other ways.

The take of Religious Humanism is to some extent dependent on if science will continue to be a guiding light, a beacon for society. Health care and social institutions have replaced Christianity to a large extent, at least in Sweden, and psychology is a popular subject even among priests these days.

One important subject in this respect is a product of science, namely, nuclear weapons. On the one hand we have entered a relatively more peaceful era with these weapons. On the other hand they have become a risk in terms of nuclear proliferation into unwanted hands. There are also other developments that can lead to negative feelings of science development.

On the positive side is continuous development of scientific results that hopefully will yield solutions to climate change, yield larger crops, improve health care, and solutions to other problems we face. It is therefore my hope that people more and more will regard Nature as our God, environmentalism might aid in this development, and that science will be the ritual by which we become closer to God.

What is a multicultural society?

Lena Andersson writes today in DN about the man who didn't want to take the hand of a woman prospective boss. He did not "ta seden dit man kommer" in other words he did not put important regional customs before his own rather extreme religious rules.

I have heard different versions about what actually happened and it apparently was one of these word against word affairs. Because it would of course be different if the man actually in some polite way greeted his prospective boss other than shaking his hand an looking her in her eyes.

A multicultural society can of course not be equivalent with people coming to a region and expecting to be able to live exactly like they did where they came from. That would be equivalent to an invasion. Some adaptation is of course necessary.

Religious Humanism, a religion that I am trying to develop, has the advantage of having removed itself of all these traditions that often is what cause problems with other religions. It is of course highly crippling in the Western society to not be able to shake the hand of a fellow human being and not being able to look them straight in the eyes. Belief in God and an ethical living should be possible without such anti-liberal manners as hiding in a burka.

Torture?

Pew Forum: The Torture Debate: A Closer Look: "It shows that currently, more than six-in-ten white evangelical Protestants (62%) say that the use of torture against suspected terrorists in order to gain important information can be often or sometimes justified. This is significantly higher than the number of white mainline Protestants (46%) and religiously unaffiliated (40%) who say torture can be often or sometimes justified. Additionally, those who attend religious services at least once a week are much more likely than those who seldom or never attend religious services to take this view (54% vs. 42%)."

These counter-intuitive data are interesting. Briefly, religious and weekly church going individuals are more prone to agree that torture could be used than religiously unaffiliated people. About 25% agrees that torture can rarely be used and about 25% claims that it should never be used. The data are from April-May 2009. Personally I am religious but on the rarely or never side.

In USA Today one reads that a Rasmussen poll last week claimed that 70% of respondents either says that waterboarding of the underwear bomber is OK or are unsure of which and this is after an unsuccessful attempt. 30% are for Obama's standpoint. This tend to verify David Brook's assumption that the situation in the USA is currently a little sensitive.

The New York Times, called Yes, it was torture, and illegal, ran yesterday an editorial that discussed if it was not time to remove the right to torture individuals from the executive branch and make it constitutionally impossible via the supreme court. It should be of some interest for Swedes, since we do have troops in Afghanistan presently. In any case, it does not take much for the mood to swing in this issue. Perhaps, the more important that it is clarified as illegal?

Pantheism?

Pantheism controversy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "Jacobi claimed that Spinoza's doctrine was pure materialism, because all Nature and God are said to be nothing but extended substance. This, for Jacobi, was the result of Enlightenment rationalism and it would finally end in absolute atheism. Moses Mendelssohn disagreed with Jacobi, saying that there is no actual difference between theism and pantheism."

People have argued about what Baruch Spinoza meant with his pantheist philosophy before, namely at the end of the 18th century. The pantheist God concept in Religious Humanism anticipates an intermediate existence to a pure materialistic state and a personal being. There is no old man with a white beard but rather a force of some kind. There is hope that we, as we move along with science, will find out more about this existence. A pure materialistic concept is quite barren. It does not inspire creativity. There is no frontier for discovery. It does not deal with the unknown as it can be scientifically anticipated today based on our progress in science so far.

Furthermore, Religious Humanism sees Grace, Resurrection of Christ, Annunciation of Virgin Mary etc. as irrelevant symbols, as are Angels. Also there is no heaven or hell. There is, however, a sense that it would be nice to think that our life has a meaning of sorts, apart from being just another brick in evolution, that there is some sort of life after death, that our experience is being taken into consideration. The explanation for such a scheme remains of course unknown at present.

Religious Humanism and Evil

Some people think that evil is conquering the world. I don't think it is beneficial for people to think in that way. Prior to World War II there was a type of person that thought the nazis were invincible. They exist today as well. They think fascism is the way to go. They think you can beat people into obedience. They don't have any good arguments. They just use force.

Religious Humanism does not view evil as a separate force but rather according to standard scientific thinking as a type of behavior. People act in an evil manner. There is no devil.

Nature as seen by Darwin where the fittest survives has seen humans evolve. Therefore there is hope because humans can see that evil behavior is less favorable than good behavior.

Evolutionary speaking the teodicé problem might go out of fashion, eventually. Scientifically speaking we are at least able to stop the everyone-eats-everyone-else problem for ourselves which is part of the problem.

SR P1 today feature the program 'Teologiska Rummet' where they discussed the influence of the religious language, especially Biblical, on people of today. It has diminished and is being phased out from literature. It was much more prevalent in the 19th century literature. The classical myth is also gone as a strong influence in literature.

Today people are rather reassured by the detective series and novels where the good side win most of the time. There is very little Biblical influence in detective novels. There is also very little Biblical influence via the Church. As we develop in the future, I am convinced that a new 'scripture' eventually will develop. A new canon that gives people hope.

Ola Sigurdson, who appeared in the program, does not think it is good that religion is private. I'm not sure I agree. For the appearing multicultural societies it is necessary for religion to become privatized and for the church to be separate from the state. This does not mean that religion is marginalized, as Sigurdson argues, but rather that is depoliticized. Power and spirituality are to different matters, neurophysiologically speaking. Primates do power and they are not spiritual.

Personally I think it important with spiritual political leaders and non-power oriented priests.

Buccinator novi temporis

Francis Bacon (1561-1626) called himself a "trumpeter for a new time". What is interesting in Bacon's argumentation, where he investigates the phenomena that has kept science back since the time of the Greeks, is that he does not complain on the dogmatic Church. On the contrary he talks about a renewal of Man's conquering of Nature. He even cites the Bible in Genesis 1:28 "God blessed them (Adam and Eve) and said to them; be fruitful and increase in number, fill the Earth and subdue it".

Is this what made Europe special in the history of the world? We, as Christians, decided to subdue Earth. In Religious Humanism subduing Earth does not sound optimal. Living in harmony with Earth is probably better since conquering Nature, or God, cannot be a long term goal.

Bacon, a man of the establishment at the time, also said that "knowledge is power". It is probably wiser, and more correct, to state that "information is power" and leave knowledge as a term for bringing to light new knowledge of Nature.

The reason for why I want to point this out is that it is important to understand why new knowledge arrives. In the yearly program 'geniuses speculates' on SVT following the Nobel festivities some of the participants always makes the remark that curiosity into the unknown, not guided by earthly wishes, is what counts. At the same time it is important to popularize science with its profane fruits of technology.

It is not enough anymore to simply study Nature as it is untouched. The obvious example is Oerstedt's discovery of the new natural force electromagnetism by the use of Volta's battery. We need to create new objects that reveal new truths of Nature before us.

The other tenet of the Bible is also wrong, ie, "increase in number". There is definitely a limit to the number of humans that comfortably can inhabit Earth. I wish the Pope would grasp this simple truth and stop preventing the use of contraceptives. What one billion Catholics are supposed to do counts. He is not saving unborn human lives by jeopardizing life on Earth.

Religious Humanism

Op-Ed Columnist - Heaven and Nature - NYTimes.com: "Pantheism offers a different sort of solution: a downward exit, an abandonment of our tragic self-consciousness, a re-merger with the natural world our ancestors half-escaped millennia ago.
But except as dust and ashes, Nature cannot take us back."

It seems like Douthat thinks we are not part of Nature any longer? I guess this article is a skilled attempt by organized religion to bring down these pantheists as people of a lesser class. People that go to the movies instead of to the church. However, if certain charming tales in the Bible once stimulated the minds of youngsters, it is now correct that they have gotten competition in the form of movie art. I believe this competition is serious and healthy.

I myself am a pantheist but a pantheist that believes in a materialistic God concept of Nature. I'm aware that Richard Dawkins think I am an atheist. Christer Sturmark, the head of the Humanists in Sweden, seems to think I'm an agnostic. But they are both wrong, since I'm deeply religious and believe in a God that I do not need proof of its existence for.

As it turns out this belief has given me peace of mind, because I no longer have a problem of reconciling religion and science. On the contrary science is the study of Nature, ie., of God. Mankind's journey of scientific pursuit has transformed the world the last 450 years. It has influenced philosophy and almost made philosophy a subject of its scope. The true progress of science, something religion have lacked, has seduced people into considering that true knowledge rest in Nature. This translates into religion and belief in Nature, as Douthat points out.

For those of you that want to review our scientific progress you might find is useful to read short posts in my blog 'etiketted' as "scriptures". There are some thirty of them now that highlights the main discoveries since Copernicus in 1543 laid down the Heliocentric Theory.

Light--an explanation

James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879), a Scottish physicist, achieved the "second great unification in physics". He synthesized all previous unrelated observations, experiments and equations of electricity, magnetism and even optics into a consistent electromagnetic theory.

Maxwell demonstrated that electric and magnetic fields travel through space in the form of waves and at a constant speed of light. He thought this might not be a coincidence and in 1864 he wrote A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field where he first proposed that light was in fact undulations in the same medium that is the cause of magnetic and electric phenomena.

Maxwell is considered the 19th century physicist with the greatest influence on 20th century science. Both particle and wave theories about light had been proposed earlier. Maxwell was inspired by the work of Michael Faraday (1791-1867) who had shown that a magnetic field rotates the plane of polarized light.

Soon after Maxwells publication of 1864, Heinrich Hertz (1857-1894) confirmed the theory experimentally and showed that electromagnetic radio waves behaved like light. This opened the field for today's communication revolution.

In 1853 Maxwell undertook an evangelical conversion having attended Presbyterian and Episcopal services as a youngster. Evangelicals emphasize being born again, have a high regard for Biblical authority and put an emphasis on the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. As an evangelical he held an anti-positivist position.

Maxwell started out at the University of Edinburgh between 1847-50. He then studied at Cambridge University between 1850-56 after which he got a position at Aberdeen University. The most productive years of his life, after barely having survived a bout of smallpox in 1860, he spent at Kings College, London between 1860-65. He unfortunately died young at 48 in abdominal cancer. He was survived by his wife Katherine whom he married in 1859.

Data from Wikipedia

Spiritual Energy and Astrology?

For those of you that thought Astrology had disappeared since Johannes Kepler there is new information from the Pew Forum of an increase in people that believe in a spiritual energy in physical things like mountains, trees and crystals and in astrology (the position of stars and planets can affect a person's life) in the US. As much as 25% of people that have a conventional religion believe in such a fashion. Such pheomena need not be supernatural.

I find this very interesting because of my own religion Religious Humanism which is a kind of pantheism. The poll claims that more and more younger persons believe in this fashion so it is a trend that is coming in in this way. If the whole Universe is God, it might indeed have an affect on you that is unknown today.

Perhaps it is a sign of people respecting the unknown more than earlier. Respect for the power of science as a means of finding out more. That there is indeed more to find out.

It is otherwise conceivable that people might start to think that we will reach a new plateau of learning and like the Greeks be followed by a stage in history where not much new findings became known. I have heard from distinguished scientists that we just have this or that left to explain and I find this very odd.

The poll also describes that more and more people attend services of other denominations and even other faiths. This might mean that faith is becoming more of a private issue for the individual and that the congregation is losing influence or is substituted with other organizational forms.

If the development is the same in Europe, this would mean that we would get less and less problems from the religious differences of people.

Thanks to Charles M. Blow at the New York Times for the reference to the poll.

Tolerance??

Spinoza was born 1632 in Amsterdam by Jewish parents that had fled from the Iberian penisula being so called marranos, ie, Jews that publicly were Christian but in the dark retained their Jewish faith. However, due to Spinoza's free thinking he was demoted from his Jewish congregation 1656 with the words: "He'd be damned during the day, and during the night. Damned when he is asleep, damned when awake. Damned would his entry be and his exit. May the Lord never forgive him".

It still matters where you live on Earth but things have improved. I respect people of faith, but, like the Humanists, I have little understanding for the cumbersome dogmatics that one encounters in the standard Abrahamitic religions. It is a wonderful literary heritage but my adoration stops there. As the first posts in my blog "etiketted" "scriptures" clearly show, religion have been countering the development of science and prosperity by reason over the 350 years from Spinoza's departure from the established religion of the day. My faith of today is similar to that of Spinoza. It is a faith free of interference to scientific and philosophical thinking. Perhaps it will be possible for me to write about my faith today. It wasn't for Spinoza.

In the program 'Konflikt' on the radio P1 yesterday the prospective joining of Turkey with the EU was discussed. It seemed that a person speaking for Turkey's entry used arguments of islamophobia rather than recognizing distinctive differences in the freedom of the press and the democratic set-up as the reason for the unlikely entry of Turkey any time soon. I don't think the religion Islam is a problem in Europe as long as it is not political Islam. Faith should be private. It should not be a state matter. It is the responsibility of the Muslims to keep it private.

The decision of Switzerland to ban the minaretes is similar to the de-veiling of Muslim women. There are situations where a veil is not recommended, like in the upbringing of other people's children, but other than that the liberal stance of allowing for Islam and its attributes should encouraged. The sounding of church bells could be as annoying as the howling of a muezzin.

Carl Bildt was interviewed in the radio program. Being a strong proponent for early entry of Turkey into the EU, he argued for the increased safety for Europe in having open doors for Turkey in this direction rather than Turkey opening doors in the other direction. However, it seems to me that Turkey might be able to improve Iran by example, a feat that the West is completely unable to do. There are signals in the literature lately that Turkey already in principle have given up membership in the EU and instead is directing its attention elsewhere. If they really believe in democracy they can influence others, otherwise they will fail. It is a good test. A failed democratic state the size of Turkey in the EU would be a disaster.

East Jerusalem?

Ulf Bjereld: "Dokumentet antyder också att EU skulle kunna erkänna en palestinsk stat, om palestinierna bestämmer sig för att utropa en sådan, även utan att en israelisk-palestinsk freduppgörelse har uppnåtts."

EU is apparently about to take a stand in the question about the fate of East Jerusalem. According to the Israelis it belongs to Israel since the six day war 1967. After all Israel was attacked and the attacker lost the fight as well as some territory which in essence then must be regarded as fair. Tzipi Livni, the opposition leader in Israel has discussed the issue with Nicholas Sarkozy and said that she thinks it would be unfortunate if the EU made up its mind in advance in such a way.

I have a feeling that should the EU support a Palestinian state even without a peace agreement between Israel and Palestine they would become in principle at war with Israel and this must be very unfortunate.

Carl Bildt writes on his blog today that he thinks such a move will enhance the possibility of restarting peace negotiations. The position of the US was according to a Canadian journal that the status of East Jerusalem is a topic for discussions. A person like Caroline Glick at the Jerusalem Post thinks that Jersalem belongs to Israel and that a state usually does not give up its capital city. At least not and surviving.

The existence of Muslim buildings on the temple mount is a proof that conquerors tend to take charge of a conquered land. Therefore Israel is now in charge of East Jerusalem. Otherwise there would not be any Muslim buildings on the site. The difference is that Israel defended itself.