Hot, Fast & Loud

How else to describe attending my first NASCAR race?  It was just a Friday night "pup" race on the NASCAR feeder circuit. The big-boy race (or big-girl if you're Danica Patrick - see her bus center left) was later on the weekend. But they still went 130+ mph, so their movement was faster than I had ever seen in person.

We were guests of a company for which my wife's employer (a large contracting firm) does work.  I was the accompanying spouse - a role I am warming up to nicely.  :)  They gave us access to their suite at the track, complete with comprehensive refreshments.

The pre-race warmups were about the only time you could be outside without ear protection, and I didn't really want to be outside at all due to the searing heat. Give me an air conditioned box with a TV monitor, food and drink, and relative quiet anytime. :)

But when you did step outside, it was soooo loud.

And just a tad fast...

Worldviews, Part 7

Jumping off from my prior post, I'll now explore what Judaism & Christianity postulate about God in regards to my presuppositions about what God would be like, from my observations of and intuitive conclusions about nature.  There's no reason at this stage to consider things that are off-topic, not part of my presuppositional list, such as what the religions say about "the problem of evil", or "social justice", or structures of economics or government.  I don't care about those topics until I'm convinced that the religion in question has the nature of God correct.

Since Judaism and Christianity share some common holy writings, and a common theological heritage (up to a point), I'll treat them as combined at first and parse them later on.

In these religions, is God seen as:

• Creator (and thus Universal)?
• Personal (having preferences)?
• Consistent (over time, reliable)?
• Orderly (precise, complex)?
• A Lover of Beauty?
• A Source of Vitality?
• Allowing for Free Will choices?
• Relational in nature?

The answer to all these is a clear and unequivocal yes.  So far, so good, then.  I can establish that my presuppositions are all satisfied by the core Judeo-Christian religious tradition.  So, what else might these religions say regarding some other questions I raised in prior posts, like:  is God approachable by human beings?  is God actively involved with the created order?

The answer to these would also be yes, although here is where the two faiths might differ in the degree.  Judaism tends to see God as less personally approachable than does Christianity.  Accessible, yes, but not quite as easily.  Like Christianity, Judaism encourages kindness to others, holy living, personal prayer to God (as in thanksgiving and petitioning for aid), but there is little discussion in Judaism about the Spirit of God indwelling the participant and enabling these behaviors to happen.  That's a Christian distinctive.

Similarly, we could ask what kind of record of divine-human interactions do these religions claim to have?  Judaism sees God as historically involved with the created order, but more in the sense of intervention at critical points in history, and perhaps in the ongoing sustaining of nature.  Christianity (for the most part) is much more expectant about Divine Intervention (or Providence) happening frequently, even continuously at a personal level, and in some infrequent cases even seeing the intervention take the form of the miraculous (supernatural).

Christianity also emphasizes to a greater degree than Judaism the relational nature of God, particularly God's desire to have relationships with humans, both individually and corporately (in a faith community, be it global or local).  From Christianity, you get the sense that God is active in pursuit of people, doggedly working circumstances around so that people will respond and commit to relationship with God. 

The ultimate example of that pursuit is contained in the record of the life of Jesus Christ seen in Gospels and a few passages elsewhere in the New Testament.  On this point, the two religions diverge sharply.  A question to be asked, then, is: The picture of God painted in the New Testament, of a God who is freely accessible, desirous of intimate personal relations with us, and actively involved with the created order to the point of regular intervention (especially with the regular affairs of humans) - is this both intuitively pleasing and resonable given the evidence?

More on that after this break for some hot summer fun...

Worldviews, Part 6

Now we are at the point in this string of posts where I start evaluating various world religions to see which of them (if any) match my intuitive conception of God, drawn from observations of the natural order of things. Which religions, then, posit a creator Deity (or deities) who is/are:

• Personal (self-aware, choosing, valuing)
• Volitional, Emotional, Rational, Spiritual 
• Relational (and probably benevolent?)
• Orderly, reliable, internally consistent
• Lover of beauty
• Source of vitality

There are a lot of ways to go about this, I suppose.  But I'll take the approach that Matt Willis does on ESPN when he analyzes golf or NASCAR events.  He calls it "The Eliminator", and knocks out one contender after another until he picks a winner.

We've already eliminated Materialism (no God) and its variations, Pantheism (God as impersonal force) and its variations, and we should probably eliminate the traditional Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Babylonian and Norse pantheons as well, since they do not seem to satisfy the criteria of being orderly, reliable and consistent.  Rather, those gods are notoriously warring, petulant, and capricious.  The animistic, aboriginal religions that posit "regional" or "topical" gods, with limited scope of influence, responsibility or expertise, hardly seem to qualify either, since a creator-God is specified. 

So, only those religions that claim to have a God (or Gods) that is (are) personal, universal, and consistent, need be explored.  This leaves us with Monotheistic religions (at least the ones that worship a personal creator-God; some don't), and some Polytheistic ones that focus on a smaller number of harmoniously inter-relating Gods. 

The short list, then, seems to be:

• Hinduism (the various Brahman sects, anyway)
• Judaism (Hasidism, Orthodox, Conservative, Reform)
• Christianity (except sects whose God is impersonal)
• Islam (Shia, Sunni)
• Deism
• Baha'i
• Miscellaneous others with relatively few adherents; it's probably safe for me to assume that if my presuppositions are shared by a lot of others (which may or may not be true!) that many people like me would be drawn to a religion that is consistent with those.  For the time being, then, I'll research the bigger religions and see which can be eliminated.

Some of these have strains (like Shia Islam vs Sunni Islam) that have different views as to whether or not God is approachable, capable of relations with humanity, and some (Deism, Ba'hai) see God as personal but unapproachable (non-relational).  We'll dig into each as we go along.

But, to expedite my drill-down, let's make one additional intuitive leap:  if God IS approachable, as well as relational, then interactions with God(s) and humans would very likely have been noteworthy experiences, so much so that they would have entered humanity's historical record in some way (whether written or oral).  Deism, Baha'i, Sunni Islam, Christian Science and the like, by their very beliefs, exclude that possibility.  I can check them off the list for the time being, and revisit them if none of the remaining religious work out.  And so we reach the taxonomy shown in Part 5. 

Which of the remaining list of religions DO make claims for such interactions between God and humans?  (keeping in mind, of course, that many religions make such claims, but may have already been eliminated by other points on my list of presuppositions).  Judaism and Christianity lay claim to historical interactions between God and human beings, although the frequency and degree of those differ greatly.  Islam does as well, at least in the case of the Prophet Mohammed.  I can't comment on Islam beyond that, and know little or nothing about the Brahman sects of Hinduism.  That will no doubt come with teaching REL 120 later this year.  :)

*****

At this point I will press on with what I know about Judaism and Christianity on this topic.  That's up ahead in Part 7.

Worldviews, Part 5

Continuing with this series on worldview presuppositions and what impact they have on my choices for religious practices, I'm now at the point where some religions can be screened to see what lines up with my presuppositions.  I've established to my own satisfaction that there is more to this world than simply matter & energy, that there is a Supreme Being who exercised preference and creativity in inaugurating and maintaining the world we inhabit and its natural processes.  This Supreme Being is relational, precise yet tolerant of variation, has an affinity for beauty, a penchant for order and complexity, and embues nature with a robust vitality. 

It appears that this Supreme Being is benevolent, although I can't at this stage be totally sure of that.  Potentially, IT (sorry, I don't know about gender at this stage, or if it's even appropriate as a category) could be approachable by humans.  IT also could be actively involved with nature and the created order, but I'm not yet sure at this point in the process.  I'm even assuming by my language that this Supreme Being is singular, working solo, rather than with a team of other Supreme (more or less) Beings.  If there is more than one Supreme Being, though, the consistency I observe in the created order tells me that they are pretty much on the same page with how things are supposed to be.  Still, I need more information to be definitive.

So one of the things I might ask is: do we (humans) have any evidence in our historical record of interactions with a Supreme Being? (let's just use God from here on; less typing.)  What accounts do we have of this?  Do any of the existing religions line up with my presuppositions here, and if so, what record might they have of God interacting with the created order?

Well, I first have to lop off the atheist and materialist and humanist belief worldviews (they wouldn't call themselves religions even if I might).  I also have to abandon the religions that view God as an impersonal force, unapproachable, not possessing what we know as personality or personhood (in the sense of having preferences, making choices and forming relationships).  Naturally, someone else coming with different presuppositions would perhaps be drawn toward those religions, but... my particular set tells me "no - these don't work with how I see the world".

What, then does that leave me to explore?  A taxonomy diagram like this one that I developed last week is sort of helpful in that regard:

(all rights reserved by blog owner, 2012)

Worldviews, Part 4

Now that my intuition (see previous posts on this topic) has established, and evidence has not refuted, my presupposition that there is a creative Being of some sort out there that is vastly greater than me but shares some of my same affinities, I move on in this section to what more can be learned about that Being and how.

*****

As I look around me, I notice a number of things that tell me something about this Being:

•      an affinity for beauty, order, and vitality, since this characterizes the created order (nature)
•      sweating the details.  Things fit precisely, systems are complex, in little things as well as big things; rather like a NASA engineer - nothing is too small to do well.
•      a tolerance (at minimum, if not a preference) for variation. Order does not mean sameness to this Being; variation within a system or a species is normal, expected.
•      creaturely independence seems to be woven into the fabric of the animal kingdom.  Even if their actions are driven by instinct, animals (and even insects) are free to go where they like, eat what they wish, mate with whomever they want, and interact peacefully or violently with other species.  The larger the animal's brain, the more point-by-point decision making they seem to do; but at all levels they do not act uniformly.  This creative Being seems not to want to force anything.
•      there is a reliability (albeit laced with unpredictability) about the cycles woven into nature.  Summers yield to winters and days to nights without exception.. but with variation.  Each day, each season, each year of life, is different from the rest, but they still come 'round with a comforting regularity. 
•      not only is there variety in nature's cycles, but with that a staggering variety of life forms on this planet, many of which seem to have little or no utility (i.e. mosquitos), or are simply good for human amusement (like housecats - see internet videos).  This creative Being apparently is a fan of diversity.
•      social organization is integral to most species, with individual social relations particularly noticable in the higher order mammals.  The more intelligent the species, the greater the degree of complex personal relationships are formed.  You might expect that this creative Being, then, would both expect and value relationships, even ones across species, in these higher-order creatures.  From this you might infer that this Being would be a relational Being, since relationality is built into nature in this way.

So to sum up, it appeared intuitively clear to me that whatever Being was responsible for nature's existence and function is a Being who:

•      could be considered as having preferences - in other words, personality (vs impersonal)

•      is likely a relational Being, and as a result probably approachable

•      shares an affinity with humanity's common preferences for beauty, order and vitality

•      is comfortable with variation, and individual free choice (including the results that flow after)

•      is reliable, dependable and consistent, but not machine-like; likely exercises own free choice as well

•      could be (but not sure yet about this) engaged with nature on an ongoing basis

The implications of these findings will be explored next.

Worldviews, Part 3

Continuing from my prior post on what presuppositions brought me to my chosen religious practices, I had determined intuitively (and further evidence did not disprove my instinct) that something put the world as I knew it into motion and was keeping it functioning.  But what was that something?

*****

As I observed nature, from little on, three things have consistently struck me as characteristic of it: Beauty, Order and Vitality.  Each seemed essential to what I was sensing around me.  There is a stunning and marvelous loveliness to the world: shapes, colors, sounds, patterns, juxtapositions.  Why?  There is also a sequence to things, a cyclicality, an interworking, a system of systems.  Why?  There is a robust liveliness all around us, a fertility, a recuperative ability, a repetitiveness, a replenishing, an exuberance built in to the world.  Why?

Now, you can have each of these things without the others, beauty or order or vitality; you can even have them in pairs.  But the three of them together seemed to me to be the defining characteristics of the world around us.  But why these?  Why not ugliness, disorder and death, for instance?  Maybe the creative something that I intuited was responsible, had something to do with these characteristics.

It occurred to me as well that animals don't pause to contemplate these things.  They react to stimuli like people, have emotions and can learn & make choices, but they don't wonder why.  Humans do.  We can understand order, appreciate beauty, measure vitality.  But... who did those things before humanity was on this planet, before Cro-Magnon Homo Sapiens with a large frontal lobe and contemplative ability displaced the Neanderthals who showed little concern for art?  Who understood order, appreciated beauty, and measured vitality before humans? 

My intuition said - SOMEone had to!  Otherwise things wouldn't be like this, unless someone made it so, someone who actually wanted it this way.  So, POP!, in my intuition the creative and sustaining something had just become someone - a being, not a force.  What's more, this creative and sustaining Being apparently liked the same things I did, and worked them into nature: beauty, order, vitality.  How about that?  Made me wonder if I could learn more about that Being, either from deduction by using my senses and reason, or... by some other means I didn't quite know how to articulate (but, again, sort of knew intuitively might be available to me).  Was that Being approachable somehow?  Surely, that Being with whom I shared some appreciation of the world would be extraordinary in every sense of the word, and... if it were possible... worth knowing (or at least worth knowing more about).  And that's the next step.

*****

More in Part 4

Worldviews, Part 2

In my prior post on this topic, I described how I plan to approach an upcoming World Religions class I'll teach this coming year at a local college.  Part of the approach is to ask students to identify the presuppositions to their existing worldview, and explain how those impact their choices regarding religious practices.  Before I ask them to do that, however, I should attempt it myself.  So here goes.

*****

Every time I've taken the Myers-Briggs Temperament Inventory (MBTI), I have come out as an INTJ, which stands for Introverted iNtuitive Thinking with Judging.   That means I am by nature an intuitive person - I just "know" what is so, and go on to defend it by reasoned, informed judgment.  I don't sift through the data first to figure out what's what.  I look around me, see what's there, make an intuitive leap to a conclusion about it, and then sift through the data, either confirming my instinct or correcting it. 

As a boy, I loved being out in the woods in the Fall, or the fields in the Spring, just poking around by myself, hoping for a cool breeze, looking at things around me and thinking about them.  Lakeviews and mountains had a special appeal, as did the beauty of artwork and music (they still do).  I'm not so much of a hands-on guy as a visual one, although really one who enjoys evaluating with all the senses.  Sensory inputs (sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touches) go straight in to my mind and heart without a lot of processing.  I experience what's around me, take it in, and before you know it, POP! there's an insight, a conclusion (about what I've been immediately experiencing or the larger world around me).  Then I go back over the sensory input with my reason and see if the facts line up with my insight, to see if reason matches that intuitive leap I just made.  I apply this basic process not only to nature, but to people's behavior, to statistics, to philosophy, whatever. It feels hard-wired.

In these early thoughtful forays into nature, it was intuitively obvious to me that nature did not simply appear of its own accord in the form I was perceiving it.  What I was seeing and experiencing had been (and was being) created.  I just knew it to be so.  Yes, there were natural processes operating in and on nature continuously.  But something had started them up, and at the very least gave them enough of a push (and very likely has kept on pushing) to keep them operating just so.  It was as if I had gotten on a bike, pushed hard on the pedals to get up to speed, and now was gently pedaling just enough to keep it steadily moving on a flat road.

Later reading about evolution did not contradict my intuition about a creator.  The natural processes Darwin talked about were put in place (and kept moving) by something.  Nature shifted around (adapted?) as these processes worked.  But it kept going, fairly steadily, like a bike on a flat road, with only the occasional bump, like an ice age or an extinct species.  My intuition told me that the philosophy of materialism was simply the wrong explanation for what I was seeing around me.  There was more to life as I knew it than just matter and energy - there was MORE.  But what was that MORE?

*****

I'll look at that question in part 3.

Worldviews, Part 1

Well, it's a pretty nice deal when you finish grad school (in my case, seminary) and right off the bat get an offer to ply your new trade.  :) Just last week I found out I have a teaching gig in Spring, teaching REL 120 at a local college (as an adjunct instructor, of course; no plans to quit my day job yet). So I've been thinking about how to approach the class (it's a survey of world religions).

My current thought is to begin with presuppositions - what we bring to any study of religion before we even crack a book. There are things we each know (or at least presume) to be true about life, the world, and ourselves, regardless of what religions may say. We come to the table with a set of beliefs, whether we have spent any time thinking about them or not. And whatever lens we're looking through will determine how we view a religion or philosophy. So we really should start there, with the assumptions, spoken or unspoken, that precede and help determine our world view.

Some can be pretty simple and basic, like...

• I think, therefore I am (i.e. I am self-aware, a sentient being) 
• Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so 

or more philosophical and thought out, like...

• What we see is all there is; all is matter & energy 
• What we see is an illusion; reality is in your head
• What we see was made by someone; someone greater than us 

So maybe I'll open the class with a discussion of presuppositions and assign some supplementary reading on worldviews, like "Naming the Elephant" by James Sire, before moving on to a categorization of religions.  Which brings up another matter: how to categorize them? What is the taxonomy to be applied to religions (or worldviews for that matter)?

I can sort of envision a decision tree, made up in part of some presuppositional questions, like:

• Is materiality everything (nothing exists but matter & energy)?
• Is materiality real or illusory (can we trust our perceptions)?
• Should God be understood as a being or a force?
• Is God one, or are there many gods?
• Is(are) the God(s) personal or impersonal?
• Does God interact with the world?  With humanity?

It seems to me that the religions of the world could be grouped according to some scheme like this.  I haven't found one like it yet, but then again... I haven't seen the textbook either.  :)  Maybe it's way ahead of me.

Regardless, I'll keep looking.  No doubt I will require of the students a research paper describing their presuppositions and how they have influenced their "choice" of religious practice.  What's more, I have a feeling that at the end of such a class, I will owe the students a working example... my own.  Part two of this post will deal with that, assuming I can articulate it.  We'll see.

*********updates for taxonomy links*********

http://www.interfaithcalendar.org/Familiesofreligions.htm

http://firstthings.com/blogs/evangel/2010/08/multiple-constituencies-in-the-science-and-religion-debate/

http://www.uta.edu/philosophy/faculty/burgess-jackson/A%20Taxonomy%20of%20Religions.pdf

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/497215/classification-of-religions