Veritas in Latin translates as "truth". Sabar has written a detailed and fascinating book about how that was achieved in the case of a papyrus fragmenVeritas in Latin translates as "truth". Sabar has written a detailed and fascinating book about how that was achieved in the case of a papyrus fragment that had a series of words that could be interpreted to suggest that Jesus was married (ala DaVinci Code -- a fun book, btw.). Sabar's story contains confirmation bias, hubris, amateur scholars v. professional scholars, and academic jealousies. Truths might take a while to get into the Ivory Tower but they do make it eventually.
The temptation to read a concept into something because it matches an agenda we already subscribe to is an overwhelming temptation. Karen King, esteemed professor in the Divinity School at Harvard, fell victim to a forged papyrus that could (! not necessarily) have suggested Jesus had a wife. (That it's much more likely he was gay, given his predilection for hanging out with guys, has been suspected in other quarters.) Nevertheless, this scrap of papyrus was a dream come true for King who had argued the Church's position on women was all wrong.
The story is fascinating. Two amateur Coptic scholars, one an atheist, when they had a chance to look at the fragment, realized the translation and wording was lifted verbatim from the Gospel of Thomas and the translation of the word for "my" most likely had a different meaning anyway. Other professional scholars also revealed doubts although their argument that the grammar was inappropriate for the time period didn't convince me. All you have to do is watch television or listen to conversations on the street and you will quickly realize how perverted colloquial grammar can become. Words like notorious, infamous, and famous have all become synonymous, ruining any former subtleties, not to mention confusion of ran and run, nor the infamous "he gave it to you and I" which sends shivers down my Strunk and White. (If you don't know what Strunk and White is, then you're part of the problem.) Not to mention the total destruction of the past tense by the historical present. End of rant.
Sabar had followed the story from the beginning and it was his article in the Atlantic that reopened the furor. He had taken the time to track down the origin of the fragment and doggedly sleuthed out the seller of the fragment, something King most assuredly should have done.
Along the way, Sabar discusses the history of our attitudes toward marriage and Augustine's obsession with sex as well as the non-canonical Gospels. It all provides very appropriate context. In the end I don't damn King as much as others have in the media. We ALL suffer from confirmation bias and her case is simply confirmation of how powerful it can be. (Puns intended.) ...more
A very interesting, if uneven, look at the internal workings of the Vatican and its relationship to the Vatican press corps. I say uneven because the A very interesting, if uneven, look at the internal workings of the Vatican and its relationship to the Vatican press corps. I say uneven because the segments on the press corps are light, almost comical in several instances, and then he switches to much more serious topics as the way the Vatican mishandled the sexual abuse scandals and John Paul II's close relationship with Cardinal Marciel and the Legion, not to mention the personality of Pope Benedict.
The book begins with some amusing stories from the enclave where they elected Cardinal Ratzinger as the Pope, following the death of John Paul II. Apparently there are numerous traditions that must be closely followed, but some of the modern trappings are just confused things. The bell-ringer who was supposed to ring the bell at the sight of the white smoke couldn't receive the news via radio because of the jamming devices installed by the Vatican to prevent Cardinals and others from using cell phones during the enclave. Moreover, the special stove they had installed in the Chapel with a special chemical to turn the smoke white couldn't be lit so you had a group of cardinals surrounding the stove trying to get it to light that resembled old men at a barbecue, as the Sistine Chapel filled with smoke -- don't tell the museum's curators of Michelangelo's painting.
Secrecy at the Vatican rises to the level of fetish. Everything is hidden and probably the most important tenet is that no one must say anything negative about his (never a her) superior or say anything that might bring the church into disrepute. John Paul II had child-like naive love for anything that smacked of evangelical revivalism for the Catholic Church, which made him susceptible to the machinations of Cardinal Marcial, founder of the Legions of Christ and serial pedophile. Marcial and the Legionnaires would shower Rome's cardinals with expensive gifts worth up to $1000 not to mention millions in support of the Pope's travels. He was brought down, if you could say that, only following numerous charges from Legionnaires who described how if they felt guilty from Marcial's inflicted masturbatory sessions, he would absolve them on the spot and often claimed he had a special dispensation from Rome for his sexual proclivities. That became too much for Rome, not the sexual misconduct, the misuse of dispensations. In any case, he was never punished, only put out to pasture. (They admitted to his fathering several children and heterosexual affairs - after-all he was human- but they never admitted to the homosexual activities.) Marcial and the Legion never apologized, claiming only that Marcial would be Christ-like in his surrendering to the higher authority of the Pope. It's enough to make you puke.
Thavis devotes a chapter to the campaign by some of the church's reactionaries to have Pius XII (considered by some to be "Hitler's Pope") declared a saint. You might as well declare a Hershey Bar (seems like Catholics will pray to anything) a saint, setting the bar so low. I mean really; Aquinas, maybe, but Pius XII or John Paul II (considered by some to be Marcial's enabler)? Give me a fucking break.
Here's what Thavis has to say about it: One of the traditional signs of sainthood, still very much taken into account by Vatican experts, is the existence of a “popular cult” –evidence that people pray to the person in the years following his or her death. The six-year-old Nennolina, for example, who was soon to be beatified [by Pope Benedict XVI] was this kind of grassroots saint. Her friends, neighbors and relatives kept the fame of her sanctity alive by publishing her letters, reporting her holiness widely and praying to the little Roman girl.
If the fact that Pius XII was a pope gave his sainthood cause some inherent advantages, in other ways it made perceptions of his holiness less immediate and less personal. He was for most Catholics a remote figure at the far end of the hierarchy. History would ultimately be his judge, and it always struck me that whatever “popular cult” he did have seemed to be centered in and around the Vatican. (p. 229-231)
As with any large organization, politics, secrecy and money reign supreme. Sometimes they also appear quite short-sighted. Desperate for a new parking lot inside the Vatican, the engineers maneuvered the Cardinals to authorize them to begin digging without allowing any archaeologists to check the site first for possible artifacts and things of historical interest. They claimed to have done some test bores, but were horrified when the bulldozers tore open a huge burial site with many hundreds of Roman tombs and full of mosaics and museum quality pieces. Had they had any sense, it seems to me, not to mention foresight, they never would have let the archaeologists in first (full disclaimer, I studied a bit of archaeology in college) and when the tombs had been found, turned it into a major tourist attraction, charging money to watch and then visit. They could have built the parking lot elsewhere and had buses (for a fee, of course) carrying people back and forth. They would have made much more money and kept everyone (except perhaps the asphalt engineers) very happy. Instead, despite their attempt at secrecy, the result was a huge scandal.
One of the most interesting sections described the attempt by the SSPX under the leadership of Marcel Lefebvre to influence Cardinal Ratzinger and the newly elected Pope. They were upset with the changes enacted by Pope John XXIII and wanted a return to the Latin mass and the more traditional (and medieval) form of worship. He belonged to identifiable strand of right-wing political and religious opinion in French society that originated among the defeated royalists after the 1789 French Revolution. He defied Pope John Paul II and consecrated four bishops, an action for which he (and they) were excommunicated. He was particularly incensed by the Vatican's reaching out to other religious denominations, not believing in rapprochement. Apparently he and his followers didn't buy all that nonsense about the Pope being God's representative, Clearly, Lefebvre believed he had better communication with God than the Pope. The whole thing smacked of Luther's rebellion against the established order in 1521, his excommunication, and we all know where that led. Seems to me that Lefebvre met most of the conditions of heresy.
Thavis, a Vatican correspondent, and chief of the Rome Bureau for the Catholic News Service, for more than thirty years, says he wrote the book to reveal the inner workings of the Vatican, a place rife with political in-fighting and scandal, hardly the locus of a church with a unified and universal mission. Whether the institution will ever become governable in the modern world remains to be seen. Ratzinger (Benedict) gave up but it should not have come as a surprise. The man had spent his entire life seeking refuge from controversy and the world in general. He had decided at a very young age he wanted to be a cardinal, and enrolled in seminary at age 12, with but a brief stint in the German Army, his life was one of books (sounds delightful) and as an academic -- he never had a job as a pastor dealing with the day to day quotidian lives of parishioners -- fled conflict. I suspect the pressures of being Pope were just too much, so off to the monastery.
Tom Kizzia ran across the Pilgrim family when he and his wife (who was to die quite early, unfortunately) in McCarthy, Alaska, a town that time and thTom Kizzia ran across the Pilgrim family when he and his wife (who was to die quite early, unfortunately) in McCarthy, Alaska, a town that time and the mining industry had abandoned and forgotten. It's remoteness, gorgeous scenery, and culture of self-reliance are perhaps what attracted both families.
Kizzia worked for a newspaper. He and his wife were transplants from the east, she working for the Sierra Club. They built a cabin close to McCarthy and so Kizzia was more or less accepted as a kindred spirit by Pilgrim who assumed Kizzia would write favorably of the preacher's battle with the Park Service.
Pilgrim had obtained land and being a "man-of-God" with a wife and fourteen children (a sign itself of insanity) decided he could do whatever he wanted, including bulldozing a road to his property through the National Park. The Park Service was not happy.
Kizzia did research into the background of the family as the battle between the Park Service (which I thought was being quite reasonable, although that the Pilgrim family was armed to the teeth and adopted a constant threatening posture which may have been part of the equation.) The family (Pilgrim insisted he should have 21 children, it being some kind of magical number with religious significance -- it's also the product of 3 and 7 but that never got my blood rushing) had migrated from New Mexico where they had begun to irritate the neighbors by being unneighborly, you know like cutting fences, and stealing stuff, that kind of thing.
Initially, the family's outwardly "pure" appearance and legend, appealed to the Alaskan community, always ready to take on the government, except when it means losing federal money. Cynics suspected Pilgrim had moved there to cash in on Alaskan oil benefit checks, about $2,000 per person, surely a procreative incentive. Congress, in its infinite wisdom, had written into the 1980 conservation law special exemptions for Alaskan frontier types, encouraging living off the land, mine creeks, and you know, shoot bears and moose.
Claiming that the Book of Ezekiel prohibited usury Pilgrim always refused to pay interest. Turns out he had all sorts of other religious rules that included sleeping with his eldest daughter and gradually other daughters, not to mention beating the shit out of his wife and children if they crossed him at all. The family knew no different as any interaction with those outside the family was punished physically.
It’s pretty much against man’s law to be a true Christian family, Papa said, because so many things in the Bible are illegal. The state uses the word “abuse,” but doesn’t Proverbs say that a father who spares the rod hates his child? If you brought some matter before the judgment of a state court instead of God’s eternal judgment, the choice to do so was already your defeat. The state would entice children to speak against their own parents and then send them off to jails and foster homes.
Things started to go to Hell for Papa when the children had too much interaction with another Christian family who moved into the area with children of similar age, that was what we might say more "conventional" and a lot less physical. Pilgrim's eldest daughters took off and the dreaded authorities got involved with prison being the outcome.
It's a fascinating story and reveals how easy it is for insular communities, be they family or larger units, to fall under the sway of individuals to their detriment.
It’s easy to see why Erickson’s books have become so popular. She clearly demonstrates the political dynamics in the context of the culture of the timIt’s easy to see why Erickson’s books have become so popular. She clearly demonstrates the political dynamics in the context of the culture of the time, while being ultimately sympathetic to her subjects.
As the only early heir to the throne, Mary held a position of privilege and power during her childhood. Katherine,her mother, it seemed was unable to have a male issue, and was having difficulty delivering any live child. Henry, being King, could take any kind of mistress he wished, and had a bastard son by one of his ladies who was rewarded with a marriage to one of his nobles.
Her education was vigorous, if unenlightened. Her teacher Vives, the Spanish humanist designed a plan of study that included Greek, Latin, and for amusement, biographies of self-sacrificing women. Vives had written in his On the Instruction of a Christian Woman that girls needed to remember they were inherently “the devil’s instrument, and not Christ’s.” This idea that women were inherently sinful was to form the foundation of her training with protection of her virginity uppermost in their plans. (Erasmus at first believed educating women was a waste of time, then changed his mind to believe that education would provide them with the knowledge and importance of protecting such an “inestimable treasure.”)
One wonders if her training and preparation for betrothal to the Emperor Charles in all things Spanish, might have colored views and biased her so against Protestantism, but that’s merely speculative on my part. In the four first years of her betrothal (she was only seven and was to depart for marriage to Charles at twelve) she was schooled in everything necessary to make her a perfect Spanish lady. As with so many of these alliances, it didn’t last. Problem for Harry was that a woman’s property, titles, incomes, and dowry all passed to the husband with marriage. The ramifications became more than a little disconcerting. If Henry died without an heir and the crown passed to Mary, who had already been anointed the Princess of Wales, the first time that position had ever been given to a woman, would Charles also inherit the English title?
Given that Katherine would be unlikely to bear another child, and even though Henry was having his way with Thomas Boleyn’s married daughter, Mary Carey, it’s no wonder he began to scheme a way to dispense with Katherine. And who should join the picture but soon-to-be headless, Anne Boleyn.
But back to Mary after the execution of Anne, Mary was gradually restored to the good graces of the King (thanks also to Henry’s new wife, Jane Seymour, who was to bear him Edward. But Mary had to dissemble to worm her way back into court. She signed the certification of submission all the while writing elsewhere and to the Pope that her submission to the King with regard the church and succession was all balderdash. She constantly lied to Henry about it when asked claiming it was all for God, the end justifying the means.
The title is perhaps a bit misleading. The book really focuses little on her persecution of Protestants, although she did encourage their burning at the stake, often gruesomely. It all started to go badly following her marriage to Philip of Spain. The Spanish were generally despised by most of the English and even though Philip made every effort to be conciliatory and on his best behavior, following Mary's false pregnancy, he couldn't wait to move to Flanders where he was more at home as a King, something he wasn't really in England.
I couldn't help but wonder, if Mary, with her obsessive religiosity, wasn't in a bit over her head.
“Like most Catholics, I spent most of my life knowing practically nothing about the Vatican, despite twenty years writing, off and on, about religion “Like most Catholics, I spent most of my life knowing practically nothing about the Vatican, despite twenty years writing, off and on, about religion in general and the Catholic Church in particular.” When in Rome is Hutchinson's remedy to that deficiency, a delightful romp through the mores and politics of the Holy See.
It's ironic that being a Catholic you get to see a lot of beautiful naked women. "It's true. You may never have realized it before. I never could understand why thickheaded, drooling Protestants would accuse us of being prudes when they gave the world the Puritans and the Moral Majority and we gave the world Rodin's The Kiss.'The fact is that everywhere you go in the Vatican you find nudity. From the Sistine Chapel to the papal apartments are busty young women and tumescent young men in murals and paintings that would cause an immense ruckus if found on the walls of any university or public library.
Hutchinson set out to write a book about the Vatican that would answer the kinds of questions that tourists might ask, e.g. How much do cardinals make? or Where do prelates buy their clothes? He soon learned that the Vatican is still very tight lipped and secretive. In fact, they distrust book writers more than magazine journalists, because threatening to deny them future access can control those who write for periodicals. Book writers, on the other hand, often write only one. And "reporters are trained to expect politicians to lie to them, but even politicians will tell you something, if only so they don't look as though they are covering things up. But avoid expressing an opinion about any person, place, or thing, unless absolutely necessary to further one's own interests. This timidity breeds an atmosphere of secrecy and paranoia that outsiders find pathological but which curial insiders believe to be the noblest kind of discretion." This means a reluctance to respond concretely to questions leading to this type of fictitious response from a cardinal who has been asked if the sky is really blue. 'The issue is not perception as such, but whether the apparent blueness of the sky to some people, at certain times and under certain conditions, reflects what they are actually perceiving or merely what they appear to be perceiving. You can't, on this basis alone, simply make the bare assertion that the sky is blue. It's a very complex question, one on which many experts disagree." At this point, you begin to develop a throbbing headache at the base of the skull. The Vatican State as we know it today is of very recent origin. Until the mid-nineteenth century, the Papal States covered territory in Italy the size of Denmark. Rome and the Vatican were protected by foreign nations, notably France, until the Franco-Prussian War, when all the French troops were withdrawn from Italy and the Italian nationalists attacked and conquered Rome, in effect, imprisoning the pope in the Vatican. In 1929, Mussolini codified the uneasy truce, and Vatican City became recognized by international law. A second treaty was formalized only as late as 1985. Despite the pope's perpetual support for democratic nations, the church is a highly structured monarchy. The pope's the boss, no doubt about it. He answers to no one - at least no one who's willing to show him/herself politically. Still, every day at noon, a cannon is fired to celebrate the Italian victory over Rome and the pope.
Hutchinson's book is filled with delightful little pieces of information such as how the Swiss guard uniforms were designed, how many uniforms have to be tailored, the contents of the Vatican library, and most interestingly his tour through the secret archives that contain documents of extraordinary historical value. "The dominant trait [of the Curia and Vatican staff] is circumspection - the ability to documents of extraordinary historical value. "The Secret Archives is also responsible for the Vatican's overseas diplomatic missions as well as the staggering amount of material that is received directly from the 2,700 metropolitan sees, 212,000 individual parishes, heads of states, scientific organizations, non-Catholic religious bodies, cultural leaders, and so on. The sheer amount of paper that washes over the Vatican. . . boggles the mind."
The Vatican has been responsible for many scientific discoveries and we owe our calendar to Pope Gregory who- in order to correct errors of the Sosigenean calendar that was off by eleven minutes and fourteen seconds per year- simply declared in a 1582 Papal bull that the day after October 5 would officially become October 15 and that the year would now be 365.2422 days long, making the calendar off only 3.12 days every 400 years. Hence leap years. It was from the Meridian Room (more naked cherubs on the ceiling) atop the tall Tower of the Winds built by Gregory that the astronomical observations were made to provide the corrections.
The story of Queen Christina of Sweden, her abdication and conversion to Catholicism, is fascinating. Particularly as she scandalized Rome by her licentious behavior - she was a flagrant lesbian, and the story of how she came to be buried with the popes reveals a great deal about how attitudes have shifted in the past few centuries.
This is a delightful little volume that makes want to grab the next flight to Rome to indulge in the majesty and glory of living history....more
It's unfortunate, but perhaps not unexpected, that for the first time in the history of Greco-Roman civilization, a ruler issued an edict that destroyIt's unfortunate, but perhaps not unexpected, that for the first time in the history of Greco-Roman civilization, a ruler issued an edict that destroyed free thought and free exercise of religion. That it was in support of Christianity was perhaps also not unexpected. The edict` of Theodosius in 381 A.D (some historians say 380) forbade belief and practice of any religious practice that did not recognize the singularity of the "godhead," i.e. the idea of the Trinity as solidified at the Council of Nicea in 325 under Constantine -- they were equal in majesty (whatever the Hell that means.) This edict and the removal of the Bishop of Constantinople, an adherent of Arianism, a belief Jesus was created at a point in time, divine, but subject to the Father. (I get shivers of ridiculousness and have to restrain my natural tendency to overheat my crap detector as I recount some of this. Nevertheless it's quite interesting.) Freeman argues that Theodosius' edict and the subsequent suppression of paganism not only brought an end to the diversity of religious and philosophical beliefs throughout the empire but created numerous theological problems for the Church, which have remained unsolved. The year AD 381, Freeman concludes, marked 'a turning point which time forgot'.
The biggest issue was whether Jesus was God. It took a substantial amount of twisting to figure out how the Trinity was supposed to work, the Aryans arguing that if Jesus was God then there was no sacrifice on the cross, the Athanasians supporting Trinitarianism. One of the hurdles for Trinitarians was Mark 13:32 when Jesus was to have said ""“But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father." This was interpreted to mean that Jesus was not God.
This book was theologically much more detailed than When Jesus Became God by Richard Rubenstein [https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...] which deals with the same topic. Freeman continued his discussion more extensively in his book The Closing of the Western Mind: The Rise of Faith and the Fall of Reason, an examination of the effects of events covered in AD 381....more
Wright has written a very personal examination of some religious trends in the United States. Fundamentalism, or Primitivism as some would call it, isWright has written a very personal examination of some religious trends in the United States. Fundamentalism, or Primitivism as some would call it, is certainly on the rise, a new "Great Awakening", if you will. Lack of an established religion, many have argued, creates the perfect medium for the development of cults and other fringe beliefs. It has also become " a patchwork of mysticism, hypocrisy, hucksterism, and violence, with an occasional dash of sexual perversity."
This book is not written from the perspective of a non-believer, rather as one who believes in the power of faith. “ I have seen it in prisons and ghettos as well as in boardrooms and chambers of power. I have often found myself admiring people who held views I strongly disagreed with—for instance, the Black Muslims, who believe that I am a devil because of my race but who have generated the moral power to bring order and dignity to prison life. Where addiction rules or where social values have collapsed, it is usually only those rare persons of faith who can survive and sometimes even transform their seemingly hopeless environments.”
Nevertheless, he takes a rather perverse look at the symbols of both religious and non-religious icons such as Jimmy Swaggart and Madolyn Murray O’Hair.
Wright first examines the tragic case of Walker Railey, his minister in the large Methodist Church in Dallas, a man who engaged in an affair with a member of his congregation and then probably killed his wife. Transformative faith?
None of these people is particularly nice even as they held considerable power over their faithful but each was engaged in his own kind of spiritual struggle and the author’s personal struggle. “The lesson I had drawn from Walker Railey’s life so far was that good and evil are not so far apart either. They were both inside Railey, warring for control—as they were in me as well. Whether or not Railey was guilty, he had caused me to look into myself and see the lurking dangers of my own personality.”
I must admit to being one of the gleeful watching the downfall of Jimmy Swaggart. I had watched his TV show on several occasions, mesmerized by his excessive sanctimony while attempting to strip his viewers of their bank accounts. I’ve always speculated that people specialize in their deficiencies so having him self-destruct in the arms of a cheap hooker virtually in plain sight suggesting his perverse desire to be caught was gratifying. “Sex is the great leveler, the shadowy companion of the transcendent spirit.” Swaggart had equally gleefully brought about the collapse of Martin Gorman, pastor of one of those mammoth churches. “Swaggart accused Gorman of having had numerous adulterous affairs. Although Jim Bakker [who was to have his own spectacular fall] took Gorman’s side and actually pleaded for his forgiveness, Swaggart muscled Gorman’s show off the PTL Network. The Gorman empire, such as it was, quickly collapsed. His church, his television stations, and especially his reputation were lost to him. He was reduced to preaching in a drafty warehouse in Metairie to a congregation of folding chairs. There he began to consider his revenge.” Sordid
Moving along to Madalyn Murray O’Hair, who sued the author, interestingly. She the most accomplished of the self-promoting, she made a fetish out of trying to protect everyone from every hint of religiosity. In the end she became nothing but an embarrassing spectacle, in my view, although one has to credit her with some important victories like that of O’Hair v Hill which prevented Texas (of course) from trying to institute a religious test for office contrary to the Constitution.
Ironically, the least interesting of the characterizations is that of Anton LaVey, the supposed father of Satanism. He just tried too hard to be something he clearly was not: “the evilest man in the world.” Having been a circus performer and carnival barker, his career in satanism seemed just a continuation of that former self. On the other hand, as he noted, Satan is probably religion’s best friend; without it religion would not have survived so many centuries. His connection to Jayne Mansfield was rather titillating.
Will Campbell is surely the most interesting of the bunch. A Baptist minister, reviled by the leadership of his church, he was a vigorous supporter of civil rights and good friend of Martin Luther King who ministered to James Earl Ray and other Ku Klux Klan members. He was one of only four whites who held hands with the little black girls in their attempts to integrate schools in Little Rock. His uncompromising positions earned him hate letters from both the Right and Left.
The book is easily read as separate essays and the only element that ties them together is the author’s personal journey and reactions to the individuals he interviewed. As such it’s of perhaps more interest for its historical value than a memoir. Wright’s more recent books: The Looming Tower and Going Clear are more important. If this review seems to ramble, blame it on the book. ...more
I discovered this book after stumbling upon a request by the author for some feedback from an atheist group. Kind of like falling into a lions' den. :I discovered this book after stumbling upon a request by the author for some feedback from an atheist group. Kind of like falling into a lions' den. :) Given the tenor of some of the comments, I was intrigued and took some time to delve into the contents of the book, and while I have not read a majority of it, I have read enough to note that the author, with whom I have several disagreements, has obviously spent a great deal of time thinking about the relationship between science and religion in hopes that one might find some grounds for reconciliation.
Educated at Cambridge, the author is a mechanical engineer (I admit to having a soft spot for engineers - they actually build stuff), and as such I might wonder whether he would place as much faith in someone who refused to test the structural integrity of a bridge i-beam as he does in untested pronouncements with regard to religious faith.
Nevertheless, I think the book appears well-thought through (even though he came to the wrong conclusions in my view) from what I have read and well-written. If you are interested in discussion about the intersection of science and faith (God knows the Templeton Prize has been after such thoughts for years), you might very well enjoy the book. It's certainly cheap enough for your Kindle.
Normally, I would probably not rate it at 5 stars, but thought it might balance out the one-star which seemed unwarranted. The whole star business is silly anyway....more
Good grief. At the time of this posting there are almost 70,000 ratings and baskets of reviews. So why another one? Good question.
Predictably, if you Good grief. At the time of this posting there are almost 70,000 ratings and baskets of reviews. So why another one? Good question.
Predictably, if you are a Mormon you won’t like this book, although it does seem to be well-researched and relatively even-handed. What appears to us skeptics as just silly nonsense is, for some people, inspired holy writ. Go figure. The Mormons themselves can't figure out what's revelation or not and who is or is not a prophet as Joseph Smith discovered to his dismay. His original revelation suggested that any Mormon could receive a revelation but quickly got another message from God that revelations would only go through Joseph Smith or his appointee. Very convenient way of maintaining control. God said so, so do it. What a great line.
It's interesting, but reading about some of the misdeeds of the early Mormon settlers and comments about this book on other sites, I was reminded of similar remarks made on Civil War book reviews by adherents of the "Lost Cause" myth. The same kind of myopic view .
I had no idea that those "other" Mormons, the FLDS, the polygamists, thrive(d) in assorted little places like Colorado City/Hildale, AZ/Utah twin cities that straddle the border. ** The whole town is controlled despotically by the local leader/prophet (it sure is tempting to declare myself a prophet and start pronouncing, what a kick.) The police, the school board, the mayor, everyone in authority is FLDS. The United Effort Plan owns almost all the town property. Many men there have many wives and it has become (or should anyway,) a scandal in the way they manipulate the system. Since the wives are legally single mothers and are unemployed they draw millions in benefits which becomes a major source of income for the hubby in charge. Ironically, if the marriages were declared legal, they would lose millions. The FLDS folks are positive they represent the true adherence to the "principle", celestial marriage without which one cannot go to heaven; the mainstream is equally positive their prophet got a message from God indicating that being admitted tot he union was more important than celestial marriage. So, there you are. I say put it to trial by ordeal. Dump both prophets in a vat of boiling oil. Of course, in the end, it's all about money and power.
The issue of what constitutes valid revelation from God (somebody explain to me why God finds it necessary to speak in 15th century English.) Since all male Mormons become priests (blacks excepted until God changed his mind about their essential evilness in the early sixties) many of them feel God is speaking unto them. Most of us would consider them delusional and in the case of Dan and Ron Lafferty who insisted God had told them to strike down the infidels who happened to be their wives. Raised in an atmosphere of religious fanaticism and paranoia, not to mention hatred of the federal government (I’ve never understood why federal and not state and township,) they saw themselves as the true righteous and holy. Ron’s descent began when his wife refused to go along with his desire to take a polygamous wife. In 1984 he received a “removal revelation” from God which he recorded on a yellow legal tablet. He and Dan then murdered Brenda and Erica. Last I checked, Ron was awaiting execution in Utah. He is now 61 and his brother is serving two life sentences.
The Lafferty’s had been fans of Robert Crossfield, otherwise known as Onias, who claimed to have received several revelations of God making hm the one and true prophet. They helped to distribute the Onias revelations, which, conveniently, also said the Lafferty’s had been the chosen ones even before they were born.
Krakauer interweaves the history of the Mormon church i n this bloodthirsty account of the Lafferty brothers. He finds the seeds of their crimes in the church.
Tidbits: Brigham Young wanted the state to be called the Beehive state rather than Utah (after the Ute Indians) because of its emphasis on the collective doing what's best for the group rather than emphasizing the individual. Today, given the association of collective with communism, the beehive on the state flag is considered to represent "industry."
If you are interested in the whole revelation business, I recommend the LDS website’s transcript of the revelation regarding blacks and the priesthood. It’s available here: http://www.lds-mormon.com/legrand_ric... Hard to believe there are people who take this stuff seriously.
For a recent example, I quote this from the June 3 Washington Post: "
The leaders have come under intense scrutiny. Barely 36 hours after the caustic New Year’s Day vote, Boehner faced a coup attempt from a clutch of renegade conservatives. The cabal quickly fell apart when several Republicans, after a night of prayer, said God told them to spare the speaker…..
Southerland woke up convinced that Boehner should be spared. Others, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said they, too, prayed before siding with Boehner.“ He’s not a God of chaos, he’s a God of order,” Southerland said."
Amazing that God might give a shit about the Speaker of the House.
Oh, and by the way, I have just received a startling revelation. Everyone reading this must get together and purchase for me an around-the-world cruise on the QM2, a suite of course. Chop, chop, if you want to avoid everlasting damnation. Now explain to me how that might be different from a revelation to kill my wife or to add wives. Or start a new religion.
This is a rather extraordinary novel. Simultaneously a page-turner, legal thriller, memoir, and devastating screed against the Catholic Church's bumblThis is a rather extraordinary novel. Simultaneously a page-turner, legal thriller, memoir, and devastating screed against the Catholic Church's bumbling of the pedophile scandal, it reflects the author's own journey from Catholic adherent to disgusted and scandalized ex-Catholic. It's an examination of the fall of what Marcia Hamilton calls "the Pollyanna Years*" when we all believed religious organizations could only be instruments for good. Now, of course, we know they often confuse evil and good.
My guess is that this book is thinly disguised fact masquerading as fiction. The author, Ray Mouton, was the lawyer hired by the Diocese of Lafayette in 1984 to defend "the serial pedophile Fr Gilbert Gauthe, a priest who insisted that every sexual act he committed on the young boys was enjoyed by them and symbolic of his love for them.
Some caveats: 1. the meditation between Sasha and her grandfather on the nature of heaven and hell is superfluous to the story and totally unnecessary. 2. Renon Chattelrault's actions as a lawyer seem bizarre. Yes, he's charged with defending a pedophile priest and trying to get the best deal for him, but his motivations become less than pure as he forms a triumvirate with a psychiatrist priest and a nun to force the Church (totally bent on preventing any kind of negative publicity) to face a reality of the epidemic of priestly pedophilia. A more accomplished author would have better woven this part of the story into the general fabric of the book.
It's very dark, southern gothic. Be prepared to stay up nights. If the truth is half as bad as Moulton portrays it to be, the Catholic Church should be run out of business (a word I use advisedly.)
What was originally intended to be a meditation on the trial of a Holiness pastor, Glenn Summerford, who was convicted of using snakes to kill his wifWhat was originally intended to be a meditation on the trial of a Holiness pastor, Glenn Summerford, who was convicted of using snakes to kill his wife morphed into a rather bizarre memoir that follows the spiritual development (?) or devolution of an erstwhile Methodist to snake-handling Holiness followers in Scottsboro (yes, *that* Scottsboro**) Alabama. He traces his ancestors back to earlier generations of snake-handlers assuming in a rather Lamarckian fantasy that their fascination with holy rolling is genetic. He's clearly fascinated by his (and his daughter's) intense physical reaction to the music. A risk-taker himself, having been a journalist in war-torn Central America, where he had been under fire several times, one cannot help but wonder if putting oneself in danger doesn't have an exceptional appeal to some people.
His original idea was to write a book about these people. The result of is a very interesting cultural essay filled with delightful little tidbits of irrationality:
"She explained what they were, bare trees in rural yards adorned with colored glass bottles. Then I remembered I’d seen them before. I thought they were only decorative. But my neighbor told me spirit trees had a purpose. If you happen to have evil spirits, you put bottles on the branches of a tree in your yard. The more colorful the glass, the better, I suppose. The evil spirits get trapped in the bottles and won’t do you any harm. This is what Southerners in the country do with evil. But this nonsense -- in the literal sense -- is no different from the recent Pope Benedict's resurrection of the Office of the Exorcist. (http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/436...)
His discussion of the origins of snake handling reinforces what I have learned elsewhere, i.e. that it represents a rejection and fear of encroaching industrialization with its concomitant societal upheaval.
"Snake handling, for instance, didn’t originate back in the hills somewhere. [A debatable point, I believe.] It started when people came down from the hills to discover they were surrounded by a hostile and spiritually dead culture. All along their border with the modern world — in places like Newport, Tennessee, and Sand Mountain, Alabama — they recoiled. They threw up defenses. When their own resources failed, they called down the Holy Ghost. They put their hands through fire. They drank poison. They took up serpents. They still do. The South hasn’t disappeared. If anything, it’s become more Southern in a last-ditch effort to save itself....Enter the snake handlers, spiritual nomads from the high country that surrounded Scottsboro, from isolated pockets on Sand Mountain and the hollows along South Sauty Creek. They were refugees from a culture on the ropes. They spoke in tongues, anointed one another with oil in order to be healed, and when instructed by the Holy Ghost, drank poison, held fire, and took up poisonous snakes. For them, Scottsboro itself was the wicked, wider world, a place where one might be tempted to “back up on the Lord.” They’d taken the risk, though, out of economic desperation. They had been drawn to Scottsboro by the promise of jobs in the mills that made clothes, carpets, rugs, and tires. Some of them had found work. All of them had found prejudice."
The author finds himself drawn to the emotional excess of the handler "services" and his description of becoming part of the experience, handling a huge timber rattler, is, for him, quite exotic and unsettling. But his rational side also admits to being drawn to danger. He describes the experience this way: "It occurred to me then that seeing a handler in the ecstasy of an anointing is not like seeing religious ecstasy at all. The expression seems to have more to do with Eros than with God, in the same way that sex often seems to have more to do with death than with pleasure. The similarity is more than coincidence, I thought. In both sexual and religious ecstasy, the first thing that goes is self. The entrance into ecstasy is surrender. Handlers talk about receiving the Holy Ghost. But when the Holy Ghost is fully come upon someone like Gracie McAllister, the expression on her face reads exactly the opposite — as though someone, or something, were being violently taken away from her. The paradox of Christianity, one of many of which Jesus speaks, is that only in losing ourselves do we find ourselves, and perhaps that’s why photos of the handlers so often seem to be portraits of loss."
One is tempted to look for a rational reason why the snakes don't bite more often, but the fact remains they bite all the time and deaths from snakebite are disproportionately large compared to those in the general population. Handling is clearly stressful for the snakes who rarely live out a season whereas they can survive for several decades in the wild. Often the snakes will die while being handled. They are certainly untameable and contrary to popular opinion one does not attain a certain immunity to snake venom after multiple bites. To the contrary, one is more likely to develop an allergic sensitivity.
My rational side recoils from the unfathomable need of these people to lose themselves in what is clearly something very precious and moving. Having read three different accounts of snake handling (not to mention strychnine-drinking), I remain baffled but fascinated.
Normally, I wouldn’t read this kind of book, but given the substantial number of positive comments, and its abbreviated length, I figured what the helNormally, I wouldn’t read this kind of book, but given the substantial number of positive comments, and its abbreviated length, I figured what the hell. Admittedly, I skimmed much of it. I doubt very much that parsing each sentence would have made any difference.
The preponderance of reviewers around the web appear to believe Lennox destroyed Hawking’s arguments. He did no such thing and to do so would have been impossible since each is starting with a different set of assumptions: Lennox with his belief that God exists and that something cannot arise from nothing (totally failing to explain God’s origin); Hawking with the opposite, that something can easily arise from nothing. It doesn't help that each has a different definition of what constitutes “nothing.” One could have reconciled both positions by simply accepting the proposition that God is the laws of physics, but that wouldn’t be any fun.
I suspect that reviewers will line up for or against this book depending on their prior assumptions as well, so I am not ranking this book because I’m sure that my certainty that there is no God (as defined by Christians, Moslems, and Jews, i.e. an entity that actually gives a shit and responds to requests to intervene often violating the laws of physics when necessary) just couldn’t possibly exist would predispose a negative rank.
Lennox’s book is a response to Hawking’s book, The Grand Design, which I have not read. A review in Science News (7.27.12) notes that Hawking’s poses and proposes to answer the following questions. “ Why is there a universe? Why is there something rather than nothing? Why do we exist? Why are the laws of nature what they are? While acknowledging the fine-tuning of Earth that allows for favorable life conditions, Hawking promotes the multiverse theory, which holds that our universe is only one of countless others, each with their own forces of nature.” So both he and Lennox are engaged in a conjectural debate. I don’t like that since you can’t conjecture your way out of a paper bag. By doing so, Hawking’s speculation opened the door wide to counter-speculation. (Anyone who argues that using the Bible as a source to refute conjecture just doesn’t know his history or Bible. There’s way too much evidence on how those beliefs evolved and were developed. There is as much evidence for the existence of Leprachauns and Santa Claus as there is for God and they all rely on faith.) I’m always amused by those who claim that the Big Bang, evolution, etc. are mere theories, and then go on to unquestionably accept the greatest hypothesis of them all, that “God” exists, for which there is no evidence at all.
So the debate, if one dare call it that, is like two guys sitting in a bar, one claiming Babe Ruth was the greatest baseball player; the other asserting it had to be Hank Aaron, each absolutely certain. Fun, I guess, if you are well-lubricated. For the rest of us, it’s just a boring conversation that only makes the righteous on both sides happy. For my part, Hawking should have stuck to astrophysics and Lennox to math neither of which is useful to the debate and left the speculation to pundits....more
Well, I’m not quite sure what to make of this book. It’s certainly a serviceable mystery/thriller with many religious overtones. The author, whose bioWell, I’m not quite sure what to make of this book. It’s certainly a serviceable mystery/thriller with many religious overtones. The author, whose bio says was raised in the desert, “raised in a small religious community in Utah,” (close to the FLDS?) has a lot of very interesting and supposedly secret details of sealing ceremonies and the inside of a splinter Mormon polygamist community.
The book does seem to go off the rails a bit with a wildly improbable plot twist that wasn’t necessary (hence three instead of four stars) and detracted from the main story.. The issues raised with regard to who and what is righteous and where does religious authority come from are interesting enough. Jacob, off at medical school, is recalled by his father, an elder in the Blister Creek Church. to return and investigate the ritualistic murder of Amanda. He, a skeptic or rationalist of sorts, refuses to be buffaloed by the mythic traditions of his church but retains allegiance to his family, a connection which would lost should he abandon the church entirely. Had Wallace pursued these threads, I think the book would have been stronger and more interesting. He handles some of the issues quite sensitively but then goes off on this ridiculous plot twist that remains unresolved in the end, awaiting book #2 in the series, which I will probably read, if for no other reason than morbid curiosity into the religious silliness.
You do get a nice sense of what it must be like to live as an outcast constantly at war with the “evil” world and trying to determine what constitutes valid revelation from plain insanity (or silliness.) A couple of reviewers on Amazon (one-star reviews) have suggested Wallace is, in fact, a “Lost Boy” himself; certainly not an impossibility given some of his insider knowledge (assuming it’s correct and the defensiveness of some of the Mormon readers would suggest it is.) It’s certainly more sympathetic, I thought than they imply....more
There was a sale going on of Michael Wallace's "Righteous" trilogy and I thought I'd sample some of his work given the excellent reviews and interestiThere was a sale going on of Michael Wallace's "Righteous" trilogy and I thought I'd sample some of his work given the excellent reviews and interesting subject matter (FLDS and polygamy.) Trial by Fury is a very short novella that examines the destruction of Abraham's conscience and perhaps loss of faith in his religious culture. He's pursued by nightmares and visions of the man he has killed at the behest of his uncle. The man is being shot ostensibly for violating church laws, yet Abraham (a name chosen for good reason, no doubt) learns none of the motives are pure, even those of his Father, the prophet.
I'll certainly read more of Wallace and if you enjoyed the Big Love series, I suspect you'll enjoy this series as well. Wallace's biography indicates he was raised in the desert in a religious community but it's unclear if this was related to the FLDS church. He certainly appears to have considerable inside knowledge.
I'm sure all the regular LDS folks will get all uptight in their haste to defend their current beliefs. (Note I said current, since one never knows when the next revelation will come down.)...more
The book is about a particularly interesting case: Employment Division v Smith. Hidden behind this seemingly innocuous name lay a conflict pitting theThe book is about a particularly interesting case: Employment Division v Smith. Hidden behind this seemingly innocuous name lay a conflict pitting the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment to the Constitution. Perpetually in conflict, those two clauses of the First Amendment create a tension that all feel and few understand. Just how far can the government go in controlling behavior that is in conflict with society’s mores yet which for some may be considered an essential religious practice?
For some Native American Indians tribes peyote is a sacred sacrament, a gift that embodies God, much as wine might represent the blood of Christ in Catholic religious practice. Yet peyote was also considered a dangerous drug its use to be prosecuted to the fullest extent under the War on Drugs. It pitted two very interesting men against each other in the oral arguments before the Supreme Court and the result was new legislation, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, that would also be declared unconstitutional four years later as an unconstitutional form of legislative power in City of Boerne v. Flores as an wrong use of the 14th amendment as it applied to the states. This resulted in another congressional action, Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, which gave special grants to religious institutions. Whew. Got that? So the RFRA was still constitutional as it applied to the federal government, but not the states. The RFRA has been used by many minority religious groups to challenge federal statutes as being onerous to their religious practice, including payment of income taxes. They have lost, in most cases because the courts have ruled the statutes had a compelling secular interest.
Ironically, the Native American Church didn’t exist before 1918 when it was formalized at the suggestion of a white man, James Mooney, as a way of insulating itself and its practices, from mainstream harassment with protection from under the free exercise clause of the Constitution. There has always been tension between the free exercise clause, which permits unfettered religious practice in theory, and the establishment clause, which is intended to prevent government from favoring one religion over another. But even Thomas Jefferson, author of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom made a distinction between established religions as he saw them and the practices of those “aboriginal inhabitants. . .who inculcate a a sanctimonious reverence for their ancestors.” So the struggle to reconcile peyote use with governmental efforts to ban it had long roots. **
It all got started because of the state of Oregon denying unemployment benefits to two employees because they had used peyote, an illegal drug, as part of a religious ceremony and as a method to help alcoholics. The question before the court was, “Can a state deny unemployment benefits to a worker fired for using prohibited drugs for religious purposes?” The answer, in a six-three decision written by Justice Scalia was, *SPOILER ALERT* “ Yes. Scalia observed that the Court has never held that an individual's religious beliefs excuse him from compliance with an otherwise valid law prohibiting conduct that government is free to regulate. Allowing exceptions to every state law or regulation affecting religion "would open the prospect of constitutionally required exemptions from civic obligations of almost every conceivable kind." Scalia cited as examples compulsory military service, payment of taxes, vaccination requirements, and child-neglect laws” What astonished Court observers was the breadth of the majority opinion which threw out the Sherbert established in Sherbert v Verner in which a Jehovah’s Witness (many landmark religious test cases have involved this sect,) a Sabbatarian who insisted on a Saturday sabbath, was fired when she refused, on religious grounds, to work on a Saturday. The Court ruled that to force her to work on her Sabbath was not “a compelling state interest” and therefore a violation of the free exercise clause and she was entitled to unemployment benefits. A similar case, also involving Jehovah’s Witnesses (Thomas v Review Board) involved a man who refused to work on tanks arguing his personal interpretation of the Bible would prevent him from helping to create instruments of war. He, too, was entitled to unemployment benefits, said the court. One difference in the Smith case was that no state could pass a law prohibiting worship on Saturday; they could, however, declare peyote an illegal drug. But again, this case involved unemployment compensation. The decision caused a whirlwind of legal activity in response to Justice Scalia’s opinion which seemed to go much further than was asked for by the Oregon AG. They essentially overturned the Sherbert test and, in the eyes of some, stripped minority religious groups of special protection under the free exercise clause.The new rule was that if the state didn’t target religion, “then minorities whose practice was destroyed were out of luck.”
Epps argues that the case was wrongly decided as an infringement on religious freedom, yet even Thomas Jefferson made a distinction between religious belief and the action that flows therefrom. In Reynolds v US, Justice Waite (a decision surprisingly not mentioned in Epps’ book) made that point in denying the religious right to polygamy. “The court argued that if polygamy was allowed, someone might eventually argue that human sacrifice was a necessary part of their religion, and "to permit this would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself." The Court believed the true spirit of the First Amendment was that Congress could not legislate against opinion, but could legislate against action.” But his harshest words are for Scalia, a “great and powerful judge who had seen the Smith case not as a dispute between real people but as a chance to play with the law, to take away part of our heritage of religious freedom.”
Epps does a great job of humanizing those involved in the dispute and getting us to sympathize not only with the claimants, but the state as well. Al Smith had his own alcohol related demons and Attorney General Frohnmayer was fighting to save the lives of his three daughters who had inherited a devastating anemic disease through a recessive gene from him and his wife. It’s a tragic story, and one cannot help but admire Frohnmayer and his family as they suffered one medical calamity after another. He is truly a heroic figure. This is a really good book that will make you think about the meaning of justice and whether that concept as applied by the law can be separated from the individuals and people it is supposed to protect.
** Not to mention polygamy. In Reynolds v United States (1878)the Supreme Court held that religious duty was not a suitable defense to a criminal indictment (Reynolds had been criminally charged with bigamy under new Utah anti-polygamy statutues.) Justice Waite declared in the Constitution "Congress was deprived of all legislative power over mere opinion, but was left free to reach actions which were in violation of social duties or subversive of the good order."
Another case that might be of interest to those pursuing this divisive issue is LARKIN ET AL. v. GRENDEL'S DEN, INC. of 1982. The court was asked to decide whether a Massachusetts statute, which vests in the governing bodies of churches and schools the power effectively to veto applications for liquor licenses within a 500-foot radius of the church or school, violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment or the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. It ruled the statute unconstitutional under the establishment clause since it effectively gave a religious body the power to make a political decision, i.e. the granting of a liquor license. The only dissent came from Justice Rehnquist and it makes interesting reading because his rationale seems to be solely that the law makes sense. It’s also interesting to note that the Catholic Church was granted an exemption to use wine during Mass during Prohibition.
This is a Kindle "Single." I guess it's a good idea. Reads like a nice, in-depth New Yorker article (a good thing.) (People unfamiliar with BissonetteThis is a Kindle "Single." I guess it's a good idea. Reads like a nice, in-depth New Yorker article (a good thing.) (People unfamiliar with Bissonette's story should stop reading here.) The story follows the tragic career of a very troubled priest, Father Barney Bissonette, who, unconscionably, was moved from one parish to another in order for the Catholic Church to hide Bissonette's proclivity for molesting church acolytes.
One family of thirteen -- despite several very dangerous pregnancies the Church had insisted the parents not use birth-control as being too "selfish" -- was particularly hard hit and Thomas Deary, one of the older boys,committed suicide, unable to bear the shame and secrecy of it all. So three of his brothers decide to get even with Bissonette, now retired and ill in New Mexico.
The banality of the situation (or in Hannah Arendt's view, evil) is driven home sharply by the prosaic nature of the settlements agreed to by the Church: While Bissonnette cost the Santa Fe Archdiocese (or its insurers) $2 million or more in settlements, the individual payouts were actually quite modest. As always, the law broke things down very pragmatically: fondling (a one-time occurrence brought about $25,000) was worth less than oral sex, oral sex less than anal sex, anal sex less than anal sex with bleeding. Also factored in was the frequency and duration of the abuse. Not only the Church but its victims -- more determined to avoid embarrassment than to cash in to the max -- wanted these matters disposed of quietly and quickly. So the highest awards went for only around $300,000. This may explain why no one ever wrote much about Bissonnette; when it comes to public censure, he got pretty much of a pass....more
N.B. This is not really a book but a series of interviews with people about Teilhard's work.
I had more than a passing interest in Teilhard de ChardinN.B. This is not really a book but a series of interviews with people about Teilhard's work.
I had more than a passing interest in Teilhard de Chardin when I was in high school in Switzerland and tried reading some of his stuff in French. I suspect I was more taken with the controversy between his writings, which were for a while placed on the Index, and the Catholic Church. The formal condemnation occurred in 1962 just as I was entering high school:
"The above-mentioned works abound in such ambiguities and indeed even serious errors, as to offend Catholic doctrine... For this reason, the most eminent and most revered Fathers of the Holy Office exhort all Ordinaries as well as the superiors of Religious institutes, rectors of seminaries and presidents of universities, effectively to protect the minds, particularly of the youth, against the dangers presented by the works of Fr. Teilhard de Chardin and of his followers". (^ Warning Considering the Writings of Father Teilhard de Chardin, Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office, June 30, 1962.)
One might argue that the antipathy of the Church is what made Teilhard famous and of interest. Certainly that was true in my case, and I suspect many other. Teilhard was trained as a paleontologist and priest who struggled with the interaction of faith and science. He came to believe that evolution was a straight line with the endpoint, or Omega, as being God. “The end of the world: the overthrow of equilibrium, detaching the mind, fulfilled at last, from its material matrix, so that it will henceforth rest with all its weight on God-Omega.” (The Phenomenon of Man) Unfortunately, we now know a great deal more about evolution and understand its way-points, dead-ends, fits and starts, and branches. He also became embroiled in the infamous Piltdown Man scandal.
The idea of the Omega Point is interesting in light of Watson (the IBM supercomputer) and Ray Kurzweil’s concept of the singularity. Now that I’m older, I still have a lot of respect for Teilhard’s scientific work and his attempts to reconcile what he learned in science with what he had been taught as a Jesuit. Regretfully, most of resolves into just wishful thinking. Teilhard’s search for a unifying theory (reconciling the material and the spiritual) echoes that of many others. I fear (not really a fear since I find it quite satisfying) that ultimately we will discover we are nothing more than chance random associations of molecules.
What’s interesting about his thought is the preeminence of evolution and its importance in the progression of man to the Omega Point. a linear progression toward complexity and greater consciousness, humans become responsible for evolutionary progress and continuity (interesting given his experiences in WW I.) To reach our mature form requires a self-reflection and understanding of our evolution and consciousness. Matter was not an inert substance to be manipulated but has a “luminous” quality that’s important to the unification, the ultimate singularity which is God. Nonsense, but interesting from the point of view of idea evolution.
This a a short audiotape that presents a commentary on Teilhard’s life and beliefs. I have it as an mp3 file if anyone wants a copy, I could mail a CD.
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