Author Archives: Bruce Nielson

History as Narrative Fallacy aka What Type of Apologist Are You?

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Another reprint from Mormon Matters. I confess I’ve partially changed my mind on one small part of this, namely the use of the word “defective” when refering to our minds. More on that at a later date. But it still gets the point across.

History is opaque. You see what comes out, not the script that produces events, the generator of history. There is a fundamental incompleteness in your grasp of such events, since you do not see what’s inside the box, how the mechanisms work. …the minds of the gods cannot be read just by witnessing their deeds. You are very likely to be fooled about their intentions. (The Black Swan, P. 8 )

In a previous post I discussed the realities of The Black Swan, those improbable events that rule our lives but we pretend don’t and can’t happen. I also discussed how in actuality “randomness” is really just incomplete information. And finally I discussed how we feel the need to reverse engineer explanation for historical events — even though it’s impossible — and how, once we do, we have a really hard time realizing that there is more than one viable explanation for the same event. [1]

Which brings me to how this all directly relates to the LDS Church and specifically to the intolerance we show each other on the Bloggernacle at times. It is all directly related to two facts:

  1. History is a collection of facts demanding interpretation before we can process them.
  2. Thus all history is mostly narrative fallacy.

This means that two people can and will interpret it differently and both will have been fooled by their brains to believe that theirs is the one best way to explain those facts and only an idiot or liar would think otherwise. Continue reading →

Imagining The End of the World

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…to the old theistic question, ‘Why is there something rather than nothing?’ we can… counterpose the findings of Professor Lawrence Krauss and others, about the forseeable heat death of the universe…. So, the question can and must be rephrased: “Why will our brief ‘something’ so soon be replaced with nothing?” It’s only once we shake our own innate belief in linear progression and consider the many recessions we have undergone and will undergo that we can grasp the gross stupidity of those who repose their faith in divine providence and godly design. (Christopher Hitchens as quoted by Skeptic Michael Shemer in Scientific American, Nov 2010. Emphasis mine.)

Let’s play a game of ‘just pretend.’ Just pretend that the world’s political leaders have just announced to the world that the greatest scientific minds have uncovered a horrifying truth: due to laws of physics not previously understood, our sun will burn out millions of years earlier than previously thought. Even now it is imperceptibly dimmed compared to historical measurements.

No one living today will be adversely affected by the dimming sun. We can go on living unaffected by it. Even two generations after we have all passed on, our children and descendants will still have enough energy from the sun to sustain life though by then it will be obvious that the sun is dimming.

Within three generations after that a global cooling cycle will have begun and the dreadful snowfall will signal a winter that will never end. People will be able to store up food, of course, but without any hope of new crops forming in the future no matter how many supplies are stored food will eventually start to run out.

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What Does the “Liberal” Mean in “Liberal Theology”?

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In my last post, I suggested that “liberal” and “conservative” were becoming (or already were) mostly meaningless terms when applied to theology because they tended to define either non-existent groups (i.e. “conservative Christian”?) or were labels to grossly broad as to express nothing at all. (i.e. Paulus and Averill both being “liberal Christians.”)

However, before I dismiss the words entirely, let me just say that there has been an attempt to define “Liberal Christian” by “Friedrich Schleiermacher, a German who attempted to reconcile Protestantism with the Enlightenment.” John Nilsson, in an old Mormon Matters post, gave a brief overview.

It’s About Human Response

A key point is that we are not talking about liberal vs. conservative politics. So get that out of your mind right away.One could be (according to Schleiermacher’s view) a ‘liberal’ politically and a ‘conservative’ theologically or vice versa.

So what is a “Liberal” theologically speaking then? Schleiermacher’s view…

…emphasized the importance of the subjective human response to religion, rather than the objective truth claim of religion. An example of this would be the assertion that the freedom from anxiety that awareness of Christ’s sacrifice brings us as Christians is more existentially significant than which model of the Atonement is the most accurate or whether the Atonement occurred in exactly the way the Gospels attest.

So far, so good, I say. Sign me up. Seems like this is precisely what God would want us to do – concentrate on our neighbor, not esoteric doctrinal purity.

One concern I might have with this position, however, is if this is all just a cover up for Christian Atheism. Let’s admit that this view expressed above, if stretched to it’s logical limits, really would say nothing about God at all and would instead – rather contradictorily in my opinion – become merely about how human spirituality via belief in a non-existent God can have positive effects in our life.

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Liberal vs. Unbelieving

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A while back, over at Wheat and Tares, I participated in a discussion about whether or not “liberal religions” were “leeches on conservative religions.”

One thing that has also been difficult is to figure out what is even meant by “liberal” and “conservative.”

Does “Conservative” when referring to theology mean “believes every scripture completely literally?” If so, I doubt there is such a thing as a “conservative” when it comes to theology. But there is one thing that seems very consistent when we refer to “Conservative Christians”: we always seem to mean someone that believes in the doctrines of the Christian religion, particularly the unique Divine Sonship of Jesus Christ and the literal resurrection after his crucifixion. Perhaps this is why sometimes “liberal Christian” gets used as a simple (though as we’ll see, incorrect) synonym for a practicing-but-not-believing Christian.

But this just doesn’t seem to be an accurate use of the term either. For example, I was reading Lloyd Averill’s book Religious Right, Religious Wrong: A Critique of the Fundamentalist Phenomenon and I came across this explanation of his own Christian beliefs:

One fundamentalist doctrine that cannot stand the test of original biblical intent is that of the virgin birth of Jesus. The problem with the virgin birth… is not that the religions of the world were filled with accounts of miraculously birthed saviors, or that modern science has no place for human parthenogenesis, both of which are true. The problem is… internal to [the New Testament]: the New Testament itself fails to affirm the virgin birth broadly or give it a central place in its witness to Jesus as the Christ. Consider the following points.

First, the miraculous birth of Jesus is reported unambiguously in only one place in the New Testament. [Goes on to point out that in Matthew the mention of virgin birth in Isaiah is actually a mistranslation of the Septuagint.] Second, Luke’s birth account is ambiguous. …there is no explicit elimination of Joseph from the impregnation nor any mention of embarrassment on his part that his betrothed had become pregnant without his help… Neither Matthew nor Luke makes any later reference to the birth, and Mark and John contain no birth accounts at all. … If Paul knew of it, he obviously thought it unimportant…

So the virgin birth, as a physiological fact, fails – not out of scientific consideration, but out of the wight of biblical evidence… (p. 83-85)

So here we have what many would call a ‘liberal Christian.’ He denies the virgin birth.

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Why Miner’s Rights Makes Me Not a Libertarian

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I was in an MSHA class this week and one of the subjects is a Federal laws passed called “miner’s rights.” Essentially its a law that guarantees that a company cannot fire or harass a person if he or she, in good faith, refuses to work in an unsafe environment. Likewise, the laws protect a person if they file a complaint on their company, or testify against their own company in a court. The instructor of our class mentioned that he had testified in court against his own company 8 times and has filed complaints against his own company 4 times and that he had no fear of reprisal due to these laws.

I confess I think laws like Miner’s Rights are a good thing. In fact, I think they are a great thing. Laws like Miner’s Rights is one of many reason why I can’t be an ideological Libertarian. From a purely ideological point of view, Libertarianism believes that government (and therefore laws) should only provide enforcement of contracts, punishments for people that performed an initial use of force, or for country defense. Sometimes they do throw in some very limited public goods. Sometimes they claim there is no need even for government owned fire engines and that the private sector can handle it better.

Such a philosophy would be against “Miner’s Rights” on the grounds that it’s unnecessary because capitalism will create equivalent or better regulations and environments on their own without government interference. For example, the mining companies will be forced to introduce their own superior safety standards and create their own ‘miner’s rights’ that they enforce internally because it’s the only way they can get the best talent to work for them. If they don’t, they can’t compete and they go out of business.

I confess, I just don’t believe it. Continue reading →