David Brooks, “How to Fight the Man.”

There is no god and that’s the simple truth. If every trace of any single religion died out and nothing were passed on, it would never be created exactly that way again. There might be some other nonsense in its place, but not that exact nonsense. If all of science were wiped out, it would still be true and someone would find a way to figure it all out again.

Now, this might be true or it might not be true – it’s a thought experiment with no way of verification. It’s an assertion, not an argument. Thus, from the very beginning, the appeal to empiricism is weakened.

But this claim – “it would never be created exactly that way again” – is true of anything rooted in the passage of time: history, art, literature, even the progress of science itself.

If everything related to human rights were erased from history, would it be recreated? Who could possibly know? Does that mean it’s foolish to support human rights or hold them as a core belief?

What about literature? If all traces of Shakespeare’s entire canon were erased from the earth, they would be lost forever. Does this mean that English professors are wasting their entire lives? (On second thought, don’t answer that.)

Science itself is rooted in history. If science were restarted from zero, I’m sure that many things would be rediscovered, but many important aspects of modern science – the divisions between disciplines, the classification of species, the technology required to conduct certain experiments, the prioritization of certain questions over others – are, in many ways, historical accidents, the results of specific actions and decisions made by specific people at specific points in time. Why else do we hold certain scientists (Newton, Darwin, Einstein, etc.) in such high esteem?

Further, as a recent Nova special discussed, time itself (and therefore all of history, including religion) may actually be an illusion. The past, present, and future might all simultaneously exist and be equally real. Physicist Brian Greene, summarizing some implications of Einstein’s theories:

BRIAN GREENE: Just as we think of all of space as being “out there,” we should think of all of time as being “out there” too. Everything that has ever happened or will happen, it all exists, from Leonardo da Vinci laying the final brushstroke on the Mona Lisa; to the signing of the Declaration of Independence; to your first day of school; to events that, from our perspective, are yet to happen, like the first humans landing on Mars. [Emphasis added.]

To put this another way, the religious “nonsense” that Penn Jillette criticizes for being  irreproducible may be as firmly rooted in the fabric of the cosmos as any scientific discovery. If you accept the view of time described by Greene above, then the development of Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and every other religion was inevitable from the very moment of the Big Bang.

Of course, not everyone shares this view of time. It’s shocking, I know, but the relationships between science, religion, and philosophy may – may – just be slightly more complicated than as described by comic magician, even a magician as talented and clever as Mr. Jillette.

[An aside: In my own study of religion and philosophy, certain ideas do seem to be reappear over and over again, across cultures and centuries. For example, when I shared the above quote from Nova on Facebook, a friend who studies cultural perceptions of time noted that contemporary physicists are reenacting theological debates about the nature of time from the 12th through 14th centuries. There's a reason why "big names" like Plato, Aristotle, Jesus, Augustine, Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha), etc., remain current. Even if you disagree with them, their teachings get at certain fundamental ideas of human nature and reality that cannot be ignored if you want to study those matters.]

1. First, I switched to “Use Facebook as Emerging Scholars Network.” If you’re the admin of a Page, you will see a similar option in the right sidebar.
   

   Page Admins can choose to use Facebook as their Page, gaining special powers in the process!

2. Next, I selected the Friends/Fans icon in the upper left corner. Click “See All.”
   

   That little silhouette is the list of your fans. Your Fans list used to be easier to find.

3. Since this was a Page, I filtered the Fans by Pages.
   

   There doesn't seem to be a Search function, unfortunately.

4. Click the X to remove them as a Fan, making sure that you check “ban permanently”as an option.
   

   "Ban permanently" is a good option to choose!

5. There is no Step 5.

That’s it! I hope you find this useful. Unfortunately, I’m not sure how to search Fans other than scrolling through the whole list of them. If you have a large number of Fans, this might be difficult. If the person has recently joined or had activity on your Page, then that will make it easier to find them. If they aren’t active and you can’t find them in your list of Fans, then perhaps you’ll be lucky and no one will notice.

Like I said, this process was far from obvious, and there might be an easier way. If you know a better or different way, please tell me in the comments. Thanks!

Note: These instructions apply only to Facebook Pages (i.e. for businesses, nonprofits, clubs, causes, etc.). If you need to block someone from your personal Facebook account, see this article from Facebook.

However, since this photo gallery appears in the New York Times, will the primary audience see anything besides rednecks and hillbillies? Won’t this gallery simply reinforce existing stereotypes of Kentucky among the East Coast elites? Will they have any insight at all as to how to interpret this quote from Adams that accompanies the gallery?

When I was young, I couldn’t wait to leave Kentucky. Now, as I get older, I value every day when I return.

Many people know about Kentucky author and farmer Wendell Berry, but I wish more people knew about Harlan Hubbard, classically trained painter and musician, an essayist who inspired Berry and who, like Berry, chose to live off the land in rural Kentucky rather than among the cultural elite. Hubbard is someone who gets you a bit closer to the paradoxical land that is Kentucky.

Since the atonement involves tremendous complexity and great mystery, the best narratives will not be simplistic (like movies were resolution comes through a car chase or gunfight). Neither will the best narratives be Manichean (where the good guys are all good and the bad guys are all bad). Nor will they be simply heroic (where protagonists triumph over obstacles through reliance on their own inner resources) or simply nihilistic (where the point is to enact the futility of human existence as in novels of Thomas Hardy like Jude the Obscure and Tess of the D’Urbervilles). Rather, the best narratives will be morally complex, as in fact the enduring tragedies, comedies, and novels — like Oedipus Rex, King Lear, Paradise Lost, and Crime and Punishment — regularly are. Such morally complex narratives are most satisfying because, in terms of atonement theology, they are most true to life.

Mark Noll, Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind, p. 71. Emphasis added.

However, how much of this can be personally blamed on Columbus? He had no idea that Native Americans had no immunity to smallpox – no one even knew what caused smallpox. War was perhaps inevitable when the empires of Europe encountered the empires of America, but Americans did pretty well defending their territory until disease overcame them. Haven’t you ever wondered why it took 130 years for Europeans to begin settling North America after Columbus’ initial encounter? World history would have been very different if the New World had not been ravaged by epidemics.

Is there a way to mourn the tragic loss of pre-Columbian America without assigning personal blame to Columbus?

Mr. Jobs’s final leave of absence was announced this year on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. And, as it happened, Mr. Jobs died on the same day as one of Dr. King’s companions, the Reverend Fred L. Shuttlesworth, one of the last living co-founders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Dr. King, too, had had a close encounter with his own mortality when he was stabbed by a mentally ill woman at a book signing in 1958. He told that story a decade later to a rally on the night of April 3, 1968, and then turned, with unsettling foresight, to the possibility of his own early death. His words, at the beginning, could easily have been a part of Steve Jobs’s commencement address: “Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now.” But here Dr. King, the civic and religious leader, turned a corner that Mr. Jobs never did. “I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land! And so I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything, I’m not fearing any man! Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!”

My new post at ThinkChristian.

Earlier this summer, NPR asked listeners to select the top 100science fiction and fantasy novels of all time. By some chance, the final list began and ended with the two most acclaimed Christian novelists of the twentieth century. J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy came in at No. 1, while C.S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy rounded out the list at No. 100.

Read the whole thing and join the conversation.

The cover of the Recent College Et Cetera from Sept. 18, 2001

Ten years ago today, I began my year-long run as editor of the Et Cetera, the official student “newspaper” of Regent College. I put “newspaper” in quotes because it’s not like most student newspapers around the country. Regent College is a fairly small, fairly tight-knit community of theology students, and our newspaper (when I was there) consisted mostly of run-of-the-mill announcements and anything-but-run-of-the-mill theological essays.

The first issue under my tenure was dated September 11, 2001. Obviously, I had no idea what would happen on that day, as you can see for yourself:

Regent College Et Cetera – Sept 11 2001 (PDF, 1.2 MB)

As I wrote a few years ago, I learned about the terrorist attacks just as I arrived on campus. A week of reflection, prayer, and mourning led to our second issue, which included liturgical readings, poetry of mourning, a cover essay by Mark Filiatreau, and a column by my assistant editor Leland Ferguson, but also a surprising number of “ordinary” items: an invitation to discuss the movie Contact, a warning about theft on campus, logistical announcements for the annual retreat:

Regent College Et Cetera – Sept 18 2001 (PDF, 888 KB)

Over the rest of that semester, our community debated the meaning of 9/11, the appropriate responses to violence, anger, and mourning, and any number of political and theological issues related to the attacks. In these first two issues of that year, you can get a sense for how the Regent community operates.

P.S. I’m fairly certain that I don’t have permission to post the contents of these two issues online, but I hope no one minds. If you’re one of the writers and you’d like me to take your article offline, just let me know.

Parks and Recreation, Comment Online

A Biblical Basis for Parks, ThinkChristian.net

Enjoy!