Interesting NYT article about combining religion and social networking technology.

I rarely have patience to read through a very long Times article, but I actually did read these two long and fascinating NYT Magazine articles in the last couple of weeks. I highly recommend them to anyone interested in sociology, politcs, psychology, or any mix of the three.

Is Obama the End of Black Politics? is about how the concept of “Black Politics” - that is, the relevance and meaning of blacks in politics - may change forever if Obama gets elected. Fascinating points of view in this article.

The Trolls Among Us is an anthropological study of Internet subculture and its evils. What is the effect of anonymity on morality? Very fascinating.

Your view of what’s right or wrong is entirely based upon what you already believe. Therefore, changing your perspective requires a leap of faith or discovery of some unconscious belief.

I swear this is too funny to be real, but it was in the NY Times! I felt like I was reading an Onion article. Here is the article, and here are my favorite quotes:

Tim (12 years old) explained the game’s allure: “It’s just fun blowing people up.”

“We want to make it hard for teenagers to go to hell,” Mr. Barbour (Minister) wrote in a letter to parents at the church.

… Mr. Barbour (also) wrote that God calls ministers to be “fishers of men.” … “Teens are our ‘fish,” he wrote. “So we’ve become creative in baiting our hooks.”

Playing Halo is “no different than going on a camping trip,” said Kedrick Kenerly, founder of Christian Gamers Online, an Internet site whose central themes are video games and religion. “It’s a way to fellowship.”

“If you want to connect with young teenage boys and drag them into church, free alcohol and pornographic movies would do it,” said James Tonkowich, president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, a nonprofit group that assesses denominational policies. “My own take is you can do better than that.”

Hundreds of churches use Halo games to connect with young people, said Lane Palmer, the youth ministry specialist at the Dare 2 Share Ministry… The organization recently sent e-mail messages to 50,000 young people about how to share their faith using Halo 3. Among the tips: use the game’s themes as the basis for a discussion about good and evil.

In rural Minnesota, Mr. Drexler said, the church needs something powerful to compete against the lure of less healthy behaviors. “We have to find something that these kids are interested in doing that doesn’t involve drugs or alcohol or premarital sex.” His congregation plans to double to eight its number of TVs, which would allow 32 players to compete at one time.

New York Times Magazine has a must-read article about “neo-atheism” and the belief in religion as a naturally occurring phenomenon. I wrote a lengthy research paper in Spring 2006 which covered this very topic, and I read works from nearly everyone cited in this article. The author did an outstanding job of condensing mountains of research into an organized, convincing, and easily-understood piece.

In the hope of enticing you to read, I give you this inspiring quote from religious scientist Justin Barrett:

“Christian theology teaches that people were crafted by God to be in a loving relationship with him and other people,” Barrett wrote in his e-mail message. “Why wouldn’t God, then, design us in such a way as to find belief in divinity quite natural?” Having a scientific explanation for mental phenomena does not mean we should stop believing in them, he wrote. “Suppose science produces a convincing account for why I think my wife loves me — should I then stop believing that she does?”

I was very glad to read this op-ed piece which is titled “Getting Paid For Getting It Wrong: Bad Brokers Get Fired, Bad Pundits Get Hired”. I think in general, most people are in some way or another in denial of reality (I am probably one of those people, so somebody please help me and tell me what I’m doing wrong!)… so when some guy on TV chimes in with his opinion which has been carefully calculated and weighed against important and trustworthy evidence… and it supports some aspect of reality which you just can’t bear to acknowledge, you will change the channel (”I hate this guy”) and instead you will watch the guy who gives his cleverly worded opinion which agrees with your own view of the world (”That’s more like it!”).

Pundits are always bending the truth regardless of which side they are on. By taking a side at all, they are simplifying a complex issue into one dimension. John Stewart’s must-watch appearance on Crossfire (which prompted the show’s cancellation) was a great and rare illustration of when moderation has actually beaten out extremism in the media. As he says, debate makes for wonderful theater, but by allowing ourselves to be swayed by one side of the theater is to forget how important it is to have good government. It is quite obvious that the Bush administration has a wonderful PR team: they spin everything the way their voters want to hear it. The truth is not something which they feel the public needs to know. The democrats are in a tight spot because their voter base tends to be obsessed with the truth. How do you satisfy the democratic voters who want the truth and still win over Joe “Swing State” Voter who is somewhat susceptible to spin tactics?

I think it’s fair to say that reality has a far lower value than fantasy… in the entertainment industry. When it comes to managing money, programming computers, mixing chemicals, building a bridge, etc… we value the reality more than the fantasy. Obviously, when we want to be entertained, we want something incredible, not something mundane. It’s a rare person that is actually entertained by reality. However, I think it’s a wonderful sign that a book about statistics and economics (Freakonomics) is a smashing success. There is also the sudden popularity of Malcolm Gladwell (author of Blink and The Tipping Point). Maybe to get people interested in reality, it takes an amazing person like Gladwell to make the fascinating complexities accessible to a general audience.

Looks like the Danish newspaper which published the infamous Mohammed cartoons is off the hook. This was based upon the judgement that the intent was not to belittle or insult Muslims. As much as I defend the paper’s right to publish those cartoons, some of them were fairly insulting. I’m glad to see that the furor has died down over this… I had nearly forgotten about it!

My Godfather, who is a devout believer in metaphysics, told me a couple of years ago that he thought that traditional science is bogus because it does not take into account the personal influence of the experimenter. I found that hilarious at the time, because the entire purpose of a scientific experiment is to isolate a phenomena from any potential influences, but it was such a “sticky” idea that I kept thinking about it for a while.

What kind of people make the best scientists? Those who can’t resist making an impact, or those who prefer to sit back and observe the truth? If you influence the experiment, does that mean that you are unable to perceive its “true” nature? Of course not… you are still observing its true nature, but you have become a variable in the experiment. You are a part of that “truth”.

According to a recent study by Science, only 50% of Americans believe that man “evolved from an earlier species of animals”. Among countries involved in the poll, America ranked #33 in terms of its percentage of citizens who believe in evolution.

Mel Gibson was recently arrested for drunk driving, which is surprising, but the real shocker is what he shouted at the arresting officer:

The TMZ report quoted Gibson as saying, “F….. Jews. The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world.” He then asked the deputy, “Are you a Jew?”

He later retracted his statements, which he claimed were things that he did not believe to be true and were despicable. I don’t quite believe that though… alcohol removes your inhibitions and you tend to say what you really think when you’re drunk. For anyone who doesn’t know, Mel Gibson’s dad is an unashamed anti-semite who publicly declared that the holocaust was “mostly fiction”.

It’s been such a long time since my last book review! It’s because I had been juggling books for a while, and then I took a class where I was too busy reading articles with titles like “Cortical map reorganization enabled by nucleus basalis activity” to actually finish any of my own reading.

So anyway, Breaking the Spell is Daniel Dennett’s latest work of brilliance. The book is a philosophical, psychological, ethical, evolutionary, memetic, and historical examination of religion. It examines religion from every angle and is surprisingly fair and balanced. A fascinating must-read. 5/5 stars.

Here is a passage from Avery Cardinal Dulles’ The Rebirth of Apologetics (2004), which was quoted in a book I’m reading:

In a revealed religion such as Christianity, the key question is how God comes to us and opens up a worlds of meaning not accessible to human investigative powers. The answer, I suggest, is testimony…. Personal testimony calls for an epistemology quite distinct from the scientific, as commonly understood. The scientist treats the datum to be investigated as a passive object to be mastered and brought within the investigator’s intellectual horizons. Interpretations proffered by others are not accepted on authority but are tested by critical probing. But when we proceed by testimony, the situation is very different. The event is an interpresonal encounter, in which the witness plays an active role, making an impact on us. Without in any way compelling us to believe, the witness calls for a free assent that involves personal respect and trust. To reject the message is to withhold confidence in the witness. To accept it is a trusting submission to the witness’s authority. To the extent that we believe, we renounce our autonomy and willingly depend on the judgement of others.

I’ve never heard such a convincing argument against trusting human testimony. Ironically, this passage was meant to defend testimony as a viable source for knowledge. After reading this passage and thinking about it, I became even more confident in the power of science. It also gave me ideas about what I could say if I ever want to get out of jury duty

Apologetics is “the field of study concerned with the systematic defense of a position” according to the wikipedia entry. Also according to the article, apologetic arguments are targetted at wavering believers, not at skeptics looking for a cogent argument. The point I’d like to make is that if you’re going to believe in something, do so because you want to believe in it! It shouldn’t require anything more than that desire.

I never thought I’d see this, but massive throngs of Hasidic Jews are rioting in Brooklyn! They even set a car on fire!

On TV they said he was over 80 years old, but in this article they say he is 75. Who knows what’s going on, but regardless, this is an impressive show of solidarity.

I was wondering what ever happened to those vicious anti-semitic cartoons that the Israelis were promising… here is the website that is collecting them. Most of them were pretty mild but there are a few which are particularly scathing. I think maybe it’s hard to find them to be so shocking because I am already so accustomed to Jews making fun at themselves!

This just in: Isaac Hayes quits South Park! Hayes, the voice of “Chef” on South Park, is a Scientologist, and quit the show because of a hilariously poignant episode which mocked Scientology.

[Matt] Stone told The AP he and co-creator Trey Parker “never heard a peep out of Isaac in any way until we did Scientology. He wants a different standard for religions other than his own, and to me, that is where intolerance and bigotry begin.”