I really wish that these types of interchanges, that occur between Jim and others who
are responding to Jim's (dare I say, his trolls), would be carried out offline. The
relation to psychological sciences is tangential at best. Now, maybe some on this
list look forward to reading and responding to these things, but not me.
Ed Callen
Chair, Psychology Dept.
USC Aiken
Aiken, SC 29801
-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Guinee [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Sat 4/27/2002 11:28 PM
To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences
Cc:
Subject: Re: Remote, retroactive intercessory prayer
> Jim Guinee wrote:
>
> (re. someone else's comment that:)
> > > There is a leap here that went over my head. How does rejection of the
> idea
> > > of a loving God translate into a lack of optimism for the universe?
> Optimism,
> > > morality, wonder, etc., can exist without a belief in God.
> >
> > But I'm willing to bet it's a much tougher enterprise...
>
> Really? Why? None of these things are easy to measure, but...
>
> In the real world, optimism seems at least a bit more common in the
> nonbeliever compared with the believer
I think this is one of those that depends on your reference group.
Most believers I know are pretty optimistic. Of course, I'd be suspicious
if they were too optimistic -- then they're probably too imbued with their
own optimism and not concerned about the lack in others .
For me, many nonbelievers DO seem to be more optimistic. Of course how
much optimism is a good thing? How many nonbelievers are optimistic
about their own lives and could care too much about others? Is optimism
similar to self-esteem, in that too little is always harmful, and too much
is always annoying?
> esp. as the latter group is skewed
> by a large subgroup of outliers
I always thought outliers were the statistical minority ;)
> subscribing to the belief that the world is
> a vile place dominated by Satan with only a small, select group of "saved"
> folks. Ignoring that group, optimism seems to be roughly equal in the two
> groups.
Do you have any research to support this assertion, or is this just how
you
see things? Just askin', not arguin'
In my limited experience, the religious individuals who see the world in
somewhat vile terms may actually be quite optimistic about their own and
others' ability effected or eventual ability to overcome the vileness :)
Christians certainly have much cause to be optimistic and pessmistic,
and often too much of either seems to say a lot about the individual's
flawed or superficial theology.
What do you define as "optimism" anyway? I wonder how folks cover this
in class -- when the subject of subjective well-being does come up...
> Belief in morality (that is, in the _existence_ of a morality) seems to
> be roughly as common in each group, perhaps with a slight edge to the
> believers. Actual moral behavior, on the other hand is clearly far more
> common among nonbelievers compared with believers, a group again affected by
> that problematic set of outliers.
Huh? I was with you on the first statement, lost on the second one.
Why is that set of outliers so problematic? How are they less moral?
Clearly my definition may be vastly different than yours.
Now, I am not going to try and claim the believers trounce the
nonbelievers demonstrated morality -- often religion makes a person more
moral, but that doesn't mean it necessarily more moral than his/her
non-religious neighbor.
The Mormons are an interesting study. There's enough literature to
demonstrate
this "fundamentalist" group is quite moral, much moreso than the general
public.
Of course, again we can do the dance of semantics, discussing what is the
appropriate definition of being "moral."
For example, do you see divorce as an immoral act? Would you argue that
in general staying married is more moral than getting divorced?
The United States leads the industralized world in divorce rate.
Certainly
some of this has to be immoral.
Now when you look at believers and nonbelievers, believers are are
probably
as likely to get divorced -- but when you begin to look at how devout the
believers are, the divorce rate generally decreases with each strata.
Of course the aforementioned point brings up a significant problem with
much research on religious individuals -- thankfully we are moving beyond
classifying people as believer vs nonbeliever or asking them "what
religion are you?" and examining the intensity of the belief system.
Obviously you've already alluded to this, in your teasing out the group of
outliers.
> One need not hold that religion is
> responsible for most of the world's ills to accept that religious
> _fundamentalism_ is responsible for far more evil than is atheism, even if
> just by pure volume. I don't think that there can be any real doubt about
> that proposition.
But there is to me, and probably to many fundamentalists. What IS your
definition of fundamentalism? I know this word gets used a LOT in class,
seminars, common culture, and yet no one ever seems to define what the
word means.
Here's an interesting website, clearly designed to make fundamentalism
out to be the scourge of humanity (and watch the writer fumble trying to
define fundamentalism): http://www.bidstrup.com/religion.htm
Interestingly, the word's inception seems to come from the late 19th/early
20th century, a reaction to the inceasing trend for even some mainstream
Christian folk to dispute much of religious traditions.
If I remember correctly (ugh...) Hunter's Pastoral Dictionary lists a
Christian fundamentalist as someone who:
a) believes that Jesus Christ is God
b) believes that Jesus Christ was born of a virgin
c) believes that Jesus Christ was resurrected and will effect a 2nd coming
d) believes in the inerrancy (notwithstanding translation and copying
errors)
of the bible
e) believes in the substutionary atonement effected by the crucixifion of
Jesus
Now most Christian denominations probably endorse these views, so how can
fundamentalists be the fringe?
Here's another interesting site, a little more edifying than the previous
one, although I'm continually amazed at people's insistence that
fundamentalism
is some religious movement that is only in its infancy (?).
It reminds me of why I stopped listening to Rush Limbaugh -- I got
nauseated
with the "liberal this" and "liberal that" when he never bothered to a)
define a liberal, and b) identify the particular liberals. He just went
on making sure you thought of it as a dirty word.
Fundamentalism is probably just as loathsome for some individuals.
But when you are one of those people, you tend to see yourself as
reasonable.
And of course the nutcases and publicity-hungry hypocrites (e.g., Falwell,
Robertson -- yes, I actually dislike them, and the more public a religious
individual is the more I think we need to check their pockets) I see
inflicting their neighbors in the name of the same religion as mine does
cause me to bristle when I hear "Those dern fundamentalists again..."
Maybe this is why my wife keeps saying "We are NOT fundamentalists..." :)
> Genuine wonder seems CLEARLY more common among nonbelievers than among
> believers. Our recent discussions of creationism should have made that
> abundantly clear.
What do you mean by "genuine wonder?" I look out at the stars, I look at
the world, and I am continually astonished by its beauty, complexity,
consistency.
I genuinely wonder how much more we will learn in the next hundred years.
I genuinely wonder how God did it all. Why do you seem someone with my
belief system as "wonder-impaired"?
> Were it not for the existence of the fundamentalists, I'd say all three
> of these characteristics were pretty close to being a "wash" between the two
> groups. But if the fundamentalists are included in the group of believers
> the advantage in morality and wonder clearly goes to the nonbelievers. I
> suppose one might argue that the fundamentalists shouldn't be included
> because the original statement was about the idea of a "loving God", but I
> am all but certain that the fundamentalists themselves would claim that
> modifier DOES apply to their beliefs.
Again, please operationalize fundamentalists, or you cannot make a
convincing argument. I know YOU know what it means, but I think there is
too much at stake to fool around with semantics.
Reminds me of a Moslem friend of mine. One of our initial conversations
went like this:
Me: "You're a Moslem?"
Him: "Yes, sir, I am. And proud to be one."
Me: "Are you a devout Moslem?"
Yes: "There's no other kind."
Me: "What about the fundamentalist Islamic groups I always hear about."
Yes: "Sir! Those are NOT Islamic fundamentalists! They are crazy!"
> =================
> I suspect that your comment (Jim) is influenced by something about your
> OWN beliefs, and those of others who share your belief in god. I suspect
> that you're thinking something like "If *I* no longer believed in a loving
> God, I'd lose my optimism, foundation for morality, and inclination to
> wonder". And perhaps you're right - you very well might.
Agreed!
> But that is only
> because you've had a life in which you tied those things to your belief in a
> god. It's kind of like saying "If there were no English language, I wouldn't
> be able to communicate - so people who don't speak English must not be able
> to communicate". Well, no...
Understood. Excellent point! My religious beliefs may cause me to be a
better version of myself -- morally and ethically speaking -- but again
may not cause
me to be a morally and ethically "better" individual than my non-religious
neighbor.
Of course, I do like to ask in the absence of religious moral traditions,
what morality would we have? No doubt a nonbeliever might say "Plenty!
And better than yours! Nyah!" Okay, they probably wouldn't say "Nyah!"
(they might just think it) but it's a reasonable line of inquiry.
Go back to the issue of divorce -- the definition of marriage and the
exceptable rules for sex and divorce in this country were heavily
indluenced by Judeo-Christian traditions. Now that this country has moved
away from what some people view as rigid definitions, how successful will
we be when it comes
to preserving and maintaining (regardless of definition) healthy family
systems?
> Paul Smith
> Alverno College
> Milwaukee
Paul, always a pleasure to have a reasonable view from the "other" side.
I admit I instigate several of the religiously-flavored discussions, and
some no doubt see me as a religious troll (or elf). I just view the
subject of religion too embedded in the culture for psychology and
psychologists to ignore, or worse, intentionally or unintentionally
distort.
While an individual like yourself may have cogent arguments to reason
against fundamentalism, I view the problem more as the inability to
separate belief from behavior. One can be rabid about his/her beliefs and
still act in a civilized manner alongside his non-believing neighbor.
Jesus admonished the crowd to love thy neighbor, and the Samaritan was a
powerful example that anyone is my (your) neighbor.
Best wishes,
Jim Guinee, Ph.D.
Univ of Central Arkansas
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