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Author Archives: Cory
If not secularism, then what?
Brian Britt delivered an enlightening talk at our meeting three weeks ago on, among other threads, the evolving interpretations of holy texts and the clash between dominant religious communities and institutional secularism that has become a mainstay of the Enlightenment.* Following a question from Zack at the Leopard discussion afterward, i’ve been wrestling with my own embrace and promotion of secular values—a core element of this club.
Here’s the dilemma Dr. Britt posed: In the hundreds of years since its inception, the secular agenda has failed to realize the hopes of its founders. Now, it may have been too much to hope for an end to religious strife or guidelines for the founding of happiness-maximizing societies. But to get the point across it’s enough to reflect on just how successfully the largest nation to codify secularism—the United States**—has overcome the religious intolerance that has defined it since inception. This failure, Dr. Britt argues, has ushered modernity into a post-secular phase.
This isn’t to say that secularism has been anything but an immense net good for modern societies. But it does seem to say that secularism will not be the final word on interfaith coexistence. Dr. Britt characterizes post-secularism by a defining problem: Religious strife and discrimination—which include the marginalization of the irreligious—require a solution. If not secularism, then what?
a taste of denial
Denial of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) comes in a variety of flavors. While i’ve come across several taxonomies, the most elegant (and, so far as i know, the only one necessary) classifies AGW denialists into three camps:
- Global temperatures are not rising.
- Global temperatures are rising, but not because of human activity.
- Human activity is causing global temperatures to rise, but this is not a big problem / we can’t do anything about it.
What is energy healing?
Acupuncture and moxing (Wikimedia Commons)
At last week’s meeting Zack Lewis discussed several varieties of energy healing, alternative therapies derived largely from Eastern traditions including reiki and acupuncture. Promoters of energy healing may invoke concepts from physics, from quantum mechanics to electromagnetism to energy itself, to suggest a scientific underpinning. Most claim, more directly, that their treatments have been validated, not just by testimonials but through clinical trials.
The clinical evidence for acupuncture and emotional freedom techniques, for example, show a pretty consistent trend in my view. But paralleling the question of evidence always seems to be a hidden question of definition. What, precisely, is being tested?
Freethought Nation
Founding Fathers (Michael Allen Smith)
In the months leading up to the start of Fall semester, the Roanoke Times opinion pages hosted an illuminating exchange over the cultural dispositions and motivations of the Founders and the role of prayer in U.S. government. Bob Crawford began the discussion with a review and rebuttal of some of the most common arguments made in support of (by definition state-sanctioned) official prayer at government meetings, including an argument from tradition or precedent, an argument from founding principles, and an argument from neutrality or inclusivity (that is, the case for open-access prayer, which is currently sanctioned by the Roanoke County Board of Supervisors, as opposed to non-sectarian prayer, which the similarly-situated Forsyth County, NC, to which the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals put a sternly worded end). Crawford concludes,
It is time we all understand that it is only by prohibiting our government from prescribing or supporting any religious position that our Constitution secures our freedom to hold our own religious views.
Comment on Crawford’s editorial here.