What’s Wrong with Eve?

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Reading a newspaper film analysis by critic Stephen Witty on film noir, I was intrigued by how he represents the role of the femme fatale. Most produced and directed by men, the classic noir features a dangerous woman. Noting that there are “nice girls” in such movies, Witty states, “they’re not the ones who matter, the ones as essential to the plot as that serpent is to Genesis.” Naturally, this statement evokes the image of Eve, the seductress.

Eve has been much maligned by patriarchal religions. She is a convenient scapegoat for men’s uncontrollable urges, and by making her the gateway to sin itself the male spiritual psyche is unburdened; it is all her fault. It often comes as a surprise that Genesis does not use the word “sin” in the episode in Eden. Interpretations of the tree of knowledge are not universally negative, nor is Eve alone to blame. Scapegoats, however, are much more comfortable than admitting culpability. Religions have stropped this to a high art; the masculine religious establishment can repress the feminine threat with scriptural justification.

Eve is a misunderstood heroine. She is the mother of knowledge. Genesis does not forbid the tree of life; ignorant humanity was free to live forever. Without knowledge. Eve, while perhaps under the duress of temptation, nevertheless took the initiative to find wisdom. And she has been paying the price ever since. Film noir is a reflection of life, as is most art. In a world where men like to think they have the right to rule, the woman who sees a little farther is considered dangerous. All feeble theological attempts to forbid religious leadership to women have Eve to thank for their revisionist hermeneutics.

The New Tetragrammaton

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It all started with Genesis. I’ve been reading Genesis since before I was even a teenager. When I began teaching it in a seminary setting, the age-old question of how science and religion fit together had become an insistent preoccupation. I began reading books by scientists who hypothesized that belief itself has a biological basis. Of course, there will never be any convincing those who believe since it is a chicken-and-egg style argument whether the body has “faith structures” because God put them there, or if we believe in God because our bodies grew them. One thing seems fairly certain, humans are “programmed to receive” what has been labeled “divine input” through the very bodies we’ve evolved.


Last night I finished reading Dean Hamer’s The God Gene, the latest in a long series of such books I’ve picked up over the years. While much of the technical and statistical information was beyond the comprehension of a simple humanities scholar such as myself, it became clear that a genetic basis likely does exist for a sense of spirituality among people. Quantifying spirituality, obviously, is a task open to long and serious debate, but the general traits of spirituality are nevertheless instantly recognizable. If those recognized as spiritual share characteristics uncommon among the non-spiritual, that itch should be telling us something. Hamer tracks the culprit to the gene VMAT2, responsible in some way for the monoamines that trigger spiritual experiences. He displays the evidence for how he drew this conclusion in a scientific way, being careful to note that genetic predisposition to spirituality neither proves nor disproves God.

Since the traditional Judeo-Christian name for God consists of four letters known as the “tetragrammaton” and since the “God gene” also has four letters, VMAT, I wonder if we’re onto something here. God can’t be measured in the lab (yet), but the “receptors” for God can. Others scientists have analyzed “God nodules” in human brains that seem to react to spiritual influences. As long as religion does not object to the laboratory probing of its sacred cows, we may eventually find God in a test-tube or petri dish. Chances are he won’t be a bearded white man sitting on a golden throne, and the smart money says most people won’t worship him once he is found.

Life in the Laboratory

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Nancy Gibbs’ essay “Creation Myths” appears in this week’s Time. Leaping off from Craig Venter’s “creation of life” in the laboratory, Gibbs asks who the final arbiter might be in this world we’re creating in our own image. The more I ponder the question, the more I realize that no person really decides how far we will go and the implications will only grow more and more unanswerable. We all attempt to construct the world according to our idea of how it should look; it is not a question of if we create the world in our image as much as it is whose image will prevail. As I noted in a recent post, no one person has all the answers. What each of us does impacts all the others just as a wave influences everyone in the sea. We fear science taking the prerogative of creating life because we are fully capable of imagining where it might go, but we just don’t know.

As an individual who has often been on the receiving end of other people’s visions of how this or that institution or company should look, it is my humble assessment that we have already lost control. We never really had control in the first place. At the end of the day, who will really be able to prevent another Gulf oil spill from occurring? Make what laws we will, other creators will find ways around them. And as in Gibbs’ article, the rest of us will simply have to react. No one is really in control.

Perhaps this is the real reason that religion is so appealing. It is terribly, terribly convenient to have an omnipotent divine entity on whose anthropomorphic shoulders we might cast our worries and burdens. Whether we believe in predestination or not, it is comforting to suppose that when it is all over God will somehow sponge up all that oil (preferably squeezing that sponge back out into BP’s great, sturdy tankards of crude), or stop that evil clone we’ve engineered, or stomp out that hyper-aggressive virus we’ve unleashed. We may make laws against creating life or human clones in the laboratory, but it will happen nevertheless. Gibbs wonders if scientists are about to cross some moral Rubicon. My answer is simple: we crossed that Rubicon long before the river itself flowed, when we first put our webbed feet out onto dry ground and began our still uncertain journey to the future.

God exits, stage left

Converting Triffids

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“Stupendous as this disaster is, there is, however, still a margin of survival. It may be worth remembering just now that we are not unique in looking upon vast calamity. Whatever the myths that have grown up about it, there can be no doubt that somewhere far back in our history there was a Great Flood. Those who survived that must have looked upon a disaster comparable in scale with this and, in some ways, more formidable. But they cannot have despaired; they must have begun again – as we can begin again.” This quote from John Wyndham’s Day of the Triffids brings into focus a number of themes from this blog. Initially, it is another example of the intersection of science fiction and religion, specifically the Bible. In his apocalyptic 1951 novel, Wyndham can find no better example of disaster than the Flood Myth. The Bible and science fiction have kissed each other once again.

Another recurring theme reflects on disaster and how religions deal with it. As the Gulf of Mexico oil spill begins taking on apocalyptic dimensions religion is brought into the discussion in a variety of ways: God will take care of it; it is a sign of the end times; God is punishing us for something; corporate greed must stop. Take your choice. When people feel threatened, religion is quickly brought off the shelf, dusted off, and thrust out as the harbinger of deep solutions. Those of us who deal with religion every day must be forgiven for being a bit more circumspect.

The Flood Myth is a regular theme as well. It crops up in unlikely as well as predictable locations. As mentioned yesterday, it was evident in the Mystic Aquarium (unexpected), and it constantly resurfaces in Fundamentalist rhetoric (predictable). On a previous travelogue entry I mentioned Noah’s Ark being rebuilt in Maryland (unexpected). Seeing the Flood as the benchmark of worldwide disasters in a science fiction novel may be predictable, but the troubling ethical concomitants drawn out by Wyndham are profoundly disturbing. The Flood is not longer the worst disaster imaginable, but the Bible will continue as the measure of catastrophe long after the triffids have vanished.

Mystical Aquariums

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This is the dawning of the age of aquariums. With the Gulf oil spill still gushing out of control, there is a current awareness of the plight of the seas due to unnatural (i.e. human) interference. Perhaps that is why so many people flocked to the Mystic Aquarium yesterday. That, and the fact that it was a beautiful day on the northeast coast. Having grown up in land-locked western Pennsylvania, I have always appreciated the oceans and their microcosms, designed for human visitation. My first actual aquarium experience was the New England Aquarium in Boston, a facility that sets a very high standard for all others. Trips to the Seattle Aquarium, the Norwalk Aquarium, the Camden Aquarium, and a variety of smaller facilities (I unfortunately missed out when my family visited the San Francisco and Shedd (Chicago) Aquariums) always leave me with a sense of connectedness to our planet. Life emerged from the seas, and, as Rachel Carson observed, we always long to go back to our ancestral home.

It is easy to spend an entire day at the Mystic Aquarium. Beluga whales are impressive close-up, and the sea lions show more intelligence that your average Republican. Jellyfish, with no brain at all, are capable of doing tricks humans can’t – a tank of bioluminescent jellies was captivating. The penguins had a fascination all their own. It had been a few years since I’d been able to pet a shark or ray. In a separate exhibit on Deep Sea exploration, largely featuring Robert Ballard, the man who discovered the Titanic, the aquarium houses several robots used for entering regions uninhabitable by humans. Since my intense association with FIRST Robotics is never far from mind this was an unexpected bonus. The biblical aspect of the journey, however, came at the end.

Exhausted from a day of wandering, hot and lethargic, we came across the final exhibit: Noah’s Ark! I had begun to wonder if I’d managed to spend a day in an entirely secular venue when the Bible showed up. The display was about the Black Sea. William Ryan and Walter Pittman’s theory of the origin of Noah’s flood in the Black Sea deluge was showcased, along with a video of Ballard, Ryan and Pittman discussing their ideas. As I tell my students, I don’t find this theory particularly convincing – the flood story first emerged, it seems, in southern Mesopotamia – but it is an excellent example of the hold the Bible has on the western imagination. The Black Sea did flood, shifting from fresh to salt water; that discovery is fascinating in itself. In the western world, however, it somehow just feels incomplete without giving old Noah his own Nantucket sleigh ride. To find the origin of the story of Noah, a trip to any vantage-point along the ocean where the power of the sea is evident is all that is required.

LOL Cat Bible Commentary, Part 1

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It was bound to happen. Here is the first installment of the LOL Cat Bible Commentary.

Genesis 1.1 Oh hai! In teh beginning Ceiling Cat maded teh skys an teh Urfs, but he no eated them.

In teh beginnin
In teh beginnin ub teh dai — Ceiling Cat nawt wurk at nite, cuz datz wen
Basement Cat come owt to do ebil stuffz.
Ceiling Cat
Ceiling Cat writed da Bible. He’z the mos smartess an strongess kitteh ever. An him reely good — he no eat other kittehs fud, an he nebber jumpz on another kitteh in da middul ub teh nite (but for hoomuns dis ok).
maded teh skys
But first him taked a nap. Den Ceiling Cat maded teh skiez so him had place to liv. An den him putted a hole in da ceilin so him kood peep down on teh Urfs. Wait, him nawt maek teh Urfs yet! Ai sowwy, plz to furgive? Kthx.
an teh Urfs
K, nao Ceiling Cat maek teh Urfs. Urfs is where the hoomuns howse iz.
Ceiling Cat no maek teh udder Urfs, jus da wun wif da howse.
but he no eated them
Ceiling Cat can has a hunger after awl taht wurk, Aifinkso! But him no eated teh skiez, cuz den him fall owt, an den dere no moar kittehz to wurk on da Urfs. An him no eated teh Urfs howse, either. Him wanted to maek teh birdiez an teh moal an teh fishiez. An him also want to maek teh hoomuns for to maek his fud.

1.2 Teh Urfs has no shayps an has darwk fase, an Ceiling Cat roed invisible bike ovah teh wawters

Teh Urfs has no shayps
Cuz Ceiling Cat nawt evur maded a Urfs befoar. Him not no wut Urfs shayp iz!
an has darwk fase
Ceiling Cat can to seez in teh darwk, but dere nawt eny shayps to seez. The Urfs has dawrk fase liek teh howse wif no elec…elek…elekt…wif no lytes.
roed invisible bike
Liek him wuz dreemin. Invisible bike is hawrd to be finded in teh dawrk, but Ceiling Cat maded it an him finded it.
ovah teh wawters
Ceiling Cat nawt liek to get him feetz wet, so him no rided teh bike thru taht wawter. Wawters has see monsturs an stuffs.

1.3 At furst, has no lyte. An Ceiling Cat sez, “I can has lite?” An lite was.

At furst, has no lyte
Ceiling Cat nawt need lyte, but him noes taht hoomuns will to need lyte for to maek noms.
An Ceiling Cat sez
Ceiling Cat has to tawk to himself cuz of monokittehism. No udder kittehs arownd yet, not ebben Basement Cat.
I can has lite?
Ceiling Cat reely wanted a cheezburger. But him needed a hoomun for to maek cheezburger. So him has to maek teh lyte for to get noms.
An lite was.
Nao him can to see howse an da Urfs he maded. Den him maded lolz an udder stuffz, but first him taek moar napz.

(Translated into LOL Speek by the world’s greatest CATS! Fan Kthx)

I See You, This Time

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With the advent of Avatar on DVD, I finally had the opportunity to see the movie. This time there was no booming bass and overly active 3-D, and I didn’t end up feeling nauseous for days after. On a small screen it lacked the compelling sense of being in each scene that the first ten minutes of my theatrical experience of the movie had, before I had to seal my eyes tight for the rest of the film or be carried out on a stretcher. Nevertheless, I was able to follow the story this time.

I have posted several times on my affinity for old science fiction films; a large part of my boyhood was spent watching hours of improbable adventure on the black-and-white. Perhaps counter-intuitively, I ended up studying religion instead of science, or even literature. Religion, however, is deeply embedded in science fiction, probably because it is deeply embedded in people. And Avatar was no different. Early commentators noted the similarities of Pandora to Eden. Two trees in the garden (Hometree and the Tree of Souls) were easily borrowed from Genesis. The idea of nearly naked natives living in harmony with the world around them, the soft, graceful curves of the forest contrasted sharply with the angular, obtrusive construction vehicles intent on raping paradise. I’m a sucker for archetypes, I guess. The concept of Eywa as “All Mother,” a nurturing goddess rather than a frowning father deity, only enhanced the sense that Pardora’s box should not be violently wrenched open. Even the hideout of the protagonists was nestled among floating rocks called the Hallelujah Mountains – presumably the name given by earthlings.

Yes, the writing was at times trite, and the characters were caricatures of themselves, but in the tragic light of the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill, Avatar’s world was pristine, uncomplicated by greed and corruption. The Na‘vi, like zealous Christians, are born twice; the metaphor of foolishly maintaining hope in the harsh light of uncaring entrepreneurs might lead to a limited salvation even for this tired old planet. I am an unrepentant tree-hugger. And if there is a film that, despite its limitations, says it is alright, even noble, to hug trees, then I say it is religious in the deepest possible sense.

All Mother is watching

Mother’s Day and Earthquakes

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It is Earth Day, a holiday that all the world should join hands to celebrate since it is secular and concerns all people. Except the religious. Theologies are inured to common celebration; any admission that others might be right is a chink in the implacable armor of conviction. So it was not such a great surprise when an Iranian cleric this week blamed Iran’s earthquakes on women. Fuming like Eyjafjallajokull, the imam cited immodesty on the part of women as leading men to temptation and the very earth whose day we celebrate shakes in rage. Why it is that the burden to prevent sexual temptation should fall on women alone is unfathomable. If men have such trouble controlling their urges perhaps they ought to explore real estate on Mars, although it is doubtful they would be happy there.

The earth, our common home, was conceived to be female by many ancient societies. The Greeks of the Classical era called her Gaia and gave her the honor of being the earliest deity to emerge from Chaos. In the Bible, desexed and depersonalized, the earth was constructed on the first three days before any living inhabitants cluttered its pristine surface. With the drive of Christian conviction that this unruly mother should be subdued under human dominion the industrial revolution began a process of disrobing and dismembering Gaia, an impersonal “it” to be exploited. The Bible could be cited as demanding such action; we were commanded to take control. And our religions provided the ethics to underscore our mandate.

If not for the second great awakening in the 1960s, Earth Day would never have found its fundamental expression. We would continue subduing and dominating, as per Genesis 1, until the great white man above would be forced to send his son on a great white horse to end it all. But the earth is our mother. The missing woman from the all-too masculine Trinity. Instead of blaming her daughters for the unstoppable lusts of her sons, and instead of repeatedly defiling her to keep up with the Republicans, we should take a moment today to honor her. She is the only such mother we have.

Son, behold thy mother.

Dinosaur Ark

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Over the weekend I had a detailed comment left on my post about the discovery of Aardonyx celestae, found here. Since the comment is a lengthy rebuttal, my answer begged to become a post of its own, so I present it here. The first remark I have to make is that my commenter wrongly suggested two problematic assumptions: I “don’t care” about correctly representing Creationist viewpoints and that I “ridicule Christians.” For those many students who have taken my classes over the past 17 years, it is always clear that I respect all religious viewpoints; in fact, empathy is generally cited as one of my main characteristics. I vehemently defend the rights of individuals to believe the religion they believe to be right – e.g., I do care. As for the ridiculing Christians concern, I ridicule no person. I will, however, point out viewpoints that are ridiculous, “Creation Science” being one of the most obvious. As is clear to anyone who takes the time to survey Christianity, the large majority of Christians in the world have no problems with evolution. A small but vocal sub-sect of the religion, mainly based in America, is the main Christian group that supports Creationism.

My theological assailant tells me that the Hebrew word for “kind” in the Noachian account is “min” (the root, marked as “dubious” in the standard lexicon, is myn) and that it is “much broader” than the word translated “species.” The problem here is that the ancient Semitic viewpoint has been left unaddressed. For the ancient Israelite dog was dog and wolf was wolf, and ne’er would the twain meet. Arguing that a limited evolution has taken place in order to make room on the ark is a fatal flaw to the position. Once it has been admitted that the Noah story is not literally each and every species known, it is the equivalent to the ark springing a leak mid-deluge. The commenter’s examples of animals breeding only “within their kinds” is also problematic. Such “kinds” are not recognized by “nature” and numerous examples of viable offspring crossing species have been recorded. Nature simply doesn’t abide by the neat and tidy categories that the ancient Israelites recognized. Suggesting that two sauropods were all that was needed on the ark to produce everything from Titanosaurus to Anchisaurus is a stretch for even “day-age” theorists since the genetic differences between them are as immense as their body size differentials. This slippery use of the word “kind” has all the imprecision of a god-of-the-gaps.

Did God say to take seven pair of each clean animal? My Bible reads “two of each kind” in Genesis 6.19. But wait, the story changes in Genesis 7.3. Could it be that we have two separate sources (or “kinds”) here? My commenter does not inform me where the fresh-water fish came from; after God blew the water out of the cosmic dome (Genesis 8.1) they must have had time to evolve while the salt leeched out of the low-lying basins left behind by the flood and its marvelous geography-forming power. Good thing Noah had plenty of fresh water on the ark!

“Take time to consider what scientists have already said on the issue,” my debate partner adjures me. That’s just the problem, however. I do read what the scientists say. And all of them who write without a Genesis bias tell me that the ark story is not scientifically feasible. More than that, being a life-long Bible reader, I came to that conclusion as well, based on the genre of the story (myth). I never claim to be the first to find contradictions that prove problematic for the Bible – I simply try to make my readers consider the implications of the fact that such contradictions indeed exist.

What I find so interesting about such criticism is that the author of the comment has not tested his/her hypothesis about what I actually believe. On principle I do not share my personal religious beliefs on my blog, just as I do not share them in the classroom. What I believe is immaterial to the issue of Creationism; in this issue the facts speak for themselves. The fact is “Creation Science” is science fiction.

Older than Stonehenge

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MSNBC ran a story yesterday concerning a little-known henge in Dartmoor, England. Images of these remote Dartmoor megaliths transported me back to my years in the British Isles when my wife and I spent every available tuppence traveling around to see antiquities so old that the Roman fortifications along Hadrian’s Wall seemed like throwbacks to the 1950s. With some English friends we met in Edinburgh we drove through the bleak moors of Dartmoor and Exeter, down into the forgotten curiosities of Cornwall, and back to Salisbury Plain to see Stonehenge. One year for my birthday we flew to the Orkneys (on a plane designed like a shoebox with wings) to explore the islands with the highest concentration of preserved prehistoric sites in Europe. Suffering from a killer head-cold, I accompanied my wife on hands and knees into tombs constructed thousands of years before William turned his conquering eye onto the British mainland. Colossal stone rings larger than Stonehenge, but less bulky and lacking capstones, stood out in the middle of a field where the locals barely threw a glance; such monuments had become part of the daily backdrop.

Archaeologists constantly attempt to discern the function of these silent remains. The MSNBC story suggests, based on the remains of porcine bones, that the Dartmoor site may have been associated with funerary rites. Carbon dated to 3500 BCE, they predate Noah’s putative ark (dated precisely to 1657, thank you Bishop Ussher) by more than a millennium. That they may have been associated with death is no surprise – the great feats and structures of humankind seem to be exactly that, efforts to cheat death. To leave reminders that we were here and we had something to say. What exactly they had to say, however, is muffled by the eons of lost communication.

A phenomenon I have noticed for many decades now is that when an unexplained structure or artifact is recovered, first recourse among many archaeologists is to attribute religious significance to it. Religion is the default fall-back when we can’t explain why people were expending tremendous resources to articulate a primal, deep concern in stone or clay. In many respects, the same is true today. Religious leaders still raise funds like no other class of professionals, simply by suggesting that death itself may be cheated of its due. All that money, however, can’t stop the inevitable. Instead of running away, I side with the archaeologists as I poke my head into some dank, dark space no other person has explored for many a month or year. Sitting quietly in an empty tomb left by an ancient society rendered completely mute by high antiquity, you are nevertheless in touch with what it means to be truly human.

Eternal Dampnation

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Does anybody have Noah’s telephone number? New Jersey has just experienced the wettest winter on record. Since the day records began, we’ve never had this much rain. That fact came home to me yesterday while driving the fifty miles to Montclair in a tremendous downpour. I had just purchased new windshield wipers, but the cap had fallen off the driver’s side blade. Driving on a truck-infested interstate where traffic continued to fly by at above posted speed limits, I realized with horror that at each passing swipe the rubber insert that actually swipes away the moisture was creeping out of the top of the wiper fixture. There it was, just at the top of my field of view, thrashing about like a demon-possessed snake, while my field of view grew smaller and smaller. I was in lane three of an eight-lane highway and couldn’t get over to make adjustments. In a nightmare I envisioned the slippery snake making a terminal bit for freedom and flying over my head as metal scraped glass and I drove blind into whatever lay ahead.

Well, the wiper stayed intact long enough to get me to the university. The rain did not abate, however. Even with battered umbrella and longsuffering raincoat, I was soaked below the knees by the time I squished into class. Unfortunately we studied the flood myth a few weeks ago. A few years back William Ryan and Walter Pitman, a couple of geologists, uncovered the fact that the Black Sea had been flooded by the Mediterranean some 7500 years ago. They posited that this sudden increase in sea-level around the Euxine Sea led to the dispersion of a world-wide flood myth. Their book became a best-seller and even Robert Ballard got in on the search for Noah’s homeland.

Hearing people talk about New Jersey’s incessant rain, I have no doubt that a major sea change was not necessary for flood stories to begin. As water levels rise, perhaps to the delight of whales and other blubber-laden beasts, the rest of us fear being perpetually covered by overwhelming waves. That is enough to start the story of a flood. Especially when your windshield wipers aren’t working on the Garden State Parkway.

Is it damnation or just New Jersey?

Heavenly Visitors

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With Passover hard upon us, I was a little disturbed to receive a letter on Friday that read, “A heavenly visitor will pass your house…” Having been raised on the sturdy fare of Exodus, I knew that heavenly visitors more often take the form of marauding angels than of jocular Santa Clauses. It seemed an ominous warning. Of course, it came from the Saint Matthew’s Churches that sent me such good wishes of divine promises of prosperity some months back, so I had to assume it was a purely coincidental biblical reference. The folks at Saint Matthew’s Churches are, after all, Bible believers.

Perhaps because of that fateful letter, I dreamed, in good Genesis style, a dream two nights ago. I dreamed that I found a dollar coin on the ground at a family outing. A few feet away lay another. And another. Wherever we went in that Morpheus-bewitched town there were silver dollars unclaimed on the ground. My trousers were being dragged down with the weight of the lucre in my pockets. I couldn’t believe my good fortune! Then I awoke, still employed only part-time, still worrying every minute about whether we can meet all the bills. Perhaps the dream was a message? Should the Saint Matthew’s’ folks be right, prosperity was headed my way. Saturday’s powerball jackpot was in the double-digit millions. I very rarely play the lottery, but since state education in New Jersey needs all the help it can get, I offered up a dollar to see if Saint Matthew’s’ prosperity was at hand.

No. Not even one number came close. Perhaps there is a secret clause in the prosperity gospel contract. Perhaps those who prosper must hold certain conservative views on social issues. The views, say, my mother holds. Yet she lives in a trailer on a severely circumscribed income. That doesn’t seem to be it either. Last night I awaited another dream. Instead, the next-door neighbors were holding a loud party until 3 a.m. Perhaps celebrating Palm Sunday? Or perhaps that was the heavenly visitor passing over for Passover a couple of days early? Either way, I didn’t sleep well last night knowing that something was just outside my window.

Emasculating Science Education

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American lags behind. Tough words to read, n’est-ce pas? America lags behind in science education. Even nations as “conservative” as Tajikistan teach evolution in their classrooms without question while the United States just can’t seem to accept the facts. The fault, with no question whatsoever, lies with a very narrow Christian interpretation of the irreconcilably contradictory creation stories that open the book of Genesis. This fact has once again come to an ugly head in New Jersey, among the bluest of states. Our, gulp, Republican governor has recently nominated Bret Schundler, a supporter of school’s rights to teach intelligent design, as state commissioner of education. I shudder.

As I teach classroom after classroom of Rutgers students, there is neither biblical nor scientific basis for Creationism. Creationism is a neo-Christian chimera forged together by political pundits who believe that if evolution is stopped in its factual tracks, America will revert automatically to the pre-hippie days of the 1950s where authoritarian dads with conservative haircuts barked out the family marching orders and saw everyone to gospel-hymn-singing churches each and every Sunday. It is a myth, they assert, that is worth believing.

The problem is that facts don’t evaporate simply because nabobs don’t like them. At the FIRST Robotics competition I attended this weekend, facts were presented. The facts are that America has fallen far behind in science education. Decades of fighting the pointless battle of Creationism at the highest political level in this country have weakened us. Those who study the Bible seriously do not question evolution. Those who study science at all cannot seriously question it. Those who do dig trenches of doubt in the minds of generations of Americans with an already inadequate understanding of science and suggest that maybe there is reason to find an atheistic plot behind evolution. There is no plot, only facts. And if New Jersey is about to join the Kansases, Arkansases, and Texases that see big cars, big oil, and big daddies as the solution to our social ills, it may be time to move to New Hampshire.

Religion Embraces Science

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My colleague and one-time dean, Michael Zimmerman of Butler University, has brought his Clergy Letter Project to the Huffington Post. Well, he has written an online piece for the Huffington Post entitled “Redefining the Creation/Evolution Controversy.” His article is clear and to-the-point: the Creation/Evolution debate is not about religion versus science. That has been shown repeatedly for those who care to examine the history of this controversy. Evolution barely caused a ripple among clergy when it was first becoming popular among scientists. Ministers assumed it was just one of God’s mysteries and went about their clerical duties. The issue became a public relations boondoggle with the Scopes Trial of 1925. One of the best books written on that subject is Edward Larson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Summer for the Gods.

As I have stated in my podcast on this issue, Creationism is a splinter movement within Evangelical Christianity. Over the years it has drawn in members of a wide variety of Christian groups, including Roman Catholics and mainstream Protestant denominations. It has publicized its concerns so well that many people assume that this is the “Christian” viewpoint and that all other views are, by definition, non-Christian. This is the perspective that has driven a wedge between religion and science, creating a false front that has led to many confrontations between Evangelicals and scientists. My favorite history of the Creationist movement is Ronald Numbers’ The Creationists.

The true motivation of the movement is, without doubt, political. While many sophisticated people scoff at the apparently simplistic machinations of the Creationist movement, what they do not realize is that it is a highly organized and politically savvy alliance of special-interest groups. Robert Pennock’s Tower of Babel was an academic exposé of the inner workings of the Creationist movement. It is perhaps the most important book written on the subject. Published by an academic press, however, it has not found the wide public readership it deserves.

Do yourself a favor: read Dr. Zimmerman’s post. I believe he has framed the dilemma in the correct way: the struggle is one within a specific religion, Christianity, not one between religion and science. The more the public knows about this issue the better off we all will be in the long run.

The End of the World as We Know It

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Well, that may be a bit dramatic, but my whole family is scratching its collective head over the news that our time on this planet has been foreshortened by the Chilean earthquake. Yes, scientists from NASA announced yesterday that Saturday’s 8.8 magnitude earthquake actually shook the earth three inches off its axis and has led to a loss of 1.26 milliseconds of time. Even for the gods this seems to be playing against the rules!

I wonder what the Fundamentalists are thinking about it? I do know that some extremely conservative types mess with time when trying to explain how the 4.5 billion-year-old world could have been manufactured in just 6 days — they call it the “day-age theory.” Or that the globe stopped spinning for 24 hours to give Joshua and his invaders more time to kill the Canaanites. I’ve even had students tell me that this latter case was scientifically proven. Time, however, ticks on despite our concerns with it.

It was my daughter who suggested the title for this post. After she said it, however, she noted, “Well, actually the world as we know it ended with the earthquake.” The world as we knew it. Radical changes have taken place with stunning rapidity on this old globe we call home, and some days the whole world changes. In 1815 the eruption of Mount Tambora led to the “year without a summer.” Wayward space rocks sometimes wipe out over 90 percent of all species on the planet. We live in a constantly changing environment. And it is my hunch that when that final disaster comes, those who’ve spent all their energy climbing the money mountain in the company of financial wizards, bank presidents, insurance profiteers, and oil company gods will come running to those who’ve spent their lives learning about religion seeking comfort in the face of the inevitable. We know we live in a temporary world; the wise spend their time contemplating the implications of that fact.

A little more to the left...