Be Careful Little Hands

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“Time is always against us,” Morpheus informs Neo in The Matrix. Of course, this is a paradigm for life spinning out of control, an allegory of having been taken over by forces against which there is no defense. It surprises no one that as time continues its inexorable march there will be generations that see the same phenomenon in very different ways. In last week’s Time, Nancy Gibbs’ essay addresses the differences between the millennial generation and those of us who are, well, not to put too fine a point on it, older. Her observation on their religious sensitivities is worth noting: “millennials” are just as religious but less conventional, with 1 in 4 having no religious affiliation. They nevertheless remain a deeply spiritual bunch.

Neurologists continue to study the “hardwired” aspect of religious belief, finding that human brains possess a genuine need to believe in something. Why not god? It is, after all, our cultural matrix. As I read this I reflected on ancient religion. Often students ask me what ancients believed. We don’t really know. Religion as a belief system only arises when monotheism emerges: if only one religion is correct, then it is possible to believe in the wrong one. There is no empirical way to test religious claims (yet) and so modern people equate religions with belief systems.

Ancient folk were much more practical. Religion was a matter of praxis, not belief. If you did what your local gods demanded, you’d get along for another day. Modern people peer deeply into the divine realm and make long-term plans based on the assurance of correct belief. Neither method, however, ultimately works. The millennial generation may be on the right track back to that old time religion. According to Gibbs what they’ve lost is faith “in the institutions that claim to speak for [God].” The idea of an all-powerful guy out there purposefully keeping us guessing while refusing to demonstrate the truth plainly for all to see is strangely outmoded. Religion becomes a matter of correct practice, as the old children’s song goes, “Be careful little hands, what you do – for the father up above is looking down in love, be careful little hands, what you do.” Millennials may rightfully wonder who this “father” is, but there is no question that there is someone out there watching what they do. Or else our own neurons conspire against us. The more we learn about the nature of religion, the less we know.

Asherah in Australia

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It has been one of those weeks dominated by a lady from my past. Asherah. Just when I thought I could forget her and get on with my life, she has reappeared with a fury. The problem is, I haven’t kept up with where she’s gone over the past few years and we all know what kinds of problems society has out there. Turns out she’s in Australia. At least according to a comment left on one of my old posts about Asherah. The author of the comment provided a tip that led me to abovetopsecret.com, a conspiracy theory website. One of the threads is from Brian Leonard Golightly Marshall, a man who claims to be the messiah – apparently he’s returned with his spouse Asherah, in her form of Mary Magdalene. Also, he states, Prince Charles is the anti-christ.

The internet has provided a forum not only for the serious exchange of ideas that help shape the future, but also a soapbox more massive than any other. In general I don’t believe conspiracy theories – just this week my daughter came home from school with news about Disney’s alleged subliminal smut, leading me to recall the hysterical claims made about the New World Order. The more things change, the more predictable they become.

So, is Asherah down under, waiting for a new apotheosis, or has the collective imagination of the internet just taken over? I’m not the one to judge. Nevertheless, while doing a little web research on Asherah I discovered that Asherah greeting cards are now available. They’ll have to wait until I find a job, however. Maybe once that happens I’ll also be able to afford a trip to Australia to see the goddess I’ve researched for so many years.

Biblical Outlooks and Science Fiction

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Alumni magazines depress me. Between my wife and I, we receive a half-dozen every month. I thumb through and see the cheery faces of classmates, most of whom I don’t know, who’ve gone on to great things – writing books, world travel, scientific breakthroughs. They’re not on the couch Saturday afternoons in New Jersey watching 1950’s sci-fi and wandering what went wrong. Especially bad is Bostonia, since I attended Boston University with many noteworthy individuals. Being forced from academia early in my career because of petty religious differences, I just want to bury my head and grab the remote. An article in this month’s BU shame-fest, however, pictured a professor, younger than myself, who joined the school of theology after I left. The title of the piece is “Biblical Sexuality.” Well, the connection with this blog couldn’t be more obvious.

Dr. Jennifer Knust is a professor of Christian Scriptures at BU who has written a couple of books on sexuality and the Bible. I’ve read widely on this topic in the Hebrew Bible, and was curious as to what the post-Jesus crowd was saying these days. The article specifically addresses homosexuality, but I did applaud one of Dr. Knust’s statements: “My main argument is that biblical texts do not speak with one voice.” Amen. Bravo. Goal! Our society is so imbued with the bibliolatry of the Religious Right that it is difficult for most Americans to understand that the Bible was written by many people over a few centuries and these people did not always share the same outlook. The Bible is an exercise in multiple voice-overs. Specific religions, as many denominations of Christianity testify, have harmonized these divergent voices into a coherent, if biblically untrue, theology. Some voices must be stifled so that others may dominate.

We live in a religiously plural world. There are about as many religions as there are believing people. We experience the world through our own lenses and within our own gray-matter. Our perspectives are uniquely our own. And yet religious leaders bend, worry, and force views closer to their own so that they might have a theological quorum, a consensus that one viewpoint is right. They silence the Bible’s divergent voices and claim they do not exist. I wish Dr. Knust well. She’s got the right perspective, in the opinion of my own weary gray-matter. And speaking of gray, where did I put the remote?

We Still Need Asherah

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A very prominent documentary-making company contacted me today. It is in the research stage of planning a documentary on Asherah. I am overwhelmed that I have been asked for advice and that the old girl has finally received some public interest. Scholars are generally accustomed to spinning in smaller and smaller circles of specialization that have little draw for the wider public. Having said that, Asherah is, my own interests aside, a most fascinating deity.

One of the greatest obstacles to modern readers on ancient religion is the fact that gods don’t neatly fit into predetermined categories. We like to think of deities as the “god/goddess of –” where the blank is filled by some natural phenomenon. This is a fallacy that I once whimsically coined the “divine genitival construct.” It is easy to think of Baal as the god of rain, but he is so much more than that! I tell my students that they must think of deities as “persons” first; they are fictional characters, and like good fictional characters they have many aspects to their personalities. They are complex, multilayered, and often conflicted. This is especially the case with Asherah. She is a goddess who represents the royal female. Kind of hard to picture. Not queenship, but the power behind the throne. She is more familiar in the form of Hera in Greek mythology – the primary spouse who tries to keep a philandering husband in line. She is, however, a powerful goddess. She is mother of the gods, the character without whom no other lesser deities would exist. By extension, she is the producer of the gods who make our world possible.

Publications continue to emerge claiming all manner of hypostases for Asherah, many of which are unfounded. I believe it is because we all need the sacred mother, the female authority figure. Our society, still hopelessly patriarchal, yearns for the goddess who understands. Unfortunately, that is not this historical Asherah, it is the Asherah of the modern imagination. If she helps to assuage some of life’s inequities, however, even a mythical Asherah may still serve a valuable function today.

Not Asherah, unless you need her to be

Politicians and Blood-Suckers

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The old icons and heroes are gone. It is best just to deal with it. No one is above reproach since we are all in this human morass together. Nevertheless, I’ve always held a soft spot in my cynical heart for Abraham Lincoln. I know he wasn’t perfect, but he stood for an issue that has been a driving force for my life: fairness. Now I see that he was a vampire hunter. After having read Seth Grahame-Smith’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies last year, I’ve decided to give a try to his Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. My fascination with monsters and religion has not been disappointed in this fanciful story.

Our quasi-fictional honest Abe begins his vampire-slaying ways when he learns that, yes, a vampire killed his mother. As a boy of only twelve, he finds the knowledge stressful to the point of burning the family Bible that he used to read to his departed mother. Why? In Abraham’s own (fictitious) words: “How could I worship a God who would permit [vampires] to exist? A God that had allowed my mother to fall prey to their evil?” I admit that I was secretly pleased to see the classic issue of theodicy being raised in a story concerned with the undead. It is the dilemma of all who want to see a good God behind all the suffering in the world. It is a dilemma that stems from the same deep wells as our inhuman monsters. We can imagine a better world, but we can’t have it.

Politicians with axes

As I see New Jersey’s governor Christie (for whom I decidedly did not vote!) slashing away again and again like Freddie Kruger at the state’s educational system, I see the twin peaks of vampirism and theodicy peering distantly over the horizon. I am deeply disturbed by the facile disregard this “visionary” Republican has for the future of his own state, for the future of our children. And I am forcefully reminded once again that vampires are symbolic of all those who prey upon the unwary. When staring into the fireplace on a cold night, I imagine myself standing beside Grahame-Smith’s fictional Abraham Lincoln, wondering what god it is that vampires worship.

Virgin Goddesses and Human Fathers

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Several years ago today I became a father. I try not to say much about my family online because I am old enough to be cautious about this brave, new, virtual world I post in just about every day; yet being a father is a life-changing experience like no other. The absentee father – something I personally experienced – sacrifices one of the most fulfilling aspects of life. Unless you’ve been there, you can’t understand it.

Today’s paper raises the question of whether celibacy is related to the continuing scandal of sexually transgressing priests that continue to come to light. Men who are not fathers but are called “Father.” Men, sworn by duty never to give in to human nature, appointed as spiritual guides to the masses who have succumbed to the dictates of biology and society. The church denies any connection. Could it do any differently? Two thousand years of frustrated men might storm heaven itself!

Among the most admired deities of the ancient Greeks were the virgin goddesses Hestia, Athena, and Artemis. Their divinity radiated through their self-sufficiency and self-determination; no god needed complete them. Goddesses had an integrity that few gods ever attained. We don’t read of virgin gods; Zeus was famous for his affairs, as were most masculine divinities. Many gods kidnapped or deceived women to slake their lust. Yet the virgin goddesses were formidable and truly worshipped. By restoring the virginity of Mary, the church constructed its own virgin goddess as a paragon for all to emulate. Priests were to be like the mythically chaste Joseph, longsuffering and self-abnegating. But they are mere mortals. Why not let religious leaders truly become fathers? It has forever changed my life for the better. Perhaps it would be healthier than chasing mythical virgin goddesses?

Athena, most chaste

Under G-d

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In one of the great showcases of civil religion, the Pledge of Allegiance is again in the news for its brash statement, “under God.” Lawsuits have been introduced in California to try to label the statement as unconstitutional – state supported religion, a declaration that the United States is a theistic country. Even as a child, a religious child, no less, I was vaguely disturbed by the Pledge. I am a sentimentally patriotic American, and I begrudge no one that natural feeling of pride in their heritage. We all come from somewhere, and we like to think the best of ourselves, and therefore our forebears. I’ve tried to trace my ancestry and find that with a sole exception on a great, great-grandparent’s exodus from Germany that my roots are hopelessly lost in long generations of northern European expatriates that have been on these shores for well over a century and a half. Some even more. And yet, to pledge allegiance to a flag? As a student of religion, I understand the value of symbols, but I always felt that a hand over the heart while addressing a banner was a little like idolatry.

Well, I’ve grown up since then. I spent three years abroad, and returned with a renewed appreciation of how much this country has to offer. I’m still a little puzzled by the “under God” bit, however. Sure, America’s founders were generally deists (not Christian by any recognizable stretch of the definition), and since God is assumed, why not add him to the books? But God was only added to the pledge in 1954. In the heat of McCarthyism it seemed important to fly our “anti-communist,” theistic colors high for all to see. And yet, we never define who “God” is.

The God of the Bible has a name. Every semester I find students that have difficulty grasping the idea that “God” is not the name of a deity – it is only a generic title. It could be anybody divine. Shiva, Zeus, or even Baal. In the written work of many of my students from the Jewish tradition, the reverence accorded to the deity’s personal name has been transferred to this innocuous title. In essays and papers I frequently find reference to “G-d,” as if the Torah commands never to make reference to deity at all. So, out of reverence to the same divinity we have some citizens leaving out the lonely vowel of a one-syllable deity while others loudly proclaim that he (never “she”) must be kept in the little bit of civil religion we impress on our public school children. We don’t agree, as a nation, on who “God” is. Reading the rantings of the Religious Right with their tea parties and Conservapedias, I’m sure that this is not the G-d of the Bible. What does it mean to be a nation under a deity we don’t recognize?

Sex and Violence in Ancient Peru

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MSNBC ran a fascinating article yesterday that strangely validated this blog. The Quai Branly museum in Paris is opening a display of Mochica artifacts from ancient Peru. Although I am no expert on ancient Peruvian religion, I do recognize the obvious connection that I have introduced here a time or two: the connection between sexuality and religion. The article states that (but does not show) artifacts of an explicitly sexual nature are among those recovered from the Mochica civilization. Bringing violence (in the form of human sacrifice) and sexuality together, the ancient Moche were just as religious as medieval (and later) monotheistic faiths that assert their right to control sexuality and dole out violence.

The MSNBC article makes clear that the sexual, sometimes violent, images are not representations of everyday life, but religious rituals associated with the death of dignitaries. Emma Vandore, the author of the article, notes that the images demonstrate the social control Mochica religion had on its people. She is clearly right. Religions, while often in the position of providing “theological” rationales for their decisions, are actually forms of social control. Individual salvation aside, your clergy want control over your life.

Tame Mochica pottery from Wikipedia Commons

Because religion is so large and so mysterious, the populace often simply complies. The Mochica artifacts, some of which are reported to be disturbing, justify this interpretation. Even an image search on the web will reveal how graphically cruel religious representations of Hell are; much more compelling in scariness than are feeble attempts in alluring one into an idyllic representation of Heaven. (Heaven is often shown as a garden, and as a sufferer of hay fever, I imagine myself sneezing through paradise.) It is no coincidence that organized religion appears on the historical scene on the coat-tails of civilization itself. The Moche were straightforward about what modern civilization would prefer to hide: religion is more about control than it is about belief.

Love Slap

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Over the past few days news stories have emerged raising concerns about implicating very high authorities in the Roman Catholic hierarchy of at least being aware of problems in the church. These problems are by now familiar to all who follow religious news: allegations of abuse, physical and/or sexual, known, perpetrated, and hidden by clergy. The recent spate of cases has come from Germany, home territory to some high-ranking officials.

The church has never done well at steering free of controversy. After all, in Niebuhrian terms, this is “Christ against Culture.” Nevertheless, our human sensitivities have continued to grow, and it is recognized that children, swept into religious institutions because of the belief structures of their parents, often end up victims. Unless something radical happens, those children, imprinted from youth with the stamp of their family religion, spend their lives bearing its marks. What religious leaders command must be obeyed. They, after all, hold the keys to the kingdom.

Slapping choirboys (and worse) has underscored the weakness of human clergy. Any religion that is mediated by human agents will be susceptible to abuse. It should not be accepted, excused, or tolerated. Temptation to give in, however, marks an indulgent modernity. Although largely mythical, the torments of ancient saints drew the moral lesson that mere humans could withstand the urge to give in to temporal vices. Perhaps clergy ought to stare long into the patient face of St. Anthony and ponder the implications. (Notice who does the abusing.)

The last temptation of Tony?

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.

When Your World Rocks

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The prophet Amos famously dates his oracles as “two years before the earthquake.” In ancient times (and some modern, dimly lit regions of some religious minds) earthquakes were thought to be signs of divine displeasure. We lost that naïve, magical view with the discovery of tectonic plates and fault zones, but it is hard not to take earthquakes personally. A third major earthquake of the year hit Turkey on Sunday, leaving further human distress in its wake. While scientists assure us that earthquakes are not increasing in frequency, we nevertheless hear more and more about them.

Although we have the technology to build earthquake-proof buildings, the nations suffering from the recent quakes do not have the luxury of ensuring that those who live around fault zones all have housing to withstand that unsuspected temblor. Those who cannot afford high cost housing are fated to be victims. We don’t cause the earthquakes, but we can ensure that affluent cities will withstand them. Haiti, Chile, and Turkey seem a long way distant.

Whose fault is it anyway?

Scanning the unfair distribution of wealth across the world, it is far easier to see an angry god behind an earthquake than it is to relinquish our personal gain. Perhaps it is a result of our biological urge to survive that we constantly seek to increase our own advantage while shaking our heads sadly as people we don’t know become the victims. Meanwhile neo-cons and prosperity gospelers bray loudly that wealth is their god’s reward for lives of righteousness in this wicked world. It is a scenario worthy of Amos himself.

Robo-god

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Yesterday I again found myself among the robots. After an early-morning school-bus ride to the New Jersey regional competition in Trenton, a mentor to a team known as the Gearheads, I felt a little out of my league. Soon, however, I fell into the spirit of the competition and watched with increasing interest as individuals highly regarded in the world of robotics lamented the lack of science education in the United States. Having just completed the nightmare of two terms with a creationist president, is it any wonder? In any case, the competition, a modified soccer match for robots – with two teams from Brazil, no less! – soon became as emotional as any sporting event. Well, for the human participants, anyway. I’m not qualified to assess robotic emotions. As the event wound down, a respected (human) member of FIRST Robotics, during a recognition ceremony, overcome with emotion, called out “God bless you!” to the adult volunteers.

Many scientists I know are personally religious people. There is no fortified gateway between scientific reasoning and the childhood teaching of religious belief. Nevertheless, an irony became apparent that has been bothering me all night long. I joined Team 102 as a mentor because of my daughter’s interest in robotics and engineering. My role is to help with editing, since I am a “humanities” type. The irony that leaves me sleepless is that Ph.D.s in the sciences are highly coveted and have an assurance for jobs. Ph.D.s in the “humanities,” however, are a sure way to block you from career success. Since I began this blog I have been officially unemployed (I pick up a course or two here and there, but no full-time offers have been presented). The people who have been most empathetic and helpful in this time of difficulty have been the robotics team. People there have tried to hook me up with people who might be able to help, but I am like an alien on the autopsy table among scientists – where do you begin? How do you help an overly qualified “humanities” ex-professor find a job? Meanwhile my co-“humanities” colleagues helplessly wring their hands and do nothing. Worse, they interview me and decide not to make a hire, based on “religious” reasons.

The past several years, as the recipient of calculated cruelty from many religious folks, stumbling along trying to find a means of reasonable support, I have come to trust the robots. The robotics team has demonstrated the most humanitarian attitude to a fellow human who has been suffering for several months. The religious tell me that God will work it out and go their righteous way. Yesterday, being blessed by a “high priest” of the robotics world, I felt that I finally found a place I belonged. Now it might be time to go back to school and find the real pulse of humanity in the sciences.

Kids building robots

War and Peace

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A few weeks back a friend pointed me to a Facebook-style website someone in my high school graduating class had put together. In high school I was awkward, shy, and a little too obvious about my religious beliefs, so I was a bit timid to join. Nostalgia eventually got me in a headlock, just like in gym class, so I signed up. One of my classmates helped me to find one of the people who had a profound impact on my life. Although I never had him for a class, Mr. Milliken was my Creative Writing Club advisor, and a person I utterly respect and admire. I’m not normally a hero worshiper, but Mr. Milliken had been through more suffering than many men his age and had come out of it a sincere, caring, and thoughtful individual. When I found out that he had published a brief collection of his poetry about his time in Vietnam, I immediately ordered it.

Available from Lulu.com

War has always haunted me. Perhaps it was partially because of the tales Mr. Milliken sometimes told, or because of my macabre reading about the terrors of twentieth-century conflicts, but whatever the cause for my fear, it was real. War has been with humanity for as long as its more docile cousin, civilization. Being rational creatures, there seems to be no reason that we should not be able to reason ourselves out of armed conflict, but we don’t. Knowing that one of my most respected high school influences had nearly died in Vietnam chilled me. Reading his poetry, I shiver once again.

While justifying it on theological grounds, the Hebrew Bible takes a fatalistic view of war. Killing of enemies who stand in the way of god’s plan is sanctioned, commanded even. The victims, however, are humans just like the victors.

When I get caught up in the complex web of difficulties my own life has woven into, I find it easy to complain. Reading when they come with guns, however, reminds me that many have had it much worse and have come out as superior human beings. For those who are victims of war, we can only hope that forgiveness will somehow descend on those of us who have not yet put an end to it.

Horror and Head-colds

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Religion is such a pervasive vehicle for movies, whether disguised or blatant, that pointing out such connections might seem too easy. Finding these connections in horror movies is child’s play since religion constantly probes our deepest fears. Trying to get over a lingering head-cold and suffering from lack of sleep, I pulled out Ken Russell’s 1988 film, Lair of the White Worm. The film itself is not unlike a Nyquil dream, disjointed with sudden shifts of setting and context. The immediate connections with The Cult of the Cobra and Stuart Gordon’s Dagon – based on H. P. Lovecraft – were unexpected bonuses.

Through all of the B- special effects pulses a strong religion subtext. The crucifixion vision juxtaposed with Roman soldiers raping nuns was a dead giveaway. The supporting female characters bearing the names of Eve and Mary could not be more obvious. And the snake wrapped around a tree – is this Sunday School 101? Lacking the sophistication of Robin Hardy’s Wicker Man, Lair of the White Worm nevertheless does strike some similar religious chords. When archaeologist Angus Flint discovers a Roman temple dedicated to Dionin under a convent in England’s north-country, a mosaic of the great white dragon wrapped around a cross tells the viewers all they need to know.

Like Marduk, Baal, Yahweh, Zeus, and St. George, Lord James D’Ampton becomes the dragon-slayer. Chaoskampf (god slays dragon motif) is perhaps the most ancient form of religion, alongside the world-wide flood and dying gods returning to life. These archetypical images populate many films to the point of saturation and Lair of the White Worm is a treasure trove of them. The plot successfully invents an ancient deity, Dionin, whose name and cult have clear connections with that of Dionysus, himself a dying and rising god. This religion is in conflict with Christianity, and the film is opaque enough not to reveal the winner. I need to ponder this some more. In the meantime, I think I need another dose of Nyquil.

Take it with a dose of Nyquil

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.