A Friend Died

I had a friend pass away last week. He wasn’t a close friend, but he was a friend nevertheless, and I went to his funeral this weekend.

When Susan and I went through a somewhat pessimistic period regarding church attendance, this guy came around.

We had churned through 2 churches that made statements about being open and affirming (i.e., wanting LGBTQ+ people to attend — no strings attached) but didn’t follow through. The process was extremely painful since we had two gay children.

One church was part of the “emergent church movement” which was initially open and affirming until the majority of the movement became pretty hostile to the expansiveness of human sexuality. It’s a sad thing that I have talked about before on this blog. A great podcast series that goes over the whole history if here.

Long story…but we eventually did find the next church which is a tale in itself. We walked in and met our friend. He was quiet but friendly. He was reserved but welcoming regardless of one’s background. Simply put, he was the face of this church that took everyone in. Susan and joined as members one year later and have been members for a while. It’s not a perfect church (far from it), but its merits outweigh its deficits.

One thing that I liked about my friend is that he was a long-time greeter and talked to anyone who walked in on a Sunday morning — literally anyone, including people off the street with poor hygiene. He never cared where anyone fell on the sexual spectrum (and we all fall somewhere on the sexual spectrum). He would talk to them, tell them his name, and would be very open to their needs and concerns. After my friend died, I found out that he would visit many of these people. He would bring them things that they needed such as food. He would also just bring them presents simply as acts of joy.

At his funeral yesterday, the following poem was in the program:

I like this poem very much.

Our friend was not put in our life directly by God, but as someone who thinks process theology provides a better explanation of God in the world, I think God lured but did not force processes in place over time to give our friend the ability to be present that day we first walked into church. This luring is no different than the trillions or quadrillions or infinite number of callings by God throughout the cosmos in real time to make the world beautiful.

Image from Science News

I love this part of the poem:

“So what will matter? How will the value of your days be measured? What will matter is not what you bought, but what you built,
not what you got, but what you gave.
What will matter is not your success, but your significance.”

Our significance, metaphorically, is like gravity. Gravity’s influence is infinite. Every macro-object in the universe has an effect on other macro-objects. This effect is seen through the curving of spacetime. Ah, time…one of the backbones of process theology.

Gravity causes an effect between two entities, no matter how far away they are.

Newton’s Law of Gravitation

In this equation, F is the gravitational force in Newtons, G is the universal gravitational constant (approximately 6.674 x 10^-11), m1 and m2 are the two masses, and r is the distance between the center of those two masses.

As an example, here is a table of the gravitational pull of the various planets in our solar system.

Image from Study.com

You can see that the sun has a huge gravitational pull; the Earth’s moon has minimal pull. Keep in mind that all objects have a pull on each other. We, as humans, don’t feel it, but all objects have a gravitational effect on each other.

For example, Gliese 12 b is an Earth-sized exoplanet 40 light-years away (235 trillion miles) from us. Earth and Gliese 12 b have an incredibly minute gravitational effect on each other, but they have an effect.

Can you see how I am going to proceed with a metaphor here?

You will have an effect based on your actions to animals and to other humans in this world. You can’t stop wars raging around the world. You can help decrease world hunger, but you will never eliminate it. Calling our U.S. political parties “Nazis” or “Communists” doesn’t help homelessness or stop drug abuse.

However, you can be good to your neighbor, and your neighbor can be and should be everyone. I have taken this idea more and more to heart as I have become older. If there is any ground of reality in the Christian message, it is “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39). The virgin birth, the miracles of Jesus, the resurrection — I think all of these stories fall to the wayside compared to Christ’s command to love each other.

If you love a world neighbor and treat them with kindness, I believe that the act of kindness spreads out in a manner similar to the force of gravity. The act may be felt even on the other side of the world through people passing on that act of love or kindness…even if the effect is minimal. If we all practiced this idea, the effect would be greatly magnified. We would have no war, no hunger, no homelessness. We would have more creativity (à la process theology). Of course, such ideas are not possible since we are essentially a violent species.

We should at least try since God is calling us to treat the “other” well.

Image generated by Gemini Advanced

I can try to emulate my friend who was a constant pull of love and kindness even to the least of these.

Theology Journal Club!

This past week, some of the graduates of Northwind Theological Seminary got together to do our newest journal club. The members of our book club are mainly graduates of Tom Oord’s Open & Relational Theology center.

The latest article chosen to review was “Another Day at the Office? Near-Death Experiences in Their Procrustean Bed of Nothing-Buttery.” Here is the open access link.

What do I personally think about near-death experiences (NDE)? I don’t believe in them. I have heard second-hand NDE stories from friends. I have read about them. I just think the evidence for them is so poor that I can ascribe no credence to them.

Here are some of my personal thoughts about the article:

A. The author points out that almost no negative-experience NDEs are described. Why is this? We exist in a world filled with religions that have hell or hell-like entities associated with the afterlife. Personally, I grapple with the true existence of hell due to the Greek and Persian influences on Christianity regarding this subject. The Old Testament is filled with references to Sheol which doesn’t sound like a great place to hang out when one is dead, but it isn’t hell. One of the contributors in our journal club told me that about 20% of people do have a negative NDE experience per the literature. I don’t have that link, unfortunately. However, if there is a major brain neurotransmitter dump during an NDE, this percentage would come close to the percentage of people who have a “bad trip” while taking hallucinogens. Perhaps the NDE experience is strictly gross neurotransmitter changes while dying, no different than taking psilocybin.

B. Psychological experiences: I very much agree with the author of the article here.

Karo rightly states, “Let me now highlight how this stalemate figures in Greyson and colleagues’ list of NDE theories. Starting from the psychological explanations, these authors divide the theories into four groups: (a) those based upon expectations (the idea that NDEs reflect culturally acquired expectations about death and are essentially a psychological defense mechanism against the threat of death); (b) those based upon depersonalization (the idea that alienation from one’s body helps alleviate the stress of death); (c) ones relating NDEs to birth experiences, and (d) ones based upon specific personality traits (the idea that people with NDEs have personality traits that favor vivid fantasies).”

Of note the author provides the bolded words. Yes, I very much agree that if NDEs are neurological in nature, then they will be associated with one’s psychological profile. There is a large amount of literature on childhood trauma and long-term psychological outcomes in later life. A good review is here. In fact, even the trauma of being a premature infant may cause some long-term behavioral issues in terms of feeding. A good review is here. My point is that human brains and inherent psychological backgrounds may be influencing the ability to produce an NDE.

“The Nightmare” by Henry Fuseli

C. Dualism: Let’s consider the proposed separating from one’s own body during an NDE. Seeing a tunnel of light… No longer being contained in the mortal flesh… All of these experiences suggest dualism. The problem here is that dualism is highly debated as a truly helpful philosophical, and therefore theological, entity. I could provide tons of references about this issue, but I did find two helpful ones here and here.

Rene Descartes

My biggest complaint about substance dualism is that Rene Descartes thought the soul was located in the pineal gland. The soul…”captured”…in a small part of the brain.

The fact that the pineal gland (called “gland H” by Descartes) has absolutely nothing to do with the soul makes the premise already faulty.

Pineal Gland, from the Cleveland Clinic.

A good review about the function of the pineal gland is here.

Also, as one who is attracted to the ideas contained in process theology and open & relational theology, it would make more sense to consider our bodies as a complete connection with God and not as separate human and divine entities. I lean towards panentheism. In other words, humans, bacteria, galaxies, the universe…all are in God. God is present in, around, and throughout my body and my experiences. God incorporates all of these aspects as I live and when I die.

What does this mean about the afterlife? Well, I certainly believe in the afterlife. I just think some things are not provable, NDEs and the afterlife included. I also think H. sapiens will never be able to understand all aspects of reality which also included the possibility of NDEs and the afterlife. By the way, here is an interesting conversation by Brian Greene and Sean Carroll in which they talk about humans having limits to understanding all of reality.

D. Here is a big one for me… If NDEs are real, then why are they not emphasized in my Christian tradition via the Bible? You think it would be a very big deal in Holy Scripture. So, is God trying to mislead us? Are NDEs not important in God’s existence? My interpretation in this setting is that NDEs have a big psychological and societal aspect associated with them.

Think about the Witch of Endor in First Samuel. Samuel is dead. He comes out of Sheol, He does not come out of a happy heaven which are associated with so many NDEs. Think about Matthew 27. Jesus dies on the cross. The dead came out of their tombs for a while — no NDEs. I think this scriptural aspect should be considered from a theological perspective.

The Witch of Endor Summons the Shade of Samuel by Nikolai Ge (1857)

E. NDE research is poor. Very, very poor. There is this scale called the Oxford Levels of Evidence. The scale is helpful as it differentiates low quality from high quality research. Look at the scale below.

The work in NDEs is quite poor when it comes to the evidence. One may ask the question, “Well, what would you want as evidence?”

My response. Look for actual objective evidence of NDEs. See if a separated spiritual body can be seen floating above a dying person by infrared imaging, ultraviolet imaging, radio waves, or hyperspectral imaging. One might argue that such imaging is expensive. However, you just need ONE CASE of NDE to be verified scientifically, and immense amount of funding would come in via the NSF, NIH, and lots of wealthy private donors. This lack of any firm evidence reminds me of people who have seen UFOs (now UAPs) and ghosts. We just need one actual image that proves aliens or ghosts exist. Just one. We never seem to get there. I don’t think there are government conspiracies out there preventing the discovery of ghosts, UAPs, and the afterlife.

What do I believe? Well, I do believe in an afterlife. My belief is admittedly subjective. I just think some ideas are so difficult to comprehend that scientific experience of humans will never prove it. I do like Whitehead’s idea of God and the non-perishing of all experiences. Perhaps this is a good metaphor of the afterlife:

“The revolts of destructive evil, purely self-regarding, are dismissed into
their triviality of merely individual facts; and yet the good they did achieve
in individual joy, in individual sorrow, in the introduction of needed contrast,
is yet saved by its relation to the completed whole. The image-and
it is but an image-the image under which this operative growth of God’s
nature is best conceived, is that of a tender care that nothing be lost.”

I have no idea if his ideas are true, but they sure seem helpful, yet poetic.

I also think that if we are connected to the universe in the setting of panentheism and panexperientialism, then perhaps our consciousness extends on eternally in the universe even after we die. The experience of the atoms in our brains being in communion with our failures and triumphs, loves and sorrows, and all of our experiences would live on even in the setting of the proposed heat death of the universe. I have no idea if this idea is true, and it probably makes no sense in the setting of physical laws. But perhaps…just perhaps…we communicate with God eternally in such a way.

Finally, when I look at images such as the Hubble Deep Field, I find it quite possible that our species will never know everything about everything. This unknowing includes NDEs and the afterlife. We will never be able to know it until we die (and we still may not know it). I am fine with that mystery.

Hubble Deep Field photo

Religion in Public Schools: Please NO.

Before I write this post, I want to announce that the manuscript for my potential next book has been sent to Tom Oord for his consideration as a book to be published through SacraSage Press. So far, Tom thinks the manuscript looks pretty good.

Ok, here we go. I grew up in Texas, and I spent half of my life there. In my opinion, Texas has become very difficult in regards to its politics. It makes me quite sad as I have fond memories of growing up in that state. Of course, Texas was a member of the Confederate States of America at one time, so it has been problematic for some time.

Picture of the Texas Hill Country — one of the prettiest places in the nation

One of the current issues in Texas is people who are trying to get more religion into public schools.

Having kids read the Bible in class. Putting up the Ten Commandments in school.

Now, some school districts are allowing children to miss school time to take a bus to private religious instruction.

Screenshot

The article (above) comes from the San Antonio Express News.

I live in Utah, and we have a long history of children being able to leave public school and attend Latter-Day Saint (LDS) seminary buildings. Weirdly, these buildings are typically built right next door to public schools. Children can just walk across the parking lot and attend private religious education. Just like Texas, I find this Utah idea pretty awful.

Readers of my blog will know that I am a Christian. I am a Protestant, Trinitarian-believing Christian if that makes any difference to the reader.

I am Christian, and I absolutely DISAGREE that children should be allowed to leave class or school to attend private religious education.

There is nothing in the Gospels to support such a stupid idea. If anything, Jesus would tell people to get out into the world and care for others (Matthew 25:40). Jesus would not tell Christians to isolate themselves from other people.

I have many reasons to state this:

What religion? In other words, what religions are wanting to have children leave their school education time? At least in the USA, I am pretty sure this issue is mostly coming from Christians. But what type of Christian? In the Texas situation, do parents think that the theology that their children will hear in some private setting during public school will match their own belief system? For example, what if Catholic parents think this is a good idea, and they send their child to some Evangelical religious education that they are not aware of. I am a parent, and I can recall other parents who fell for this trap when my kids were young. Protestant. Catholic. Orthodox. LDS. There are so many permutations here where parents may be exposing their children to ideas they do not ascribe to. Talk about seeing the forest for the trees.

What Bible? If children are going off campus to learn about their faith, what Bible will be used? Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox Christians have different books in their Bibles. LDS folks have a “Joseph Smith Translation” of the Bible although they also use the King James Version. All of these different versions can contain different ideas.

Who can leave? So, can Jewish children go to Synagogue and miss class? Can Muslim children go to Mosque and miss class? Can Hindu children go to their local temple and miss class? Can atheist children go to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and miss class? Something tell me that political leaders had not even begun to think about this issue.

Your children always will be exposed to the secular world. Oh, and as a Christian, I think the secular world can be quite fine most of the time. I work at public university. It is mostly pretty awesome. All humans have their good traits and bad traits — religious or not. What are these parents scared of? Also, if their children need to leave public school to attend private religious teachings, then how poorly are they being taught in their regular church setting? How poorly are these parents teaching their own children about their religious beliefs?

Education is important. Stay in school. Don’t leave class.

Taxpayer money: Taxpayers should not be footing the bill for empty classrooms, electricity, and the precious time of school teachers just so that some children with anxious parents can leave class to go to listen to religious teachings. When my children were young, my spouse and I had them in private school. We moved them to public school in junior high and high school for many reasons. One of the big reasons was that the private school they attended (Evangelical, sadly) taught really dumb anti-evolutionary ideas (readers know that I am religious and also have no problems with biological evolution). However, when my children were in private school, I never complained about paying taxes for public school. We were privileged enough to put our kids in private school for a while. I paid taxes to help those children who needed a hand up in life to learn in public school. By the way, my two children had a FANTASTIC public school experiences.

No, this never happened.

Pilot study? Despite the fact that I imagine these school districts will be sued, can someone actually do a pilot study here? One could control for income, grades, zip codes, etc, and then look at outcomes long term. Are these children more likely to graduate? Are these children more likely to go to college? Are these children more likely to get into legal trouble? Someone might say that we should study if these children are more likely to be “saved.” Really?!?! I don’t know how you objectively quantify “saved.” My Christian belief system is that Jesus loves everyone — regardless of their belief system. I’m a big believer in grace. Romans 8:38-39 and Hebrews 11:13 suggest that it a probably better to hang out with everyone — no matter their background. In the end, I think no one would dare do a true objective, well controlled pilot study. I bet the results would show there is no difference in outcomes of these children except for less education noted in the children who leave class.

No, your kids are not being persecuted for their faith. If they attend class and learn history, they will learn how lucky / blessed they are to be able to worship in the United States in comparison to many other countries.

Getting kids out of public education in order to attend church-like teaching is simply a risk factor for development of Christian nationalism, which is not Christian. Christian nationalism is a heresy.

Those of us who consider ourselves Christian and are against Christian nationalism need to continue to speak out. Speaking out for everyone and not for the select few is where God exists.

**By the way, secular folks can be just as idiotic at times when they push politics into basic education. A GREAT editorial is here.

Image generated by Google Gemini

What Are The Percentages?

I know my posts are a bit infrequent right now. I am extremely busy at work and my new theology book seems to be coming along very quickly. I am in a big editing stage which absorbs so much of my time.

One of the reasons that I have enjoyed learning about process theology and its close relative, open & relational theology is that it helps me deal with theodicy or the problem with evil. When a child dies or a when a family member dies or when humans try to exterminate a minority human population or when a natural disaster kills thousands, I have never found determinism to be a helpful answer.

Image of cyclone near Indonesia

For example, if a child dies from cancer, an explanation of the death being caused by the initial particle and forces at the beginning of the universe or being caused by God’s Will smack of determinism and seem problematic.

Have you ever seen a child die? I work in a tertiary children’s hospital so I have seen such an event many times. In the setting of a little body who has lost their body temperature and all metabolic function surrounded by crying parents and family, it is hard to see that this event was “determined” by the universe, by God, or whatever. If the child’s death was determined, then was the emotional output by the parents additionally determined? Would you walk into the room of the dead child and say to the parents, “Don’t worry. This was going to happen anyway. Also, quit crying unless the particles in your body are deterministically making you feel sad.” That would be ridiculous. The statement, “God needed an angel back in heaven”, also is obscene.

In this setting, I have found process theology / open & relational theology helpful, especially since I do believe in God. Process theology would suggest that God lures or calls for creativity or novelty. Open & relational theology would agree, but such creativity and novelty is based on love. I do believe God essentially is love, but the child has still died in the scenario described above.

Well, process theology / open & relational theology can respond here. God calls for the creative to occur in real time. Thus, God can lure for the child to be healed. For example, the cancer potentially can be healed by medication. The cancer cells potentially can respond and die from medication. The medical staff potentially can work at the best of their ability. Society potentially can eliminate pollution that causes cancer.

God lures or calls here for the good or the creative so that there is a chance for healing. There is a chance.

However, again emphasizing the components of process theology / open & relational theology, every level of nature can ignore or go along with the lure. This is pure openness allowed by God. There is some degree of free will throughout all of nature. Previously, I have published work on obvious limits to libertarianism in nature (at least limits to me).

Hairy cell leukemia microscopic image (from the National Cancer Institute)

Here is my question: What percentage of outcomes in which God calls for the creative or for the good has a true, creative result?

I have no idea.

I guess if one thinks there is a lure for the creative / good as seen in the observed lack of proton decay in nature, then perhaps the percentage is pretty high.

Stars begetting new stars also would suggest the percentage is pretty high.

Stars (image from Scientific American)

Biological evolution produces new life forms to fill changing niche space in the environment. Evolution suggests novelty and also suggests the percentage is pretty high.

From the human perspective, I worry that the percentage of hearing God’s call is horribly low. We seem to be a very violent species, possibly similar to our close relatives, the chimpanzees. We probably have been violent for thousands and thousands of years. I worry about how much all of us (yes, including me) ignore the environment, other humans, and other animals and plants around us in the setting of violence. In other words, we can be uneccessarily cruel to our planet at times. In the setting of our species, the percentage seems awfully low.

What about death? Death is part of entropy, and entropy is natural. So, is entropy a refusal to listen to God’s call for novelty / creativity / love? Does entropy make the percentage exceedingly low and perhaps zero? Is nature, in the end, always refusing God’s lure for creativity?

That is a good question. I have no clue. However, in the setting of infinite time moving forward and a universe forever expanding, I have wondered if the randomness of particles in a cold universe in the far, far, far future will lead to new structures? The philosophical idea of a Boltzmann brain in the setting of extreme entropy would be an example.

If a “brain” theoretically could form in the setting of ultimate entropy, could particles come together to eventually form a new universe? Think about this aspect. We are talking about infinite time and infinite space. Perhaps, in the end, creativity still wins. In the “end” (although there may be no “end”), the metaphysical percentage for ongoing creativity seems rather high. Perhaps 100%? Again, I have no clue. I am just theorizing from a theological perspective.

The question is if our species want to play a small part of in Divine creativity for the short time our species will exist in the universe. I would argue that for the total universe, there may be a great percentage of events that are potentially creative.

Human nature, which is just a blip in the history of the universe, so often seems to be mostly failing despite God’s call for us to love. I always assume that we have the potential to be better creatures. We just have to hear this call, if the call indeed exists.

Image made from Gemini Advanced

Spirituality v. Magic

I am not a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (colloquially known as “Mormonism”). I have never been a member and have no plans of joining. I am an extremely content member of PCUSA (Presbyterian Church (USA)) which is a progressive wing of the Presbyterian Church.

However, the history of the Restoration Movement in the United States (which included the LDS church) is very fascinating simply because the LDS church has documented its history expansively. I live in Utah which is geologically beautiful. Beautiful geology plus an unusual religious movement settling in Utah leads to unusual outcomes. In this setting, I have been reading “Early Mormonism and the Magic World View” by D. Michael Quinn, published in Signature Books. Quinn (now deceased) was professor at USC, and he won many book awards in his lifetime.

Utah (Arches National Park)

This particular book is full of information not just about the early American Restoration Movement but also about the intricate association between early colonial America and books on magic. According to the book, a large number of Americans early on in the country’s founding were not religious. Such an idea makes sense. People often lived far, far away from any civilization which included churches.

I was intrigued by this quote from the book… “One traditional distinction is that religion is supplicative and magic coercive in intent. Anthropologist Lucy Mair wrote that ‘the difference between religion and magic…might be epitomized as the difference between communicating with beings and manipulating forces.'”

Whoa. Let’s think about these words.

I’m a religious person so I do pray. When I was much younger, I prayed for specific things to happen…to get a specific toy, to get a girl in school to like me. Weirdly, even before I went down the route of theological studies, I had quit praying for direct intervention by God. I can think of some reasons for this change to have happened.

I really came to understand that many of the stories in the Bible are mythic. Some readers of my blog are probably thinking, “DUH!”, but one would be amazed that even growing up in a highly educated home, people just can accept stories they hear in church. My parents knew these stories and told me these stories, but as I got older, I came to understand that my parents either never believed the stories or really didn’t care if they were real or not.

Moses Crossing the Red Sea

People talk about moments of the “dark night of the soul.” My “night” came about when I dug into the Exodus story only to realize that it didn’t happen. Sure, some small migration of individuals up to the Levant from Egypt may have happened. A small migration may have changed into a legend over time which consisted of millions of migrating Hebrews, but the events of the Exodus didn’t happen. There is zero archeological evidence.

In contrast, there is evidence of the Battle of Thermopylae which also has mythic dimensions, but there is no evidence of the Exodus. Hence, there is no evidence of “manipulating forces” based on all of the Exodus stories (i.e., magic).

Battle of Thermopylae

Second, my job in healthcare. Many people in healthcare take care of dying patients. It is no different in my field. Watching a patient die is especially tough when it happens to a child. Honestly, I’ve seen no miraculous healings, and I have met many, many wonderful families who got blindsided with the death of their child. Many of these families are religious. I have seen no evidence of prayer “manipulating forces” causing miraculous healings (i.e., magic).

So, why do I pray? I had to think about this aspect for my blog today. Let me give you some reasons.

I have tried the agnostic route. It didn’t work for me. Being agnostic or atheist works for many wonderful people, many of whom are my friends. It really didn’t work for me, although in the end, every human probably is agnostic as we can’t prove or disprove God. I guess my genetics, and more importantly, my epigenetics made me who I am when it comes to believing in God.

Bible stories often are mythic. Myth, in my opinion, is different than most fantasy stories. Myths tend to be very old, and although they may have magical qualities, they say something profound about the human condition. Much work on the importance of myth has been done here in the realm of sociology and psychology. See here and here. So, I pray in the setting of myths because ancient stories tell me deep truths about human nature and its relationship to a potential God.

Noah’s Ark

I pray in the setting of process theology which is one of my theological interests. I have posted many times about this type of theology. In other words, I pray that entities accept God’s lure for creativity. God lures; God does not force. As an example, if I pray for a war to stop, then I am praying for all involved combatants (especially their leaders) to hear God’s lure for the good…for war to stop. I realize it can be extremely difficult, especially for humans like myself, to hear God’s lure. In the setting of open & relational theology (which I also have posted about before), I am convinced that this lure is divine love.

Jesus Healing the Blind Man

Finally, perhaps there has been contact with Divinity in the past that makes me think God may exist. I’m a Christian, and if I believe in the hypostatic union (Jesus being fully God and fully man) of the Christ event, then perhaps in the extreme circumstances of God touching our species at specific events, it may be possible for miracles to occur. If miracles have occurred in history because our species has interacted with God, then perhaps praying is a way to communicate with God. I’m not convinced, of course. This idea is just a theological theory. A correlative idea would be in the Hadith when Muhammad had water miraculously gush forth from his hands. Some other ideas such as the Buddha having a massive tongue that could cover his whole face (as described in the Pali Canon) seem less likely. However, I am not going to judge this Buddhism story as I have enough crazy stories in my own religious tradition.

Image made by Gemini Advanced

Men’s Group and Whatever Comes Next

There has been a delay in my posting. My apologies. The last few weeks have been a bit crazy. First, my work as a physician is always a big impediment for my free time. I’m not complaining. Lack of free time is a big issue among physicians. Employment always takes priority over blogging.

Second, I went to Los Angeles to go to the first night of Rush’s last tour ever at the Kia Forum. Rush is a classic band. If you are familiar with their lyrics, then you might understand me a bit better as a human being — at least from an arts perspective.

Picture outside of the Kia Forum

The concert was indeed EPIC. I probably should write a post on the concert…maybe later.

Third, I am working on a new book. All chapters have been written. I still need to do the Introduction part. The feedback has been very good, so I am hoping to get it published in the next 9 months. I am in the tedious part of the book where I am making corrections. Very painful but necessary.

On Thursday this past week, I went to the new men’s group at my church. The typical men’s group at so many churches is set up for people who are quite a bit older than me. These older individuals at our church meet at a local pancake joint during a time when younger guys like me (uhhh…I am in my 50s) are still working at their jobs. This time constraint has been a problem, so we set up a new men’s group a few months ago that meets monthly in the evening after work. We have a meal, drink some beer or wine or whatever, discuss some Bible verses, and just talk about life. About a third of our members are LGBTQ+ which is beneficial for those of us existing in the cis/straight world. All viewpoints are needed.

By the way, the women’s group (for mainly working women such as my spouse) at our church has been going on for years. It is highly successful in maintaining a constant source of sharing lives. I hope our new men’s group will be equally beneficial. We shall see.

Anyway, the facilitator for this past men’s group went over some verses from Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament. In my 20s, I made the effort to start reading through the Bible in its entirety. I’ve read through the Bible a few times at this point. Currently, I’m taking a break from daily readings, but I do think Ecclesiastes may be in the top 3 of my favorite books in the Bible.

Ecclesiastes is not a happy book. Perhaps it has some stoicism aspects to it. I don’t know. I spent some time looking at the end of the book (Chapter 12). The book ends with this:

Fear God and keep his commandments,
    for this is the duty of all mankind.
For God will bring every deed into judgment,
    including every hidden thing,
    whether it is good or evil.

These words are at the very end of Ecclesiastes. I will try to make these words a bit more positive.

Before, I make these words perhaps more positive, I want to share a sad link from the local paper in Salt Lake City.

Here is the article:

Here is the open access link to the article. This article is so sad. People forget that measles causes significant suffering and death. I am doing a talk for an upcoming theology conference, and I found interesting research about the number of United States Civil War soldiers killed by measles. Measles is preventable by vaccination.

Image from the Civil War Monitor

I have so many thoughts here. As a physician, I have seen children get very sick from preventable diseases. I have seen children die from preventable diseases. Although I have done some medical work in Africa in the past, it is weird / ironic / even more tragic to see such illness and death occurring in children in my country (the USA) that has huge amounts of income. And yet…so many Americans really seem to be unaware.

I mean, I know many people care, but I don’t think they understand what preventable death looks like. I don’t believe in totalitarianism. For example, I do not think one should force parents to have their children undergo preventive care, such as vaccination, except in the event of life-threatening situations. I will never understand why humans cannot be more caring for each other. Perhaps we are more uncaring, more violent, and more prone to misinformation than I recognize. Perhaps, this aspect is the human condition.

Battle scene, painted by Antonio Gherardi

In the moments of seeing children die from vaccine preventable disease, I often have feel absolute helplessness in my place in the universe. The universe doesn’t seem to care. Time marches on infinitely and doesn’t care. The dead child is buried and is forgotten in about 2 generations or so.

What am I doing? Where is God here?

I have no answer, but I want to propose a possibility.

If God is love and if God desires the good but does not force, I think there is an eternal urge for good to come out of tragedy. Such good may not come about right away. It could take centuries, millennia, or perhaps at the time of the heat death of the universe.

This God that I think I believe in is always there in real time and in all space. This God is urging all of nature to do better, to be more creative. Nature (including we, as humans) can ignore or go along with this lure for the good. In the eternity of space and time, I do think justice is eventually served. Our species, H. sapiens, is just too short-lived and too limited in brain structure to ever understand this possibility. I know I am limited.

As our men’s group discussed Ecclesiastes, I thought of a corollary from 1 John 4:8.

Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

If God exists in real time with us (and all of nature) yet is still eternal, then God’s love is all that remains when I have become dust, the sun has absorbed the Earth, and the universe slowly dies away. Love always remains.

For someone like me who is Christian but often aligns with agnosticism, I find comfort here.

Image made from Gemini Advanced

Good Article on Science Misinformation in the Religious Setting

The June 2026 issue of Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith (the academic journal of the American Scientific Affiliation) published a great article titled “Staying in Conversation: Review of Research on the Science Views of Evangelicals and Effective Ways to Respond.” It was written by Deborah Haarsma who was the president of BioLogos from 2013-2024. Dr. Haarsma is an astronomer and an extremely good writer. By the way, please consider joining and / or supporting the American Scientific Affiliation and BioLogos. Both organizations work very hard trying to get rid of the ridiculous idea of the “war between science and religion.” There is no war. Like any potential war in the history of humankind, most people do not want conflict. Typically, only sociopaths want war and the “fundamentalists” on both sides of the so-called war between science and religion desire destruction of the other side — even if it destroys their side. Such conflict is not helpful.

Dr. Haarsma’s article is very long. It is behind PSCF‘s paywall, but the paywall typically goes away 3-6 months after an article is published. So, you can read the article for free relatively soon. I highly recommend you read it.

Scopes Monkey Trial (1925): More of a town marketing event for Dayton, Tennessee

Although the PSCF article is lengthy, it is truly amazing. Although the article concentrates on dealing with the anti-science attitude of Evangelicals, I think it can be extended to other religious groups. By the way, I very much realize that not all Evangelicals are anti-science. Unfortunately, those that are anti-science make up a significant voting block in the U.S. which risks all sorts of problems when it comes to combatting global warming or making sure children get vaccinated.

Dr. Haarsma’s notes the recent data suggesting 36% of white, religious people in the United States now delay or avoid getting their children vaccinated. This percentage is very scary when you read about the consequences of whooping cough, diphtheria, measles, etc. prior to the invention of vaccination.

Image of diphtheria blocking the airway in a child (image from Dateline Health Africa). Preventable with vaccination.

She then goes on to the history of the anti-science movement in the United States and how this issue recently has been amplified to dangerous proportions recently. Honestly, I think social media acclerates the problem of pseudo-science. Pseudo-science is quite large in the field of health and medicine.

Whooping cough (image from Wikipedia). Preventable with vaccination.

The last part of Dr. Haarsma’s article discusses ways to address this problem. I am not going to go into great detail about her solutions. They are all good. They also are numerous, and I am doing a simple blog post.

Let me consider a few ideas, however.

Dr. Haarsma talks about “Kingdom conversations” which in Christian terminology means loving one’s neighbor no matter their political affiliation, nationality, race, religion, or sexuality (see Matthew 22:37-40). Honestly, I have always felt that if we followed this statement from Jesus and just took care of each other as opposed to harming each other for very stupid reasons, we would have all sorts of monetary revenue on our planet to cure diseases, remove poverty, build amazing computers, explore the solar system, and on and on. I sometimes think that the genetics / epigenetics of humans appear to be suggest that we will always be violent to each other, but one can only hope.

Assyrian war relief (British Museum)

Earning trust: This is a big one for me. Yelling at a person who has anti-vaccination beliefs never works. As Dr. Haarsma points out, just telling personal stories helps here quite a bit.

I have had personal experience here. When I talk to families that are vaccine hesitant, I just tell personal stories. I don’t necessaarily tell them stories about children who die from vaccine-preventable illnesses. I talk about my own children who have been vaccinated and who have done very well in life — college, careers, normal contributing lives to society, etc. I try to relate to such parents as I have been a parent of young children too. When you are a parent to young children, you can be a bit anxious about everything. I certainly was.

When I talk to close friends and family about these issues, the conversation often leads to a conversation about my religious faith. Specifically, many of my close friends and family are just as religious as I am, but they do not have my medical training. As a result, I have the opportunity to be very clear about medical science in a loving way. I can state that I am a Christian just as much as they are, and I believe vaccinating children is a gift from God.

Co-create

If I believe God and humans co-create with the capacity for the result to be good, then vaccinations and all of their life saving potential are certainly a miracle. Remember that Jesus could not perform many miracles in his hometown (Nazareth) due to the inhabitants’ lack of faith. Having faith in God is not just hoping God will step in. It requires understanding that God desires us to be creative with God. By being creative, we can be good and kind to our fellow humans and the rest of the planet. By being creative in science, we can make the world a better place in a setting equal to being creative in the arts. We can reduce suffering.

Vaccinating children to prevent their death is creativity and love via science. This is objective creativity. Objective creativity can go hand-in-hand with subjective creativity. For example, Brahms’ 1st symphony demonstrated that great music could be made after Beethoven. This is creativity and love via the fine arts. Objective and subjective creativity can complement each other to make the world even better.

Blaise Pascal

One last thing. This part is from me. I have a huge issue with American politics. I think our current political structure accelerates the problems above. You may remember this quote by Blaise Pascal: “There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of each man which cannot be satisfied by any created thing but only by God the Creator, made know through Jesus Christ.”

I don’t know if agree with Pascal here, but I do think humans have a metaphorical “hole” in their heart that needs to be filled. Personally, I think it would be best if this hole was filled with love of the other, and it doesn’t matter if this love is religion-based or not. I think most humans, sadly, want this hole to be filled by power and especially immediate power over the “other.” Here is where American politics come in. Over time, we appear to have become very disturbed as a country when it comes to the spew coming forth from the two political parties. Loss of friends, loss of family — all over divisiveness caused by the two parties. This divisiveness is worsened when these two parties use pseudo-science or misinformation to carry their messages. Currently, I think one party is more problematic than the other although both parties have been crazy in the history of our country. Just think about the U.S. Civil War.

My point is that the anti-science movement which destroys creativity and the chance for people to thrive has come from both sides of the political spectrum over the course of time.

It has come from the right side of the political spectrum.

It has come from the left side of the political spectrum.

Being anti-science is equivalent to being anti-creative. Through the years, I have seen children get very sick and even die from vaccine-preventable diseases. As someone who is a physician but also is a theologian in the camp of process theology / open & relational theology, I feel strongly that being anti-creative makes the world a much worse place.

I don’t know what we should put in the proverbial holes in our hearts but being anti-science, believing in pseudo-science, and putting your complete faith in political parties is not the answer. Religious and non-religious people of all stripes should agree here. All faith systems, regardless of their background, should work for the improvement of our species, other species, and the planet.

Image created by Gemini Advanced

A New Review of My Book!

I have had a delay in posting as I have been on hospital call this week, and my free time to write for fun is always reduced during such periods. It then takes me a couple of days afterwards to recover, catch up on life, etc. So, I am back to posting!

I am a member of the American Scientific Affiliation which is a society working at the intersection of science and faith. It is a great organization and was founded in 1941. I highly recommend joining it if you are Christian working in a science or science-adjacent field. It was an early proponent of accepting biological evolution from a Christian perspective and had harsh critiques of so-called “flood geology.” Its professional journal is called Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith. It is a wonderful journal that I have subscribed to forever. PSCF is comprehensive and often is a great place to start for people interested in how science and religion can interact in good ways although keep in mind that the journal produces content from a Christian perspective. Other journals exist to help people in the other religious contexts.

My last book, A Theology of the Microbiome, was reviewed in PSCF‘s last issue. You can read the review online.

The review was pretty darn good, and I was happy about it. I have written book reviews for PSCF as well through the years, and I appreciate the freedom that the ASA allows with its authors of book reviews. In the review of my book, the author had one comment that initially bugged me, but then I became more chill about it over time.

He stated in the last paragraph:

“I recommend this book, especially chapter 3, for theologians and scientists who seek a greater understanding of recent advances in microbiome research, especially those who are interested in how microbes affect our health in both positive and negative ways. However, the theological perspective may be a hindrance to those not attuned to process theology. Although not espousing orthodox theology, it is a thought-provoking and interesting addition to one aspect of the current biology theology discussion.”

I’m going to ruminate a bit about “orthodox theology.” In particular, what actually is orthodox about any religion? I get the aspects of wanting to guard against heresies, but where is the line for heresies? Religious orthodoxy is not the same as physical laws. Fighting over consubstantiation versus transubstantiation is not the same as debating the merits of the Newtonian Law of Gravity versus General Relativity.

For example, I am a Christian. I am pretty “orthodox” about certain aspects of my faith — all of which are unprovable. I believe in the virgin birth, Jesus’s miracles, and a bodily resurrection of Jesus. I am also a Trinitarian which comes about as a codified theological idea a few centuries after Jesus’s life. Yep. I am orthodox here. At the same time, I believe in religious ideas (really, more faith ideas) that are absolutely not provable.

Do I think God is a Smurf? No. I guess that is a faith statement too. I think God or some type of divinity can create / co-create the universe. A blue cartoon character developed in the 1950s cannot create anything. Belief in God is a faith statement, but perhaps a faith statement with a great possibility of being true (i.e., God is more possible than a Smurf in creating / co-creating the universe).

The same idea goes with Bertrand Russell’s analogy of a teapot in an elliptical orbit going between Earth and Mars. The presence of such a teapot can’t necessarily be proven to be true / not true even with today’s telescopes. On the other hand, a teapot in such an orbit would make no sense. We have never sent a teapot into orbit, and it probably would be destroyed by space dust and debris even if we did send it into space. The faith statement of the teapot existing in space makes less sense (to me) than believing that God may have created / co-created the universe. By the way, the other problem with Russell’s argument is that he is describing an omnipotent God, which theologians of process theology and open & relational theology (like me) do not accept. That is a big caveat to consider when reading Russell’s well-written argument.

Mars, sans teapot

So, here are some questions.

Is Orthodox Christianity orthodox?

Is Catholicism orthodox?

Are the myriad of Protestant denominations orthodox?

Are the Creeds orthodox? I belong to a church that state the Creeds during worship service, but many Protestant churches do not do this.

What translation of the Bible is orthodox? Various Bibles have various books in them that are included or excluded.

I would assume believing that Jesus is the son of God is the base of all of Christianity, but then it perhaps gets tricky. For example, Trinitarianism (which I am a believer in) came about as an idea well after the life of Jesus. Is such an idea theological or philosophical?

I wonder if we should look at religion, at least in the Christian sense, as being orthodox in a pseudo-Popperian way. I made up this term. What do I mean by this?

Well, Karl Popper stated that a theory was scientific if it could be falsified. In other words, if one could come up with a way to show a theory was false, the theory was was scientific. Otherwise, the theory was pseudoscience or even a perfectly fine subjective idea. As an example one could potentially prove that General Relativity is a false idea. Such evidence has not happened although many physicists have proposed the General Relativity has a deeper level of understanding that we are missing.

Here is my pseudo-Popperian proposal that is VERY poorly defined at this point. A theology is not orthodox if it harms people in general. It might harm people individually, but if it risks harming people generally, then it is unorthodox.*

*I need to be careful here, but let me provide an explanation. Back to the Smurf analogy… If a child is scared of Smurfs by watching a Smurf move, that is sad. However, the idea of Smurfs in general do not worsen or harm the greater society. I hope my analogy makes sense.

For example, when Evangelicalism (not all of Evangelicalism) becomes associated with Christian nationalism, that part of Evangelicalism is not orthodox. I speak this idea as someone who was once an Evangelical. Christian nationalism is not Jesus-centered…just look at the Gospels. Christian nationalism puts the nation in front of Jesus as a rule. Christian nationalism is harmful and is not orthodox with the Christian faith.

As another example, when Christians of all leanings (liberal and conservative) become anti-science in their thinking, they are not orthodox by my definition. The anti-vaccination movement is a prime example here. Both “liberal” and “conservative” Christians have, at times, been anti-vaccine in their thinking and motivations. Harming children due to pseudo-science is not orthodox with the Christian faith.

Image from Homewood Community Church. I have no idea what this church entails. I just found the image.

Personally, I think Calvinism, especially 5-point Calvinism, is an extreme issue when deciding if the religious idea is orthodox. Is “limited atonement” really a thing? This type of theology is how God works? Really? I would argue that ideas surrounding much of Calvinism just produce anxiety in people and is not orthodox with the Christian faith.

This book clarifies my concerns about Calvinism.

What about “atonement theory”? Is this theory orthodox? I think the answer is decidedly “no.” It is a simple and popular theory, but there are many, many other atonement theories. Atonement theory is a big belief in the United States. Since so many atonement theories exist, atonement theory is not the only orthodox option.

I am a singular person out of the proposed 117 billion individual H. sapiens who have lived on our planet. I am in no way reliable in deciding what is orthodox religion when it comes to Christianity. If you want me to define my religious base of faith, I would say Christianity makes sense to me when I believe 1) Jesus was God, 2) Jesus was resurrected (human body, spirit, interdimensional — who cares!), and 3) we, as humans, need to follow Matthew 7:12 (“So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.”). This is what I believe. It is a faith statement. It is not a scientific law.

Process theology and open & relational theology with some of their foundational ideas of 1) God being creative and all loving; 2) all of the Greek ideas of the “omni” God being incorrect; 3) God learning and changing over time; 4) the imperative of time; and 5) God co-creating with humans (as well as all of nature) in a non-forcing call to lure us to do the good / the creative / the novel make very good sense. This explanation of God sounds extremely loving to me. I have no idea if such ideas are orthodox or unorthodox. And I really don’t care.

But I guess I am forever unorthodox.

Image made from Gemini Advanced

The End of the Universe and Everything

I subscribe to the journal, Theology and Science, published by Taylor & Francis. Most articles in each issue are fairly interesting. In the latest issue, I read, “A New Hope for Christian Eschatology in Cosmic Perspective: Beyond the Predictions of Standard Big Bang Cosmology” by Hyung-Joo Lee. The author has expertise in theology (PhD, Graduate Theological Union) and cosmology (PhD, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology). His article (unfortunately, behind a paywall) provides theological ideas about how to think about God while living in a universe that appears, based on current science, to have an unsatisfactory end point.

Our universe arose from the Big Bang, although physics equations break down when we try to understand the time before 5.39 x 10^-44 seconds after the Big Bang started. Additionally, the cosmic background radiation shows that our universe is homogenous in every direction. We know that the universe has been expanding and apparently expanding faster, in every direction over the past 13.8 billion years. What eventually happens to the universe?

Cosmic background radiation (image from Wikipedia)

Well, the universe may keep on expanding forever and ever and ever and ever and ever. This is a “flat” or “open universe” with no curvature and with the consequence of all useful energy being used up. The universe will eventually reach a temperature of absolute zero. Nothing happens at that point. All is dead.

On the other hand, the universe may eventually collapse back on itself. I believe that this is the minority view of cosmologists. When it collapses back on itself, the universe is simply destroyed. This is a “closed universe” model. Similar to the “open” idea, all is destroyed. All is dead.

Image from the University of Oregon

Both ideas seem to go against Christian eschatology or what happens when all of this ends — from a Christian perspective. An interesting article is here. It is rather depressing to me to think that any possibility, no matter how remote, of my being remembered will be forever gone. The possibility of our species or our planet or even our galaxy being remembered being forever gone may be traumatic to consider.

The Last Judgment

Lee challenges this assumption of all simply ending. Using the work of others, such as Robert Russell and Wolfhart Pannenberg, Lee discusses the idea that physical theories may be “descriptive” and not “prescriptive”. In other words, our physical theories in relativity and quantum mechanics are indeed brilliant but may be describing a reality while not yet reaching the actual reality of what is occurring. There is a long tradition here as described here and here.

Lee then proposes the following:

We know the universe is expanding faster and faster in all directions. Over time (really immense time), the quantum fields in such a gigantic space will still be present. I’m no physicist, but I would define a quantum field as points in all of space in which particles and forces arise simply as excitations of such fields. The electromagnetic field is such a field. The Higgs field is another field. There are others. These fields are possibly statistical (as far as we know currently). Thus, there is a chance, no matter how small, that something could arise in these fields over immense time and immense space.

A particle could arise with such fields over time in a large area of space. From a statistical standpoint, even something complex could arise from these fields. The Boltzmann brain is such a conjecture — not provable. Thus, perhaps even a new Big Bang could arise in such a setting. Heck, from a theological perspective, a “new heaven and a new earth” could arise (Revelation 21:1).

Boltzmann brain (image from Beyond Universe)

Lee looks at the theoretical cosmology idea of quintessence here. Quintessence is a theoretical idea that some type of field is associated with the universe expanding differently depending on the location. Such an idea is opposed to the current idea of the universe forever expanding per the Cosmological Constant.

Let’s think about such an idea in the realm of process theology or the more divine love-oriented open & relational theology. 1) If fields can vibrate to potentially produce anything (a conjecture), 2) if things (comparable metaphorically) to Boltzmann brains can occur in the setting of immense time and large space, and 3) if quintessence allows for the universe to not “die” by forever expanding or by collapsing, then there is the possibility of eternal creativity.

From a process theology / open & relational theology standpoint, this idea matches Christian eschatology. Those who work in process theology as well as open & relational theology use the idea of God desiring (not forcing) novelty or creativity as part of God’s nature (process theology) or as part of God’s nature of love (open & relational theology). Such ideas are basically a type of eschatology occurring over deep time and perhaps eternally. God is forever creative. God’s love desires, but does not force, creativity.

In my book, A Theology of the Microbiome, I express some of these ideas as follows:

“Finally, when one considers the idea of a “Boltzmann brain,” there
is the possibility that a new universe could form even as our current
universe continues onward with increasing entropy and less useful energy
over time. In the far future, thermal equilibrium is predicted to be
reached everywhere. Despite this event eventually occurring, there could
be a real, but incredibly small statistical chance, that particles would move
close enough to each other so that entropy would decrease momentarily,
and structure would form. The “Boltzmann brain” idea suggests that innumerable random particles in an immense universe with thermal equilibrium
over vast time could, simply by statistical chance, form a “brain”
for a few moments that would experience reality. The brain would then
dissipate into particles again as increased entropy once again took over.


Could a large fluctuation of such particles create a new universe in the
far future? It would be highly improbable but mathematically possible.
Dark matter changes, as well as other mechanisms, have been theorized
as potential causes for a new universe in such a setting. Also, the theory
of cyclic cosmology suggests that a new universe would occur regardless
in the extreme long-term future. All such ideas can aid one when thinking
about the unstoppable increase of entropy in the presence of eternal
creativity.”


Consider purchasing my book. : )

So…I like this article.

At the same time, I have some pushback.

1)Boltzmann brains may not be possible if there are no fluctuations in quantum fields (i.e., if quantum mechanics is essentially deterministic). A good reference is here. Determinism would rule out creativity both objectively and subjectively.

2)Here is my biggest problem. I think science and theology can help each other but cannot stand in for each other. I’m not a believer in non-overlapping magisteria per Gould even though Gould is one of my heroes. Science informs theology so that we understand aspects of God better in the setting of potential divinity in the world. I’m rather cataphatic here. Most of the world is religious, and good theology informs science in the setting of morality or ethics. For example, does God want us to have nuclear weapons? Does God want us to be anti-vaccine? Does God want us to ignore famine? Does God want us to ignore war? Does God want us to deny climate change? I think the answer is decidedly “NO.” Thus, Lee’s work adds on to the perspective of God’s continuing desire for creativity (process theology) via divine love (open & relational theology).

I do not think it is in human capacity to understand what happens when we die or when a “new heaven and new earth” arise. As a Christian, I can believe in the hypostatic union of Christ Jesus, but I cannot understand it fully. I never will. I hit a wall beyond which no comprehension is present. We can make metaphors, but we are limited by our human brains — both objectively and subjectively.

Lee’s article is very good and should be read.

Good theology recognizes brain limitations of our species — both objectively and subjectively.

Image made by Gemini Advanced

More of a Comment Than a Question

It is kind of a truism in medical conferences (and all sorts of academic conferences) that some people pretend to ask a question after a presentation, when in reality, they just want to give a mini-talk themselves. Typically, such “mini-talks” are ways for people to act like they are important. “More of a comment than a question” is the equivalent of trying to take over a meeting. The statement has become kind of a humorous meme about scientific meeting Q&A periods after a presentation.

Unfortunately, I somewhat did a “comment more than a question” recently on Substack. Matthew Segall has a great Substack account. It is expansive and quite wonderful in the realm of explaining philosophy especially regarding the realm of metaphysics. I highly recommend following his account.

On April 27, Dr. Segall interviewed a person associated with the Discovery Institute. I don’t want to identify this person directly (you can watch the interview) as this individual falls into the camp of Intelligent Design which, in my opinion is a rather spurious belief system. I would rather criticize Intelligent Design (ID) than the individual.

Dr. Segall did nothing wrong. His interview was completely fine. He was much more patient than I could ever be. He was pointing out how different belief systems can converge and diverge. Dr. Segall is an expert in process philosophy which can align theologically with process theology (PT) as well as open & relational theology (ORT). I find myself in the camp of PT and ORT. PT / ORT are definitely religious in orientation and they are very pro-science. People like me may believe in God, but we also have no issues with randomness in evolution, Big Bang cosmology, the weirdness of quantum mechanics, accepting the spectrum of human sexuality, acknowledging the problem of evil, etc.. I’m not sure I believe in non-overlapping magisteria as I quite sure that science can inform one’s belief in God.

ID is very different. ID is basically a Young Earth Creationism (YEC) adjacent movement. ID may state that the universe is old and perhaps biological evolution happens, but it then runs off the rails as being science adjacent. ID often relies on the term “irreducible complexity” in which biological mechanisms or structures are so complex that there is no natural mechanism to explain how the complexity occurred. Additionally, once ID says that a mechanism/structure is “too complex” to be explained, then the obvious answer is “God did it. Don’t ask any more questions.” ID also seems to be very much into guided evolutionary processes from an anthropomorphic perpective. I’m not talking about ideas surrounding evolutionary pathways (such as convergent evolution) which may have underlying physical laws. Convergent evolution is definitely real, and it may have an underlying physical law basis not yet understood. What I am talking about is the awful continuing movement in the United States (and to some degree in other countries) to trying to replace science with specific types of religious thought which includes fundamentalism, YEC, and ID. When one tries to put such constrained religious systems into the realm of science by defining fundamentalism / Y.E.C./I.D as a type of “science”, one will start going down the road of the anti-vaccination movement and climate change denial.

Convergent Evolution, image from the Natural History Museum (London)

So…my comment is more than a question. After watching the interview between Dr. Segall and the person who represents the ID movement, I posted a long comment which I will break down below. Again, Dr. Segall did nothing wrong. He was exposing people to a belief system that they may not be aware of, and I am all about public exposure of belief systems and free speech. He was letting people form their own opinion. I think what he did was wise. I’m just writing this post to expand on my subsequent opinion which I posted on his Substack account.

A. “Good interview, Matt! Intelligent design (IMO) has not progressed since 1998. 1) No matter how hard we try, we cannot prove / disprove God. ID is a tiresome continuation of this argument.” I agree that Dr. Segall did an excellent interview. I did some background work, and it does appear that the ID movement likely started in 1998. I’m sure the book, Darwin’s Black Box, by Michael Behe influenced this movement. The book is well written (I read it when it first came out), but it has some fallacies especially when it comes to ideas surrounding irreducible complexity. In my opinion, humans need to move on from debating if God exists or does not exist. We have so many other problems going on in our world politically and environmentally. I’m a Christian and believe in God. However, I can’t prove that God exists. Atheists can’t prove God doesn’t exist. And the conundrum is perfectly fine. Ultimate meta-physical questions such as the existence of God / No God are metaphysical questions that are influenced by one’s upbringing and societal influences over time. ID is a continuation of this argument and makes the argument even sillier in the setting of pseudo-science.

B. “ID is not Popperian so its validity to, say, biology, chemistry, medicine, etc. makes it definitely not a scientific field. It can be a theological or philosophical construct, but it cannot be science.” Personally, I believe that there is a line that exists in the setting of falsifiability in science, but the line is dependent on the scientific field. Medicine (my field) is very, very hard because the human body is complex, and we need very objective research to identify a body mechanism or pathology, to prove that a lab test works, or to prove that a medication works. One can read the New England Journal of Medicine to see how complex such research can be. By trying to be as objective as possible, a medical study allows for falsifiability. The problem is that medicine is filled with quacks throughout the world who promote pseudo-science that borders magical thinking (chiropractors and homeopaths come to mind). Their work allows for no falsifiability and is essentially “magic.” Chemistry research is very strict in its protocols. Thus, outcomes in chemistry research can typically be falsified, if needed. Karl Popper has been very clear here about falsification in science.

Karl Popper

However, there are fields that are science yet not Popperian. Theoretical physics such as in the field of string theory and Everettian mechanics come to mind. Such fields are still science as they are exploring the edges of what humans know. Ideas in theoretical physics often cannot be falsified because the objective data would need be obtained with high energy experiments beyond current human capacity. I get that aspect. One thing that theoretical physics does not do is state that the answer to complex questions in the field of physics is God. Medical research does not state a patient is cured due to God, yet chiropractors often talk about “body energy” — whatever that is (likely magic). ID as well as YEC typically state evolution happens due to “God.” Sorry. God is a very important concept for humans. God is a very important theological concept. BUT God is not a scientific concept.

C. “The continuing appeal to ‘irreducible complexity’ by ID always runs into walls when we are discovering how the eye has evolved, how flagella have evolved, how DNA may have formed, how cytoskeletons may have formed, and on and on. ID seems to always ‘move the goalpost’ once we make scientific progress on a subject once deemed irreducibly complex by ID.” I’m the first person to state that I don’t think that our singular species on one little planet in a unremarkable solar system in an unremarkable galaxy will solve every scientific problem in the universe.

The “pale blue dot” of Earth seen from Saturn. Image from the BBC.

However, that fact doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try to advance science. And we have made progress. We have a great understanding about eye evolution. We have a great understanding about flagella evolution. We are starting to understand how DNA came about. The evolution of the cytoskeleton is becoming more clear. Indeed, if one follows ID writings (which is a painful endeavor), ID simply moves on to another subject without ever acknowledging the science that has been done to go against their hypotheses. It is an unending cycle of willfully ignoring work that has been done by the scientific community. ID is very frustrating here.

D. “ID is a weird variant of positivism. Instead of saying that proof only exists when we experience a concept via the sensory process (i.e., measurement), ID states that proof [of God] only exists if we can’t measure a concept.” Positivism basically means that a thing is true if it can be objectively proven to be true, preferably by the scientific method. Any other potential topic such as God would not be true since the concept is not provable. Metaphysics is not compatible with positivism. A good review article is here.

Rudolf Carnap, a famous proponent of positivism

I like to think that positivism abounds in objective ideas but fails in subjective thought. It also may fail in some parts of science, such as theoretical physics (see above). ID is kind of a variant or even, dare I say, a reciprocal of positivism. Instead of stating that facts are true only if we can prove them through deduction or observation as in positivism, ID states that one specific “fact” (i.e., evidence of God) is true if we haven’t been able to observe / measure a concept. This ID fallacy easily can be seen in the concept of “irreducibly complex.” One simply cannot say “God is here” if one cannot find a solution to a physics/chemistry/biology problem. Time and research progress have not been considered! As I have shown above, prior ID ideas surrounding the evolution of the eye or the flagella have been shown to be demonstrably false.

E. “As you know, I’m a religious person. I have a hard time believing that ID is helping people believe in God.” Some atheists (not all of course) may read this post and be shocked to learn that I am a Christian. But I am. I have been a Christian for a long time, and I find that working in the field of science has increased my belief in God. What do I mean? Working in science has allowed me to see amazing progress, especially in the medical sciences. Seeing patients now recover from once deadly diseases allows me to have awe about the human body as well to be impressed as to how humans have advanced scientific knowledge. This “awe” makes me think that God being the strut in a matrix of complexity and progress makes sense. Readers of my blog know that I think there is the presence of a Creator although such a Creator is not involved in forcing human progress (God may simply lure). Quantum physics, biological evolution, the cosmic background radiation are all examples of my personal experience of “awe.”

Cosmic background radiation. Image from Wikipedia.

However, in the interview with Dr. Segall, the representative for the Discovery Institute states that the public is finding their work helpful. Now, such a statement is interesting and may not be accurate. Data have demonstrated that churches that are antagonistic to science are causing young people to leave church. In a manner similar to “Release the tapes!” (see the 1972 Watergate break-in), places like the Discovery Institute and the Creation Museum never seem to release their data as well as how such data was collected when they make such claims. In other words, “release the data!” I strongly believe that places like the Creation Museum, the Ark Encounter, and the Discovery Institute more than likely do the exact opposite of what they are claiming. A good video which supports my thoughts is here. Just release the data and how the data were collected.

Science done well improves the human condition. Theology done well also improves the human condition. Our species and the planet always does well when science and theology inform each other.

And please read Matthew Segall’s Substack account. It truly is informative and excellent.

My AI image of “More than a comment, than a question.” Image made by Gemini Advanced.