ASM007 The Devil, The Bible, and Healthy Fundamentalism

[transcript automatically generated - please help edit to make it better]

the devil the bible and healthy fundamentalism all that and more on this week's episode of ask sciencemic [Music] really amazing things this week on ask science mike because i didn't even pick the questions i started a fundraising campaign on patreon and now people are involved and my patrons pick the questions for this week's episode it's a hundred percent your show if you want to get involved head to asksciencemike.com for more information but for now let's get it started hey mike really enjoying the show just had a question for you about fundamentalism um i had heard you say something on another podcast about healthy fundamentalism and i was just curious if you could explain your understanding of healthy funding fundamentalism versus unhealthy fundamentalism thanks so much man our culture is really quickly becoming anti-fundamentalist i don't know if anyone's noticed but you know that's probably rooted in some justified ideas i think when a lot of people think of fundamentalism they think of september 11 2001 islamic fundamentalism american fundamentalism they think of people bombing abortion clinics they think the oppression of rights of minorities and women but i don't think that tells the whole story there are dangerous fundamentalists but as you heard on another podcast not all fundamentalists are unhealthy or dangerous not by any stretch of the imagination and before i even talk about that i want to note that we all and i mean all of us have a bias towards seeing our own beliefs as true this is documented it's been validated in research and in studies we naturally reject information that does not conform to our views or to the labels we hold for ourselves something as simple as calling yourself a democrat or a republican or a christian or an atheist means that you will automatically and naturally filter out information that doesn't conform to those identities and this has been again broadly documented so let's not vilify the fundamentalists for a bias towards uh pre-existing beliefs we all have that but if we're going to talk about healthy and unhealthy fundamentalism we should probably first talk about what fundamentalism is at all right and it's kind of hard to nail down everybody has different definitions and one of the most frustrating things about having conversations about faith and philosophy and epistemology is everyone wants to fight about the terms so i'm going to start with a working definition for fundamentalism and i'm going to say that's a strict interpretation of and adherence to a sacred text and this is usually done in opposition to perceived moral erosion in contemporary society fundamentalists want to revert to an older way of understanding the world that's revealed in a sacred text that they believe to be perfect now to modern ears that sounds pretty bad right and i guess it could be let's talk about belief in god for a second there's really only two ways to understand god neurologically in terms of how your brain is affected the original understanding of god was to understand a god who was angry or wrathful primarily this is a god who would say flood the earth because people are wicked or this would be a god who created the universe by splitting the belly of another god if we go to some babylonian ideas but old gods the original gods were angry and and the angry model of god persists to this day and when you believe that god is primarily angry it affects your brain when you focus on that idea your amygdala is more likely to respond to stimulus you get angry you get fearful of outsiders for example as a result you can have higher anxiety you can have more difficulty forgiving yourself and forgiving other people and all that sounds pretty bad right and then on the other hand you can believe god is primarily loving and when you contemplate on and believe in a loving god your brain changes your anterior cingulate cortex the part of your brain responsible for compassion and empathy develops your neocortex your focus and concentration improve your blood pressure goes down it becomes easy to forgive others you become accepting of outsiders and whenever i give those definitions of god i always have people pat themselves on the back uh because they believe that they're loving god people and the other people of their faith or other faiths are the angry god people so fundamentalists would be the angry god crowd right well not so fast fundamentalism has perks as a belief system first of all it offers you a certain and clear worldview it's unambiguous it's black and white and that actually the brain likes it it's easier to make ethical considerations on a black and white matrix it's easier to feel like you are on the right side that you have things figured out and your brain likes that you have a bias towards certainty fundamentalism also has tremendous social support people who are involved in fundamentalist religious sex enjoy that's s-e-c-t-s not s-e-x by the way for the junior high schoolers who might be listening social uh fundamentalist religious sex uh they uh enjoy tremendous support from their peer group they also because of that probably have lower anxiety and lower depression than the baseline for their population group and in their culture this is across cultures by the way that's pretty good things but let me quote my favorite book about god and some people might say oh you mean the bible it's actually how god changes your brain by andrew newberg and uh this is this is a quote there's a million quotes in there that just make me want to jump up and dance but this is one of them as we see it the neurological problem of fundamentalism does not lie in the firm adherence to a specific set of beliefs rather the problem arises when individuals use their religion to justify angry feelings toward others so hearing that quote and they have boiled done a lot of research to justify it their neurologists say they study the brain their brain researchers it's the angry god fundamentalism that is unhealthy because religion is used to justify being angry with people right those people that don't hold the code those people that fall out of line those people who aren't faithful they respond in anger and it feels kind of good to get angry and righteous anger the preacher pounds the pulpit every sunday and yells and screams and we talk about the danger that we're faced with society and it's fear fear fear anger anger anger and that is really unhealthy for an individual but it's not even the most unhealthy form of fundamentalism angry god fundamentalism is not the bottle of the barrel the most toxic form of religion or frankly any ideology is an authoritarian system that includes a need to impose this system on as many people as possible so an angry fundamentalist sect who believed it was important to turn everyone else into angry fundamentalists you have now reached the pinnacle of religious unhealth this is the kind of communities that ultimately begin to foster religious violence about one percent of religious people in the west when surveyed report that they would be willing to engage in acts of violence to further the cause of their faith maximum unhealth so what's health healthy fundamentalists may have a strict interpretation of scripture but they believe in a god who's primarily loving and because of that they respond to out groups people that aren't in their faith with compassion and love and not fear or anger and actually for a second i want you to picture your average southern baptist you know this is a group that these days is villainized a lot in the media but most baptists are good sweet people trying to make the world better they donate their time they donate their money and they try to make the world a better place and although they may believe people who don't have a certain understanding of salvation are going to hell that doesn't make them angry with them their hearts are broken and they view them with compassion that's healthy fundamentalism i know that sounds pretty nutty to the secular steer or even to like a progressive person of faith but in terms of their impact on society and indeed on their own brains their impact really is more good than harm if you'd like to read more about this specifically check out the chapter fundamentalism and anger in the book how god changes your brain i'll have a link to that on this week's show notes on ask sciencemike.com [Music] our next question comes from kyle over email and he says hi science mike how does someone with a kind of reconstructed faith like yours approach other religions it seems in your recent discussions of your faith that you've largely returned to a version of christianity after a couple years of atheism but to me it seems reasonable for someone in your position to wonder what other religions have to offer as indeed you still speak very respectfully of your debts to atheist habits of thinking i have largely deconstructed the evangelical christianity i grew up with but i still feel the pull of the divine and see a lot of value in christianity so i don't really want to abandon it but i also wonder how someone in this position should think about and interact with beyond merely being respectful other religious traditions are we left with only some version of the relativist idea that all religious roads lead to god this is an idea i thought unquestionably wrong until a few years ago how do you interact with other faith traditions now well first of all i did explore other religions both before and after my journey through atheism when i started to lose grasp on the christianity i knew i looked into the broader christian tradition when i didn't find answers there i went into the larger school of thought and monotheism especially the abrahamic religions judaism and islam and then i finally expanded the scope into polytheism and then non-theism deism pantheism pananthism blah blah blah blah blah blah boy i tried i tried them all on at least for a day all of them and tried to study them as deeply as i could but you're right i'm a christian today unapologetically so i have decided that i will center my life around the teachings of jesus christ and following him and not just as a moral teacher i understand god through jesus and i even believe that jesus was physically resurrected from the dead that part of the gospel account is true and you know we've got other questions that i'll probably go into more detail about that in other episodes why i believe that but in terms of other faiths here's the deal truth is truth that's it are there things i can learn about life from buddhism yes are there things i can learn about prayer from buddhism yes are there things i can learn about god from buddhism absolutely the same is true of islam certainly judaism and every person of faith has something to teach me about life and about god so how do i approach other faiths i assume those people like me are trying to find meaning in life that they're doing the best that they can to make a positive contribution in the world and to know god now there are non-religions right there's secularism humanism atheism guess what they have things to teach me about truth and about life as well so anywhere i find truth be that factual empirical data like i get through science or be that a deeper understanding of the human condition that's available through the humanities including religious faith and expression i'm open to it it's not for me to figure out what other roads lead to god or not all i know is that jesus leads me to god that's it i don't have any grander aspirations to tell the whole world exactly how they should or should not pursue god because at this point in my life i don't have the framework to do that my faith is remarkably simple right now my house of cards is still quite small after it got knocked over by atheism so i unself-consciously simply lead the walk of faith i know best and that's christianity it sounds like that might be you too kyle it sounds like christianity is comfortable for you so let it be comfortable you don't have to know if that's like the exclusive way to know god or not the you know people hear me say this all the time but when the disciples were called they didn't know anything about jesus other than that he was a compelling teacher and rabbi but they followed him anyway we don't have to come to grand conclusions in order to follow christ we just have to follow christ and we can certainly be respectful of other people in other faiths and even learn from them on that road [Music] [Applause] hello mike i'm carlos from venezuela and thanks a lot for what you're doing i mean your show it's helping a lot of people finding jesus and that's awesome and you know when i share the gospel people frequently asks and how or why should i trust the biblical canon uh how or why should i trust in the people who chose that canon and i would love to hear your answer and uh also i would i would like to hear what are your thoughts about the holy spirit inspiration and how can someone a person affirm that a book is inspired by the spirit and how can you say a book is not inspired by the spirit why my thoughts and my experiences that cannot be added to the bible or to the canon and am i not inspired by the spirit and thanks a lot mike first of all i would like to say thank you to all of those people listening in latin america and south america because i have to imagine that my southern southeastern united states english drawl must be really tough to follow um so i appreciate you listening and man i really appreciate you asking one of my favorite questions but it's my favorite question because i don't i don't really have a definitive answer i would almost like to do an ask pastor betsy uh answer here and ask peter ends question for just a second and let someone else take a swing at it so i can't give you a definitive answer to your questions but i will give you kind of my working answer where i'm at today if that's okay the first thing people ask you is how do we trust the canonization of scripture right well how why these books are there other books that were considered so why did they pick these well first of all there were other books and there's actually more than one bible the catholic bible is a little different than the protestant bible and then we also have books uh from that time period that at different times were included or not included in canon there was no single moment when everyone came together and selected the books of the bible it was a long process for me it's helpful to think of the bible as a product of the church now a lot of people think of the bible what as a direct product of god that god himself dictated these words or inspired them into the hearts of men who then wrote them down and then god caused men to assemble these books together into a single volume and then god even made it get translated into other languages if that's the case god is kind of a messy editor the bible to me is a human book whoa yeah i know but the bible to me is a human book it is the byproduct of the church the church is a product of jesus christ right jesus started the church and then the church made the bible and the bible is the largest collection of books it's a library that collects the experiences that people have with god because of that i understand there's all sorts of human motivations and if you ever listen to people try to explain testimony we're not very good at it humans we are unreliable in our testimony and you see that a little bit in the bible different stories different accounts of the same events that doesn't bother me a bit and so i trust the canonization as something the church did to try to further knowledge of god on earth and therefore as a member of the church the bible is worthy of study right there's no bigger volume for me to understand how the people who formed and influenced the faith tradition i belong to than the bible so how do we know what books are inspired by god well we i guess we just trust the church um now i believe the books of the bible as they were selected for different criteria certainly do reflect people who genuinely had experiences with god and were therefore inspired by god you know when you then said why can't we add new books to the bible i guess we could i guess the church could choose to add more books to the bible i think it would be difficult with 40 000 denominations to get anybody to agree on what new books should be included but you know for whatever reason uh the bible is currently a finished document it's a view back into uh god's revelation and god's appearance to first the hebrew people and then a columnation of that story in jesus christ and uh we sort of live in this post-jesus period where we continue to take those themes and adapt them to the times without creating new scripture and new canon you know some people would say we do that because the bible itself commands us to but i think it's interesting to note that the you know paul when he spoke of the scriptures referred to the old testament he would say the writings and the prophets and the law talking about the torah he wasn't talking about his own letters he was just writing a letter to someone so you know of all the answers i've gotten on ask science mike this is probably the least satisfying for people but i want to be honest i trust the bible as the product of a church who is genuinely trying to help people know and understand god better specifically through jesus christ and so i don't debate people on the specific mechanisms of inspiration or if these books are the right books i just live these books i explore the stories of people like me who want to know follow and serve god and in the new testament people like me who are trying to follow a jesus who they cannot sit with physically like the original disciples and in that way i find teaching and i also find solidarity and at least for me that's even more powerful than a perfect divine canonization or traditional ideas about holy spirit inspiration okay we've got another question from the email box hey mike evil is everywhere including me but is the devil real it's a great question it depends on who you ask i guess uh since you sent it to a science mike you are asking me i can only assume and uh you know here's where i'm gonna offer an opinion pretty radically different than uh my pastor certainly well let's look at the what the devil is where that comes from the devil in christianity is also often called satan occasionally called lucifer and uh we are a faith that was born out of another faith called judaism and i think it's really interesting to note that there is not now and there was not then a devil in judaism the word often translated satan in the old testament was the accuser and was the it's a verb turned into a noun and was not understood necessarily to be in a singular being it was later that the early church linked the serpent in genesis to the accuser in the rest of the old testament who frankly isn't even mentioned that often probably the biggest influence biblically of our modern ideas about the devil is the book of revelation that story really fleshed out the story of satan and but i'd have to say that a lot of our modern ideas aren't even based on revelation there was this infusion of greco-roman mythology into this character in the early church and then even later mythologies uh most of what we think about hell for example comes from dante's inferno not even the mentions of gehan and sheol in the bible so you know when i look at that sort of anthropological examination of this character he seems to be a relatively recent addition even to christianity uh this personification of evil so do i believe that the devil is a being with hoofed feet and horns no do i believe that the devil is a being that satan is someone with agency and will no do i believe that the accuser in scripture and even the devil in the new testament point to something real absolutely first of all our universe is in a perpetual state of moving toward entropy that means for life to exist we have to steal energy to create order from somewhere where we steal it from is the sun who by a lucky coincidence is casting out energy constantly plants do that they harvest this energy and then reverse local entropy right well guess what plants have to fight each other for their spot in the sun and there's an arms race to get bigger leaves and get higher off the ground to get all the sun and block the competitors from getting the sun but then after the sun's gotten animals compete to see who can eat the most plants and then animals start to eat other animals and we're in this constant struggle against scarcity and from that tapestry arose humanity and therefore in our brains there's a lot of hardware that's focused on the self we have a natural tendency to behave in selfish ways and we also have a tendency to behave in ways that are self-destructive we are capable of unspeakable acts of brutality humans through their own volition murder steal rape and as we get more sophisticated commit acts of genocide we launch wars we exploit this planet on a degree unknown in its history we alter the global ecology and even when we start to do better something in our fabric says well who are you to try this it's hopeless give up so while the devil in my perspective may not be a being it is absolutely the shadow of humanity it is the part of us most distant from the ideas we as religious people hold dear so when i read in the old testament about the accuser or in the new testament about the devil i don't disregard those teachings because i understand what it's like to stand in a beautiful garden and want something for myself i understand what it's like to look at what someone else has done and be envious and angry about it i understand what it's like to wrestle with my deepest desires and try to figure out what is really right and what is wrong so evil is everywhere and frankly there are worse ways to think about it than the devil [Music] well that puts another episode of ass science mike in the books uh sorry about the noise there's a rainstorm happening in the beautiful city of tallahassee and when a squall happens in this part of the world it's gonna squall for a long time and there's gonna be rain noise for a long time so there's no way to avoid that sorry if that's a little bit amateurish but hey guys we need your questions i've gotten lots and lots and lots of questions but we want to keep more questions coming in always so you can use hashtag asksciencemike on twitter soundcloud or youtube to put questions on the program i'll see them you can also use ask sciencemike.com there's a forum at the bottom of the page where you can type out a question i get all those and that's also a great way to submit a question that you want to keep anonymous now there's some really exciting announcements for the show this week number one those of you have been asking for stitcher we're on it now you can get a science mike on stitcher if you don't know what stitcher is don't worry about it but if you know you're excited about it two we have much better rss support so if you're using a non-itunes non-stitcher platform just use the feed feed press dot me slash ask science mike to subscribe to the show it's going to work really great and finally guess what you can actually record audio questions on ask sciencemic.com now you click a button you hit allow and you record a question it goes straight to me it could not be easier give that a try it's super cool now along with those exciting announcements as i mentioned at the beginning of the program as science mike has grown incredibly and that's because we have open honest conversations about science and faith and that means getting this show to your eardrums costs a lot of money it's been quite a hefty bang to my bank account every month paying all these bandwidth bills so i've started a patreon campaign so that the people who feel that they want to be a part of this that they want to help create an honest conversation about science and faith can do so because it takes money and frankly a lot of time to get this content to you so just go to ask sciencemike.com you can click right on a link to go straight to the campaign and learn more about it and here's a couple things i want you to know number one every single dollar helps it's a monthly commitment it's really easy to do but you can you can actually pledge one dollar a month and i would appreciate it okay give it any level you're comfortable with and not only that you can change or cancel a pledge on patreon at any time so if you're having a hard month you want to cancel it you want to cut down to a smaller dollar amount you can do that piece of cake now people who participate people who give financially to the show are going to get some perks one you're going to get early access to the show you get to hear it before everybody else at certain giving levels you can actually help me pick the questions or even add your own question to the program and some people have the opportunity to be an executive producer and have their name mentioned on the air now as we're at right now ask science mike is listened to by over 6 000 people a day so that's a yeah that's a pretty big opportunity now if money is tight and you're like oh i'd like to help mike but i just i don't even have a dollar a month i get it that's cool ass science mike will always be free and you can still help the program just go to itunes and rate the show leave a rating and write a review that will help us tremendously as we try to find other listeners who may be interested in the program you could also tweet or post on facebook about an episode you've enjoyed that would help the program a lot there's other ways to support this work than just financially whatever you choose to do i want you to know i appreciate you taking the time to listen to this program it's completely because of you that it's been such a success and as i say all the time it is your show and i thank you ask science mike is produced by greg nordin and he does a great job i'm so grateful for his help and our theme song of course is by john botifer if you've got a podcast and you'd like original music composed and recorded for it jeb is your guy links to both greg and jeb can be found in the show notes of assigns mike.com as well as resources for every question we've addressed on the program thanks for listening guys and i'll see you next week [Music]