Planeseatreclineology

Obviously I haven't had time to blog on this subject lately, but I couldn't pass this one up. Your comments, please?

Another View of the Cave by Brian Kirk

While Plato's allegory of the cave caused me to think about things deeper,
I have also begun to ponder what may be considered the converse.

Say that, there were a bunch of free men, examining the perfect world
around them. One day, because of a horrible choice to commit a crime,
they were forced into a cave, and into bondage, shackles around the
neck and legs, much like Plato's cave.

Would not these men try to explain everything they saw in the cave as
a comparison to what they saw in the perfect world? And wouldn't they,
for a period of time at least, long for the world which they had been
cast out of?

Would they not attempt to make discoveries about this cave, all the
while coming to false conclusions because all they have known is the
perfection of the world above?

Would a few generations pass and the discoveries of the world around
would be even further from the truth just like the children's game of
telephone? The meanings of the objects would be blurred and distorted.

Perhaps not though. Perhaps they will begin to adjust to the light of
the fire and "figure out" all that there is to know. But all the
while, the memory of the perfect world would slowly fade.

The children's children of the original few men placed into bondage
might even find the "theory" or the idea of a perfect world to be
ridiculous, and dismiss it as a myth. Of course, it wouldn't be a
myth, but they might believe it was.

More and more, those who still believe in such a world would be the
outcasts of the society, viewed as weak and ignorant. However, in
truth, they would be the only ones that had an inkling of what life
really was.

And it would be these people, the ones that had faith, that the
keepers of the cave and the world in which it is contained would find
a redeemable quality.

Eventually, they would be allowed out of the cave into the perfect
world that they spent their entire life preparing for.

Placebo Effect and Mesmer by Bernardo

Recently I listened to an interesting radio show, which added some substance to my views on people's religious experiences. I thought I should share this with you and get your impression. Randy, if you would like to publish the text below as a guest post on your God Vs No God blog, feel free.

New York's NPR station, WNYC, produces an excellent weekly show called "Radio Lab". The two hosts chat with each other, and with diverse experts (typically scientists and historians and doctors and psychologists, but sometimes people who just have unusual jobs or experiences), about interesting topics such as what time is, where the sense of self comes from, how memories are formed and recalled (or forgotten), how stress works, morality, mortality, etc. You can listen to it online and I strongly recommend it.

Anyways, they had one episode about the placebo effect. The show was introduced with the real-life story of a Native American who became skeptical of the healing powers claimed by the tribe's shaman. The young man simply could not believe that all that chanting and ritual had any effect on disease. So he "went undercover" and asked to become an apprentice shaman. As well as how to make certain remedies using plants and other substances, he learned many theatrical "tricks", such as putting some feathers in his mouth, biting the inside of his cheek to draw blood, then pretending to "suck" out the disease from the patient and then spitting out the bloody feathers. Knowing that the theatrics involved were just that, he started his shaman work, faking it just like the shaman who taught him. But, to his amazement, the "tricks" worked, even though sometimes he wasn't really doing anything (as far as giving them substances that might help them).

From there, the first half of the show is spent talking with scientists about how the placebo effect works. In case you're curious: Say you take a substance, be it aspirin or caffeine or ecstasy or an antidepressant, and it has some effect on you. The fact that it had an effect indicates that your cells have receptors for this substance (or for one very much like it), molecular "locks" that are triggered when a certain kind of "key" molecule snaps into them. But if your cell already has those receptors, then human cells have always had those receptors, and this means that your body can already manufacture that substance (or one very much like it). Somewhere in your body - maybe in one specific gland, maybe in every cell - you have the power to manufacture most of the kinds of "medicines" and "mind-altering substances" you need. The hard part is triggering that production. Mysteriously, thinking that you have ingested a substance that has a certain effect, can often somehow trigger the production of whatever substance the body can make which comes closest to having that effect, at least for a little while. Yes, this is an incomplete explanation but it contains some elegant and powerful insights I did not have until I heard it.

The second half of that show is what I really want to talk about. It talked about faith healers, and about a German guy in the 1700s named Mesmer (from whom we get the word "mesmerized") who claimed to "magnetize" things and to cure diseases using "animal magnetism", a ether-like substance that connects all living things. For example, he would rub magnetized iron rods against a tree, and claim that the tree now channeled "animal magnetism". His patients would then touch the tree, start shaking and moaning and convulsing and screaming... and after a while, many of them got better. But real doctors were losing patients to this, and scientists were understanding magnetism well enough at the time to know that this Mesmer was probably making this stuff up. So a commission of scientists (including Ben Franklin, the US's ambassador to France at the time) was formed, not to investigate whether Mesmer's magnetism worked (because, in many cases, it did) but to investigate whether it involved any real phenomenon external to the people treated by it, any kind of fluid or field that had real effects on the world. They performed a simple test: One of five trees was "magnetized" by Mesmer (or one of his followers, since he franchised this practice), and a patient being treated this way was asked to identify which of the 5 trees was "magnetized". As you may guess, few patients got it right. Still, the effects of mesmerism could not be denied, since a lot of people got better from what ailed them. The commission concluded that the effects of Mesmer's "Animal Magnetism" were not caused by any real ether-like fluid or field, but by the imaginations of the patients.

Many people today claim to have religious experiences, to see lights and speak in tongues, to be taken over by the Holy Spirit, etc. This is most noticeable in Pentecostals who are famous for this kind of stuff, and in Christian Scientists who claim that all disease is really just problems in one's relationship with God, but most Christians will claim to have perceived ( i.e. been affected by) the divine supernatural in some way. Listening to the story about mesmerism, about what it was like and the effects it had, made me think that these things can be easily explained as being induced by the person experiencing it, a kind of placebo effect, which makes sense since these people are the ones who believe that the Holy Spirit could actually come and make itself felt.

So, I ask: What is the difference between the Holy Spirit and Animal Magnetism?

Both have real observable effects. Neither can be shown to be triggered by anything outside the mind of the person experiencing it. I think that experiencing the divine is either a placebo effect, or the assigning of supernatural causes to phenomena that are naturally caused (like they used to with the weather, disease, etc).

Here is the MP3 of this show I am talking about. The part about mesmerism is from 42:35 to 50:20.

http://feeds.wnyc.org/~r/radiolab/~5/118525705/radiolab051807pod.mp3

And some more links for reference:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesmer#The_advent_of_animal_magnetism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_magnetism

What do you think?

- Bernardo

A Few Personal Notes

I know that I have been well short of prolific in these spaces lately. One could hope that the content has been of greater quality while declining in quantity. I actually have been concentrating a bit more on my writing and style. Did anyone notice?

The last few months have been filled with substantial turmoil. My partner and I started a business over 26 years which grew to be very substantial. However, due to conditions within and outside of our control, we were forced to sell the business to the highest bidder last month. This process has been extremely time consuming and draining. It has made it very hard to be "up" for blogging or any other creative endeavor.

To make matters even more interesting (to me at least), I am now in the process of deciding what to do for a living. Part of the sale includes continuing on as an employee for the next 8 months, but there is no guarantee of work beyond that. So I am currently flexing my writing skills, and attempting to sell three book ideas, several freelance column ideas, a couple of freelance articles, check into adjunct professoring, consulting, and expert witnessing.

If anyone has any thoughts on any of those career paths or can be of any help, please comment or email.

The good news is that now that the deal is closed, and the day-to-day management of the company is behind me, I am full of creative vigor and am writing 1000's of words per day. Some for the job. Lots for publication.

Alas, it is unclear to me how much time I can devote to this blog, in that I need to be writing for dollars. However, it is my intent to do at least a post or two per week and stay up with the comments. I could sure use some guest posts. (I admit that Bernardo sent me a good one that I haven't even had time to make ready, but I will.)

Thanks to all who visit and contribute here. I do intend to keep trying to be a good host.

Odds of No Catastrophic End to Life

Much has been written, even a well argued post here, about the question of the precise aspects needed to sustain life on this planet. More to the point, I have argued here that it is beyond comprehension that this status has been maintained for billions of years without intelligent intervention to keep the systems within a life-sustaining range.

Those arguing against such a proposition say that it is just so. Others suggest that this is flawed logic. One commentor said that we have had a least 4 near wipe-outs of life, but life came back.

Call the following a falacy if you like. However:

1. With so many mindless species having lived and gone extinct, how is it that none has ever been so successful at destroying other life that all but its own species was destroyed, leaving it with no food supply?

2. How is it that nature has such balance that even in the most inhospitable places, life finds a way?

3. How is it that life did recover from the 4 great catastrophes that we believe may have destroyed up to 96% of life?

4. Why life at all? Doesn't it appear that there is something about life which has a huge drive to survive? What is that about? In humans, we have self awareness that might cause us to want to keep living for the things we desire, even in the face of great difficulty. But why does a cockroach have that built into him? What is the source of that drive?

If I was playing serious money poker with you, and you were dealt two straight flushes in a row with no draw, I would want to find out what "magic" you possessed. You could tell me until the end of time that you just got lucky, but I'd never quite believe it, no matter how much evidence there was to back up your claim.

Free Will and Indoctrination

Re: My earlier post about the LA Times religious editor who lost his faith. My last thought in the post elicited the most comments. Do we need indoctrination to hold onto closely held beliefs. Add to this stew the issue of free will vs some form of cause-and-effect only thinking, and it would at least seem to offer new opportunities for contemplation of the human condition.

If "I" and "my actions" are but the sum total of various data inputs, then, he who controls the inputs should be able to finally claim the crown of Emperor of the World. Hitler and Osama think information and oppression alone will do it, but what with chemicals and other biomethods, surely we could turn humans into robots.

Then we will be faced with the question I think I posted about here a while back regarding folks who are mentally imbalanced: "How will we know?" Has it already happened? Enter the Matrix.

The "First Cause" Concept

Picture the three of us (my son-in-law with his Masters in apologetics from Biola, working on a second Masters in spirituality; my son, currently reading John McArthur (the leading US proponent of Calvinism; and me working on this issue around the pool overlooking the Pacific in Hawaii. We tend to agree with the conclusions of the previous post:

Most concepts of a Christian God make the concept of free will pretty hard to consistently consider.

In general, it is hard to imagine any effect, including any human decision that is not informed 100% by previous causality.

Defining Free Will is fraught with peril.

In the midst of this brainstorming session, an original thought (whatever that is) presented itself. There had to be at least one first cause in history. Why only one? Thus humans (and who knows who else) might have the capacity to being completely creative and generate first causes. This doesn't require a spiritual side or a soul. However, it does go to the matter as first presented, who am "I" if I'm not capable of free will decisions. Now it is proposed that I am an agent of first causes.

Free Will Fantasy

I just needed some time to think it through. Now what was so confusing has become simple at last. I just need to pretend that I actually can make choices. After all, up until now I have been pretending that there is a God and that Jesus is His Son. With all that practice, it should be a no brainer to pretend like the decisions I make have consequences over which I need to concern myself.

Come to think of it, I have been pretending just that all my life. Since I have never considered seriously such contentions from philosophy like "everything being in my head" as being something to seriously ponder, the pile of such discards has included no free will.

I really need to pretend these things, because our entire Western way of thinking is based on volition. The jurisprudence system is based on intent and reasonable man. Our constitution set out the idea of the peons ruling the rulers by making and informed decision. Our commerce is based on consumer choice.

Wonder if there are other aspects of what we think we know scientifically that will require us to pretend to accept the unscientific? First God. Then free will. What next?

Free Will, or at least Cheap Will

Got up this morning, and I am sooooo confused. I don't want to do what God preordained me to do. Even if it is the absolute best thing for me to do, I don't want to do it, just because. Call me a child of the '60's. A real rebel.

Moreover, I certainly don't want to do anything that is simply the result of random occurrences in my genetics, experiences, and bodily chemical reactions. Yuk. So, my first thought was to do the opposite of what I was going to do. Unfortunately, that would be exactly what my predispositions would cause me to do. I considered doing the opposite of the opposite. I put my options into a random generator. Surely God knew I would do that. Besides, my reading of an article on a new random number generator last week surely caused me to think of that option.

Now my thoughts turned diabolical. If I can't make any real choices about my actions, then I really need to consider why I fret so much over making choices. I have read many places, including the Bible, that we should take care of today, and let tomorrow take care of itself. Coooool! In the case of the Bible, this had to do with not worrying or being anxious. But many, many self help books and pundits seem to mean something far more nihilistic.

So, if I choose not to believe in God, this is because I wasn't intended to anyway. If I choose to maximize my own power, wealth, consumption, and personal enjoyment, regardless of how it effects others, this would merely be the result of previous causes in my life. I can disregard the little voice in my head telling me to be unselfish, kind, loving, and such, since that voice is not the Holy Spirit, and the part of my make-up that can turn off that voice is just as much a part of me that turns it on.

Sure, I have to weigh consequences of my actions. But, lets face it, I'm 59. If I could get in 10 years of living large, there won't be that much time left for paying those consequences. And that's assuming I ever get caught or drive away the friendship of someone who really matters to me.

Need to think a bit more about all this. I'm off to church. Not because I choose to go in the face of all this, but because my Great, great, great grandparents went to church every week.

Calvinists vs Arminians

It might seem strange that I would offer up an internecine squabble on these pages, but the Kirk house is currently debating the issue, and it gave rise to a couple of appropriate thoughts regarding the debate herein.

Calvinists and Arminians disagree on several things, but the meaty part is over predestination vs free will. "Did God decide 'in the beginning' which of us humans would be saved and which condemned to hell." If he made such a decision, and there is plenty of solid scripture to back up that POV, then how can there be such a thing as free will. If no free will, then how can we ascribe personal responsibility to any act or person. If no free will, why even contemplate the issues of good vs evil or God vs no God? Last element of the set up: Both sides of the C vs A debate pretty much agree that there is no way to resolve the scriptural conflict this side of heaven. You pretty much select free to choose or God already chose by faith.

By now you are probably miles ahead of me in thinking how this applies more broadly to question posed here. Hopefully, however, I will surprise at least 10% of the faithful readers of this blog with my main epiphany. The Bible stands alone among all resources produced by humans in that it claims to provide us with Truth. Other religious texts might come close, but none make the audacious claims about being a depository of all Truth that the Bible does. As a result, the OT has proclaimed Truth for 4000 or so years with the NT now adding to (but not subtracting from) OT Truth for over 2000 years.

One of my other blogs is humbly titled "The Truth About Everything." I intended that to be audacious, over the top, intentionally rediculous, etc. Having named the blog thus, it would be fair for everyone and anyone who visits there to challenge every assertion, including the name. Some might say that I have created a lightening rod. If I had entitled it "Randy's Musings," it wouldn't have been such a direct challenge to visitors.

Fast forward 1 year or 20 years or 50 years, my postings of the Truth would likely seem silly, off kilter, or even have proven to be the opposite of truth. If I were still writing Truth, readers would and should point to my past error in evaluating my current assertions.

Back to the Bible. It is an easy mark for those who wish to comment on its postings. There are so many postings written by so many people that many deem it remarkable that there are no contradictions (or at least none that can't be overcome by sometimes tortuous means.) But on the whole, I think a fair jurist would say that the lack of (whoops) significant contradictions is rare for a work of this magnitude, scope, authorship, etc.

When compared to any other source of truth claims, the Bible is the only one who doesn't have the option of changing its words or statements. We humans may change our interpretation, and like any observable thing, humans will have different takes on what they see, hear, read, smell, taste, etc.

Which brings us back to Calvin and Armin, and to free will and predestination (insert also omniscience and determinism.) We either choose one or the other by faith, or we have been predisposed to our destiny regarding these issues by God or by wiring. And if this isn't the most complex philosophical question facing humans that has real consequences for living, I don't know what would be more so.

Religion Editor Dumps Religion

Trying to be fair and balanced here, so I report on the LA Times religion editor, who as a self-described "serious Christian," lost his faith while writing about religion in Southern California. He seems to have been most troubled by the Priest scandals and the excesses of the leadership at Trinity Broadcasting Network.

At the time, I never imagined Catholic leaders would engage in a widespread practice that protected alleged child molesters and belittled the victims. I latched onto the explanation that was least damaging to my belief in the Catholic Church — that this was an isolated case of a morally corrupt administration.

and

I understood that I was witnessing the failure of humans, not God. But in a way, that was the point. I didn't see these institutions drenched in God's spirit. Shouldn't religious organizations, if they were God-inspired and -driven, reflect higher standards than government, corporations and other groups in society?

and regarding TBN

I tried unsuccessfully to get several prominent mainstream pastors who appeared on TBN to comment on the prosperity gospel, Hinn's "faith healing" or the Crouches' lifestyle. Like the Catholic bishops, I assumed, they didn't want to risk what they had. AS the stories piled up, I began to pray with renewed vigor, but it felt like I wasn't connecting to God. I started to feel silly even trying.

You will recognize the major issues that William Lobdell struggled against

The questions that I thought I had come to peace with started to bubble up again. Why do bad things happen to good people? Why does God get credit for answered prayers but no blame for unanswered ones? Why do we believe in the miraculous healing power of God when he's never been able to regenerate a limb or heal a severed spinal chord?

In one e-mail, I asked John, who had lost a daughter to cancer, why an atheist businessman prospers and the child of devout Christian parents dies. Why would a loving God make this impossible for us to understand?

One can only suspect that there were many among his peers at the Times who were only too happy to encourage his steps away from faith. Without the balance of a Christian fellowship, scripture reading, or prayer, it was easy to slip away.

My soul, for lack of a better term, had lost faith long ago — probably around the time I stopped going to church. My brain, which had been in denial, had finally caught up. Clearly, I saw now that belief in God, no matter how grounded, requires at some point a leap of faith. Either you have the gift of faith or you don't. It's not a choice. It can't be willed into existence. And there's no faking it if you're honest about the state of your soul.

Many questions for both sides of the debate. Was he ever saved? Did his lack of centering in one doctrinal area get in the way of establishing a set of core beliefs (Catholic, presbyterian, TBN, Mormon?) Do we, as humans, need continuous indoctrination to maintain our core beliefs, whether Christian, Jew, Muslim, humanist, or atheist?

Read the entire article here

Seeing Beyond the Big Bang

A few weeks ago, I wondered aloud whether or not we would be able to see beyond the Big Bang. It would appear that at least some scientists think it is possible.

It may be possible to glimpse before the supposed beginning of time into the universe prior to the Big Bang, researchers now say.

Unfortunately, any such picture will always be fuzzy at best due to a kind of "cosmic forgetfulness."

The Big Bang is often thought as the start of everything, including time, making any questions about what happened during it or beforehand nonsensical. Recently scientists have instead suggested the Big Bang might have just been the explosive beginning of the current era of the universe, hinting at a mysterious past.

To see how far into history one might gaze, theoretical physicist Martin Bojowald at Pennsylvania State University ran calculations based on loop quantum gravity, one of a number of competing theories seeking to explain how the underlying structure of the universe works.

Past research suggested the Big Bang was preceded by infinite energies and space-time warping where existing scientific theories break down, making it impossible to peer beforehand. The new findings suggest that although the levels of energy and space-time warping before the Big Bang were both incredibly high, they were finite.

Scientists could spot clues in the present day of what the cosmos looked like previously. If evidence of the past persisted after the Big Bang, its influence could be spotted in astronomical observations and computational models, Bojowald explained.

However, Bojowald also figures some knowledge of the past was irrevocably lost. For instance, the sheer size of the present universe would suppress precise knowledge of how the universe changed in size before the Big Bang, he said.

Why Not Nothing?

Chief skeptic, Michael Shermer, says this might be the most important article ever to appear in Skeptic Mag.

DOWNLOAD Why This Universe article by Robert Kuhn (PDF)

I agree that it is a nice single source for almost every permutation of believe about what is and how it might have come to be.

Next From Apple

Surely, Steve and his pals must be busy working on this new item. If you'd like to see more zany ideas of what the MacMakers might be up to, go here.

Hugh Hewitt Takes Up This Debate

Hugh Hewitt, syndicated radio talk show host, political pundit, and one of the fathers of blogging, has a 15 week debate taking place on his radio show. Titled "the Great God Debate" with authors Christopher Hitchens and Mark D. Roberts, you can find the audio here for part one. I intend to provide links to the rest later.

In addition, Mark D. Roberts is critiquing specific facts and assumptions of Hitchens' new book, "god Is Not Great," in his blog.

A commentor bring up a variation on a theme long debated:

Hitchens would have us believe that the first century church not only followed a man who never existed, but they constructed from the hearts of fishermen and tax collectors a collection of proverbs and stories that turned the world upside down. If so, then Jesus’ disciples are more clever in death than they were in life and the greatest miracle of all is that those common people not only corporately imagined Jesus’ life, but they went to their deaths by the tens of thousands for their collective dream; for a man who never lived. Hitchens’ contribution to history is his claim that the fire which consumed the Roman Empire was never struck…

Your thoughts?

An Elemental Impulse: Religion Is So Powerful That Even Soviet Antireligious Policy Failed..... by Paul Gabel

The featured article in this week’s eSkeptic is on the Soviet attempt to eradicate religion by fiat out of the Russian people. The attempt failed utterly. The historical experiment carries an important lesson for those who study belief systems in general and religion in particular: you cannot legislate beliefs and faith. Today’s atheists who are emboldened by Richard Dawkins’ Lennonesque clarion call to “imagine no religion” should read this article (and the book on which it is based) carefully, and then try to imagine another solution to the problems caused by religious extremists, for as another evolutionary biologist — Edward O. Wilson — cautioned us in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, On Human Nature:

Skeptics continue to nourish the belief that science and learning will banish religion, which they consider to be no more than a tissue of illusions… Today, scientists and other scholars, organized into learned groups such as the American Humanist Society and Institute on Religion in an Age of Science, support little magazines distributed by subscription and organize campaigns to discredit Christian fundamentalism, astrology, and Immanuel Velikovsky. Their crisply logical salvos, endorsed by whole arrogances of Nobel Laureates, pass like steel-jacketed bullets through fog.

There is, indeed, something deeply elemental about the power of belief.

— Michael Shermer

The article is reprinted in its entirety here It would be nice to have all the comments back here, rather than under the article, itself.

What Do YOU Fear?

One might criticize me for going a bit afield on this post, but I do think it ties into the debate. However, my purpose has a wider scope, so I would appreciate as many comments on this one as possible. You might even want to post the question on your blogs and get me some additional thoughts on the subject.

The list of possible fears is long and varied, everything from public speaking to spiders and such. However, for the purpose of this survey, I'm looking for the big picture. I will list 10 that I can think of that should set the tone. If these are big for you, let me know. If there are other similar things that are bigger for you, add them.

1. The US devolving into a dictatorship
2. The rapture and God's judgment on earth
   
3. Hell
4. Global Warming
5. Islamic extremism creating global conflict
6. Nuclear holocaust
7. Depletion of critical natural resources
8. The US devolving into a socialist government
9. Overpopulation
10. Underpopulation
11. Too few culturally "Western Civilization" in the population
12. Pollution
13. Nuclear power plant catastrophe - or nuclear waste catastrophe
14. Aliens (from outer space)
    
15. Avian flu or similar disease
16. Scientific advance out of control (e.g. genetic engineering, nanobots, robots with AI)

Mouth's of Babes Department

I regret that I cannot link the source on this quote, but it is reported third hand to me that a book of letters written by kids around ten included this idea: "God why do kill things just so you can make more of them."

Could the question of evil be put any more succinctly. Sure, we humans have divided up killing into all kinds of levels of acceptability and cruelty. But a death is a death. Pain is pain. I've been told by countless women that childbirth is like pulling your bottom lip over your head (that might actually have been Bill Cosby.) So God allows evil, torture, lots of pain, horrific bad things happening to children and cute little animals. But the child above may have whittled the issue down to its essential. What say you?

In The Beginning

Like a good lawyer at trial, I would like to give and ask for a few stipulations:

1. Matter exists.
2. Energy exists.
3. Information exists
4. Rules exist
5. Each of these exist at this moment as a result of cause and effect that stretches back either to some point, or to infinity.
6. It is unlikely that we will ever know whether these first causes of each of these exist or if they are infinite.
7. The human mind is incapable of grasping the idea that any of these came from nothing.
8. The human mind is incapable of grasping the idea that the causes of these things are infinite.

Up until this point in this series of observations/stipulations, there is no advantage to either the God or no God side of the debate.

I suspect that one reason folks tend towards theism is that it is easier to imagine a spiritual world as infinite, and the finite world as being created by the spiritual. Some who have blogged on the no God side here have suggested that time began with the big bang, and that prior to this there was no time. This fits perfectly with the concept that in the spiritual realm there is no time, and thus infinity is no longer impossible to consider.

Also, state elsewhere but repeated here as appropriate to this post, it is impossible for us to grasp matter or energy as have a first cause without a spiritual dimension to "create" it, but it is even harder to imagine how information or rules were included in a godless explosion of matter and energy.

Induced Happiness

Several weeks ago I posted on Happiness vs Joy. It didn't result in much discussion (Ok. No one commented.) This was a bit surprising in a blog where 20 comments is the average. At some level the issues of happiness, joy, contentment, anxiety, angst, fear are at the very heart of the human condition. Wired magazine has a brief essay this month which adds a bit of flavor to the issue from the pharm side of things. I recommend this 3 minute read. But here's an excerpt:

From a distance, pleasure without fear or desire sounds pretty good. But in your grasp, it starts to feel less like paradise and more like soma. A species that shuts out adversity does not survive very long in a Darwinian universe. In the short term, humans with happy-making neural implants would cease to be interesting. Quenching feelings of hardship also means never feeling desire or want. Unpleasant as those emotions can be, they're also the basis for ambition and creativity. "Happy people are not ambitious," Greenfield says. "They do not build civilizations."

One could argue that there is no inherent goodness in building civilization, and I have had some commenters on this and other blogs who feel all this need to grow and build is not the best for human kind. The Jesus People certainly would contend that the constant grasping for material improvement is not of God. Many environmentalists clearly would like to see a return to simpler times.

Now enters the age of Pharma. The article points out that we may be on our way to being able to use various drugs or other tools to completely control our moods. We certainly have taken a number of very large steps down that path with various anti-depressants, anti-anxiety products, ADD and ADHD solutions, and "muscle relaxents." On the surface and case-by-case one has a hard time saying to the chronically depressed person, "You'll get over it," when a couple of tiny pills will give them so much peace. But as a species, is this approach wise?

Taking it directly into the God realm, there is a small and shrinking percentage of the Christian community who proclaim the sufficiency of Christ. This is similar to the Christian Scientist Claim of no medical intervention. However, do we begin to see their point as we move down the slippery slope. (Or should we say slippery slopes...eg. designer babies, gene alteration, or enhancement drugs.) Should we draw a line? Where?

The article concludes with this interesting thought:

Maybe it's no coincidence that some of the happy-making stuff is manufactured in those countries. It's reminiscent of the scenario laid out by another prescient thinker, H. G. Wells. In his book The Time Machine, Wells wrote about a world where the happy, indolent elite — the Eloi — are served by industrious outsiders called Morlocks. The Eloi are also the hardworking Morlocks' food. Grim stuff. And also the exact opposite of what Jefferson was trying to tee up for Americans. Maybe he knew that if you have too much happiness, you don't get life and liberty.