R.P. Nettelhorst's Blog, page 102

Sometimes Peace is Impossible

I went to my pharmacy a couple of days ago to pick up a prescription for my daughter. One person was ahead of me, an older woman—almost the stereotypical grandmother: white hair, glasses, slightly hunched. But she wasn’t acting like a grandmother doting on her granddaughter offering her cookies.

Instead, she was in full-throated roar yelling at the twenty-something technician behind the counter.

Why?

Because she was going to have to wait for her prescription. Not explanation mattered to her; there was no ability of the poor technician to fix the situation. The technician spoke softly—she was a small, brownhaired young woman in a white jacket. She was unfailingly polite and gentle. But the old lady refused any attempt at mollification. She kept yelling and yelling, kept reiterating that she wanted her prescription now and that it was unreasonable for her to wait. “There’s no one ahead of me,” she insisted. Of course failing to notice that there were other prescriptions being filled and that the stacks of prescription orders were rather high; yes, no one else was physically standing in front of her. It doesn’t mean that no one was ahead of her.

When faced with a foe, it is only natural to want to understand them. After the initial shock of an attack, whether it’s a coworker who unloads on you out of the blue, or a family member, or just someone you came in contact with at the store—understanding helps.

So eventually it came out: “I have a toothache and that medicine will make it stop hurting.” There was the reason for her seemingly unreasoning rage.

And so, when we look at the world, we’d like to find the reason for the conflicts we find. Surely there is a way to bring peace to those at war. When 911 happened, the first instinct of many was to wonder “what did we do? How have we offended them?” We seek to find an explanation, to assign guilt to ourselves for our suffering. When we look at combatants in the Middle East, we want to believe that there are two good sides to the argument and that there must be some way to bring about a resolution to the conflict. Surely if we make certain changes in how we behave as a nation, make better choices, say nicer words, then those who hate us will learn to love us and we can enjoy peace and harmony.

But sometimes, it isn’t so complicated. Sometimes, those who hate us aren’t reacting to a toothache or some perceived, whether legitimate or not, slight. Sometimes, there is no way to resolve the conflict. Sometimes, there can be no peace.

Such, sadly, is the case of Al-Qaeda and frankly, the other Moslim extremists out there. Frankly, it is also the case when it comes to Israel and groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah, the Moslem Brotherhood and the like. Peace simply isn’t possible with those who want but one thing: for you to convert or die. There is no middle ground, nothing to give, no hope.

MEMRI.org recently published the following. Some people might want to ignore these words. Some people might want to believe that they aren’t really serious. Sadly, I don’t think these words give us any possibility of hope. Peace is impossible:

Al-Qaeda’s broadcasting arm Al-Sahab has released an audio lecture that sets the standards of friendship and enmity with infidels as defined by Islam. The lecture is delivered by Abdul Samad, a militant Pakistani cleric who speaks in Urdu.

The lecture is titled “Standards of Friendship and Enmity in Islam.” It was released through various jihadi forums with a link posted on the U.S.-based website Archive.org. Citing Koranic verses, Abdul Samad says Muslims should never form friendships and relationships with infidels, which is necessary for the success of Muslims in forming unity.

Citing hadiths and Koranic verses, Abdul Samad argues the following points:

i) The most powerful and binding relation is Islam.

ii) The believers, who do not disassociate themselves from nonbelievers and do not distinguish their ranks from people who have interest in worldly things, can never serve Islam effectively.

iii) Our friendship and enmity should only be for Allah’s cause.

iv) Our friendship, relationship and love should only be with the people who believe in Islam and Allah as the ruler.

v) The people, who do not accept Allah as the ruler and do not believe in Islam are our enemy and we should disassociate ourselves from them even if they are our close relatives and from our tribe.

vi) The infidels, whether they are the Jews or Christians, atheists and polytheists, are the real infidels and are the enemies of Allah’s faith (Islam).

vii) The Koran has termed friendship with Kuffar (infidels) as a sign of disunity and unbelief, as it is associated with the foundations of belief.

viii) The people declared by Allah as our enemy can never be our friends.

ix) The non-believers are the enemies of our elderly people, women and children. They kill the Muslims with bombs either in Kashmir, Iraq, or Palestine. There is hardly a day when a Muslim escapes their cruelty.

x) They open several fronts (against Muslims) after entering a region. One of their fronts is education. They used it in the Egypt and Turkey; and they currently use it in Pakistan against the Muslims.

xi) Our enmity towards Hindus is not due to the Kashmir issue; our enmity towards America is not due to Iraq and Afghanistan; the enmity between us and the Jews is not due to the Palestine; the real cause is that they do not accept our system and Islam.

xii) Our enmity towards them (the non-believers) will continue even if they renounce all their crimes.

xiii) Enmity towards infidels is a must. It is part of our faith. Islam says the Muslims should stay away from the infidels and their countries.

xiv) The best way to get rid of them (infidels) is to continue jihad until the Allah’s faith (Islam) is completely enforced all over the world.

See the full report: Al-Qaeda Releases ‘Standards Of Friendship And Enmity In Islam’

So.

They don’t hate us for our freedom.

They don’t hate us because we did something to them.

They hate us because we exist. Because we are infidels.

Poetic License

When I teach biblical interpretation, one of the things I use to help explain the difference between biblical narrative and biblical poetry is to ask the students to compare Judges 4 and Judges 5. These two chapters make my job easy, because both chapters describe the same event: Barak and Deborah’s victory over Sisera.

I point out that the purpose of poetry is not to clearly describe events or to give us instructions. Instead, poetry is emotional; it gives us a feeling—it is not propositional. For instance, the Afordible Healthcare Law, usually called Obomacare, is not written in poetry. Likewise, autorepair manuals are not written in poetry, nor are history books or newspapers. But music lyrics are poetry—and what you expect from listening to the lyrics of songs is not what you expect when you’re listening to a news report on the latest horrors in Egypt.

So, consider the contrast between these two descriptions of the same event. First, Judges 4:17-21 which gives us the narrative form of the event:

Sisera, meanwhile, fled on foot to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, because there was an alliance between Jabin king of Hazor and the family of Heber the Kenite.

Jael went out to meet Sisera and said to him, “Come, my lord, come right in. Don’t be afraid.” So he entered her tent, and she covered him with a blanket.

“I’m thirsty,” he said. “Please give me some water.” She opened a skin of milk, gave him a drink, and covered him up.

“Stand in the doorway of the tent,” he told her. “If someone comes by and asks you, ‘Is anyone in there?’ say ‘No.’ ”

But Jael, Heber’s wife, picked up a tent peg and a hammer and went quietly to him while he lay fast asleep, exhausted. She drove the peg through his temple into the ground, and he died.

Judges 5:24-27 relates the same event, but as poetry:

Most blessed of women be Jael,

the wife of Heber the Kenite,

most blessed of tent-dwelling women.

He asked for water, and she gave him milk;

in a bowl fit for nobles she brought him curdled milk.

Her hand reached for the tent peg,

her right hand for the workman’s hammer.

She struck Sisera, she crushed his head,

she shattered and pierced his temple.

At her feet he sank,

he fell; there he lay.

At her feet he sank, he fell;

where he sank, there he fell—dead.

Hebrew poetry is dependent on what is called parallelism—the rhyming of ideas rather than the rhyming of sounds, and thus it seems repetitious to modern western readers. What we would express in a single concept, perhaps with some added adjectives or adverbs, gets stated twice in slightly different words. More obviously, the death of Sisera is described much more violently, with Jael as violent, and overpowering him in an epic battle. The point of the poetry is to suggest the emotions of the event, rather to to give a blow by blow description of how the event occurred. It gives us insight into how Jael felt about what she did, and how the Israelites felt about it: how they saw it as a triumph over their humiliated opponent. Poetry makes more use of metaphor and allegory, the painting of pictures with words. One can get into a lot of trouble trying to understand poetry literalistically.

What is interesting to consider when you see the difference in poetry versus narrative is when it comes time to read the prophets of the Old Testament. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, the 12 minor prophets—most of what they write, most of the “word of the Lord” is presented as poetry. Don’t read the prophets (or Psalms, or Proverbs) then the same way you’d read the narratives of 1 and 2 Chronicles; don’t expect them to give you the same sort of information.

Thus, be very careful how you understand what is going on. The same with the Psalms, Song of Solomon and the wisdom literature, such as Proverbs and Ecclesiastes: recognize that you’re dealing with poetry. Be careful to allow for unusual idioms and twists. For instance, the prophets will occasionally talk about “adultery” and how Israel or Judah are “adulterous.” The prophets are not talking about the behavior of married adults in ancient Palestine. Rather, the terms are used metaphorically to describe how unfaithful to God the Israelites have become. Instead of worshiping Yahweh exclusively, they’ve run off and started worshiping other gods as well, while still coming back to the Temple and going through the rituals as if nothing is wrong. “Adultery” is a perfect picture of the religious situation in Israel and Judah.

Comforting Context

In reading the Bible, as with reading anything, context is important. I don’t like to rain on people’s parades, but it disturbs me sometimes when I see people take a comforting passage and apply it to themselves or others as some sort of universal promise, but completely ignoring the actual context of the passage. Because of that, those sorts of verses don’t do a whole lot for me, not anymore. For instance, this passage from Jeremiah is a favorite:

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. (Jeremiah 29:11)

While this passage is rarely invoked:

I will punish you as your deeds deserve,

declares the Lord.

I will kindle a fire in your forests

that will consume everything around you. (Jeremiah 21:14)

But the context of both is the same: God’s judgment on Judah at the hands of the Babylonians.

And of course it is easy to see why: Jeremiah 29:11 promises comfort and the idea that God has only good things in store for us. However, in context, the passage was given to the people of Israel as they were being carted off to captivity, assuring them that God would take care of them and bring them back. It is in the context of the contract God has with Israel, which promises punishment for disobedience because they are his people—and that they are his people, regardless of their actions.

Certainly it is in keeping with such New Testament passages as Romans 8:28:

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

But even that is not a blanket promise that everything will be peaches and cream for us here. One should consider such passages as Hebrews 11:35-40:

There were others who were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were put to death by stoning; they were sawed in two; they were killed by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated—the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, living in caves and in holes in the ground.

These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.

The promises of God are long term in both the passage in Jeremiah 29:11 and the one in Romans 8:28. We will prosper not because God will grant us jobs, houses, health and comfort here on Earth. Even if we have such things, it is certain that someday we will lose them all: we will grow old, we will grow sick, and we will die. The reason we will prosper is because we are part of God’s family and will live with him forever. It is in the kingdom—both the kingdom we experience now within us (Luke 17:20-21)—as well as in the future kingdom that prosperity is ours. Our hope is in God, not in now. Our comfort is in the fact that God is with us always, no matter what we face. We are never alone. And certainly it is the case that God has our best interests in mind. He loves us, and that’s what love is all about. So in that way, the passages in Jeremiah make sense as comfort: that God’s actions are always for our best.

“Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. (Matthew 7:9-12)

Are You a Chew Toy?

It requires no effort to look at the broken mess of your latest attempts and to decide that you are a loser. It requires no skill, takes no strength, and uses no calories to lie flat on your back and say, “to hell with it.” Walking away, throwing in the towel, deciding that it’s no longer worth it is the simplest thing. Admitting that it was a stupid idea, taking all your marbles, and trudging off home is always the least you can do. Discouragement is the chew toy level on the game of life.

But how do you know when you should just give up? How do you know you’re not being a fool to keep on in a task that everyone knows is hopeless? Why continue the heartache? Why beat yourself bloody? You know it can’t be done, so why keep on?

Right?

As an author, these are the thoughts you will have to face regularly. Of course, they are the thoughts that are common to humanity—that everyone has to ask themselves. The student struggling to keep up in class, the new recruit in boot camp, the young woman struggling to learn a new dance step, the athlete trying to improve his time, the pitcher struggling to get his curve ball to work, the accountant pulling his hair out trying to find the discrepancy, the law student taking the BAR once again, the actor still waiting tables, waiting for another audition, the unemployed pounding the pavement and getting pounded for another fifteen weeks. Every day, we face the spot between the rock and the hard place and every day we have to decide: is it worth it?

As you consider the question, just remember always: the easy choice is to give up.

Is easy what you really want? Is your goal no longer desirable? Is it worth the cost or not?

Did you know the job was tough when you took it?

Really—what do you want?

If you have raced with men on foot

and they have worn you out,

how can you compete with horses?

If you stumble in safe country,

how will you manage in the thickets by the Jordan? (Jeremiah 12:5)

Happenstance

The universe is random. Despite the more fatalistic branches of Christianity, and other religions, the biblical picture—I believe—is not at odds with our experience of the world. That is, I believe that God has given us freedom, and that freedom is prized greatly by God—so much so that he was willing to let Adam and Eve have the freedom to choose badly: all that has followed that original bad choice on the part of the founders of humanity was worth it from God’s perspective. Otherwise, if goodness, for instance, and behaving well, were what mattered most to God, he would not have granted such freedom to our ancestor and ancestress.

I think likewise, that happenstance is a part of life as well. Sometimes things just happen. Consider the words of God in relation to accidentally killing someone when they hit him:

However, if it is not done intentionally, but God lets it happen, they are to flee to a place I will designate. (Exodus 21:13)

Or:

For instance, a man may go into the forest with his neighbor to cut wood, and as he swings his ax to fell a tree, the head may fly off and hit his neighbor and kill him. That man may flee to one of these cities and save his life. (Deuteronomy 19:5)

Or consider the time when a king was killed by happenstance:

But someone drew his bow at random and hit the king of Israel between the sections of his armor. The king told his chariot driver, “Wheel around and get me out of the fighting. I’ve been wounded.” All day long the battle raged, and the king was propped up in his chariot facing the Arameans. The blood from his wound ran onto the floor of the chariot, and that evening he died. (1 Kings 22:34-35)

It just happened at “random.”

The picture that we get of the world in the Bible is not one of determinism. Instead, people make choices and they are held accountable for those choices. Things may turn out well, or not.

Investing is unpredictable, and how things will turn out for you? Who knows?:

Ship your grain across the sea;

after many days you may receive a return.

Invest in seven ventures, yes, in eight;

you do not know what disaster may come upon the land.

If clouds are full of water,

they pour rain on the earth.

Whether a tree falls to the south or to the north,

in the place where it falls, there it will lie.

Whoever watches the wind will not plant;

whoever looks at the clouds will not reap.

As you do not know the path of the wind,

or how the body is formed in a mother’s womb,

so you cannot understand the work of God,

the Maker of all things.

6Sow your seed in the morning,

and at evening let your hands not be idle,

for you do not know which will succeed,

whether this or that,

or whether both will do equally well. (Ecclesiastes 11:1-6)

And then, this passage seems rather explicit about the randomness of existence:

I have seen something else under the sun:

The race is not to the swift

or the battle to the strong,

nor does food come to the wise

or wealth to the brilliant

or favor to the learned;

but time and chance happen to them all. (Ecclesiastes 9:11)

We are free to make our choices. Our lives are not deterministic.

Europa

Source SPACE.com: All about our solar system, outer space and exploration.

Bible for Dummies

The PC’s For Dummies book and its sequels have sold in excess of forty-five million copies. It has spawned numerous sequels and imitators, ranging from Windows for Dummies to Chess for Dummies and Gardening for Dummies.

The Bible is the best selling book of all time. Yet, as scientific surveys and the unscientific but amusing “Jay Walking” segments on the Tonight Show illustrate, the percentage of Bible owners who know what to do with their Bibles is certainly much lower than the percentage of PC users who are confused by their new machines. Then there are the folks such as Bill Maher and xxxx, not to mention all the internet posters, who pontificate on the Bible as if they know what they are talking about and actually have no clue. So what kind of book could be written that could reach out to them? Currently available Bible handbooks and commentaries are not designed for neophytes and tend to be dry and boring. How-to-read-the-Bible books are designed for people who already have exposure to the Church and to the Bible. Moreover, they fail to answer the sort of questions a new, unchurched Bible reader would have.

Of course, course, there is already a book called The Bible for Dummies. There’s also The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Bible. So perhaps what I have in mind has already been taken care of–except when I look through them, they strike me as being essentially the sort of guides to the Bible that are made for people who already have some idea about what’s going on in it.

I’m thinking of something more for the Bill Mahers or the average person who has never even looked through one before and all he knows about it is what he hears from people around him. I’m thinking for the equivalent of a high school freshman confronted by a Shakespeare play for the first time. He doesn’t know anything about how plays are written or staged, Elizabethan English is beyond him, and he’s barely heard the word Shakespeare before. Now he’s being forced to make sense of Macbeth.

I wonder if there’s a market for an owner’s manual for the Bible for people who may own the book but have no clue what to do with it and who have little if any exposure to the church or Christianity.

I’ve thought of some of the kinds of questions that might need to be answered:

Why are all the sentences numbered?

Does the Bible have an answer for every question in life?

What’s the plot?

How do I find my way around it, keep from getting lost, and make sense of any of it?

Does owning a Bible make me better than other people who don’t?

Who are the Gideons and why do they put the Bible in hotel rooms?

Who the heck is Habakkuk and what in the world is he talking about?

Should I upgrade to a modern translation? Which one?

Why are the names in the Bible so odd and hard to pronounce?

Why are there long lists of these ridiculous names linked together with the odd word “begot”?

Who wrote the Bible?

Why should anyone pay attention to what the Bible says?

Yay for Modern Medicine!

Something that I don’t understand is the reluctance some people to use modern medicine. I’ve just been reading the biography, Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2003 and for nine months he refused to follow the advice of his doctors to get an operation and to have chemotherapy. Instead, he tried taking herbs and vitamins and eating vegan and the like. As a result, when he finally consented, the cancer had spread beyond the pancreas, into his liver. Later he needed a liver transplant, but the cancer was still in his body. And so he died at 56. Had he gotten modern medical treatment as soon as the disease was first diagnosed, rather than waiting nine months, his chances of survival would have been much better.

I read recently online from people who don’t like modern medicine. One of them wrote that that they had suffered from depression and still do. This person was proud of the fact that they just ate healthy and took herbs and vitamins–and had been off medication for years. But they admitted that the depression was still there, no better than it had been.

The resistance to medication is especially prevalent for mental illnesses; there is the thought that if you just get the right diet—or maybe pray, or have a better relationship with God, or just trust in God, that all will be well. Your illness will go away—and if not, well, it’s just God’s will and perhaps you haven’t prayed hard enough or maybe you need better vitamins or to change your diet. Or maybe it’s just because you’re an awful sinner.

My eighty year old father developed lung cancer. He had never smoked a day in his life; no way of knowing why he got that form of cancer. Cancer doesn’t even run in our family. He faced the grueling regimen of chemotherapy and radiation. His hair fell out. He had trouble eating. He suffered quite a bit. But in the end, the cancer went away. Now, two years later he just had a chest x-ray–my mom called today to tell me–and so he remains cancer-free, healthy and active.

My pastor had to go through the same process for his breast cancer—with the same result. It was grueling, but in the end, he is now cancer free and has returned to swimming and cycling and of course still preaches every Sunday.

I know people who have to take medication every day for ailments such a rheumatoid arthritis; without their medication, they would be crippled and in severe pain. With the medication, they lead normal lives.

I suffer severe allergies. Until my allergist found the right combination of anti-histamines, I suffered extremely almost year round with pollen allergies; on top of that, I have asthma. Without my various medications, I would still be suffering, or perhaps dead, since asthma is life-threatening and people die from it every year. I have to take several types of medication every day for my allergies and asthma. It keeps me well. In fact, thanks to my medication, I have no symptoms of my allergies or asthma at all. No sneezing, no hacking, no runny noise and eyes, no gasping for breath. I don’t mind taking the medication that keeps me feeling normal. Why should taking such medication ever bother me? Why would taking special herbs or vitamins every day be better for me (especially since it wouldn’t work)?

Likewise, both my parents have high blood pressure. Their parents had high blood pressure. My grandparents didn’t follow their doctors’ advice; they didn’t take their blood pressure medication—and they died of a series of strokes: first partial paralysis on one side, followed by another stroke that caused dementia, and then another after that that was fatal. All preventable by taking blood pressure medication.

I take my blood pressure medication every day, just as my parents do. Why should that bother me?

I suffer from dysthymia, a mild form of depression. I take medication for that. It works. Why should I go off my medication and become proud of that, but return to being depressed? Makes no sense.

Why prefer herbs and vitamins over medicine? Because it’s natural? So’s disease. So’s arsenic. So’s poison oak. It doesn’t make it better than medication that we know works. Our ancestors ate diets free of all the things that those who insist on “natural” fear—and they didn’t live as long as we do and they suffered more disease. They had no way to cure diseases that we today can fix easily—or with difficulty.

God made human beings intelligent. He gave us tools and curiosity. We’ve made tremendous strides in medical science as a result of the intelligence and talent that God has provided people. If he didn’t want us to be intelligent, to use our minds, to solve puzzles and problems, then why did he make us so smart? I believe the rejection of modern medicine on the part of some Christians is a rejection of God’s gift.

Oh, and those who go on about how the big pharmaceutical companies make huge profits and they are only in it for the money. Like the health food, vitamin and herb manufacturers and sellers aren’t? That’s a really silly argument.

Medicine works. Doctors work. If you’re in a car accident and are seriously injured, who you going to go to? Your health food store or a doctor? If your baby has a high fever and is screaming, are you going to hope herbs will work, or will you rush her to the emergency room?

Human beings today are healthier, longer lived and in all ways better off than our ancestors. Small pox, a scourge through human history has been eradicated thanks to vaccinations. Small pox is extinct! My children didn’t have to get that vaccination.

You like herbs and vitamins and such? That’s your business I suppose. But I think it’s stupid to resist the medicines that actually work.

Thus, I really like this XKCD comic:

Getting Quoted

Once again I was asked about a topic in the news and then found myself quoted extensively in the resulting article:

DOES THIS BIBLE VERSE CITED BY BILL NYE AND BILL MAHER REALLY PROVE THAT ‘RELIGION IS THE ENEMY OF SCIENCE’?

As I pointed out in my response to the religion editor at The Blaze, I believe that much of the so-called conflict between science and religion is a consequence of ignorance on both sides, with much of it a result of a misreading and misunderstanding of the biblical materials by both the religious and non-religious.

And Nye and Maher’s criticism of the opening chapter of the Bible misses entirely the purpose and context of Genesis. The book of Genesis has at least three obvious purposes. First, it is a reaction against the prevailing mythology and polytheism that dominated the world of the Ancient Near East. The Babylonian creation epic, known as Enuma Elish, described a battle between the gods and their ultimate decision to create human beings to serve them as slaves. The Babylonian gods include the sun, the moon, Tiamat (translated “the Deep” in Genesis 1:2) and so on.

In Genesis, the sun, moon, and Tiamat appear, but now they are objects devoid of both divinity and personality. They come into existence simply to provide light on the Earth (in the case of the Sun and moon), or in Tiamat’s case, along with the Earth, awaiting God’s words of direction: “Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” (NIV) The book of Genesis has but one God who creates human beings not as slaves, but as the masters of the world. And so that is the second point made by the creation account: there is only one God, not many gods.

Third, the story of Genesis is designed to demonstrate that the one God worshipped by Israel does not belong to them exclusively. Although the gods of the nations around Israel were usually perceived as national deities, in contrast, the God of Genesis is the God not just of one nation, but of all human beings everywhere—because all human beings everywhere are part of one big family with a common ancestor.

As to Bill Maher, he is welcome to his opinion that religion and science can’t be reconciled, but I think his opinion mostly just illustrates that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, rather than corresponding to any reality. There are a number of both scientists and theologians who would strongly disagree with him. For instance, Alvin Platinga is the author of Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism. He’s a Christian and he’s the O’Brien Professor of Philosophy, at the University of Notre Dame. Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., is a committed Christian. He also helped to discover the genetic misspellings that cause cystic fibrosis, neurofibromatosis, Huntington’s disease, and a rare form of premature aging called progeria. A pioneer gene hunter, he led the Human Genome Project from 1993 until 2008. For his revolutionary contributions to genetic research, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2007, and the National Medal of Science in 2009. He is the author of The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief. John Polkinghorne, KBE, FRS, is one of the world’s leading experts on science and religion. He is a world-class physics professor at Cambridge who then became a priest. He’s the Founding President of the International Society of Science and Religion, and the winner of the Templeton Prize. Polkinghorne is the author of many books, including Living with Hope: A Scientist Looks at Advent, Christmas, & Epiphany and Belief in God in an Age of Science. That’s just three scientists and/or theologians who would disagree with Bill Maher and would seem, by their very existence, to undermine his opinion. There are many, many more people who contradict Maher’s point of view, of course. Doubtless there are some scientists and theologians who might agree with Maher, but I think they’re as wrong as he is–and just as shallow in their understanding of the issues.

Extraterrestrial Religion

The only people who think that religion will die with the discovery of extraterrestrial intelligence are the nonreligious. The actual surveys of religious believers that have been made find that believers are undisturbed by the concept. They don’t see it as a threat to their religion at all. Quite the contrary. Despite the thought among those who believe that religion is fading practice among humanity, the reality is that over ninety-five percent of the human race retains a belief in the divine. There has been little change in the numbers over the years since that has been measured. Given the long history of humanity and the near universal belief in religion throughout that history, it seems to me that we are likely to find religion is important to the extraterrestrials that we might eventually come across.

So my question is this: what elements of religion will we find common among intelligent species? Is there a universal content to it just as there is to, say, language? All languages are made of morphemes, a limited number of phonemes, a verbal system, nouns, adjectives—even the grammar falls within a certain limited range of possibilities. So for instance, religion when it is analyzed, has certain things in common, regardless of the religion. For instance, the concept of sacrifice is very common. Why? Sacrifice grows from the basic biological requirement that in order to continue living, something else must die. We consume previously living matter, whether we are vegetarians or not. Life lives on death and so the concept of sacrifice—a living being taking the place of another, the shedding of blood in order to placate the gods, or feed them—is widely seen in one form or another in all religions.

So, will the same thing obtain for non-human sentient species elsewhere in the universe? The nature of life is universal, I would expect, and so the concept of sacrifice will probably be universal as well. So does that mean we will find religions out among the stars that bear striking resemblances to Earthly religions? Will those earthly religions then believe that finding an analogous belief system then proves their religion is “true”? Will we see the development of an academic discipline of comparative Christianity, comparative Buddhism, comparative Islam, as a subset of the current academic discipline of comparative religion?