Category: Religion

“A Unique Moment in History . . . When Man Stood Alone”

(p. 71) . . . , something noted in one of his letters by the French novelist Gustave Flaubert: “Just when the gods had ceased to be, and the Christ had not yet come, there was a unique moment in history, between Cicero and Marcus Aurelius, when man stood alone.” No doubt one could quibble with this claim. For many Romans at least, the gods had not actually ceased to be–even the Epicureans, sometimes reputed to be atheists, thought that gods existed, though at a far remove from the affairs of mortals–and the “unique moment” to which Flaubert gestures, from Cicero (106-43 BCE) to Marcus Aurelius (121-180 CE), may have been longer or shorter than the time frame he suggests. But the core perception is eloquently borne out by Cicero’s dialogues and by the works found in the library of Herculaneum. Many of the early readers of those works evidently lacked a fixed repertory of beliefs and practices reinforced by what was said to be the divine will. They were men and women whose lives were unusually free of the dictates of the gods (or their priests). Standing alone, as Flaubert puts it, they found themselves in the peculiar position of choosing among sharply divergent visions of the nature of things and competing strategies for living.

Source:
Greenblatt, Stephen. The Swerve: How the World Became Modern. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2011.
(Note: ellipsis added.)

Locke and Smith Showed How Economic Life Has Moral Value

(p. 241) Andrzej Rapaczynski discusses “The Moral Significance of Economic Life” in the most recent issue of Capitalism and Society. His abstract summarizes the argument (p. 242) compactly: “Much of the modern perception of the role of economic production in human life–whether on the Left or on the Right of the political spectrum–views it as an inferior, instrumental activity oriented toward self-preservation, self-interest, or profit, and thus as essentially distinct from the truly human action concerned with moral values, justice, and various forms of self-fulfillment. This widely shared worldview is rooted, on the one hand, in the Aristotelian tradition that sees labor as a badge of slavery, and freedom as lying in the domain of politics and pure (not technical) knowledge, and, on the other hand, in the aristocratic medieval Christian outlook, which–partly under Aristotle’s influence–sees nature as always already adapted (by divine design) to serving human bodily needs, and the purpose of life as directed toward higher, spiritual reality. . . . As against this, liberal thinkers, above all Locke, have developed an elaborate alternative to the Aristotelian worldview, reinterpreting the production process as a moral activity par excellence consisting in a gradual transformation of the alien nature into a genuinely human environment reflecting human design and providing the basis of human autonomy. Adam Smith completed Locke’s thought by explaining how production is essentially a form of cooperation among free individuals whose self-interested labor serves the best interest of all. The greatest “culture war” in history is to re-establish the moral significance of economic activity in the consciousness of modern political and cultural elites.” Capitalism and Society, December 2013, vol. 8, no. 2, http://capitalism.columbia.edu/volume-8-issue-2.

Source:
Taylor, Timothy. “Recommendations for Further Reading.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 28, no. 1 (Winter 2014): 235-42.
(Note: italics, and ellipses, in original.)

The Unintended Consequences of Requiring Monks to Read

(p. 28) The high walls that hedged about the mental life of the monks–the imposition of silence, the prohibition of questioning, the punishing of debate with slaps or blows of the whip–were all meant to affirm unambiguously that these pious communities were the opposite of the philosophical academies of Greece or Rome, places that had thrived upon the spirit of contradiction and cultivated a restless, wide-ranging curiosity.
All the same, monastic rules did require reading, and that was enough to set in motion an extraordinary chain of consequences. Reading was not optional or desirable or recommended; in a community that took its obligations with deadly seriousness, reading was obligatory. And reading required books. Books that were opened again and again eventually fell apart, however carefully they were handled. Therefore, almost inadvertently , monastic rules necessitated that monks repeatedly purchase or acquire books. In the course of the vicious Gothic Wars of the mid-sixth century and their still more miserable aftermath, the last commercial workshops of book production folded, and the vestiges of the book market fell apart. Therefore, again almost inadvertently, monastic rules necessitated that monks carefully preserve and copy those books that they already possessed.

Source:
Greenblatt, Stephen. The Swerve: How the World Became Modern. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2011.

New Details on Babylonian Version of Noah’s Ark

the-ark-before-noah_BK2014-06-05.jpg

Source of book image: http://britishmuseumblog.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/the-ark-before-noah_544.jpg

(p. C8) Mr. Finkel, a curator of cuneiform inscriptions at the British Museum, details his own long-standing fascination with the ark and that of his British Museum predecessors. First among these was George Smith, who in 1872, at age 32, deciphered a clay tablet that demonstrated that 1,000 years before the likely composition of the Book of Genesis, ancient Babylonians had been brooding over the same story of divine retribution that we find in the biblical account of Noah. So great was Smith’s shock that, on confirmation, he began to run about the room tearing off his clothes.
. . .
The tablets containing what we now know as the Epic of Gilgamesh were unearthed in the ruins of Nineveh, capital of the last great Assyrian king, Ashurbanipal, who was an avid collector of texts. His famous library was torched in 612 B.C., but, as Mr. Finkel points out, “fire to a clay librarian” is not the disaster it is to one who studies works on paper. Fired clay tablets endure, and nothing, Mr. Finkel assures us, can equal the thrill of digging one out from the earth like a potato.
But the most important tablet of Mr. Finkel’s career didn’t come from the ground. It was delivered to him in 1985 by a man named Douglas Simmonds, who brought in a number of cuneiform tablets collected by his father, a member of the Royal Air Force in the Middle East at the end of World War II. One of these–an iPhone-shaped tablet–had what was recognizably the first lines of a Babylonian flood narrative, but the rest was illegible at a superficial glance, and Simmonds was reluctant to leave the tablet at the museum for analysis. It wasn’t until 2009 that Mr. Finkel was able to borrow this treasure and undertake a meticulous study, which revealed an “instruction manual for building an ark” in the tablet’s 60 lines.
. . .
So then what was the Ark Tablet for? It is puzzling that it contains no narrative, listing rather shape, size, materials and their quantities. Attractive though it may be to think it was a hand-held guide for the boat builder, Mr. Finkel suggests instead that it served as an aide-mémoire for an itinerant storyteller. The detail is explained by audience demand: No one wants to be put on the spot with difficult “how” questions when facing an audience who knew all about building coracles. Ancient audiences, it seems, were as intrigued–and as skeptical–about the ark as we are.

For the full review, see:
JANET SOSKICE. “Make Yourself an Ark; A newly deciphered tablet suggests the best shape for an ark: not a wooden box but a circular coracle made of reeds.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., May 17, 2014): C8.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date May 16, 2014, an has the title “Book Review: ‘The Ark Before Noah’ by Irving Finkel; A newly deciphered tablet suggests the best shape for an ark: not a wooden box but a circular coracle made of reeds.”)

The book under review is:
Finkel, Irving. The Ark before Noah: Decoding the Story of the Flood. London, UK: Hodder & Stoughton, Ltd., 2014.

How De Rerum Natura Aided the Early Italian Renaissance

I am interested in how the dominant ideas in a culture change. Greenblatt’s The Swerve discusses how some early Renaissance Italians sought lost and forgotten works from antiquity to broaden their ideas. In particular it emphasizes the rediscovery of Lucretius’s De Rerum Natura.
I am not as unreservedly enthusiastic about Lucretius as Greenblatt is, but The Swerve includes much that is thought-provoking about a place and time that I need to better understand.
In the next few weeks I will quote a few of the passages that were especially memorable, important or amusing.

Book discussed:
Greenblatt, Stephen. The Swerve: How the World Became Modern. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2011.

Catholic Church Banned Infinitesimals from European Classrooms Taught by Jesuits

InfinitesimalBK2014-06-05.jpg

Source of book image: http://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/04/08/science/08SCIB/08SCIB-superJumbo.jpg

(p. C9) Mr. Alexander’s narrative opens in the early 17th century, when Catholic Church administrators in Rome, following a campaign by Euclidean stalwart Christopher Clavius, banned the infinitesimal from the classrooms of Jesuit schools throughout Europe. Instructors’ teachings and writings were monitored to enforce strict adherence to the classical Euclidean geometrical tradition. Mr. Alexander portrays the church’s reactionary stance not as a huff over mathematical philosophy but as a desperate counterattack against existential threats: Euclid’s rules-based structure offered the church a model with which it hoped to rein in a restive flock, roiled by economic and political currents and by an ascendant Protestantism. Martial metaphors abound in the author’s telling: “war against disorder,” “enemies of the infinitely small,” “forces of hierarchy and order.” This was no friendly debate.

For the full review, see:
ALAN HIRSHFELD. “The Limit of Reason; In the 1700s, the idea of an infinitely tiny quantity was so unsettling that the Church banned it from classrooms.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., May 3, 2014): C9.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date May 2, 2014, and has the title “Book Review: ‘Infinitesimal’ by Amir Alexander; The idea of an infinitely tiny quantity–the foundation of calculus–was so unsettling that in the 17th century the Church banned it from classrooms.”)

The book under review is:
Alexander, Amir. Infinitesimal: How a Dangerous Mathematical Theory Shaped the Modern World. New York: Scientific American/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014.

“Religious Muslims Generally Insist on the Literal Truth of the Quran”

(p. A16) There are few role models for former Muslims, . . .
One group . . . is Ex-Muslims of North America, . . .
Members of the group, founded last year in Washington and Toronto, recognize that their efforts might seem radical to some, and take precautions when admitting new members. Those interested in joining are interviewed in person before they are told where the next meeting will be held. The group has grown quickly to about a dozen chapters, in cities including Boston, Chicago, Houston, New York and San Francisco.
One of the group’s founders who was at the conference, Sadaf Ali, 23, an Afghan-Canadian, said that she had once been “a fairly practicing Muslim.”
During childhood, she said, “I was always fairly defiant.” As she grew older, she struggled with depression, and she thought that praying more and reading the Quran would help. She became more religious and looked forward to a traditional life. “I thought my life was sort of set out for me: get married, have children,” Ms. Ali said. “I might go to school. I’ll have a very domestic life. That’s what my family did, what my forefathers did.”
But as a university student, her feelings began to change.
As I started to investigate the religion, I realized I was talking to myself,” Ms. Ali said. “Nobody was listening to me. I had just entered the University of Toronto, and critical thinking was a big part of my studies. I have an art history and writing background, and I realized every verse I had come across” — in the Quran — “was explicitly or implicitly sexist.”
Quickly, her faith crumbled.
“So in 2009, I realized there probably is no God,” she said. “What is so wrong in having a boyfriend, or having premarital sex? What is wrong with wanting to eat and drink water before the sun goes down during Ramadan? What is so wrong with that? I couldn’t handle the cognitive dissonance anymore.”
. . .
The members of Ex-Muslims are adamant that they respect others’ right to practice Islam. The group’s motto is “No Bigotry and No Apologism,” and text on its website is inclusive: “We understand that Muslims come in all varieties, and we do not and will not partake in erasing the diversity within the world’s Muslims.”
But they are equally adamant that it is still too difficult for Muslims inclined to atheism to follow their thinking where it may lead. Whereas skeptical Christians or Jews can take refuge in reformist wings of their tradition, religious Muslims generally insist on the literal truth of the Quran.
“I would say it’s maybe 0.1 percent who are willing to challenge the foundations of the faith,” said Nas Ishmael, another founder of the Ex-Muslims group who attended the conference.

For the full story, see:
MARK OPPENHEIMER. “Leaving Islam for Atheism, and Finding a Much-Needed Place Among Peers.” The New York Times (Sat., MAY 24, 2014): A16.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date MAY 23, 2014.)

Some Geographical Clusters Are Due to Chance (It Is Not Always a Miracle, When Good, Or the Environment, When Bad)

HandDavidStatistiician2014-04-04.jpg

David J. Hand. Source of photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. 12) Your latest book, “The Improbability Principle,” aims to prove that extremely improbable events are in fact commonplace. Can you explain that a bit? Things like roulette wheels coming up in strange configurations or the same lottery numbers hitting two weeks in a row are clearly very rare events, but if you look at the number of lotteries and the number of roulette wheels, then you realize that you should actually expect these sorts of things to happen. I think within the statistical community people accept this. They’re aware of the impact of the law of truly large numbers.
. . .
You also write that geographical clusters of people with diseases might not necessarily be a result of environmental issues. It could just be a coincidence. Well, they could be due to some sort of pollution or infectious disease or something like that, but you can expect clusters to occur just by chance as well. So it’s an interesting statistical problem to tease these things out. Is this a genuine cluster in the sense that there’s a cause behind it? Or is it a chance cluster?

For the full interview, see:
Chozick, Amy, interviewer. “‘The Wonder Is Still There’; The Statistician David J. Hand on Eerie Coincidences and Playing the Lottery.” The New York Times Magazine (Sun., FEB. 23, 2014): 12.
(Note: ellipsis added; bold in original.)
(Note: the online version of the interview has the date FEB. 21, 2014, and has the title “David J. Hand’s Lottery Tips.”)

Hand’s book is:
Hand, David J. The Improbability Principle: Why Coincidences, Miracles, and Rare Events Happen Every Day. New York: Scientific American/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014.

Louise Carnegie Expressed Pompous Sanctimony While Leaving the Drudgery to Others

Andrew Carnegie’s fiancée Louise:

(p. 294) “I certainly feel more in harmony with all the world after having been in communion with you, my Prince of Peace. I say this reverently, dear, for truly that is what you are to me, and I am so glad the world knows you as the Great Peacemaker.” “What ideal lives we shall lead, giving all our best efforts to high and noble ends, while the drudgery of life is attended to by others. Without high ideals, it would be enervating and sinful. With them, it is glorious, and you are my prince among men, my own love.”

Source:
Nasaw, David. Andrew Carnegie. New York: Penguin Press, 2006.
(Note: underline in original.)
(Note: the pagination of the hardback and paperback editions of Nasaw’s book are the same.)

Organic and Kosher Chicken Have as Much Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria as Regular Chicken

(p. D3) . . . after a trip to Israel for his sister’s bat mitzvah, Jack Millman came back to New York wondering whether the higher costs of kosher foods were justified.
“Most consumers perceive of kosher foods as being healthier or cleaner or somehow more valuable than conventional foods, and I was interested in whether they were in fact getting what they were paying for,” said Mr. Millman, 18 and a senior at the Horace Mann School in New York City.
That question started him on a yearlong research project to compare the prevalence of antibiotic-resistant E. coli bacteria on four types of chickens: those raised conventionally; organically; without antibiotics, and those slaughtered under kosher rules. “Every other week for 10 weeks, I would go and spend the entire Saturday buying chicken,” he said. “We had it specifically mapped out, and we would buy it and put it on ice in industrial-strength coolers given to us by the lab, and ship it out.”
All told, Mr. Millman and his mother, Ann Marks, gathered 213 samples of chicken drumsticks from supermarkets, butcher shops and specialty stores in the New York area.
Now they and several scientists have published a study based on the project in the journal F1000 Research. The results were surprising.
Kosher chicken samples that tested positive for antibiotic-resistant E. coli had nearly twice as much of the bacteria as the samples from conventionally raised birds did. And even the samples from organically raised chickens and those raised without antibiotics did not significantly differ from the conventional ones.

For the full story, see:
STEPHANIE STROM. “A Science Project With Legs.” The New York Times (Tues., November 5, 2013): D3.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date November 4, 2013.)

The academic article on E. coli in different types of chicken, is:
Millman, Jack M., Kara Waits, Heidi Grande, Ann R. Marks, Jane C. Marks, Lance B. Price, and Bruce A. Hungate. “Prevalence of Antibiotic-Resistant E. Coli in Retail Chicken: Comparing Conventional, Organic, Kosher, and Raised without Antibiotics.” F1000Research 2 (2013).

Puritan Slavery

ForAdamsSakeBK2013-10-22.jpg

Source of book image: online version of the WSJ review quoted and cited below.

We are taught in elementary school that the roots of America lie in the religious Puritans and Pilgrims. But I believe that there is something to Russell Shorto’s argument that we under-appreciate the contribution of the secular libertarian Dutch of New Amsterdam. In this continuing debate, it is useful to have an accurate history of all sides.

(p. A11) The great Puritan divine John Winthrop, founder of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, probably wouldn’t make it through Allegra di Bonaventura’s book without suffering a cardiac episode. Set principally in the seaport town of New London, Conn., “For Adam’s Sake” provides an astonishing worm’s-eye view of Winthrop’s beloved Bible Commonwealth in the throes of its ghastly unraveling, even as it narrates an intimate history of racial slavery in early New England through the entwined lives of five families (the Winthrops among them).

Many readers will be surprised to learn that slavery flourished in colonial New England–albeit on a smaller scale than on the plantations of the antebellum South. And they might be forgiven their incredulity: “New Englanders in the nineteenth century,” Ms. di Bonaventura writes, “studiously erased and omitted inconvenient and unsavory aspects of their region’s collective past in favor of a more heroic and wholesome narrative of their own history.” Such acts of moral cleansing all but obscured the lives of enslaved New Englanders well into our own time.

For the full review, see:
KIRK DAVIS SWINEHART. “BOOKSHELF; Not Your Parents’ Puritans; Slavery flourished in colonial New England. Yet the Puritans’ erasure of its signs have obscured their crimes well into our own time.” The Wall Street Journal (Mon., Aug. 5, 2013): A11.
(Note: the online version of the review has the date Aug. 4, 2013.)

The book under review is:
di Bonaventura, Allegra. For Adam’s Sake: A Family Saga in Colonial New England. New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2013.

The relevant book by Russell Shorto is:
Shorto, Russell. The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America. New York: Doubleday, 2004.