I'm mulling over a move from Blogger to my own site. I know what content-management system I'll use (and it's not Wordpress), have hosting already, and really just have to bite the bullet and start setting it up. I'd like to make this a science-and-faith site, not just a science-and-faith blog. The new site will probably have separate feeds for different topics (like science, Catholicism, health), a combined feed if you want all the posts in one place, and ... a forum! I might be looking for new writers or guest posters, too. I am open to feedback about what changes you might like to see here.

This Sunday is Pentecost, the day the terrified and confused apostles were sent out from the second-floor room where they hid after Christ ascended into heaven. The Bible records that the Holy Spirit provided "tongues of fire" that let them be understood to speakers of all languages. Kind of makes Pentecostal "speaking in tongues" (untranslatable tongues, that is) pale by comparison. Wear red to church!

Father Alberto Cutie is not cute. After being caught fooling around with a woman on a public beach, he was put on leave by Archbishop of Miami John C. Favalora. That was scarcely three weeks ago, and now he has already decided to convert to Episcopalianism so he can "be with the woman he loves." (Also, as he did not say in the statement, so he can break his vows without being chastised.) Presumably, he chose his new faith so he can still be a priest, since as a Catholic, he can be married or be a priest, but not both. What kind of priestly formation did Fr. Cutie go through, that he finds switching faiths as easy as buying a new car or repainting a house? Three weeks?

The acting director of the National Institutes of Health is Dr. Raynard Kington, but some (unfortunately not very current) rumors hint that Dr. Francis Collins is a "top contender" for the permanent spot. Dr. Collins is the former director of the National Human Genome Research Institute and author of The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief. H/T to Rebecca Taylor of Mary Meets Dolly.

My "Animals and Catholics" series will continue. Really. It's just been a distracting month, what with National Anxiety and Depression Awareness Week and everything else. Stay tuned.

Tropical depressions are forming in the Gulf of Mexico. Last year, there was a bumper crop of named storms after two lean years, though not as many as in 2005. Let us pray that this year resembles more 2006 and 2007. After all, if another storm hits southeast Texas, this blog will suffer. I had a very hard time posting last year when the power went out!

Kari Byron is pregnant. You don't know who Kari Byron is? Then you lose geek points! She's the red-headed chick on Mythbusters. The growing belly is growing obvious on the show, and she's been sitting out on the bungee jumping and skydiving. I'm just waiting for her to bust the myth that what you crave during pregnancy will tell you whether it's a boy or a girl. (I thought they had a chromosome for that.)

It's not often that the secular media get anything right about the meat of Catholic theology. Father Robert Barron gives us a splendidly reasoned exception with his argument for priestly celibacy, published on the CNN website. From the essay:

This is why, as G.K. Chesterton noted, there is a tension to Christian life. In accord with its affirmation of the world, the Church loves color, pageantry, music and rich decoration (as in the liturgy and papal ceremonials), even as, in accord with its detachment from the world, it loves the poverty of St. Francis and the simplicity of Mother Teresa.

To sum up Fr. Barron's argument, priests should be celibate because in so being, they become living models of the transcendent communion with God that we will experience in heaven.

He even mentioned G.K. Chesterton. I am pleased.

Stephen Colbert is a parody of a right-wing talk show host. (Actually, he's more than just a parody; I think he's a complex mix of parody, sincerity, and humor for humor's sake.) Regardless of how serious the "actor" Stephen Colbert is, the "character" Stephen Colbert does a not-too-shabby job refuting Bart Ehrman, author of Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don't Know About Them).

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Bart Ehrman
colbertnation.com
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Hat tip to Catholic Answers Forums.

I have not read any of Ehrman's books and am unfamiliar with his arguments, but even in this short he shows apparent ignorance that makes me think his ideas are not much of a threat to the Christian faith. When, in Mark's Gospel, Jesus cries out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" he is not expressing simple despair, as Ehrman believes. He is quoting Psalm 22. The Jews, including Jesus and all the other Jewish witnesses, would know the whole psalm, which is a prophecy of the crucifixion. Consider verses 20-25:

But you, LORD, do not stay far off;
my strength, come quickly to help me.
Deliver me from the sword,
my forlorn life from the teeth of the dog.
Save me from the lion's mouth,
my poor life from the horns of wild bulls.
Then I will proclaim your name to the assembly;
in the community I will praise you:
"You who fear the LORD, give praise! All descendants of Jacob, give honor;
show reverence, all descendants of Israel!
For God has not spurned or disdained the misery of this poor wretch,
Did not turn away from me,
but heard me when I cried out.

Considering the entirety of this prophetic song, Mark's version of Jesus does not seem so different from Luke's stalwart version of Jesus, after all.

One area of Catholic theology that seems underdeveloped is a clear explanation of our moral obligations towards animals.

Certainly, it is not inappropriate for this subject to be underdeveloped. The Church's thinkers have explored theology according to a heirarchy of importance. The nature of Christ and his sacrifice came first, as the various Christological heresies (Arianism, Monophysitism, etc.) were rejected. Then the nature of the Trinity was explored. Next came the rejection of the various Protestant heresies and explanations of many of the sacraments. In modern times, the sacrament of marriage and the issues surrounding the beginning of life have been explored by John Paul the Great in his Theology of the Body.

This very crude overview leaves out a great deal, but it makes the point that the field of theology has started with the most important things and proceeded to subjects of lesser and lesser importance.

Humanity's moral obligations toward animals, and the nature of the relationship between God and animals — in short, a theology of animals — is near the bottom of the ladder of importance. I believe that the need to develop this area is becoming more pressing because of the increasing prominence of several heresies regarding animals — for example, the vegan heresy that animals are the moral equivalents of human beings — and an increasing general cultural concern for the welfare of animals.

I want to explore the Church's present teachings on animals. Over the next few weeks, I plan to make a series of posts on the theology available to us lay people so far. I am eager for comments on this series! Please "leave a light on" for this and other posts in this series.

"Animals and Catholics" image adapted from "dog & cat" by Yukari. (CC) Some rights reserved.

During this season of Lent, my parish is using custom-printed booklets for "worship aids" (which we use instead of missalettes). The booklets contain all the hymns for each Sunday, as well as the first two readings. Each Sunday is prefaced by a little meditation written by Father Paul Turner, a priest in Missouri who has created a large body of writing for this purpose.

Some of Fr. Turner's "bulletin inserts" are quite though-provoking and provide good food for meditation. The blurb for this past Sunday is another story. With my mad Google skilz, I found it online, at the top of page 2 of this parish's bulletin (PDF link). The subject is the first reading for March 1, Genesis 9:8-15, the end of the story of Noah's nautical adventure, in which God makes a covenant not to flood the earth again. Fr. Turner's commentary includes this:

So, what did God give up? God gave up global floods. “There shall not be another flood to devastate the earth.” God gave up giving up on people.

As I read these words, the catechist in me cringed. God did not give up giving up on people — because God has never given up on people. Though the Genesis account may make it sound as if God was intent on destroying his creation, our understanding of God makes it clear that nothing could be further from the truth. Old Testament stories like this are included in Scripture because they teach us something about humankind's relationship with God. It was sin that destroyed the earth, and God who saved it (through Noah). The covenant not to flood the earth is a prefigurement of the final covenant, when God sent Christ to save the earth from the flood of our sins.

The second reading for last Sunday is taken from the first Epistle of Peter. I rather think St. Peter had much more astute thoughts on the Noah story. From the reading:

[Christ] also went to preach to the spirits in prison,
who had once been disobedient
while God patiently waited in the days of Noah
during the building of the ark,
in which a few persons, eight in all,
were saved through water.
This prefigured baptism, which saves you now. (1 Peter 3:19-21)

The catechist in me was struck with wonder at this interpretation, which seems so obvious, but which had escaped my notice until now: The Great Flood, which symbolically cleansed and "purified" the world, prefigured our water baptism, in which our souls are really cleansed and purified from all original and personal sin. God did not give something up; he gave something to us.

Once you are baptized or confirmed as a Catholic, there's no way out. You are permanently marked as a Catholic, and you can only leave the Church by dying and going to hell. Even the souls in heaven and purgatory are part of the Church.

Excommunication is a "severe ecclesiastical penalty, which impedes the reception of the sacraments and the exercise of certain ecclesiastical acts" (CCC 1463). It is not expulsion from the Church, since indeed the Church cannot bind non-members, nor is it a declaration of spiritual condemnation.

Bishop Williamson and the other bishops of the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) were excommunicated for an audacious act of disobedience to the Pope's rightful authority in 1988. Earlier this year, that act was forgiven and the excommunication lifted. The bishops remain suspended, however, from the exercise of the functions of bishops and priests. Bishop Williamson is not allowed to act as a bishop.

One function of bishops is teaching. Bishops are to have a thorough and nuanced understanding of the Church and her teaching so they can instruct their flocks. So my jaw dropped when I read this quote attributed to the Archbishop of Freiburg, Germany, Robert Zollitsch:

"Mr. Williamson is impossible and irresponsible. I don't see a place for him anymore in the Catholic Church."

I can only assume that Archbishop Zollitsch is being quoted out of context by the German news magazine Der Spiegel. Perhaps he means there is no place for Williamson in the Church's heirarchy, that he should not have priestly or episcopal functions restored. But it is a fundamental tenet of the Catholic faith that there is a place for everyone in the Church. That's what the word "catholic" means: universal, applying to all people.

It's often said that the Church is not a museum for saints, but a hospital for sinners. World opinion is that Williamson is a grave sinner (although I leave that judgment to God).

That would mean he is a perfect candidate for membership in the Catholic Church.

CNN recently published an article with the deeply euphemistic title, "Woman in coma to be allowed to die." While technically true, it sounds as if it refers to a person who has begged to be allowed to stop extreme treatment measures in order to be allowed to pass in peace.

This is not true.

In fact, Eluana Englaro, an Italian woman who has been in a vegetative state, not a coma, since 1992, is not under any extreme treatment measures. (See this link for more information about the difference between coma and vegatative state.) She breathes without a ventilator. The nuns treating her are eager to continue to provide care for her for the rest of her natural life.

But Ms. Englaro's own family wants to stop feeding her so she will die of dehydration. This is not a dignified death.

In a letter published in a local newspaper, her caregivers wrote, "We don’t ask anything but the silence and the liberty to love and to devote ourselves to those who are weak, poor and little in return." (Source: Life Site News.)

What a tragic turn of events. Ms. Englaro is not suffering (not that suffering would justify murdering her through deliberate neglect) and not a burden on anybody (not that being a burden would justify it, either). If she is capable of suffering (and I pray she is not), she certainly will suffer in the two to three weeks it takes her to die of dehydration, a miserable, painful, and barbaric way to die.

This blog is not all philosophical, rational-Christianity heaviness. Inspired by a post on the blog Hacking Christianity, which I found via Entrecard (see my widget at right, under "Blog Love"), I thought I would post about this topic, which is deeply important to all children (including, as Hacking Christianity points out, Bart Simpson) — and not a few adults.

Do cats and dogs go to heaven?

The Catholic short answer is "No." Certainly they do not have free will nor immortal souls and therefore do not participate in God's plan for salvation. But the long answer seems a lot more complicated.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church has only a short section on animals (CCC 2415-8) which says little beyond the need to respect God's creation. Against Heresies, by the second-century church father St. Irenaeus, is sometimes quoted in the discussion of animals in heaven:

Neither the structure nor the substance of creation is destroyed. It is only the "outward form of the world" (I Corinthians 7:31) that passes away – and that is to say, the conditions produced by the fall. And when this "outward form" has passed away, man will be renewed and will flourish in a prime of life that is incorruptible, so that it is no longer possible for him to grow old any more.

The context here is a refutation of the Gnostic heresy, which held that creation and the material world are evil. Considering what Irenaeus' purpose was in writing the above, it is clear that he was not addressing the question of whether our pets go to heaven.

Being rational about pets in heaven

Let's assume that some animals do go to heaven. The animal kingdom contains a spectrum of complexity; some very simple organisms are included as "animals." Related to these are certain one-celled organisms as well as fungi. (In evolutionary terms, animals and fungi are more closely related to each other than either is to plants.) Unless one wants to argue that mushrooms and molds are in heaven, there must be some cut-off point, with creatures on one side enjoying heaven and creatures on the other side stuck with the final death. It seems like the cut-off would be arbitrary, but this cannot be, since nothing about God is arbitrary.

One might speculate that animals go to heaven by merit of having been loved by humans. In other words, our pets go to heaven, but wild creatures do not. The idea that human love confers some kind of immortality on animals is alien to Christian thought; you cannot "love" someone or something to heaven, be they human, animal, vegetable, or mineral.

That leaves only one final argument in favor of pets in heaven: that since we will be happy there, we will have everything we need to make us happy — including beloved pets. That's a nice thought, but a childish one. We already know that everyone we love will not necessarily be in heaven (Catholics believe in hell), so the happiness of paradise must be possible without the actual presence of loved ones. I tend to think that part of perfect happiness will be the peaceful acceptance of those things that bother us here on earth, such as separation from beloved humans and pets.

Always with us

In a way, our pets will always be with us. In heaven we will be united with God, and God exists outside of time, so in a mystical way I think we will be somehow reunited with the good of creation throughout time, including our pets. And, of course, our love and the memory of our pets' natural love will always stay with our intellects, even in heaven. But I cannot find room in Catholic teaching for the idea that pets will be physically present with us after the Resurrection of the Body, the article of faith enshrined in the Creeds.

The blog Science and Religion News, whose author Salman Hameed strongly favors science over religion, recently posted about two stories out of the Vatican. The post, entitled "Good Pope, Bad Pope," praised the pontiff for paying "tribute" to Galileo, but criticized him for the bioethics document Dignitas Personae.

"Good Pope": The Galileo Affair

In regard to the Galileo affair, it needs to be pointed out that the popular view — that Galileo was a noble pursuer of scientific truth against a scientifically backwards and rigid Church — is false. Galileo got in trouble for, in the words of Catholic apologist Jimmy Akin, being a jerk. Pope Urban VIII was actually sympathetic to Galileo's hypotheses about heliocentrism, despite being concerned that it would be difficult to work out the theological implications (which have since been reconciled with Scripture). He asked Galileo to explain, in Galileo's book Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, the competing hypotheses of geocentrism and heliocentrism but not to advocate heliocentrism. Instead, the book ridiculed geocentrism and the pope himself, though there is controversy as to whether the apparent insults were deliberate or unintentional. It was the perceived riducule that got Galileo in trouble, not heliocentrism per se.

"Bad Pope": Dignitas Personae

In regard to Dignitas Personae, Hameed warns that in upholding previous teaching on bioethics (which asserts that all humans, including embryos, have certain rights, one of which I explained here), the Catholic Church risks becoming "irrelevant."

In other words, Hameed says that society as a whole will collectively dismiss the Church if she fails to accede to fickle public opinion.

This is the same Church that allowed the Protestant Reformation to become permanently entrenched in England over the indissolubility of marriage (in the Henry VIII affair). The same Church that suffered 400 years of prosecution in the Roman Empire for "irrelevantly" teaching that there is one God, incarnated in Jesus Christ, and denying the existence of the Roman pantheon. The same Church that has unblinkingly held to the "irrelevant" teaching that artificial contraception is an affront against God and against one's own spouse (a teaching consistent with the sublime Theology of the Body of John Paul the Great).

I'm laying my bets one who will be considered more irrelevant by history: the Church or the supporters of indignities against the tiniest humans.

This is just a quick note to say that if you do not regularly read the blog The Deeps of Time, go over and read Michael's excellent post on self-existence. He compares the rational reasons behind the Thomistic belief that God is self-existing to the idea that the physical universe may also somehow be self-existing. Michael effectively shoots down the claims of some scientists (like Neil deGrasse Tyson, of whom I am a fan, as a loyal Nova viewer) that these two claims are equally reasonable.

I recently had a conversation with science blogger Gumby the Cat, who said this in the comments:

I do think though, that either all religions (Islam, Judaism, Christianity and the non-Abrahamic religions) were originally inspired by God, or none of them are. I think the tendency of the adherents of one particular faith to ascribe "The One Truth" status to their religion is a man-made conceit. How could one possibly know that?

Is it logical to believe that there is only one true religion?

Let me first make some postulates:

1. God is perfect and unchanging. In another manner of speaking, he is self-consistent and non-contradictory.
2. Many of the world's religions contradict each other. For example, Islam and Christianity have different views of God, both of which are radically different from the Hindu view of God/gods, which in turn is different from Buddhist and Shinto views.

It follows, then, that all religions cannot be true. Therefore at least some of them must be at least partially false.

An atheist might conclude that no religions are true. This does not necessarily follow from my two postulates; they are equally consistent with the view that exactly one religion is completely true. I do not think it is logical to believe that more than one religion is completely true, though.

So either one religion is completely true, or none are. If God is truth, that means that either one religion is "the one" God wants us to follow, or none are. I believe that one is, and I believe this is more logical than believing that many religions are equal in God's eyes.

The new Vatican document on reproductive technologies, Dignitas Personae, makes only a brief, passing reference to one particular practice of assisted reproduction: surrogate motherhood. In this practice, a woman is commissioned or hired to gestate a baby whom she agrees to surrender to another family at birth. The genetic parents of the baby may include the gestating mother or one or both members of the couple who commissioned her, or one or both of the genetic parents may be third party egg or sperm donors.

Surrogate motherhood is always ethically and morally wrong. To put it more bluntly, surrogate motherhood is evil. In surrogacy, a child is commissioned (often purchased outright) as if he is a sculpture or a book rather than a human being.

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, all reproductive technologies that involve outside donors, including practices from artificial insemination to surrogacy, "infringe the child's right to be born of a father and mother known to him and bound to each other by marriage" (CCC 2376). That paragraph bears a closer look, as it asserts a human right that many in the secular world have never even thought of:

All children have a right to be born to parents who are known to him.

This is a right written in the hearts of all babies. An infant knows his mother's voice before he is born. Newborns may not seem very aware of their surroundings — indeed, I have heard some atheists odiously describe them as not even being "sentient" — but they are, in fact, very aware of their surroundings, at least in the aspects that matter to them, and the item of foremost importance to a newborn is who his mother is.

Later in life, all human children are interested in their roots. They want to know who their biological mother and father are. If they are raised by others, this curiosity stays with them, sometimes turning into a burning search for their first parents.

According to another document from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Donum Vitae,

Surrogate motherhood represents an objective failure to meet the obligations of maternal love, of conjugal fidelity and of responsible motherhood; it offends the dignity and the right of the child to be conceived, carried in the womb, brought into the world and brought up by his own parents; it sets up, to the detriment of families, a division between the physical, psychological and moral elements which constitute those families.

Though this statement comes from a Catholic document, it makes no appeal to strictly theological principles. It asserts that the wrongness of surrogacy can be understood according to the principles of natural law.

Surrogate motherhood and adoption share some similarities. In both situations, a child is raised by people other than the mother who bore him. As an adoptive mother myself, I am keenly aware of the inalienable fact that all adoptions begin with a tragedy: the separation of a child from his first mother. In her book of the same title, Nancy Verrier calls this event "the primal wound," a permanent blow to the heart of every child relinquished for adoption, even those adopted as newborns.

In adoption, the primal wound is unavoidable, a cross to bear, a part of what makes this world (to quote the prayer) a "valley of tears." Adoption by loving parents is a step in healing this wound in a child who otherwise would have no parents at all.

In surrogacy, however, the primal wound is not a tragic circumstance, but a premeditated act. The adult parties plan in advance to tear the newborn from the mother he knows, the one who carried him. Even for non-Christians, surrogate motherhood should be viewed as universally wrong and a violation of human rights.

I enjoy Scientific American. I really do. So when it published an article on the newly issued document Dignitas Personae from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, I hesitated to comment here. It seems I so often criticize SciAm in this blog.

But then the secular pro-life blog Secondhand Smoke (hat tip to Der Wolfanwalt) made scathing remarks about the article, doing much of the job for me (and doing it better than I would have). So I really have no excuse not to make a few additions.

I am thunderstruck that when SciAm decided to interview an expert about a Vatican theological document, it chose a secular commentator, Josephine Johnston. This would be like interviewing an economist rather than a physician about a new recommendation by the FDA or the Surgeon General. And predictably, she makes both herself and SciAm look ridiculous by stating explicitly that she does not understand what she is talking about:

[The document] opposes IVF even if it doesn't involve embryo loss, because the Vatican is committed to conception that involves the conjugal act. This I don't really understand.

She does not understand it because she has no background in Catholic theology. But it stems from theological principles that underlie everything the magisterium has promulgated about sex and reproduction in the past 50 years. Dignitas Personae is completely consistent with Humanae Vitae, the landmark document that reaffirmed the church's opposition to artificial contraception, and John Paul the Great's theology of the body.

Johnston also sounds a little ridiculous at the end of the interview, when she says "I don't know enough about how Catholicism works in practice" and then implies that perhaps the Church should operate as a democracy when it comes to teaching. In theory and practice, Catholicism is not a democracy, but a Kingdom. Truth is objective regardless of fickle public opinion, and even if some members of the Body of Christ dissent, the whole of that Body will always be subject to his truth.

Earlier this week I wrote about science fiction author John C. Wright's conversion story. I was moved to read this story again because I am finishing up his excellent trilogy The Golden Age (The Golden Age, The Phoenix Exultant, and The Golden Transcendence). (Yes, though I am not the Sci Fi Catholic, I have always been a sci fi Catholic.)

The protagonist of The Golden Age is an engineer who calls himself Phaethon, after the mythical Greek character Phaëton. The future Phaethon's father is a solar engineer who has named himself Helion (the mythical Phaëton's father is Helios, the sun god). The novels take place in the Golden Oecumene, a far-future, solar-system spanning civilization. The Golden Oecumene is a near-utopia thanks to abundant energy and other resources, the advice of super-intelligent and benevolent artificial intelligences called Sophotechs ("wise machines"), and immortality of identity resulting from the technology to mechanically read and copy minds.

The Golden Age is a philosophical series. It was written while its author was still an atheist, and the world is entirely secular. Reason and logic are core themes. This series rests on the power of the mind, but unlike some science fiction in which "the power of the mind" means the discovery and development of paranormal abilities, the only power of the mind in the Golden Oecumene is the ability to think.

Using their reason, Helion and his son Phaethon (as well as the super-intelligent Sophotechs) have determined that there is an objective truth, and that it includes not only the laws of nature, but also the laws of morality. The ultimate conflict is between good and evil, with "good" characterized by existence, life, endeavor, and reality, and "evil" by nihilism, emptiness, and self-deception. Phaethon and his father live a philosophy called the Silver-Gray School by which they strive to discipline themselves to remain connected to reality and to comport themselves with honor and integrity.

I have never read a godless story so philosophically compatible with Christianity. While Wright reports that it required a series of miraculous experiences for him to acknowledge God's existence, after reading The Golden Age, I don't believe much of a miracle was required; he was a rational atheist ready to meet a rational God. (Perhaps this is why he calls his mystical experiences "overkill.")

For example, an ancient Judeo-Christian philosophy dating back to the book of Genesis is the idea that one's name is a relection or part of one's essence. Thus Abram had to be renamed "Abraham," meaning "father of nations," and his grandson Jacob was also called Israel, meaning "struggles with God" (which explains much about the Old Testament history of his descendants). God himself is named YHWH, variously translated as "I am," "I am who am," and "I am that I am": God's very name is the declaration of his perfect and infinite existence.

In the Golden Oecumene, individuals choose their own names, but nobody seems to choose a name just because they like how it sounds; one's name reflects one's identity. Thus Helion is the one person in the entire Oecumene who controls the sun for the good of everyone in the solar system. The meaning of Phaethon's name is left to the reader to discover.

The Golden Age is sort of a secular humanist's dream, a paradise based only on reason; but the rational conclusions that triumph in the end are so compatible with the Catholic faith that it makes my heart hum. In light of its author's conversion, I take it as an inspiration to explicitly reject the notion that religion is irrational, as well as the use of the irrational in religion.

I had the pleasure recently of re-reading science fiction author John C. Wright's conversion story, "Why I am not a Deist." Wright was an atheist who converted to Catholicism after a series of theophanies he describes as "totally humiliating" and "an embarrassment of evidence" of the truth of Christianity.

Christianity as rational

Certain atheists today have devolved into a kind of fundamentalist and evangelical atheism, notably the likes of Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and the king clown of noxious atheist behavior, P.Z. Myers. Wright does not seem to have been that sort of atheist. His writing, both fiction and non-fiction, makes it clear he has always sought Truth over Ideology, objective reality over subjective belief.

The fundamentalist atheism movement prefers to charge religion with being irrational. (They confuse religionists, who frequently are irrational, with the religious ideals they strive toward but often fail to follow.) So it is refreshing to read Wright's story, in which he insists that Christianity is an utterly rational religion:

The Christian religion places an emphasis on Reason that other religions, with the exception of the Jewish, do not share, or not to the same degree. None of them mention LOGOS, the rational account, the word, issuing directly from the Father.

Catholicism has a long tradition of rational thought. The Church honors no fewer than 33 thinkers with the title "Doctor of the Church." (Three of them, about 9%, are women, which is quite remarkable considering that in Western history, probably many fewer than 9% of educated persons were women.)

Christianity is not only a proponent of rational philosophy; it is a promoter of rational science. Indeed, Wright points out,

...Christendom invented science.... The Christian world-view is not only NOT incompatible with the scientific and logical one, they reinforce each other. You must imagine my befuddlement when I see science presented as somehow being the enemy of religion. Science is the enemy of Taoism or Buddhism, perhaps, but not the enemy of a religion that combines the rationalism of Athens with the mysticism of Jerusalem. We invented the University, for God's sake.

Taoism and Buddhism as irrational

My previous (and largely disastrous) attempts to study kung fu exposed me to Taoism and Buddhism, particularly Chan Buddhism, the Chinese ancestor of Zen Buddhism. Taoism is the philosophy behind the art of tai chi and emphasizes the use of chi (ki in Japanese), an utterly unscientific force. The belief in chi is a form of vitalism. It is inherently unscientific in the same sense that the theory of intelligent design is unscientific: it attempts to explain natural observations by appealing to a force that is supernatural.*

Both Taoism and Buddhism include elements that are at once impersonal and supernatural. The idea of a force both supernatural (that is, outside or above the laws of nature) and impersonal (that is, not a person or being nor arising from one) is irrational itself. Any force that exists independent of a person begs an explanation. If it acts on nature, it must be a law of nature — or (if one accepts the existence of supernatural beings) it must arise from a supernatural being.

*Of course, rational Christianity recognizes personal supernatural forces and the possibility of their acting on the natural. An appeal to the supernatural is not necessarily irrational, but it is unscientific, because by definition science can only be concerned with the natural world. Thus elements of intelligent design may be true, but it will always be an unscientific theory.

"Good" and "evil" are moral values that are defined in a metaphysical context of faith. In Christianity, "good" means that which is of God, and "evil" is that which is opposed to him; in fact, the words "good" and "god" have the same etymological root.

"Good" and "evil" are things we know not just with our minds or even our hearts, but with our spirits. A Christian would say that since they are spiritual concepts, they can never be defined scientifically.

What makes something evil?

What if you are a secular scientist who is nevertheless aware of the idea and existence of evil? You might do what artificial intelligence researcher Selmer Bringsjord, of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, did: try to define this non-scientific concept in scientific terms. Here are the criteria he came up with to define an evil person:

• The person must have planned or attempted (with or without success) to do something with the explicit intention of causing harm or pain to others.
• He or she must have done it without prompting, that is, independent of peer pressure.
• The person's reason for doing the morally bad thing must be either "incoherent," or the person must regard the harm caused as something good.

Compare these criteria to the three criteria that, according to Catholic moral reasoning, are necessary to make a mortal sin, that is, a grave evil that kills the life of Christ in one's soul:

• The act must be a grave matter — i.e., a serious wrong — or considered by the person to be a grave matter.
• The person must be aware that it is a grave matter — ignorance is an affirmative defense with mortal sins.
• The person must give full consent to the act without being coerced against his or her will.

These three criteria match Bringsjord's first two criteria rather well. Bringsjord's third criterion, though, seems superfluous or possibly even exonerating: if your reason for doing something bad is "incoherent," then you may not be sane and therefore not fully culpable for your actions; if you regard your evil act as good, you may fall into the category of people who are not aware they are committing a serious wrong.

Evil deeds v. evil people

One major discrepancy between Bringsjord's criteria and Christian views of evil stands out: Bringsjord is defining an evil person, while Christians talk only about evil acts. Traditional Christianity holds that all of us suffer from a fallen nature, so we are all inclined toward evil deeds; but because we were created in God's image to be with him, and because any sin can be forgiven, no human can be essentially evil. Thus the Church speaks of sins, not of evil people.

Why define evil with a secular world view?

What is Bringsjord's purpose behind defining evil people? He even created a computer model of a perfectly evil person — but to what end?

His model is part of a larger program of developing simulations for human behavior. If you have a wholly secular, materialistic worldview, and regard human behavior as the result of scientifically definable brain activities, perfect simulations are theoretically possible.

I would argue that Bringsjord is barking up the wrong tree. Moral decision making is dependent on the spirit, not just the organic brain. Computerized copies can never be more than approximations based on outward appearance; they will never capture the free will of the soul, which is involved in all choices having to do with good and evil.

Today is the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed, also known as All Souls Day. The church consists of all baptized people who have ever existed except for those now in hell; the rest of us are here on earth (the Church Militant), in heaven (the Church Triumphant), or in Purgatory (the Church Penitent).

"All baptized people" includes most Protestants, of course, but Protestants generally do not believe in Purgatory. And as a result, they don't pray for their dead. I find it poignant to consider people in the Church Penitent whose loved ones on earth do not pray for their purification to be complete. Here is a prayer for the forgotten souls in Purgatory:

Lord, hear the forgotten souls in Purgatory. Purify them and bring them to your side to sing your praises forever. Amen.

Scientific American, whose articles often are noticeably skewed toward an antireligious (rather than merely secular) perspective, begins to make up for past transgressions with this fascinating profile on an accomplished geneticist and evolutionary biologist who speaks up for the compatibility of evolution and religion. Among the excellent points Francisco Ayala (who was once ordained a Dominican priest, though it's not clear whether he still practices any faith) makes:

• Evolution not only does not undermine a divine explanation for nature, it actually helps. It shows that the suffering in nature, caused by predators and parasites and plain bad luck, is amoral rather than immoral — that it is not evil in the sense of an act of the will. Since God by definition can do no evil, describing nature as neither good nor evil explains how a good God can create a world with natural suffering. It helps, in other words, with theodicy.
  
• Outside the United States, the strong feeling that "Darwinism" is the enemy of Christianity and vice versa is not prominent.
  
• The biggest reason I feel strongly about explaining how evolution is compatible with faith is reiterated by Ayala: Many intelligent Christian students of biology lose their faith when they discover the strength of the theory of evolution because they believe evolution and Christianity are incompatible. It is tragic to think of people turning from God as a result of learning more about his sublime creation.

Ayala's interest in the philosophy of science, unfortunately, does not seem to show as much evidence of his theological training as SciAm implies. For example, according to Wikipedia (admittedly not a terrifically reliable source), he has spoken out against the United States ban on federal funds for vivisecting human embryos.

Nevertheless, though I have far less education in both science and theology than Ayala, I would like to think that in at least some ways we are kindred spirits. We both oppose the sneering attitude of the "Brights" who think they have the corner on truth, when they are actually just closing their eyes to the brightest part of it.

Michael Dowd, the self-proclaimed "evangelist of evolution," wants religious people to discard their beliefs while keeping their religious language, which he would like to redefine to refer to concepts from the scientific theory of evolution and speculations of evolutionary psychology.

This is a pretty big horse pill to swallow. Dowd knows this, so he markets his ideas with his Seven Reasons for the Gospel of Evolution. And here they are, seven reasons Dowd thinks people of faith should come around to his way of thinking:

1. The gospel of evolution would give us a common creation myth. Since Christians and Jews already share a common creation myth, I assume Dowd must mean to use the gospel of evolution for a sort of universal ecumenism, in which all religions — Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, and Christianity among them — acknowledge one and only one story of origins: naturalistic evolution.
   
2. It validates both scientific and religious ways of speaking. Of course, religious ways of speaking are already "validated" in the religious community. Dowd must mean therefore that religious ways of speaking will be validated among the atheistic community. Indeed, throughout his interviews, Dowd comes across as desperate for the approval of atheists.
   
3. It is a key to understanding and alleviating suffering, which comes from not living "integrously" with the flow of evolution. History, with its lessons on the eugenics movement and on Nazi genocide, teaches a far different lesson on what happens when humans try to base their ethics on the theory of evolution.
   
4. Religious language can be interpreted in a way that's universally true. By this, Dowd means it can be interpreted naturalistically. He says, "I don't have to wait to die to go to a place called heaven. When I'm in a place, integrity, love, compassion, generosity, care, consideration, I'm in heaven now, and so are you. It's true for everybody." But obviously, it's not true for those whose earthly lives are full of suffering, whether from loneliness, physical or mental illness, drug addiction, or other causes of grief. It seems cruel of Dowd to be so eager to steal the hope of a happy afterlife from people who are far from experiencing "heaven" on earth.
   
5. Only by knowing how we really got here and the trajectory we're on can we respond to problems like terrorism without making things worse. "It is impossible to know how to move into a healthy sustainable future" without understanding evolution, says Dowd. I agree that understanding evolution is important, but there is no reason religious beliefs should be discarded at the same time.
   
6. It unmasks the powers of manipulations. "We are so easily led around like a nose-ring (sic)." Here I assume Dowd is giving in to the frequent atheistic criticism of religion, that organized religion exists to manipulate the masses. Yet people of faith like myself believe we are more free in many ways than are people without faith.
   
7. "It gives us the tools for understanding how to have a great life and thriving relationships no matter what hand life deals us." That's funny; my Catholic faith also gives me those tools, and much more explicitly. I imagine that the Gospel of Religion has no sacraments, for example.

Michael Dowd Series:

• Part 1: Demoting the sacred
• Part 2: Original sin
• Part 3: Seven false reasons for the gospel of evolution
• Part 4: The compatibility of science and religion

Evangelist of evolution Michael Dowd is not content to promote a worldview devoid of the supernatural using the language of atheism. His mission is to appropriate religious language and redefine it.

He calls the words related to faith — words like reverence and holiness, and theological terms like living in Christ — "night language," apparently because they obscure what sees as the truth. (His truth is that there is no supernatural order; he even prefers the term "unnatural" to "supernatural.") The goal, which he states explicitly, is to redefine "night language" in purely secular terms.

Original sin

In one of the two Point of Inquiry interviews, Dowd explains how and why he redefines one particular theological term, original sin. (The orthodox Christian definition of original sin is that first human sin committed by Adam and Eve. This sin is inherited by all humans, and its effects include separation from God, which is healed at baptism, and a "fallen nature" or tendency toward sin, also known as concupiscence.) Dowd does not believe in a spiritual world and thus not in a universal spiritual wound; he would like to redefine original sin to be merely an artifact of human evolution.

In the interview, Dowd seems at times desperate to gain the atheist host's approval. He brags about his secular "street cred," obtained when he and his wife had a polyamorous relationship with another woman. Being disfellowshipped from the United Church of Christ (one of the most liberal Protestant denominations) was not enough for him to change his ways, but he is now in a strictly monogamous relationship because (I'm not making this up) he is afraid of papparazzi.

So "living integrously" for Dowd does not require monogamy, but it does seem to require honesty; in his worldview, adultery is only wrong if your spouse disapproves.

This is the evolution evangelist's explanation of original sin:

When a person's social status changes dramatically for the better, such as upon being promoted or elected into office, Dowd says one experiences a boost in testosterone. (I'll take his word for it.) A high level of testosterone leads to a preoccupation with sex. He says that an orthodox Christian's response to this experience is to assume that "sex on the brain" means that it is God's will for him to commit adultery. It would be a sorry understatement to call this statement disingenuous.

Recognizing that a preoccupation with sex in this situation is just a natural response related to human evolution, rather than a result of a spiritual fall, gives a person the "tools" to live "integrously" by not acting on those urges, while a spiritual view of original sin does not do so, says Dowd.

It is true that a purely spiritual view of original sin does not by itself give one all the "tools" they need to avoid actual sin. Catholics and most Protestants agree that people cannot avoid sin entirely by relying on themselves. God's grace always a necessary weapon in the war against concupiscence.

Still, there is no denying that insight into one's psyche helps one make good choices. But it is not necessary at all to believe in human evolution in order to understand how hormones affect thinking. Psychobiology is not the same as evolution; this example would be better suited to a "gospel of psychiatry" rather than a "gospel of evolution."


Michael Dowd Series:

• Part 1: Demoting the sacred
• Part 2: Original sin
• Part 3: Seven false reasons for the gospel of evolution
• Part 4: The compatibility of science and religion