If you have ever attended a Star Trek Convention, you will not be surprised to learn there are people who actually profess belief in what they call Jedi religion. They have gotten together and formed The Church of Jediism. Their beliefs sound vaguely familiar:

In Jediism, we believe in the Force. The Force is a unifying energy which exists around us, in us, and is always present. It is the catalyst for life – it is the power that keeps the universe together. The Force is not something Jedi worship, rather it is something we concentrate on, and can relate to. The Force exists in many forms, but it is not something which can be seen. It flows through everything in existence as neutral energy, and according to the way we see, treat and act in life, can change it from neutral to positive or negative Force.

We believe the mind is like a sponge. As sponges, they soak up information daily – we are constantly learning new things. But not all of this information is stored as positive thoughts. There are always negative thoughts and information which can contaminate the mind, whether that is for a short time or a life time. We believe the practice of self enlightenment helps clear the mind, rinsing the sponge of all negative thoughts. This therefore makes more room for positive thoughts, and also changes one’s thought process and ability to take in and learn more information.

Our aim is to bring all of the world’s believers in the Force together for the power of good. We will form a community that does not have bias or any type of prejudice. A community that does not reject other religions, but in fact encourages their positive teachings. It is through positivity that we shall thrive, for that is the Light side of the Force.

The Force sounds suspiciously like something that theoretical physicists study and Jedi doctrine reminds me of westernized Buddhism. The master Jedi encourages everyone to study the Star Wars movies for additional insights.

This religion will not get very far without sacred texts and I am not sure that George Lucas’ original 13 page script will work. On the other hand, Scientologists have done far more with considerably less.

Copyright Illustration by John Perlock

If you are wondering whether this is all in jest, so is a Danish scholar whose study of Jediism will appear in a forthcoming issue of the International Journal for the Study of New Religions.

One of my favorite scholars of religion, Craig Martin, commented to the contrary: “I’m unconvinced that paranormal phenomena (if they exist) have anything to do with what we call religion. It’s quite possible that psi phenomena are real, but I think those cultural traditions we call religious can be explained without any reference to psi phenomena whatsoever.”

In the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion’s September 2010 issue, Joseph Baker and Scott Draper studied the relationship between religiosity and paranormal beliefs.  What they found was that there is no simple correlation between religious and paranormal beliefs; rather, there is a correlation between particular types of religious beliefs and paranormal beliefs.

As a baseline, it should surprise no one that strict materialists are less religious and tend not to believe in paranormal phenomena.  Among those who believe in the supernatural/spiritual — but are open, tolerant, and nonexclusive about such matters — belief in the paranormal is quite high.  But among believers who adhere strictly to an organized and exclusive form of faith, belief in the paranormal is low.  Such matters are considered outside the ken of “normal” religion.

The authors’ findings are timely (in terms of my own questions) and make considerable sense.  It is nice to see them quantitatively confirmed.

If you read the entire post and interview, you will understand my not so subtle use of quotation brackets above.  I particularly enjoyed this comment from Hughes about his book, Situating Islam:

As for those the book is aligned against, I would have to say the entire apologetical and liberal Protestant interpretation of Islam. Needless to say, this does not always make me popular in Islamic Studies circles.

Those who talk about not offending Muslim sensibilities as an excuse to avoid talking about the redaction history of the Qur’an or the historical Muhammad; those who want to define an “authentic” Islam (that is liberal, peaceful, and democratic); those who put together AAR panels wherein liberal Muslim academics talk about their experiences and vision of their particular version of Islam. I rail against all of this.

None of this is scholarship, but theology and ecumenicism, which I personally do not have a problem with so long as those doing it make it clear to others that this is what they are doing. Too much slippage between scholarship and apologetics occurs in Islamic Studies for my liking.

You can find a nice example of such slippage here.

I believe that it might be instructive for Americans to combine these two entities by creating a series of religious classes taught in every school between the seventh and twelfth grades. One requirement would be that those responsible for teaching a certain discipline could not belong to that belief. Christians could not teach Christianity and Jews could not teach Judaism.

But then, some of the best instruction would be left lacking if the experts in those religions were kept from instruction, you say? Well maybe, but the rudiments of religions could be taught quite effectively by those with no dog in the fight. The Bible, the Torah, the Koran, the Bhagavad Gita and even the teachings of Bodhidharma and the Buddha would be required along with other religions.

Though Buddhism can hardly be called a religion (of the more than one million words attributed to Buddha, never was God mentioned once in his teachings), we would include it in our instruction because so many Americans mistakenly believe it to be a source of religious belief. Indeed, as this philosophy was being taught, perhaps those Americans who only read their Bibles might learn more so as to be informed in conversation.

On the surface this might seem to be a good idea, but further reflection reveals some real problems.  First, not one of these religious traditions exists in a singular, essentialized form, so which versions are going to be taught?  Is it going to be Protestant or Catholic Christianity, orthodox or mystical Judaism, Sunni or Shiite Islam?  Second, it would require the screening of teachers for their beliefs.  Such litmus test disclosures would have all sorts of ill effects, not the least of which is an unacceptable invasion of privacy.  Finally, Anderson himself could use an education in religion — you do not need deities to have what amounts to a supernatural tradition that can be called “religion.”

If we are going to alter the curriculum so that it addresses what we today call “religion,” a much better idea would be to require a course series tracing the genealogy of religions.  It might look like this, with each subject being a semester long class:

1. Cosmology: formation of universe, stars, galaxies, solar systems, and earth.
2. Earth History: geological history of the earth from formation through today.
3. Life History: biological history of all life on earth, from 3.2 mya through today.
4. Human Evolution: with particular emphasis on evolved aspects of brain-mind that give rise to belief in the supernatural.
5. Paleolithic Supernaturalism: covering the history and ethnography of shamanisms.
6. Neolithic Religions: covering the rise of organized religions, which coincide with the appearance of agricultural societies.
7. Modern Religions: covering the history of “world” or Axial Age religions, which includes all those in Anderson’s list.

This curriculum would be long on explanation and short on justification.  It would not linger on matters of theology or correctness, but would instead address the two fundamental questions surrounding religions:  Why do people have supernatural beliefs?  How did supernatural beliefs develop over time into religions?

A curriculum that provided students with the knowledge necessary to answer these questions would enable them to decide from themselves what to believe or not believe; or preferably, what to think or not think.

• What is “religion”?
• Why are so many people religious?
• Do we have “spirits” or “souls”?
• Are religions the only or best sources of meaning and purpose?
• Are religions the only or best sources of morals and ethics?
• Can we be happy and fulfilled without being spiritual or religious?
• Why do most religionists have robust conceptions of spirits, deities, and demons actively at work in the world?
• Why is doctrine important to most religionists?

In the end, it has become clear that the HuffPo religion section writers take most of the answers to these questions as a given; others are simply ignored.  We have a spirit or soul.  Religions are the source of meaning and purpose.  Religions provide answers to deep and mysterious questions.  Religions are the foundation of moral, ethical, loving, and compassionate living.  Religions offer solace.

Being religious or spiritual is, in other words, good and even necessary.  But for HuffPo religion writers, this goodness requires a certain kind of religiosity and spirituality.  It needs to be educated and liberal.  It needs to be “progressive” and “sophisticated” (code words for educated and liberal).  But above all, it needs to be vague and fuzzy.  Religions, in other words, need to rid themselves of gods, doctrines, and spirits.  They need to be ecumenical, open-minded, tolerant — and here is the key: mystical.

Two recent posts at HuffPo Religion demonstrate these conceptions.  In the first, Jay Michaelson — educated and liberal mystic par excellence, tells the faithful there is “A Better Way to Believe in God.”  As I noted in a previous post, Michaelson believes that “God is existence.”  If you, like me, don’t think this sounds much like religion, we are fellow travelers.  It is a not very philosophical mysticism that works for certain types of people, with whom Michaelson clearly identifies himself:

Sophisticated religionists have long had more subtle conceptions of their religions, of course, without the fideistic claptrap rightly derided (but wrongly labeled “religion”) by today’s detractors. For example, many progressive religionists understand God not as some old man in the sky, but as a name we give the reality of all of being, a God that does not “exist” but is, indeed, Existence itself. Others understand Scripture as myth — its literal truth is no more relevant than whether Hamlet really lived in Denmark. The point is its meaning and its purpose. And so on.

The whiff of hubris here is powerful.  If you are “sophisticated” and “progressive” you understand that God is Existence.  Got it?  This is the religion of non-religion, which begs the bigger question: Why not just do away with religion, and begin grappling with existence, meaning, and purpose in an intellectually coherent way?  At least existential and phenomenological philosophers attempted it; they did not wrap themselves in the flaccid cocoon of love and compassion.

Michaelson’s mysticism is so fuzzed, and his conflations so confused, that I have no idea what he is talking about.  More importantly, the huge majority of world religionists will flatly reject his attempt to define religion out of — or as — existence.

In a similar vein, Frank Schaeffer over at HuffPo Religion writes that enlightened religionists “Need to Eradicate Fundamentalism in All Its Forms.”  Schaeffer sternly lectures the uneducated religious masses who believe in things like gods, spirits, and doctrines:

The next great task for the human race is to wean ourselves off literal interpretations of religion. We need to eradicate fundamentalism in all its forms.

Atheism is no help. Human beings are spiritual and look for meaning. Science holds answers but not “THE” answer we look for and long for. Family life and love — continuity of relationships — come closest for fulfilling our longing for purpose.

As I argue in my book Patience with God: Faith for People Who Don’t Like Religion (or Atheism) the answer to fundamentalism, literal-minded religion and all the horror and absurdity they create is to work on the evolution of religion: reject false certainties rooted in myth and embrace myth as a window into the unknowable.

There you have it: humans are spiritual and look for meaning.  If we set aside for a moment the powerful argument that “meaning” did not become an issue for most humans — or religions — until the Axial Age, it is possible that we are meaning seeking primates.  This does not however  lead to the conclusion that we are “spiritual.”  Ignoring all this, here is Schaeffer’s advice: reject certain myths and embrace others.  This is the ala carte approach to religion and spirituality that is ecumenical to the core.

If you, like me, find Schaeffer’s proposal confusing — indeed tautological, we again are fellow travelers.  Reject myth on the one hand and accept it on the other.  Doing this ushers us into the “unknowable.”  Doesn’t this beg the question: If something is unknowable, how can we know it through myth?  I just don’t get it.

Further confusing matters, Schaeffer sees religion as mostly a matter of “liberal” exegesis:

The truth is that interpreting religion is just that: interpreting. All that means is that common sense and compassion are the filters through which we look at religion, as we do with all of life. There is such a thing as freedom of conscience and the right to think!

In that sense everyone is a “liberal” and those who pretend they are consistent to their stated creeds are liars.

My proposal is this: To be true to the heart of the gospel message — redemption through selflessness, hope, justice and love — necessitates a new and fearless repudiation of parts of the same book (and tradition) that also bring us a message of hate.

To find the spiritual truth that is hidden within the Bible it must be mentally “edited” by people of goodwill who are informed by the spiritual truth we carry within our evolving ethical selves.

Onward Christian editors!  With the right sort of love hermeneutics, you will accelerate the process of evolution that most of you (and other religionists of the books) don’t believe in.

Some of this may work for the educated, liberal, progressive, sophisticated, and mystical readers/editors/interpreters of the Huffington Post.  But if these writers believe their amorphous prescriptions will have any effect on the larger religious world, they are sadly mistaken.  They are preaching to a very select and tiny choir.

There are effective missionaries and proselytizers operating everywhere in the world, converting huge numbers of people to particular kinds of faiths that vehemently reject — and will never accept — this kind of enlightened mysticism.  For those not being converted and who already believe, this Ivy approach to religion will have little or no appeal.

This minister clearly knows nothing about the Koran or Islamic doctrines.  Support for illegal drugs and the gay agenda?  Seriously?  Drugs and homosexuality will, in many places where Sharia law governs, get you jailed or executed.  The American religious right’s hatred for — and ignorance of — Islam never ceases to amaze.

Islam, however, has some doctrinal problems which should be cause for alarm.  I am speaking of beating wives and women.  I found this disquisition on the topic at the Siasat Daily: “Does Islam Allow Wife Beating?“  The lengthy and convoluted answer is yes.  For those who wish to beat their wives in accordance with Islamic doctrine and in the proper manner(s), you can find about ten videos (produced primarily by imams and mullahs) on “the rules” for wife beating — here.  Simply bizarre.

Over at the NYT, Tenzin Gyatso has penned another in a long line of ecumenical, pipe-dream pieces which reduce all religions and faiths to a imaginary single truth — in this case, “compassion” — and argues that everyone just needs to get along.  In the history of religions, this has never happened and it is not going to happen.  You can, of course, be compassionate without religion or faith (see last paragraph in this post).

This fundamental issue aside, all religions and faiths cannot be flattened and reduced to a single mantra such as “compassion” or “love.”  Liberal religionists can keep writing these things for their educated and ecumenical counterparts from other faiths, but they are simply talking to one another, while the vast majority of religionists go about their usual intolerant business.

The PR Newswire reports that a consortium of influential Christian-right groups in the United States is already complaining about an upcoming South Park episode titled “JC,” which will no doubt satirize Christianity.  With no apparent sense of irony, and certainly no awareness that South Park satirizes most religions with equal relish, the group issued this statement:

“When Christians attempt a serious discussion over Islam, they are labeled as intolerant and bigoted, but Comedy Central’s treatment of Christianity is condoned and tolerated as humor. Comedy Central seems to confuse Christian peacefulness as weakness, and has taken advantage of it through their programming. But when advertisers are alerted to this type of programming, I do believe they’ll communicate with Viacom and tell them they don’t want their products associated with a show like ‘JC.’”

When has the Christian right in America attempted a serious discussion of Islam?  I am not aware of any such discussions.  The Christian right does not discuss Islam; it simply attacks it (see first paragraph above).  Ah, the joys of exclusivist monotheisms.

Over at Slate, James Verini has a nice story on how to become a Catholic saint.  It provides considerable insight into a rather bizarre tradition and provides a roadmap for those who wish to become a saint within the next few hundred years.  Verini concludes that it takes money, a medical miracle, and compelling life story to become a saint.  Begin practicing your faith healing skills now.

On a more positive note, yet another study reported by LiveScience shows that humans — in this case toddlers — are born with a sense of altruism and desire to help others:

Previous research has found that 60 percent to 80 percent of children regularly try to help people by the time they are 14 to 18 months old. They will, for example, quickly fetch fallen objects or open doors for people without prompting.

Although parents surely promote this behavior, “children come into the world with a biological sensitiveness to pick up on these social cues,” said [the study's author].

No religion required.

It all sounds measured and reasonable — ecumenical if you will, but it seems much more like appeasement.  I took issue with this overly tolerant (or intellectually dishonest) approach in a previous post, Science and Religion: Never Shall the Twain Meet?  Because the issue keeps popping up, I thought I would take another whack at the mole.

To advance his argument, Zimmerman must carefully and artificially define boundaries.  He begins by stating he believes “that science is an incredibly powerful way of understanding the natural world.”  So it is.  But notice that Zimmerman has confined science to the “natural” world.  Is there some world other than the natural one?  I suppose there are such worlds and we have a word for them: imaginary.

Zimmerman’s next move is to provide a cramped definition of science:

Scientific investigation is a process that depends upon hypothesis testing and demands that scientific claims be offered in a manner that permits them to be falsified. Simply put, if you can’t phrase your hypothesis in a falsifiable manner, it falls outside the bounds of science. Science is, therefore, one of the few fields of human endeavor that has opted to limit its own scope — and it’s that limitation that makes it so useful.

While I realize there are those who think that “science” has specific boundaries and can be pursued in only one way (hypothesis-test-falsify), science is part of a larger enterprise in which we evaluate truth claims using multiple methods, including the gathering of data-evidence, and then fitting that data-evidence into frameworks or narratives that are logically constructed.  This is precisely how Darwin went about his scientific business.  It is also how historians go about theirs.

We then evaluate these frameworks or narratives against what is known or can be known.  Some narratives are far more persuasive and likely than others.  They cohere better and are more likely to command consensus from all kinds of people, regardless of their spiritual or religious beliefs.  In many cases and ideally, these kinds of frameworks bring us closer to truth.  I know of nothing — including religions — that cannot be evaluated this way.  Nothing — least of all something as pervasive and powerful as religions — should be exempt from this type of scrutiny.

Given Zimmerman’s cramped definition of science, however, there are things — such as aesthetics and religion (and presumably “morals”) — which fall outside its scope.  This is, as I heard Scott Turow say the other day in a different context, “pure hokum.”

To complete his argument, Zimmerman asks the logical next question: “Where does that leave religion?”  Here again, Zimmerman offers a constrained definition that suits his appeasing purposes:

Well, it depends what you mean by religion. When religion (or more likely its fundamentalist adherents) begins to make claims in the complete absence of evidence and in a manner that is not falsifiable, and when those claims are passed off as scientific, the record must be set straight.

All religions make claims in the absence of evidence and in ways that are not falsifiable.  The issue is not, however, whether those claims “are passed off as scientific.”  It is whether those claims are passed off as truth.

To set the record straight regarding the truth or untruth of claims made by religionists requires a multi-faceted approach that includes data-evidence and evaluation from all positivist disciplines, including (but not limited to) biology, anthropology, history, sociology, philosophy, economics, and psychology.

What is at stake here goes far beyond the creationism/intelligent design and evolution conflict, which is what prompted Zimmerman to plead for an intellectual detente that marks religion off as something special and beyond investigation.  What is at stake is truth, and when it comes to this issue Zimmerman’s accomodationist stance gets us nowhere.

In the first, Lois Solomon of the Sun Sentinel reports that “Christian Yoga Combines the Ancient Exercise with Prayer and Meditation.”  This is not without controversy, given that traditional yoga is deeply embedded in Hindu beliefs and practices (as I noted in this post about Hindus who are outraged that yoga has been extracted from its spiritual context and commercialized).  Solomon comments on Christian yoga:

The class, called Praisemoves, is sponsored by Community of Hope, a non-denominational evangelical church in Loxahatchee, Fla. It begins with a prayer thanking the Lord for bringing the group together.

Participants proceed through a series of Sun Salutations, strength and balance poses, twists and Pilates exercises.

“I have had Christians question if this is OK,” said Kerri Verna, who teaches the free class with her husband, Nick. “But yoga is not what it was 20 years ago. It used to be a form of religion; now it’s evolved to just a form of exercise.”

“You can’t take yoga out of its historical context and neuter it,” said Elliot Miller, editor in chief of Christian Research Journal, a publication of the Christian Research Institute in Charlotte, N.C. “It’s a spiritual discipline for an Eastern religion. It’s important for Christians not to put themselves in that world.”

This is an imperfect example of religious syncretism — which is a mixing of beliefs or practices from other faiths which results in an amalgam of sorts.  Contrary to Elliot Miller’s contention that “you can’t take yoga out of its historical context and neuter it,” people certainly can and do.  While this may offend Miller’s personal sense of Christian purity (a fallacious concept that I discussed in yesterday’s post), incorporating bits and pieces of others’ beliefs and practices has been going on for thousands of years in all faith traditions.

As for the idea that spiritual or religious beliefs-practices cannot be extracted from their traditions and used in ways that upset the faithful, that is wishful thinking.  Aside from the prime example of yoga being used purely for physical-therapeutic (and commercial) reasons, we have this report from Merinews that Hindus are unhappy about another aspect of their tradition being used for non-spiritual purposes: “Upset Hindus Tell Trudie Styler and Sting: Tantra is Not Just Sex.”  Setting aside for a moment that intense sex may induce transcendental mind-body states, the article observes:

HINDUS ARE dismayed and critical of actress-producer Trudie Styler and her husband Sting who apparently think, describe, and fixated on Tantra as just sex.

Styler reportedly offered revelations about tantric lovemaking by Oscar nominated musician Sting to potential buyers at a New York fundraiser auction on May six.  Styler reportedly announced in the recent past that “Sadomasochism is the new Tantra”. There were reports that Tantra was now reportedly being utilized in dating in Europe.

Acclaimed Hindu statesman Rajan Zed said that Tantrism was a major channel in Indian religious traditions and besides Hinduism, it also exerted considerable influence on Buddhism and Jainism.

The rich Hindu spiritual traditions obviously offer several things that can be extracted and used for other purposes — first it was yoga and now it is (tantric) sex.  Never underestimate the power of commercial exploitation, especially when coupled with anything lascivious.

As for Styler’s conflation of sadomasochism and tantra, I can’t comment other than to refer readers to Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s classic Venus in Furs and the scintillating work of the Marquis de Sade for additional insights.  Rajan Zed’s comments, however, are a perfect example of religious syncretism — Hindu tantras have been adopted by other faiths and incorporated into their traditions.

Some spiritual traditions are of course more amenable to syncretism than others.  There are many places in Asia and Southeast Asia where people have no problem practicing a multiplicity of religions.  Go to Bali and you will know what I mean.  This was also true in the ancient world (i.e., Mesopotamia, Persia, India, Greece, and Rome) before the rise and spread of monotheism.  Polytheisms tend to be ecumenical, open, and often welcoming of other beliefs and practices.  Shamanisms are much the same.  All this historical syncretism and ecumenical tolerance, by the way, is a serious strike against the group level selection theory of religious origins, which requires societies to be bound together by a particular and exclusive religion.

In the West, which is dominated by monotheism, this sort of mixing or syncretism is anathema or blasphemous.  Monotheism usually results in exclusive claims to Truth and thus entails a great deal of boundary defense.  The imagined tradition must remain “pure” and the particular God must be the One.  Unsurprisingly, this breeds a great deal of intolerance towards other faiths and people.

Karen Armstrong, who has written something like 19 books on the subject (and ironically, the virtues of “spiritual silence”), comes immediately to mind.  She is like the Rodney King of religion: “Can’t we all just get along?”

Against this background, it is nice to see that someone recognizes the many differences between religions and the consequences of these differences.  Carl Hartman has reviewed Stephen Prothero’s new book, God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World–and Why Their Differences Matter:

“The Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century popularized the idea of religious tolerance, and we are doubtless better for it,” Prothero writes. “But the idea of religious unity is wishful thinking nonetheless, and it has not made the world a safer place. In fact, this naive theological groupthink-call it Godthink-has made the world more dangerous by blinding us to the clashes of religions that threaten us worldwide.”

Prothero cites the religious element in wars, clashes, murders and atrocities from a morning in lower Manhattan to 30 years of civil conflict in Sri Lanka.  The book’s dust jacket summarizes the problems that Prothero considers as preoccupying five of the eight religions: Islam deals with pride, Christianity with sin, Confucianism with chaos, Buddhism with suffering and Judaism with exile.

All religions originate in a certain time and place, under specific historical, economic, material, cultural, and social circumstances.  As they develop and change over time, these circumstances substantially shape each tradition.  Religions do not simply appear, sua sponte and sui generis, fully formed from the ruler of the golden realm.

For those who want to understand and perhaps even explain the universality of religion, understanding these circumstances is essential.  Prothero’s book is therefore a welcome addition.