This Week in God

May 31, 2008

After a brief hiatus, The God machine was busy this week with plenty of interesting items of note. First up is a disconcerting story out of Iraq, about residents of Fallujah angered by conversions efforts of a U.S. Marine.

The U.S. military confirmed Thursday that a Marine in Fallujah passed out coins with a Gospel verse on them to Sunni Muslims, a military spokesman in the Iraqi city said. The man was immediately removed from the checkpoint and reassigned.

The coins angered residents who said they felt that the American troops, whom they consider occupiers, were also acting as Christian missionaries in a predominantly Muslim nation.

“It did happen,” said Mike Isho, a spokesman for Multi National Forces West. “It’s one guy and we’re investigating.”

The Marine was passing out silver coins to residents of the Sunni Anbar province with Arabic translations of a Bible verse on them. On one side, the coin read, “Where will you spend eternity?” and on the other, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. John 3:16.”

By any reasonable measure, U.S. military officials handled this very well, and extremely quickly. Within a day of a media report about the proselytizing coins, a force was sent to search the Marines at the western gate of Fallujah. One man was found with the coins, he was removed from the gate, and reassigned. On Thursday, the U.S. military apologized for the incident, announced an investigation, and assured everyone that “proper punishment” will be forthcoming. (It’s not clear how the Marine obtained the silver proselytizing coins in the first place.)

One can only hope the speed with which this was addressed will help alleviate local resentment. McClatchy reporters spoke with many residents of Fallujah, who repeated two words: “humiliation” and “weakness”. One shop owner said, “Passing Christianity this way is disrespectful.” Another local resident added, “The occupier is repeatedly trespassing on God and his religion. Now the occupier is planting seeds of strife between the Muslims and Christians.”

Given recent reports about a Quran being used for target practice, the timing could be better.

Other news from The God Machine this week:

* Unsure what to do about the rising price of fuel, some drivers have taken to holding joint prayer sessions at gas stations. (Some are singing the civil rights anthem “We Shall Overcome,” with an added verse: “We’ll have lower gas prices.”)

* Reuters: “The Vatican issued its most explicit decree so far against the ordination of women priests on Thursday, punishing them and the bishops who try to ordain them with automatic excommunication. The decree was written by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and published in the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, giving it immediate effect. A Vatican spokesman said the decree made the Church’s existing ban on women priests more explicit by clarifying that excommunication would follow all such ordinations.”

* It’s disconcerting that lawsuits like this are still necessary: “A federal judge yesterday sided with parents who claimed their son’s suburban elementary school [near Nashville, Tenn.] engaged in a pattern of endorsing religious activities and particular religious beliefs, namely Christianity. U.S. District Judge Robert L. Echols made the ruling in a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of an anonymous Lakeview Elementary student and his parents. They claimed the Wilson County school system east of Nashville was promoting Christianity by allowing a group of parents to pray during instructional time and pass out fliers to students on campus.”

* And a computer program is analyzing how (and whether) evolution led to spiritual beliefs:

The model assumes that a small number of people have a genetic predisposition to communicate unverifiable information to others. They passed on that trait to their children, but they also interacted with people who didn’t spread unreal information. The model looks at the reproductive success of the two sorts of people — those who pass on real information, and those who pass on unreal information.

Under most scenarios, “believers in the unreal” went extinct. But when [James Dow, an evolutionary anthropologist at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan] included the assumption that non-believers would be attracted to religious people because of some clear, but arbitrary, signal, religion flourished.

“Somehow the communicators of unreal information are attracting others to communicate real information to them,” Dow says, speculating that perhaps the non-believers are touched by the faith of the religious.

Interesting stuff.

We did level the “City of Mosques” – this was done in our names.

And I don’t know – maybe if we want to pray for lower gas prices, we need to pray to the deities that oversee those regions of the world and stop being so anti-muslin.

But would any righteous God answer prayers from a nation that is committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in one of the world’s oldest holy lands?

Especially since this illegal war was largely about controlling and limiting oil production from Iraq in the first place.

  • I think that some groups of people acquired a genetic trait that allowed them to be persuaded (against all reason) that their very own tribal god wanted them to slay their neighbors and take the land for themselves. That trait would have provided them with an obvious evolutionary advantage over their more rational and less warlike neighbors.

    In other words, the ability of a group to organize itself around a shared religious belief favored their survival and reproductive success. “Real” vs. “unreal” information seems to me to be missing the larger point.

    The cries of “Our god is better than their god” can still be heard in the 21st century. Take the wayward Marine and his stupid coins, for example.

    The human heritage of a genetic predisposition toward religion is no longer advantageous. It may even lead our entire species to catastrophe.

  • #2 Spoken like a true no-it-all; actually just the rantings of another “God-wannabe”

    Thank you for proclaiming that your intellect is the most important thing in the universe. I am sure many small minds want to know.

  • I will wait for your own bible to come out – sure it will be very popular in the backlands of Muskogee – at least if blood relatives can be separated long enough to open the book.

  • Unsure what to do about the rising price of fuel, some drivers have taken to holding joint prayer sessions at gas stations. (Some are singing the civil rights anthem “We Shall Overcome,” with an added verse: “We’ll have lower gas prices.”)

    Nice to see that Mencken is still right – nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.

    The model looks at the reproductive success of the two sorts of people — those who pass on real information, and those who pass on unreal information.

    Given that stupid people (the kind who pass on unverifiable information because they’re too stupid to know) always have ten kids because they’re too stupid to understand the benefits of contraception, and intelligent people do understand the value of contraception, stupid people always overpopulate. Further proof of the accuracy of the comment that leads this comment.

  • Okie @ 2. well said!

    I think your words go beyond religious belief. Any shared belief was the collaboration which held certain peoples together was to the benefit of their very survival, be it Clan of the Cave Bear type of religion. Each society has its myths which they wrap around them (like a flag) and creates the cohesiveness which was required for those societies to survive.

  • little bear – it’s not about me. Look up “ad hominem.”

    I’ve been called a “know-it-all,” but I’m not sure what a “no-it-all” is.

  • The god of economics hears the prayer of drivers to lower gas prices and sez: No.

  • I’ve been called a “know-it-all,” but I’m not sure what a “no-it-all” is.

    I honestly think it’s little bear being off his meds. It’s a shame when he gets into these cycles. I am staring to feel sorry for him for he has actually posted some truly insightful posts when he’s not in shillary, attack, name calling, et al mode.

    Go ahead lb, call me blog queen or whatever else you want to attack me with. I hope you get better.

  • This so-called soldier should be severely punished for recklessly endangering the lives and health of his fellow soldiers. Sheesh, what kind of idiot could possibly be in Iraq in uniform after all that we’ve been through there for over 5 years and not get that. Too dumb to soldier? Too dumb to be left alone on his own??

  • included the assumption that non-believers would be attracted to religious people because of some clear, but arbitrary, signal, religion flourished.

    My money’s on the “clear signal” being the promise of immortality in the afterlife, a nearly universal feature of religions around the world. I mean, think about it: Would anyone go to all the bother religion puts them through if the priests said “Thanks for your support. Of course, you’re still going to die and rot in the ground.”

  • And a computer program is analyzing how (and whether) evolution led to spiritual beliefs:

    This theory strikes me as a bit absurd. Michael Shermer, in The Science of Good and Evil offers a better one. When clans became tribes and then larger communities, some sort of unchallengable system of law was needed. Religion provided just that.

  • This so-called soldier should be severely punished for recklessly endangering the lives and health of his fellow soldiers. Sheesh, what kind of idiot could possibly be in Iraq in uniform after all that we’ve been through there for over 5 years and not get that. Too dumb to soldier? Too dumb to be left alone on his own??

    Three, four, five, now six tours might do that. As would the military taking people who never would have been acceptable before (I forgot the word…not vouchers…someone help me out). It doesn’t help that the religiousness comes from the top down. Remember the whole atheist dust up some months back? Or the requirement of troops to be religious? (I am sure Steve has it in his archives here.) This doesn’t surprise me in the least. This is what our military is grooming.

    And lets add to that the dehumanization of people – savages if you will – and it’s a complete circle.

  • (I forgot the word…not vouchers…someone help me out). — MsJoanne, @134

    Waivers. And we’re not only letting the “less qualified” into the army and sending people back again and again and again. We’re also sending back people who may have been perfectly OK the first couple of tours but now are sent back — knowingly — with PTSD. Just let’s not diagnose or treat it (it would cost too much) but send them back and *say* they’re as good as new…

    If I were God, especially the kind of bloodthirsty God that some of those nuts believe in, I’d be making a list, checking it twice and then would smite them all into the deepest circle of hell.

  • Non-religious people: La, la, la. Here we are not believing in some supernatural being.

    [Sound of stampeding feet]

    Religious people: Oh yes you do.

    Non-religious people: Why?

    Religious people: Because if you don’t we’ll cut your heads off, tear down your village and steal all of your livestock. In fact ….

    [Carnage, destruction, screams, bleats]

    Religious people: There, that’s what you get for not believing in a supernatural being. Actually, It told us to do that to you for not believing in It.

    Remaining non-religious people: You … bastards!

    Religious people: Who said that – Phoooooar! Babes! Strange babes we’ve never seen before and that aren’t our cousins no less! Let us pray to our supernatural being who is always right to see what we should do about these strange women. Le rrrrow!

    ——

    It doesn’t take attraction or arbitrary signals to get people to see things your way.

  • Religion is not about passing on real or unreal information. How extremely analytical. It is more closely about forming community with others to try to convince yourself that death won’t really happen to you.

  • I’m glad the caught the guy.

    But he should be drummed out of the military.

    He was very disrespectful of our freedom of speech and religion.

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