14AR19-03

Apologia Report 19:3 (1,186)

February 12, 2014

Subject: Understanding the 'Spiritual But Not Religious' phenomenon

In this issue:

AMERICAN RELIGION - "spiritual but not religious: often purposefully in opposition to doctrines associated with Christianity"

ATHEISM - Choice suggests a better debate resource than Loftus and Rauser

ORIGINS - why mathematics seems to suggest an intelligent designer

+ Are we alone in the universe? (Don't plan on visitors anytime soon.)

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AMERICAN RELIGION

Belief without Borders: Inside the Minds of the Spiritual but Not Religious, by Linda A. Mercadante [1] -- from the publisher's blurb: "The last twenty years have seen a dramatic increase in 'nones': people who do not claim any religious affiliation. These 'nones' now outnumber even the largest Protestant denominations in America. They are not to be confused with secularists, however, for many of them identify themselves as 'spiritual but not religious' (SBNR). The response to this dramatic change in American religion has been amazingly mixed. While social scientists have been busy counting and categorizing them, the public has swung between derision and adulation. Some complain 'nones' are simply shallow dilettantes, narcissistically concerned with their own inner world. Others hail them as spiritual giants, and ground-breaking pioneers. Rarely, however, have these 'nones' been asked to explain their own views, beliefs, and experiences. In Belief without Borders, theologian and one-time SBNR Linda Mercadante finally gives these individuals a chance to speak for themselves.

"This volume is the result of extensive observation and nearly 100 in-depth interviews with SBNRs across the United States. Mercadante presents SBNRs' stories, shows how they analyze their spiritual journeys, and explains why they reject the claims of organized religion. Surprisingly, however, Mercadante finds these SBNRs within as well as outside the church. She reveals the unexpected, emerging latent theology within this group, including the interviewees' creative concepts of divine transcendence, life after death, human nature, and community. The conclusions she draws are startling: despite the fact that SBNRs routinely discount the creeds and doctrines of organized religion, many have devised a structured set of beliefs, often purposefully in opposition to doctrines associated with Christianity."

Publishers Weekly (Jan '14, #3) observes: "Mercadante, professor of theology at the Methodist Theological School in Ohio, offers a nuanced, qualitative study of [SBNRs] and the importance of popular belief. Drawing from extensive interviews ranging from a large number of Baby Boomers to surprisingly barely represented Millennials, Mercadante demystifies their supposedly nonreligious attitudes, revealing how their convictions are based on implicit theological concerns about transcendence, human nature, community, and the afterlife. Her work paints a group that applies typically American values of personal responsibility, freedom, and self-determination to the realm of belief. Her analysis hints at a human need for religious structuring of the world, especially at a time when postmodernism has deconstructed religion. Mercadante's study is a welcome and much-needed examination of the diversity of the SBNR experience and its ethos, abounding with sympathetic but also critical commentary on where it has come from, where it is now, and where it may take religion in the future."

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ATHEISM

Debating Christian Theism, edited by J.P. Moreland, Chad Meister, and Khaldoun A. Sweis [2] -- writing for Choice Reviews, Daniel Boscaljon (author of Vigilant Faith: Passionate Agnosticism in a Secular World [3]) tells us: "This collection provides an accessible introduction to philosophy of religion and analytic theology by leading scholars. [A]s a whole the arguments are lucid without being abusively technical; occasionally humorous without becoming ridiculous; and short enough for those not versed in the field to gain understanding before becoming confused. The 40 essays cover both general debates on the existence of God and arguments specific to Christian theology, with authors paired to provide informed positions on a given issue (theodicy, cosmology, miracles, resurrection, and more). The book allows the independent contributions to retain a conversational air; although essays take opposing views, the pairs of essays are more complementarily attuned than conflictually opposed. Thus the collection is far more useful as a whole than would be a book of either Christian or atheist apologetics (or screeds) read separately. It offers a far more rigorous and scholarly approach than the structurally similar God or Godless?: One Atheist, One Christian: Twenty Controversial Questions, by John Loftus and Randal Rauser [4]. Accessible to educated readers and advanced undergraduate students, this volume provides a handy summary of key positions in important debates."

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ORIGINS

"God and the 'Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics'" by William Lane Craig -- the mathematical predictability of undiscovered scientific phenomena such as the Higgs boson particle <www.ow.ly/ttBjw> offers very strong evidence of an intelligent designer being responsible for setting up "the language of nature" behind our universe. Craig describes the current divide among philosophers of mathematics on what physicist Eugene Wigner "famously called 'the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics.'" On one side, the Realists "hold that [such a thing] as mind-independent, nonspatio-temporal, causally effete, abstract entities" do exist. The Antirealist crowd denies this. Both camps include theists and nontheists. In explaining their views, Craig reveals how nontheistic antirealism is at a loss to explain why mathematics can be applied to the physical world. Christian Research Journal, 36:6 - 2014, pp30-35.

For a popular introduction to the Higgs boson, see <www.ow.ly/ttI3x>

Recently, it's become more popular to believe that many other planets could generate and sustain life as we know it. In his new book, Lucky Planet [5], David Waltham concludes otherwise. Publishers Weekly (Jan '14, #4) explains why: "Waltham, astrobiologist and geophysicist at the University of London, addresses the pressing question: How common is intelligent life in the universe? He examines the conditions necessary for life to begin and evolve into more complex forms, along the way exploring cosmological matters, such as star and planet formation, geological and meteorological concerns, as well as the nature of life itself. His basic, unsurprising premise is that vast amounts of time are required to produce intelligent life, but he goes further to explain that maintaining a relatively stable planetary climate for the bulk of that time is both essential and rare. 'If this book has a theme, it is that climate is destiny.' Earth, as he shows, has a multiplicity of factors that have yielded a stable climate and, he argues, it is unlikely that a similar combination of conditions will appear very often. There are an enormous number of planets in the universe, but only a small percentage will have the requisite conditions. Waltham's somewhat depressing conclusion is that 'advanced civilizations elsewhere are inevitable, but they will also be so far away that we will never be able to communicate with them or even observe influences they may have on their galactic neighborhoods.'"

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SOURCES: Monographs

1 - Belief without Borders: Inside the Minds of the Spiritual but Not Religious, by Linda A. Mercadante (Oxford Univ Prs, 2014, hardcover, 352 pages) <www.ow.ly/ttYZo>

2 - Debating Christian Theism, edited by J.P. Moreland, Chad Meister, and Khaldoun A. Sweis (Oxford Univ Prs, 2013, paperback, 576 pages) <www.ow.ly/ttZ6i>

3 - Vigilant Faith: Passionate Agnosticism in a Secular World, by Daniel Boscaljon (Univ of Virginia Prs, 2013, paperback, 224 pages) <www.ow.ly/tx4jF>

4 - God or Godless?: One Atheist. One Christian. Twenty Controversial Questions, by John W. Loftus and Randal Rauser (Baker, 2013, paperback, 208 pages) <www.ow.ly/nEPuV>

5 - Lucky Planet: Why Earth Is Exceptional - and What That Means for Life in the Universe, by David Waltham (Basic Books, April 2014, hardcover, 208 pages) <www.ow.ly/tu2GB>

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