19AR24-46

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AR 24:46 - The coming "two-party system" for Protestants

In this issue:

BUDDHISM - rejecting claims that Buddhism is "a science of the mind"

KNOWLEDGE - How can we really know anything?

PROTESTANTISM - "evolving toward a future with two starkly different belief systems?"

Apologia Report 24:46 (1,454)

November 20, 2019

BUDDHISM

Why I Am Not a Buddhist, by Evan Thompson [1] -- Yale University Press says that Thompson (professor of philosophy, University of British Columbia) <evanthompson.me> is "challenging the idea of Buddhist exceptionalism" as he works to "explain how the goals of science and religion are fundamentally different. Efforts to seek their unification are wrongheaded and promote mistaken ideas of both. He suggests cosmopolitanism instead, a worldview with deep roots in both Eastern and Western traditions."

Kirkus Reviews (Oct 15 '19) describes it as "A scholarly response to mainstream Western Buddhism." Thompson "delivers a timely rebuttal to what he calls Buddhist modernism, the idea, loosely, that Buddhism is not a religion but a science of the mind. Thompson confronts Buddhist modernism as it has been popularized by writers such as Robert Wright, Sam Harris, Stephen Batchelor, and Joseph Goldstein by returning Buddhist teachings and practices to their cultural contexts. Mindfulness meditation, for example, is commonly understood today to reveal the nature of the mind, but as Thompson points out, it 'is a practice that shapes the mind according to certain goals and norms, such as making the mind calmer and less impulsive.' He makes similar arguments about other central positions of Buddhist modernism, such as the illusory nature of the self, the meaning of enlightenment, and the scientific evidence for the truth of Buddhism. Thompson shows all of these to be far more complex and contested within Buddhism than is widely claimed by modernists. ... The forceful, if labored, argument Western Buddhists need to hear."

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KNOWLEDGE

There's something oddly comforting about the realization that pretty much everyone was wrong about something we long took for granted. Maybe it's reassuring to see everyone put in their place, sharing some humble pie together. A little humiliation is easier to stomach when we all experience it.

But really, how bad is it? How does it hit you to learn that we're actually struggling with a degree of universal error that's MUCH greater than expected? According to the publisher, in Why We're Wrong About Nearly Everything: A Theory of Human Misunderstanding [2], Bobby Duffy reveals: "Research shows that people often wildly misunderstand the state of the world, regardless of age, sex, or education. ... We may blame cognitive bias or fake news, but neither tells the complete story."

Kirkus (Oct 1 '19) reports that Duffy (Director, Policy Institute/King's College London <kcl.ac.uk/policy-institute>) "draws on global studies conducted by Ipsos MORI, a London social research firm <ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk> where he was a managing director for 20 years, to describe the way people misperceive social realities, from teen pregnancy to crime, obesity, and immigration. The studies involved more than 100,000 interviews on many issues in 40 nations. They demonstrate, through solid data, that we only hear what we want to hear." (Are we in this way, yet again, our own worst enemies? - RP) "Complex forces shape beliefs, most notably our emotional responses, which are key to our perception of reality." Consider the next generation: "In England, asked what percentage of British teens gave birth every year, people guessed 19% (correct answer: 1.4%). In France, people thought Muslims were 31% of the population (reality: 8%). In the U.S., people guessed immigrants make up 33% of the population (reality: 14%). And so on."

Publishers Weekly (Oct 7 '19) adds that "The book divides misperceptions into two categories: mistakes people make in their own thinking, and mistakes originating in what they are told by others, both by authority figures and the media, and by friends, family, and colleagues. ... Duffy avoids pessimism. He focuses on the things everyone can do to change how they process information, such as learning not to focus on extreme examples, or improving critical reading abilities. The result is a well-informed breath of intellectual fresh air about how best to avoid misunderstanding the world."

When we stand before our Creator, might the context be more along the lines of this book than we ever imagined? Then again, when we first comprehended the theme of the book as described above, there's that little voice in our heads that says something like, "Yeah. That really shows how messed up *they* are."

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PROTESTANTISM

"Major survey of U.S. young adults has startling data on Protestants' two-party system" by Richard Ostling (GetReligion, Oct 24 '19) -- "You want news?

"How about the prospect that U.S. Protestantism does not just involve that familiar biblical rivalry but could be evolving toward a future with two starkly different belief systems. ...

"The graph [in The Twentysomething Soul] that grabbed [me] involved who God is.

"In this question's option one, [God] is 'a personal being, involved in the lives of people today.' Hard to think of a Christian belief more basic than that. In other options, God is 'not personal, but something like a cosmic life force,' a fuzzy New Age-ish idea. Or God only created the world 'but is not involved in the world now,' what's known as Deism. Or the respondent lacked any sort of belief in God.

"Just under 100% of Evangelical young adults — no surprise – chose option one. But only half of those in 'Mainline' churches affirmed this traditional belief, while for 40% God is some impersonal 'cosmic life force.' Catholics fell between the two Protestant categories. Even a sixth of 'nones' without any religious affiliation believed in the personal, active God." <www.bit.ly/352dRM3>

The above is based on observations discussed at much greater length in The Twentysomething Soul: Understanding the Religious and Secular lives of American Young Adults, by Tim Clydesdale (sociology, College of New Jersey) and Kathleen Garces-Foley (religious studies, Marymount University). It surveyed "an unusually large sample of Americans ages 20 to 30 and could fully categorize religious identifications, beliefs and practices."

The "starred" review in Publishers Weekly (May 13 '19) calls this a "persuasively argued empirical study of the spiritual beliefs and practices of America's 42.7 million adults in their 20s. Using data from their national survey and ethnographic interviews, the two tell 'an optimistic story' from the 1,880 members of their study, which showed that belief and practice among the 71% of 20-somethings who are affiliated with a religion remained an important part of their lives. They also contribute to the characterization of those young adults known as 'nones' - those affiliated with no religion - arguing (among other surprising things) that one out of four of this group occasionally attends religious worship services and that 20% of them pray weekly. Referencing recent Pew Research studies, the authors show that, while church attendance and adherence to traditional religious doctrines is on the decline, interest in spirituality over the long term has remained largely the same. Refuting a popular narrative of religious decline among the young, they instead characterize young adults as 'postmodern pilgrims' free to choose religious, spiritual, or secular paths. Any reader interested in the changing religiosity of America will be edified by Clydesdale and Garces-Foley's revealing findings." [5]

The Oxford University Press promo explains: "Today's twentysomethings have been labeled the 'lost generation' for their presumed inability to identify and lead fulfilling lives, 'kidults' for their alleged refusal to 'grow up' and accept adult responsibilities, and the 'least religious generation' for their purported disinterest in religion and spirituality. These characterizations are not only unflattering - they are wrong."

(Hmm. I seem to remember a book that said something like that. - RP)

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SOURCES: Monographs

1 - Why I Am Not a Buddhist, by Evan Thompson (Yale Univ Prs, January 2020, hardcover, 240 pages) <www.amzn.to/2qOBU2l>

2 - Why We're Wrong About Nearly Everything: A Theory of Human Misunderstanding, by Bobby Duffy (Basic, 2019, hardcover, 304 pages) <www.amzn.to/2Qlqga2>

3 - The Twentysomething Soul: Understanding the Religious and Secular lives of American Young Adults, by Tim Clydesdale and Kathleen Garces-Foley (Oxford Univ Prs, 2019, hardcover, 256 pages) <www.amzn.to/378zADQ>

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