A postmodern heretic's spiritual journey.
I almost stepped on this small fungus — it was maybe two and a half inches tall — when I was out for a walk today. I’m not competent to identify it, but between my field guides and iNaturalist, I’m thinking it’s a coral fungus in genus Clavulinopsis. Not that I’m particularly anxious to learn what species it is. I’m more interested in its weird beauty: delicate little sculptural forms rising up out of the woodland litter.
I’m in the process of bringing the index to this blog up to date. I maintained the index up until 2012, then let if fall into disuse.
You might wonder: who’s going to bother looking at an index when you can just use the search function? But I feel that a blog index can do two things. First, just as when browsing a physical library, a reader might stumble across topics they didn’t even know they were interested in. Second, I think the index will serve as another additional little piece of search engine optimization, exposing search engine bots to yet another mention of obscure names and topics.
If you happen to use the index, and come across any problems, please email me or leave a comment.
Whatever you call it — “artificial intelligence,” “machine learning,” or as author Ted Chiang has suggested, “applied statistics” — it’s in the news right now. Whatever you call it, it does not present a neutral point of view. Whoever designs the software necessarily injects a bias into their AI project.
This has become more clear with the emergence of a conservative Christian chatbot, designed to give appropriately conservative Christian answers to religious and moral questions. Dubbed Biblemate.io by the software engineer who constructed it, it will give you guidance on divorce (don’t do it), LGBTQ+ sex (don’t do it), or whether to speak in tongues (it depends). N.B.: Progressive Christians will not find this to be a useful tool, but many conservative and evangelical Christians will.
I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Muslim software engineers are working on a Muslim chatbot, and Jewish software engineers are working on a Jewish chatbot. Then as long as we’re thinking about the inherent bias in chatbots, we might start thinking about how racism, sexism, ableism, ageism, etc., affect so-called AI. We might even start thinking about how the very structure of chatbots, and AI more generally, might replicate (say) patriarchy. Or whatever.
The creators of the big chatbots, like ChatGPT, are trying to pass them off as neutral. No, they’re not neutral. That’s why evangelical Christians feel compelled to build their own chatbots.
Mind you, this is not another woe-is-me essay saying that chatbots, “AI,” and other machine learning tools are going to bring about the end of the world. This is merely a reminder that all such tools are ultimately created by humans. And anything created by humans —including machines and software — will have the biases and weaknesses of its human creators.
With that in mind, here are some questions to consider: Whom would you trust to build the chatbot you use? Would you trust that chatbot built by an evangelical Christian? Would you trust a chatbot built by the Chinese Communist Party? How about the U.S. government? Would you trust a chatbot built by a 38-year-old college dropout and entrepreneur who helped start a cryptocurrency scheme that has been criticized for exploiting impoverished people? (That last describes ChatGPT.) Would you trust a “free” chatbot built by any Big Tech company that’s going to exploit your user data?
My point is pretty straightforward. It’s fine for us use chatbots and other “AI” tools. But like any new media, we need to maintain a pretty high level of skepticism about them — we need to use them, and not let them use us.
Here are a few things I’ve come across recently on the topic of religion and LGBTQ+ issues:
1. A statement signed by some 300 prominent Muslim scholars and clerics titled “Navigating Differences: Clarifying Sexual and Gender Ethics in Islam” interprets the Quran as asserting that “God explicitly condemns sexual relations with the same sex”; and further, that “as a general rule, Islam strictly prohibits medical procedures intended to change the sex of healthy individuals, regardless of whether such procedures are termed gender ‘affirming’ or ‘confirming.'” While acknowledging that there are Muslims who interpret the Quran as fully supportive of LGBTQ+ rights, these Muslim scholars and clerics say that public schools should not force their Muslim children to hear any messages that support what they call “LGBTQ ideology.” These Muslim scholars and clerics join many conservative/evangelical Christians, many Orthodox Jews, and many other religious subgroups in saying that their religion does not affirm LGBTQ+ rights.
2. Three social science scholars realized that U.S. research on LGBTQ+ and religion tends to focus on the attitudes of non-LGBTQ+ people towards LGBTQ+ persons. But there isn’t much social science research on how LGBTQ+ persons themselves relate to religion. So last month, they did a survey of LGBTQ+ persons to ask them about their relation to religion. While they admit that their survey is not representative, the results are still of interest:
“Our findings suggest that the relationships LGBTQ+ people have with religion are more complicated than most media headlines portray. Many LGBTQ+ people are religious… 36% of participants report a religious affiliation; about the same percentage say they attend religious services at least once a year…. A full 80% of survey respondents were raised religious. Of those who no longer identify religiously, nearly 1 in 3 say they nonetheless continue to feel a connection to their religious heritage.”
Let’s hope this preliminary survey eventually leads to published research on this topic.
3. Sarah Imhoff, professor of religious studies at Indiana University, has written an essay for The Conversation titled “Nonbinary genders beyond ‘male’ and ‘female’ would have been no surprise to ancient rabbis.” She says in part:
“As a scholar of Judaism and gender, I find that people across the political spectrum often assume religion must be inherently conservative and unchanging when it comes to sex and gender. They imagine that religions have always embraced a world in which there are only men and women. But for Judaism – and for many other religious traditions, too – history shows that’s just not true.”
My favorite part of this essay is when Imhoff points to interpretations by ancient rabbis, found in the Jewish Midrash, where Genesis 1:27 is interpreted to mean that the first human created by God was both male and female — not exactly what we today would call transgender, but definitely a human who did not have binary gender.
Last week, I led some ecology programs in Maine with kids of various ages, including with the “Sand Diggers,” a group of children in preK-K. A few days before we drove up to Maine I checked the weather forecast. The National Weather Service was predicting rain most of the week, meaning we might be indoors much of the week. Uh oh. All my lesson plans for the Sand Diggers were for outdoors activities. I decided to get some nature storybooks to provide some indoors activities with the Sand Diggers.
I found a couple of good books at a nearby Mass Audubon sanctuary gift store. Our local bookstore didn’t really have any nature-themed picture books. So with the help of my librarian sister, I placed on online order for seven nature-themed picture books. Amazon was the only online bookseller who promised delivery in time for our trip to Maine; all I had to do was sign up for a month of free Prime “membership.” Of course, only one out of the books I ordered arrived before we left for Maine, typical of the poor customer service offered by Amazon. (Needless to say, I canceled my Prime “membership” before I had to actually start paying for that kind of poor service.)
Enough about Amazon, because this post is not about how horrible Amazon is. It’s a post about nine nature books for kids, all of which I think are pretty good. Capsule reviews of each book are below, with the best books saved for last.
Climate change has changed summer reading. It used to be that you’d find a book to read while you sat in the sun on the beach. In this climate-changed world, now you might find a book to read while you sit inside hoping that your house doesn’t flood. So today, while rain pounded on the roof of our apartment, I finished reading two books about bookstores, and started reading another one.
(There are some spoilers below. If that bothers you, proceed no further.)
Walking back to our campsite, I came across this beautiful garter snake. It was willing to sit still while I took a portrait photograph.
A musician friend just told me about Amidon Community Music, which offers a wide selection of SATB music. Many look suitable for use in UU congregations, and the website has testimonials from UU congregations. Prices are reasonable: US$5.00 for five copies. Of interest to congregations with a limited music budget, they also offers free sheet music downloads.
You have to enter your name, address, and email to access the free downloads; I haven’t yet taken the time to do that. But I’ve seen one of their arrangements, “Love Call Me Home” by Peggy Seeger, and it looks pretty good. My musician friend recommends everything they produce.
Alex, Patricia, Carol, and I took a walk toady across Saco Heath, a peat bog that’s owned by the Nature Conservancy. We walked most of the way across the boardwalk, stopping frequently to look at unusual wildflowers — wild cranberries, pogonias, bog orchids — and other plants.
The fog, low clouds, and light drizzle made it feel like an alien landscape. We wanted to spend more time there, but we only had an hour. Sometime I want to come back and spend half a day enjoying this unusual ecosystem.
Yet another news article about a religious group taking a public stand that homosexuality is sinful: the Christian Reformed Church in North America did so in its national meeting last month. Because of this stance, several open and affirming Christian Reformed Churches have to decide what to do. Do they disaffiliate, or kick out their openly LGTQ+ members and staff? The news article offers this insight:
“‘I think it’s because of the culture wars in the United States that the [Christian Reformed Church] synod has decided that they’re going to push this issue,’ said Henry DeMoor, a professor emeritus of church polity at Calvin Seminary who has watched the unfolding clash and belongs to another Christian Reformed Church in Grand Rapids. ‘It seems like we have divided the church, the way the Republicans and the Democrats divide politically.'”
Politics has long influenced US religious history. Back in the mid-nineteenth century, Protestant denominations split over the issue of slavery. Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, and other Protestant groups split because of differing views on slavery and anti-Black racism.
Today, we’re still seeing denominations splinter over approaches to anti-racism. The Southern Baptists have lost congregations over critical race theory (CRT). A US Catholic writer has written a book about how CRT cannot be reconciled with Catholic teaching (although other authors disagree). The Presbyterian Church of America has been accused by some of its adherents of “kneeling before the golden statue” of CRT. And the newly-formed North American Unitarian Association (NAUA) seems to have formed at least in part due to disagreements with the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) on the best approach to dealing with racism.
But — these days, denominations are also splintering over human sexuality. The United Methodist Church is losing something like one fifth of all its congregations over LGBTQ+ issues. The Southern Baptists just kicked out one of their largest congregations, Saddleback Church, because that congregation ordained women as pastors.
This leads us to an obvious conclusion:
Religion does not belong to some Platonic Realm of Truth which is somehow separate from daily life. Religion is thoroughly enmeshed in the ordinary concerns of day-to-day living. And right now, US society is deeply divided over how to address ongoing racism, and how to understand human sexuality. These deep divisions are going permeate every aspect of human society, including religious organizations.
Religion is of this world. For someone like me, this is a good thing because it means that religion is actually of use in dealing with day-to-day problems. But that also means religion is not going to be some idyllic oasis where you can escape from reality — religion may help you deal with reality, but it is not going to separate you from reality.