Richard Dawkins Admits That Religion ISN'T the Problem in the Mideast - and What the Problem Really Is

In reality, I don't think this is any kind of huge departure from what Dawkins (and Harris and Maher) have been saying all along - he still attributes the violence to their religious beliefs.

It's disappointing to see our supposed "intellectuals" getting caught up with the trees and totally missing the forest. The Muslim jihadists practice a specific form of Islam, and it has little to do with the religion itself and everything to do with the worldview from which it emerges. The same thing is true of their politics, their cultural customs (like dietary restrictions and marrying off girls when they still children), and their educational system (teaching only the Qur'an). Each of these (religion, politics, cultural customs, and education) are trees in the forest we call a worldview.

This is where the Spiral Dynamics model can actually be useful in understanding the situation. The spiral in Spiral Dynamics (the book) emerged from Clare Graves's original theory, which uses a double helix (looks like DNA) model to show the interrelatedness of an individual's perception of life conditions with their inner neuronal systems (psychosocial development), producing a level of psychological existence. In this model, a worldview is shaped by the interplay between life conditions and cognitive development.

If we really want to change things in the Middle East, we need to understand their worldview (or worldviews) and why it motivates them to do and believe that Jihad is the answer to their problems. If we can begin to understand that, then we might look to Clare Graves' original work on "change states" and the stages of change, as well as Robert Kegan's "Immunity to Change" model.

Shocker: Leading Atheist Richard Dawkins Finally Admits That Religion ISN'T the Problem in the Mideast

The statement from the evolutionary biologist is a parting of ways with atheists who claim that religion is the primary motivator for terrorist groups.

September 30, 2014  |  By Dan Arel

Is Richard Dawkins changing his tune on Islam and terrorism? In a recent interview with Russia Today, the evolutionary biologist and noted atheist was questioned about the Islamic religion and its ties to ISIS and just how much responsibility it bears in the brutal beheadings carried out by the terrorist group. Dawkins said:

“Religion itself is not responsible for this... It's also this feeling of political involvement. It's a feeling that it's 'us against them.' And I think that quite a large number of young Muslims feel kind of beleaguered against the rest of the world. And so religion in some sense might be just an excuse, but I do think that a dominant part of the motivation for these young men has to be religion."

Dawkins statement is a huge divergence from the opinions of atheists like Sam Harris and Bill Maher, who continue to claim that religion is the primary motivator for radical terrorist groups like ISIS.

Harris's anti-Islamic statements have been notable. Back in 2006, he posted a statement on his blog that bordered on xenophobia: “Unless liberals realize that there are tens of millions of people in the Muslim world who are far scarier than Dick Cheney, they will be unable to protect civilization from its genuine enemies."

Dawkins' remarks don't even jibe with earlier comments he made in a piece he wrote for the Guardian back in 2001 where he contradicted the claim that terrorists are cowards:

“On the contrary, they had sufficiently effective minds braced with an insane courage, and it would pay us mightily to understand where that courage came from. It came from religion. Religion is also, of course, the underlying source of the divisiveness in the Middle East, which motivated the use of this deadly weapon in the first place.”

But now Dawkins is saying that politics plays the larger role in such radical forms of unrest and that religion is little more than a pretext for terrorism. Many on the left have been saying this for some time. In a recent piece on AlterNet, C.J. Werleman came to the same conclusion after looking into the Suicide Terrorism Database:

“...though religion can play a vital role in the recruitment and motivation of potential future suicide bombers, their real driving-force is a cocktail of motivations including politics, humiliation, revenge, retaliation and altruism. The configuration of these motivations is related to the specific circumstances of the political conflict behind the rise of suicide attacks in different countries.”

When Dawkins was asked about the motivation behind the beheadings and violence, he took a more scientific look at the biological aspect of revenge:

"There is a kind of pseudo-tribalism which uses religion as a label. And I suspect that some of these people think that this hideous violence is vengeance against, say, America, for attacking Iraq or for forming alliances with, I don't know, with Israel, say. And this vengeance becomes directed towards innocent people. There's one British man who is threatened with execution now who is an aid worker, whose motivation is purely altruistic towards the people there. [Since the interview, British aid worker David Haines was executed by ISIS.] And yet he's been scapegoated as vengeance against the US and British governments. I think vengeance is a hideous emotion, but it is one that does have a biological basis.”

This is a much-needed step for new atheists like Dawkins, who have a following in the millions of people who look to him as an expert on such issues. When he had wrongfully blamed religion as the driving force for acts of terrorism, it did a disservice to those working to address the real issue behind the Middle East's problems; it's politics, especially bad foreign policy by the U.S. and its allies, that has always played a bigger role in extremism than religion.

Again, Werleman notes the impact of these policies:

“To maintain control of the Middle East’s cheap oil supplies, we [the U.S] have engaged in industrial slaughter. To achieve our ends, we have propped despotic regimes and brutal dictators, overthrown democratically elected governments, and waged three wars in two decades on Muslim soil. All while we fund and are complicit in Israel’s illegal occupation and theft of Palestinian land.”

Those like Harris seem to ignore this fact and would rather claim that these groups claim to carry out these actions in the name of Allah as proof that they are religiously motivated.

Not understanding this difference can have catastrophic results, especially since now the U.S and its allies are dropping bombs across Iraq and Syria and carrying out the same foreign policy strategy that typically breed groups like ISIS. It is easy for us to believe that we are carrying out an ethical battle against a religious evil, but to believe so is an illusion and ignores all available evidence.

Atheists often want to vilify religion so badly they fail to see the contrary evidence right in front of them. But ignoring the evidence just to serve an anti-theistic agenda does the world no favors. It is time for other new atheists to join Richard Dawkins in accepting the evidence behind the origins of such terrorist movements, and work to solve the problems instead of disparaging an entire religion.

Dan Arel is the author of Parenting Without God and blogs at Danthropology. Follow him on Twitter @danarel.

American's do not trust each other. A recent survey found that, compared to 46% in the 1970s, now only 33% believe they can trust their fellow citizens (in general). Distrust of the media has risen from 16% in the 1970s to nearly 48% today.

The whole study is paywalled, of course, but Pacific Standard offers a brief summary.

Trust Is Waning, and Inequality May Be to Blame

By Nathan Collins • September 30, 2014


(Photo: gregorywass/Flickr)

Trust in others and confidence in institutions is declining, while economic inequality creeps up, a new study shows.

•
Trust is on the decline in America. Between 1972 and 2012 Americans became less trusting of and less confident in not only government and the media, but also churches, doctors, business, and each other. And, according to a new report, increasing income inequality may be to blame.

Political scientists and sociologists have long wondered how, why, and even whether trust in government and other institutions changes over time. One theory, still taught today, is that the dramatic process of entering adulthood shapes a person’s social and political traits in a lasting way. Thus, citizens born during the Great Depression tend to embrace a more frugal lifestyle and often the welfare state as well, or so the theory goes. Scholars have argued more recently that traits like being frugal or trusting government are a matter of the zeitgeist, or perhaps a matter of one’s age. Whichever is true, questions remain. If it’s the times that affects trust, what is it about a particular period that makes people more or less willing to believe what others say?

Separating out the effects of age, birth year—cohort, it’s usually called—and survey year, it became clear that trust in others and confidence in institutions declined because of the times we were and are living in.

To sort it out, psychologists Jean Twenge, Keith Campbell, and Nathan Carter looked to data from the General Social Survey, or GSS, which since the 1970s has asked a total of 37,493 Americans questions about just about everything, including a range of questions about trust and confidence in other people and groups. In the early ’70s, 46 percent of Americans agreed that “most people can be trusted,” as the GSS posed the question. Between 2010 and 2012, however, those surveyed agreed with that statement just 33 percent of the time. Confidence declined by a similar amount. Only 16 percent of GSS respondents responded that they had “hardly any” confidence in the press when surveyed between 1972 and 1974, but that number nearly tripled by the 2010-12 survey.

More interesting than the raw numbers is the deeper story that the data tell. Separating out the effects of age, birth year—cohort, it’s usually called—and survey year, it became clear that trust in others and confidence in institutions declined because of the times we were and are living in. Cohort had some effects on confidence, and trust increased with age, but the data indicated something about the zeitgeist was powering the decline in trust and confidence.

That something, the team argues, is the economy. Greater income inequality, the team found, was correlated with lower trust in others, while greater poverty, more violent crime, and an improving stock market were linked with less confidence in institutions.

In an email, Carter told Pacific Standard that the team is “very interested” in how psychology and economics interact through what Depression-era economist John Maynard Keynes called “animal spirits,” spontaneous, sometimes irrational drives to economic or financial action, “which have unfortunately seen very little serious attention from either psychologists or economists.”

“I really think it will take a concerted effort for collaboration across economics and psychology to get a handle on how psychological states impact economies and vice versa,” Carter says.



Nathan Collins studied astrophysics and political science before realizing he wanted to learn about all of the science without worrying about tenure. In his second life as a freelance science writer, he’s written for Scientific American, New Scientist, and others.

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Omnivore - A Post-Secular World Society?

From Bookforum's Omnivore blog, this link collection looks at the role of religion in a post-secular world. The articles linked to here pose a tension between religious freedom and social freedom, which are often at odds (especially in the United States).

A post-secular world society

Sep 23 2014
3:00PM

• A new issue of the Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies is out. 
• From Partecipazione e Conflitto, a special issue on Paths of Research in Religion and Politics. 
• Erica J. Mannucci (UNIMIB): Crossing Boundaries: Cosmopolitanism, Secularism and Words in the Age of Revolutions. 
• Josef Hien (Carlo Alberto): The Return of Religion? The Paradox of Faith-Based Welfare Provision in a Secular Age. 
• Larry Cata Backer (Penn State): The Crisis of Secular Liberalism and the Constitutional State in Comparative Perspective: Religion, Rule of Law, and Democratic Organization of Religion Privileging States. 
• Daniel Philpott (Notre Dame): The Religious Freedom Project: Religious Liberty, Democracy, and Societal Flourishing in Theory and Practice. 
• Francois Boucher (UCL): Freedom of Religion and Freedom of Conscience in Postsecular Societies. 
• Brandy G. Robinson on religiosity in constitutions and the status of minority rights. 
• Gregorio Bettiza (EUI) and Filippo Dionigi (LSE): How Do Religious Norms Diffuse? Institutional Translation and International Change in a Post-secular World Society. 
• Christa Rautenbach (North-West): The Modern-Day Impact of Cultural and Religious Diversity: "Managing Family Justice in Diverse Societies". 
• Klaus Prettner and Holger Strulik (Gottingen): It's a Sin: Contraceptive Use, Religious Beliefs, and Long-Run Economic Development. 
• Carl Mosk (Victoria): Refugees and Religion: The Anatomy of Religion Traps. 
• Anthony Gill (UCLA): Religious Liberty and Economic Development: Exploring the Causal Connections. 
• Matthew Isaacs (Brandeis): Does Religion Cause Violence? An Examination of Ethnic Mobilization, 1960-2012. 
• Jerry A. Coyne on how the Catholic Church prefers medieval barbarism to modern abortion. 
• The introduction to Religious Actors and International Law by Ioana Cismas. 
• Conrad Hackett and Joseph Naylor on how many religions are heavily concentrated in one or two countries.

In this episode of Larry King Live, Gus Holwerda (film maker) Dr. Lawrence Krauss (American theoretical physicist) - who created the film The Unbelievers - were joined by Michael Beckwith (American new thought minister & author), Christian actor David A. R. White, and Jay Bakker (pastor, speaker and author).

Nothing new here - but it's interesting to hear Beckwith spar with Krauss. It's also interesting to hear Jay, the son of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, talk about faith vs. belief (dude has some serious tats).  I'd like to see the film Krauss helped make, The Unbelievers: What Are You Willing to Believe?

This aired on August 20, 2014.

The State of Faith in America Panel with Larry King

According to a recent Pew Research Center poll, religious disaffiliation in the U.S. is at an all-time high. A panel of religious leaders and nonbelievers joined Larry King on his Emmy Nominated show Larry King Now to discuss this trend and what it means for the future of faith in America.

The Unbelievers is a film directed by Gus Holwerda featuring Lawrence Krauss (American theoretical physicist) where they traveled across the globe speaking publicly about the importance of science and reason as opposed to religion and superstition. Both Gus and Lawrence were joined by Michael Beckwith (American new thought minister & author), Christian actor David A. R. White & Jay Bakker (pastor, speaker and author) on this recent episode of Larry King Now.

During the panel the religious leaders and nonbelievers evaluated the presence of religion, or lack thereof in Hollywood. "Sex, violence, and religion. Those will sell, and I think Hollywood cares about what’s going to sell. I don’t think they have an agenda, except making money. Religion is a guaranteed way of making money in Hollywood," Lawrence Krauss remarked.

Physicist Dr. Lawrence Krauss also discussed the public's perception of atheists and claims that a research study finds that atheists are viewed in the same vein as rapists. Whereas American New Thought Minister Dr. Michael Beckwith weighed in on why much of the world’s unrest is derived from religion.

• The episode is now LIVE on Ora.tv and Hulu.com (episodes premiere daily 5pm EST)
• To watch the interview, click here: http://on.ora.tv/1pbUUyl

Clips:

Are Atheists Viewed In The Same Vein As Rapists?
Physicist Dr. Lawrence Krauss discusses the public's perception of atheists, and claims that a research study finds that atheists are viewed in the same vein as rapists.

I’d Call Myself A Christian Agnostic
Jay Bakker, son of famed televangelists Tammy Faye & Jim Bakker, discusses his progressive outlook on religion & what his popular “Emerging Church Movement” stands for.

Why The Decline In Religion?
Larry’s panel of believers and nonbelievers analyzes a recent Pew Study that says religious disaffiliation is at an all-time high in America.

Surface Level Believers Are Those Who Fight
American New Thought Minister Dr. Michael Beckwith weighs in on why much of the world’s unrest is derived from religion.

Religion Is A Guaranteed Way Of Making Money In Hollywood
Larry’s panel of religious leaders and nonbelievers evaluates the presence of religion, or lack thereof, in Hollywood.

Quotes:

LAWRENCE KRAUSS
"I just ask questions and I want people to think for themselves. And just asking, 'Maybe we don't need a god'—you get called a strident atheist. And somehow that's viewed in our society as a bad thing, for asking questions. But asking questions is what it's all about." — on society being quick to label and write off atheists

"This cosmic Saddam Hussein—if you do something he doesn't like, it's not as if he just tortures you for a few years. It's for all eternity. That doesn't seem to be love." — on the Christian god being a "loving" god

"You cannot, in this current time, say you're an atheist." — on the impossibility of electing an openly atheist president

"The Bible was written, basically, before people knew anything." — on whether the Bible is reputable

GUS HOLWERDA
"I could never buy into it. It was never something I could believe in, so I cast it off at an early age." — on choosing to be atheist

"You can't, with one hand, use science and reason to defend your position about god, and with the other hand, say that the laws of nature can be suspended any time there's a miracle."

MICHAEL BECKWITH
"I had the record for converting Christians to atheism on our college campus."

"I had an encounter with what I call 'love-beauty.' I didn't call it 'god' because I didn't believe in god. The presence was so profound and so real that it altered my character. I can use the word 'god' again, but it's not the god you read about in the Quran or the Bible."

"When I use the word 'spirituality,' I'm speaking of verities like love and peace and harmony and beauty. Those are spiritual qualities. [...] when they become active in you, your character changes."

"If you remain at the surface of just being a believer, a zealot, 'I just believe this' on the surface, then you think that your religion is better than another person’s religion. You’ll fight for religion. But if you actually practice your religion, you don’t end up fighting or thinking yours is better." — on truly practicing religion versus accepting it on the surface

"The Bible, to me, is an evolution of human consciousness. We don't call it the word of god. We call it people who were inspired by the presence of god."

DAVID A. R. WHITE
"I've never wavered from knowing, at the end of the day, where I'm going and is there a god." — on his faith

"I gain my faith, my belief, from what the Bible says about god. Ultimately, Christianity is about a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. That's what it's really about."

JAY BAKKER
"Christians are doing enough to destroy themselves just by going against each other over theologies. [...] I'm not really worried about the new atheists as much as I am other Christians."

RSA - What Kind of Love Do We Need?

This is a video/talk from The RSA's series on reconceptualizing spirituality for the 21st Century. Previously in the series, they have looked at what it might mean to 'take spirituality seriously', the role of the body in spiritual experience, what sense can be made of the soul in a scientific age, and the importance of reflecting on our mortality. 

In this penultimate event in this series, Simon May, Devorah Baum, Mark Vernon, moderator Jonathan Rowson examine an experience and ideal that many believe has to be at the heart of any reappraisal of the spiritual: Love.

What Kind of Love Do We Need?

17th Jul 2014

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(full recording including audience Q&A)
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All you need is love, said the Beatles, but is that right? And if it is, what kind of love do we need? Popular culture is awash with the excitement and drama of romantic love, but psychology, philosophy and other forms of inquiry reveal a much richer, broader, deeper and sometimes challenging notion of love.

For instance, many believe the global reach of Christianity is related to the central importance it places on love, but Simon May has written that we have inverted 'God is Love' to create a world in which 'Love is God'.

Are we now, in what Rowan Williams recently called a Post-Christian Society, still striving for a certain kind of love? And if so, what might it feel like to find it?

In this series on reconceiving spirituality, we have explored what it might mean to 'take spirituality seriously', the role of the body in spiritual experience, what sense we can make of the soul in a scientific age, and the importance of reflecting on our mortality. Join us for the penultimate event in this series, when we examine an experience and ideal that many believe has to be at the heart of any reappraisal of the spiritual: Love.

Speakers:  

Simon May, visiting professor of philosophy, Kings College London and author of 'Love: A History'
Mark Vernon, writer, journalist and author of 'Love: All That Matters'
Dr Devorah Baum, lecturer in English, University of Southampton.

Chair: Jonathan Rowson, director, RSA Social Brain Centre.

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Speakers

• Simon May
• Devorah Baum
• Mark Vernon
• Jonathan Rowson

Is God Irrelevant - Atheism and Belief

From Bookforum's Omnivore blog comes this interesting assortment of links on all things atheism and faith. One of the highlights is a Julian Baggini review (in The Guardian) of Atheists: The Origin of the Species by Nick Spencer.

Another interesting link is from Steven Douglas Smith (University of San Diego School of Law), Is God Irrelevant?  Here's the abstract:

This essay, written for a symposium on Ronald Dworkin’s recent posthumous book Religion Without God, argues that Dworkin misunderstands the way theists typically think God relates to “morality.” The essay sketches a subjectivist (or “super-subjectivist”) account of morality that arguably better fits the understanding of believers in the biblical tradition than does Dworkin’s more objectivist account.

There are other good links as well.

God irrelevant

Jun 2 2014
9:00AM

• Justin Remes (Oakland): “That Man Behind the Curtain”: Atheism and Belief in The Wizard of Oz. 
• C'Zar Bernstein (FSU): Is God's Existence Possible? 
• David Kyle Johnson (King’s): Why Religious Experience Can't Justify Religious Belief; and Justified Belief in Miracles is Impossible. 
• Steven Douglas Smith (San Diego): Is God Irrelevant? 
• Steven Kettell (Warwick): Faithless: The Politics of New Atheism. 
• Carl Mosk (Victoria): Is There a Religion Trap? Atheism, Agnosticism, and Innovation. 
• Gary Gutting interviews Louise Antony, editor of Philosophers Without Gods: Meditations on Atheism and the Secular Life. 
• Can merit be found in the “defective father hypothesis"? Stephen Padilla on a psychology of atheism. 
• Emma Green on the intellectual snobbery of conspicuous atheism: Beyond the argument that faith in God is irrational — and therefore illegitimate. 
• There are more reasons than ever why God isn't necessary: An excerpt from Mental Biology: The New Science of How the Brain and Mind Relate by W.R. Klemm. 
• From TNR, a failed argument for God: Jerry Coyne reviews The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss by David Bentley Hart; how religious people keep trying to say God and science are compatible — and they keep being wrong; how atheists could learn a lot from religious people about how to win debates; and on the atheists' case for fighting poverty: Religiosity, social dysfunction linked in Pew study. 
• Why do many religious believers want to silence atheists? Greta Christina wants to know. 
• Julian Baggini reviews Atheists: The Origin of the Species by Nick Spencer. 
• God is dead, what next? Alasdair Craig on searching for meaning in the age of atheism.

Investigating Belief on NPR's To the Best of Our Knowledge (TTBOOK)

This week's episode of To the Best of Our Knowledge on NPR focused on investigating how and why we believe, the psychology and brain chemistry behind our beliefs.

Investigating Belief

To the Best of Our Knowledge | 06.01.2014

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You know the earth is round, the sky is up, and your dog loves you. But HOW do you know those things? This week, how we form opinions – the psychology and brain chemistry behind our beliefs.


You & Your Brain - Julian Keenan

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It turns out that even the most basic things we believe about ourselves are often wrong. Neuroscientist Julian Keenan says it has to do with how the brain works. He’s the author of the “Face in the Mirror: How We Know Who We Are.”

* * * * *

Sonic Sidebar: The Political Divide

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Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt says despite what we believe, our political beliefs aren't always as well reasoned as we think.

* * * * *

Irrational Beliefs - Will Storr

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Ever wonder how we form beliefs in the first place? Journalist Will Storr tried to find out in his book, “The Unpersuadables.” In it, he follows Holocaust deniers, climate change skeptics, and conspiracy theorists to find out how seemingly intelligent people can hold unconventional, even irrational beliefs.

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Charting Religious Traditions - Karen Armstrong

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Karen Armstrong is the author of nearly 20 books on religion. She tells Steve Paulson that traditions from Confucianism to Judaism emerged as responses to the rampant violence of their time. And she says our own time has a lot in common with that age.

* * * * *

Dangerous Idea: American Exceptionalism

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Harvey Kaye's Dangerous Idea? Re-discovering the true meaning of American Exceptionalism.

* * * * *

On Our Minds: Tiananmen Square

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June 4 marks the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown. To find out how Chinese dissidents have fared since then, we’re revisiting an interview with historian Ian Buruma. He’s the author of "Bad Elements: Chinese Rebels from Los Angeles to Beijing."

 Related Books:

The Face in the Mirror: How We Know Who We Are
(Julian Keenan, Gordon G. Gallup, Dean Falk)


The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion
(Jonathan Haidt)


The Unpersuadables: Adventures with the Enemies of Science
(Will Storr)


The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions
(Karen Armstrong)


The Fight for the Four Freedoms: What Made FDR and the Greatest Generation Truly Great
(Harvey J. Kaye)


Bad Elements: Chinese Rebels from Los Angeles to Beijing
(Ian Buruma)

Incidental Music:

• Drift Along - Takenobu 
• A Hero's Welcome - Takenobu 
• Morning - Beck 
• Avril 14 - Aphex Twin 
• A Tender History in Rust - Do Make Say Think

W.R. Klemm - Our Godless Brains: Emerging Science Reveals Mind-Blowing Alternatives to a Higher Power

 

From Salon, here is an excerpt from W.R. Klemm's new book, Mental Biology: The New Science of How the Brain and Mind Relate (2014).

Here is the text from the publisher to promote the book:

How the mysterious three-pound organ in our heads creates the rich array of human mental experience, including the sense of self and consciousness, is one of the great challenges of 21st-century science. Veteran neuroscientist W. R. Klemm presents the latest research findings on this elusive brain-mind connection in a lucidly presented, accessible, and engaging narrative.

The author focuses on how mind emerges from nerve-impulse patterns in the densely-packed neural circuits that make up most of the brain, suggesting that conscious mind can be viewed as a sort of neural-activity-based avatar. As an entity in its own right, mind on the conscious level can have significant independent action, shaping the brain that sustains it through its plans, goals, interests, and interactions with the world. Thus, in a very literal sense, we become what we think.

Against researchers who argue that conscious mind is merely a passive observer and free will an illusion, the author presents evidence showing that mental creativity, freedom to act, and personal responsibility are very real. He also delves into the role of dream sleep in both animals and humans, and explains the brain-based differences between nonconscious, unconscious, and conscious minds.

Written in a jargon-free style understandable to the lay reader, this is a fascinating synthesis of recent neuroscience and intriguing hypotheses.

From SciBooks - What's New in Science Books (timely reviews of new science books):

“Against researchers who argue that conscious mind is merely a passive observer and free will an illusion, the author presents evidence showing that mental creativity, freedom to act, and personal responsibility are very real.”

 Give it a read and see what you think - I am a bit underwhelmed by this excerpt.

Our godless brains: Emerging science reveals mind-blowing alternatives to a higher power

Science has yet to uncover many mysteries of the mind. But there are more reasons than ever why God isn't necessary

W.R. Klemm
Saturday, Apr 26, 2014

 

(Credit: akindo via iStock)

• Excerpted from Mental Biology: The New Science of How the Brain and Mind Relate

Physics is the mother science. As such, it holds the greatest power for discovering the true nature of the universe and life within it. Physicists these days seem preoccupied with astronomical issues, such as the origin and ultimate fate of the universe. But some physicists venture into the realm of biology, claiming that their unique experimental and mathematical skills give them special insight into matters of life and death.

I just hate it when physicists write about biology. They sometimes say uninformed and silly things. But I hate it just as much when I write about physics, for I too am liable to say uninformed and silly things—as I may well do here.

To digress briefly, I am reminded of the communication gap between people of science and everybody else, as so powerfully discussed by C. P. Snow in his classic book “Two Cultures.” These days, within science there are also two cultures: physical science and biological science, and they don’t always speak the same language. The language of physics, for example, relies heavily on mathematics, which is rarely mastered by biologists.

For most of my career, biology was generally considered a “soft” science, unworthy of the same stature as physics and chemistry. The discovery of DNA structure gave biology new respect in the “hard science” community because DNA is simple, as clearly explainable as chemistry, and easy to measure with mathematics. But the rest of biology is still a second-class science. I remember my College-of-Science dean, a nuclear physicist, refused to allow me to offer a course in sociobiology, based on E. O. Wilson’s classic text, because the he did not consider such studies to be real science. He also objected to my publishing with experimental economists on the same grounds.

It’s hard for biologists to argue with physicists. Often physicists listen with detached bemusement because biologists can’t explain life with mathematics. Physics could not exist without math. Sometimes I think physicists get too enamored with math. I get the impression that they think that describing and predicting phenomena with equations is the same as explaining why and how such phenomena occur. Take the most famous equation of all, E = mc2. Just what does that equal sign mean? It implies that the variables on each side are the same. But is mass really identical to energy? True, mass can be converted to energy, as atom bombs prove, and energy can even be turned into mass. Still, they are not the same things. Not only are the units of measurement different, but the equation is only descriptive and predictive. It does not explain how mass converts to energy or vice versa.

The limits of math become more troublesome when physicists try to explain the origin of the universe. Math does not really explain how a universe can exist without a first cause. True, physicists invoke the “big bang,” a massive explosion of supercondensed matter. They call this the “singularity,” as if that explains things any better. Whatever words, or math, they use, they cannot explain what created the supercondensed mass in the first place. Where did that mass come from? If it was created by energy, where did that come from? You can see that such questions create an infinite loop of effects that have a cause. Scientists call this “infinite regression,” which is an untenable way to explain anything.

Even if you invoke the idea of a creator god, where did that god come from? So, you see, physicists and the rest of us are stuck with the unsatisfying conclusion that something can be created from nothing. I have only read one explanation for how this might happen, which I will discuss shortly, but it makes no sense to me.

Surely, many mysteries of the universe and of life itself are well hidden. Science is in the business of revealing hidden realities. What we call religious beliefs may be among those realities. Maybe we should revisit the view of the ancient Greek philosophers who held that there is “true” reality hidden by what we think is reality.

Today, physicists are starting to see previously unseen realities, as I am about to summarize. Such unseen realities may well include unknown kinds of matter and energy that give rise to mind. Maybe there is a counterpart mind, operating in parallel in a way that electrodes and amplifiers or magnetic imaging scanners cannot detect.

Only a few neuroscientists argue that the human mind is not materialistic. Neuroscientist Mario Beauregard and journalist Denyse O’Leary have written a whole book to argue the point. Their “Spiritual Brain” documents many apparent mystical experiences. These authors use the existence of such mental phenomena as intuition, will power, and the medical placebo effect to argue that mind is spiritual, not material. None of this is proof that such experiences have no material basis. Their argument seems specious. They have no clear definition of spirit, and they do not explain how spirit can change neuronal activity or how neuronal activity translates into spirit. They dismiss that the mind can affect the brain because it originates in the brain and can modify and program neural processes because mind itself consists of neural process.

Sometimes we don’t see hidden realities even when they are right under our nose. Consider water, for example, which before the advent of science was grossly misunderstood. Now we can explain how water exists in several states: liquid, vapor, solid. You and I are mostly water. My point is that our mental essence may also exist in several states. At the moment, the only one you and I know about is the state of nerve impulse patterns. Just as water has no way to know which state it is in, I (so far at least) can only know about my impulse-pattern state.

By now readers know brains make sense (pun intended). That is, we know enough about the brain to know that conscious mind may someday be explained by science. We already know enough about the nonconscious mind of the brainstem and spinal cord to realize that what we call mind has a material basis that can be explained by science. Science may someday be able to examine what we today call spiritual matters. Consider the possibility that “spirit” is actually some physical property that scientists do not yet understand.

The idea of a material, biological basis of conscious mind may be offensive to those who believe in the mysteries of the soul and eternity. After all, many people of faith refuse to accept science’s doctrine of evolution. To these believers we could say that one of the least mysterious ways God works in the world is through the laws of chemistry and physics that govern the universe and all living things. Even God has to have methods for doing things. Educated believers surely have to admit the possibility that God created these laws as a way to create the universe and even the human mind. Otherwise, from that perspective, what are the laws for? Nobody knows how these laws came to be or why they exist.

Many scientists are not sanguine about their belief in a material mind. For example, one scientist-engineer, Paul Nunez, has suggested that some yet to-be-discovered information field might interact with brains such that brains act like a kind of “antenna,” analogous to the way the retina of the eye can be thought of as an antenna that detects the part of the electromagnetic spectrum we call light.

To me, other possibilities for discovering material attributes of “spirit” seem more likely. Modern physics, especially quantum mechanics and the theories of relativity, dark matter, and dark energy, has already shown that not even physicists understand what “material” is. I will now summarize the more likely possibilities for hidden realities of mind.

Quantum Mechanics (QM). Quantum mechanics is so weird that Einstein called it “spooky science.” Ironically, there remains a spooky weirdness in Einstein’s own relativity theories, which I will get to momentarily.

The heart of the QM enigma lies in the apparent fact that subatomic particles can be in two places at the same time. But that is not quite correct. What has been demonstrated experimentally is that photons or electrons can have characteristics of both waves and particles at the same time. Where the wave and/or particle is located depends on whether or not its location is pinned down by observation. That observation includes instruments, not just the human eye.

Moreover, the waves are actually mathematical wave functions of the probability of where a particle is located. The shape of the probability of the wave function as it evolves can actually be quantified by the so-called Schrödinger equation. When we observe where a particle is located, the probability function “collapses,” going from zero percent probability for all the locations where the part is not found to 100 percent for the place where it is observed.

But beyond the math, some particles, like photons, are clearly waves that oscillate at particular frequencies. The physics community was rocked in the 1920s by experiments that showed that electrons, known at the time to be subatomic particles, behaved like common waves, interfering with each other when their waves overlapped, much as two ripples in water do as the ripples move into each other. Electron interference seems to depend on a wave from one place crossing another wave from another place. How can that be? Max Born in 1927 found the answer: the waves are not physical waves but probability waves. Specifically, the size of a probability wave at any given point of location is proportional to the probability that the electron is located at that location. Stated in another way, the wave function tells us the probability of finding a particle at any given point of space. A profound consequence is that the probability wave applies to all locations in the universe.

Some of the experimentally demonstrable spooky things about QM include a seeming influence on elementary particles from distant parts of the universe with no time delay (called entanglement), particles jumping from one place to another without ever locating in places in between like successive frames in a motion picture (called tunneling), that particles can be in more than one place at the same time, and that the behavior of a particle is governed by its being observed or measured impersonally by instruments.

Knowing about QM is not the same as understanding it. Even Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, a bedrock of QM theory, has recently been called into question.

A key enigma in QM is that we can only observe a tiny subset of what actually exists. In QM theory, you can’t make a complete observation, even remotely with instruments, of an object or event without disrupting its actual existence. The location of an object, for example, is one of several states: it may here or several places there. But in QM these states are specified as wave functions, not “here” or “there.” Wave functions are probability statements. The object has, for example, a 75 percent chance of being in one place and a 25 percent change of being in another. Where it actually is depends on whether or not we detect its location. This is confusing I know, but I will let physicists do the apologizing.

To date, there is no compelling evidence that QM operates at levels beyond subatomic particles. But how can we be sure? QM might even be a basis for what we would otherwise think of as nonmaterial consciousness. Indeed, views on QM consciousness are published in scientific journals, and one journal is devoted exclusively to QM consciousness.

The most recent idea I have read is that Shannon’s information theory lies at the heart of QM and can explain how something can emerge from nothing. Information, quantified as “bits” (0 and 1) is inversely proportional to the probability of an occurrence (with probability measured on a logarithmic scale). I always wonder why physical scientists like to express things in inverse relationships. Anyway, the equation says that “information” has only two properties: an event and its probability of happening. The equation applies to any kind of event, from occurrences today to the moment the universe came into being.

Moreover, the amount of information contained in an event is directly proportional to how unlikely it is to occur. Unlikely events do happen, and their rarity gives them the most information.

Physicist Vlatko Vedral, in his “Decoding Reality,” asserts that QM can resolve disputes over whether the world is random or deterministic. The enigma is that quantum events are random, but large objects behave deterministically (that is, are effects with causes). The key point is that quantum events can also be deterministic (quantified by the Schrödinger equation). For example, experiments using a beam-splitter mirror show that a photon can seem to be in two places at the same time (that is, that it has gone through the mirror and has also been reflected by it). But when you try to detect where the photon is, it will randomly appear in only one place (behind the mirror or in front of it). The mere act of observing, even if you do it indirectly with some kind of instrument, affects where the photon is. If that is not spooky, what is?

The corollary is that this science seems to suggest that we humans create reality by observation. This point of view is philosophical solipsism, which was championed by Walter Seegers in a book chapter he wrote for an earlier book of mine. Seegers was a pioneer in the discovery of many of the mechanisms of blood clotting. Along the way, he came to the philosophical conclusion that science does not exist except in our own minds. He approvingly quotes Arthur Eddington, “We have found a strange footprint on the shores of the unknown. We have devised profound theories, one after another, to account for its origin. At last we have succeeded in reconstructing the creature that made the footprint. And Lo! It is our own.” In the solipsistic view, the conscious sense of self discussed earlier now has a new dimension beyond developing events along the continuum of womb to tomb.

Vedral’s view of reality is a little different. He has not explicitly integrated QM into solipsism, nor has anybody else as far as I know. But some of the ideas seem related. Vedral’s main point is that random events can exist as a deterministic reality when they occur without being detected—as was likely the case at the birth of the universe when there was presumably nothing around to do the detecting. Today’s reality is supposedly created by our observation, either directly or remotely via instrumentation.

QM gives a new dimension to information theory, for now quantification can be done in terms of “qubits,” which can exist in multiple states as any combination of yes or no, on or off, and the like. This view of reality assumes the universe is digital. But my experience with biology, especially brain function, is that life is analog. Analog properties vary continuously, not as digital events of on or off. We use digital sampling and measurement of life events as a convenience. In fact, it is so convenient that we come to mistakenly believe that the world really is digital.

The first thing that qubits have to explain is the first law of thermodynamics, which says that energy—and by extension, matter—cannot be created from nothing. The universe supposedly arose from the big bang explosion of supercondensed matter. Where did that matter come from? To explain the inexplicable, Vedral speculates that subatomic particles exist only as the labels we use to describe the outcomes of experimental observations. He claims that “any particle of matter . . . is defined with respect to an intricate procedure that is used to detect it.” If particles only exist in the presence of a detector, then the nothingness of the pre-universe developed a reality only when something that could detect a reality appeared. Sounds like gibberish to me. What was that first detector? Where and how did it appear?

There are multiple scholars who think consciousness may someday be explained by QM. With great trepidation, as a biologist suggesting to physicists how to study this matter, I would advise focusing on the wave function aspects of QM. Brain electrical currents, which are the currency of thought, still have magnetic properties, even though the current is carried by ions not electrons. There are sophisticated imaging devices that can monitor such magnetic fields, and they are used to produce a magnetoencephalogram.

Relativity. Einstein never came to grips with QM. I’ve had physicists tell me that had Einstein seen the evidence gathered since his death, he would surely have become a believer in what he had called “spooky science.” Yet Einstein’s own discoveries have their own spookiness. His theories have stood such a long test of time that some scientists are lured into thinking they understand relativity better than they actually do.

Most people know that Einstein discovered relativity. First, there was special relativity, which held that time is a fourth dimension that is relative depending on the location and speed of objects used as a frame of reference, that increasing speed of an object causes time to slow down, and that the only constant time is the speed of light. And of course there is the famous E = mc2 equation that holds that mass and energy are interconvertible. Most of these seemingly wild ideas have been experimentally verified.

But nobody talks about the possible relevance of these ideas to brain function and consciousness. Of course, relativity effects are measurable only at high speeds. Does anything in the brain moves at high speeds? What about the propagation of voltage fields associated with nerve impulses? The brain does have a high-speed passive spread of voltage fields from multiple moving ionic currents.

Also, what about the energy generated as electrons whip through protein chains in mitochondria? Only some of the energy is trapped in phosphate bonds of adenosine triphosphate. We assume that all the other energy is lost as heat. How can we be sure relativity is irrelevant to energy capture? Energy is well established as crucial for consciousness.

Many years later Einstein added variable movements and gravity to his theory to produce the general theory of relativity. In this perspective, time and space are wedded in an inseparable space-time continuum in which space is filled with the gravitational forces of stars and earths that cause space to bend and stretch “the fabric” of space-time. Think of space as a three-dimensional rubber sheet that is bent where bowling balls (stars and planets) occur within it. We think we know what this means on cosmic scales. What does it mean at the level of cells in the brain and the microgravity of their cellular mass and the time course of their chemical activities?

An added complication is that recent research confirms Einstein’s original conjecture that gravity exists as ripples in the curvature of space-time that propagate as a wave, traveling outward from the source. Thus, we should think of gravity radiation as a form of energy release by objects with mass. There is a group at my own Texas A & M University actively engaged in study of such radiation.

But all studies of gravity radiation are done at the macro level of the universe. Does not our own body have mass? The molecules within our body have mass. Do they not have microgravity radiation? If so, what does such radiation do? Gravity waves oscillate, in theory at a variety of frequencies. Could this have anything to do with rhythms in the brain? Most scientists would probably discount such possibilities because gravity waves are so weak. But the ones we study, from distant galaxies, are weak because they are so far away. The mass in our body may emit weak gravity that is close at hand.

Moreover, think about the implications of general relativity’s “continuum.” That implies infinity. Our being and life locate on this space-time continuum. Maybe death is just one (temporary) point on the continuum.

String Theory. Physicists agree that relativity and quantum mechanics are in conflict, yet both theories stand on solid experimental ground. A major thrust of physics research today is devoted to finding how to reconcile these two views of the universe. String Theory is one of several mathematical approaches to resolving the conflicts. String theory holds that ultimate reality exists not as particles but as miniscule vibrating “strings” whose oscillations give rise to all the particles and energy in the universe and—nobody mentions—in our brain! The requirement for oscillation in vibrating strings should resonate with our emerging understanding of the role of oscillation in brain function and also with what was said above about gravity waves. What information is contained in the vibrating strings inside the atomic particles of neurons? Where did the vibrating strings come from? If string theory is correct, it will likely have great explanatory power for all living matter.

Parallel universes. Mathematically, string theory only works correctly if there are 11 dimensions or “universes.” If there are such parallel universes, where are they “out there?” Some physicists imagine our universe like an expanding bubble inside a froth of space that is spawning multiple universe bubbles. Moreover, like foam in beer, each bubble might contain some portion of the properties of the parent source of froth.

Does the matter of our bodies simultaneously exist in more than one universe? Can bubbles in the froth of multiple universes interact, perhaps through quantum entanglement, or even coalesce? Perhaps what happens in our own inner universe of the brain is mirrored in another universe.

These esoteric ideas are gradually coming within the scope of experimental science. The new Large Hadron Collider particle accelerator on the Swiss-French border is designed to test string theory among other things. If the theory is correct, the collider should generate a host of exotic particles we never knew existed. One example is the Higgs boson, tentatively confirmed in 2013.

Another line of evidence might come from the Planck satellite to be launched by the European space satellite consortium. Some string-theory models predict that there is a specific geometry in space that will bend light in specific ways that the satellite is designed to detect.

String theory is not accepted by all physicists. But most agree that the known facts of physics do not fit any alternative unifying theory. Whatever theory emerges from accumulating evidence, it will, like Darwin’s theory of evolution, revolutionize our thinking about the world and our life.

Dark matter. One of those parallel universes may be right under our nose. I’m talking about the massive amount of “dark matter,” which astronomers believe to have mass because they see light being bent, presumably by gravity. This light bending occurs in regions of space where there is no observable matter to generate the gravitational force. This unseen matter is also inferred because it is the only known way to account for the rotational speed of galaxies, the orbital speed of galaxies in clusters, and the temperature distribution of hot gas in galaxies.

Last Spring, a fifteen-month census of the universe’s matter by the European Space Agency calculated that this invisible matter accounts for 26.8 percent of the universe and that our ordinary matter accounts for only 4.6 percent. Everything else is energy.

Another thing to ponder: galaxies differ in their amount of dark matter, depending on the size of the galaxy. The really interesting questions deal with possible interactions of dark matter and detectable matter. Are they totally independent? Or do they interact in some way we don’t know about?

If dark matter is spread around the universe, and living things are created out of the matter of the universe, shouldn’t some dark matter reside inside of us? Are properties of regular matter mirrored in dark matter? Is any part of us mirrored in dark matter? Similar questions could be asked about dark energy. 

Dark energy. In 1998, two teams of researchers deduced from observing exploding stars that the universe is not only expanding but doing so at an accelerating rate. Forces of gravity should be slowing down expansion, and indeed they do seem to hold each galaxy together. But the galaxies are flying away from each other at incredible, accelerating speed.

Think of the “big bang” theory as a supercondensed hand grenade, which when it explodes sends shrapnel in all directions. The difference is that when the universe was born the pieces of its shrapnel (stars and planets, organized as galaxies) started accelerating as they moved apart.

The only sensible way to explain accelerating expansion is to invoke a form of energy, a “dark” energy that we don’t otherwise know how to observe, that is pushing galaxies farther apart in a nonlinear way. Clearly, this dark energy is by far the most powerful force in the universe.

Why wouldn’t some of that dark energy be within us? If so, it would obviously have to be present in relatively miniscule amounts, lest we blow up. All that we know is that energy has to be absorbed by its target to have any effect. When we get a sun burn, for example, enough of the sun’s energy is absorbed in our skin to damage it. In the case of radiation, like x-rays and gamma rays, the absorption is ionizing: that is, electrons are knocked out of atoms as the energy is absorbed, leaving positive ions in the wake. An x-ray print shows the image created as a result of the rays that passed through your tissue hitting the photosensitive molecules in the film to darken them. Bone, for example, appears white because it is more likely to absorb x-rays and not allow them access to the photographic plate. Gamma rays have much more energy, and when they are absorbed by tissue they can cause greater damage, even setting up DNA changes that can lead to cancer.

So what about dark energy? To push galaxies apart, it must impart some of its energy to the cluster of stars and planets to give them a push. What must dark energy be doing to us? Obviously, its push is not greater than the gravity that keeps us fixed to earth. But if that energy is absorbed by the galaxy, surely some of it must be absorbed in us. But what could such absorption do? Would such dark energy interact with the regular energy that we know about—like the energy in our brain? Could it act on consciousness?

There are still larger questions. Science is still trying to explain how ordinary matter and energy arose from the “big bang.” Science does not even know how to start investigating where dark matter and dark energy came from.

Excerpted from “Mental Biology: The New Science of How the Brain and Mind Relate” by W.R. Klemm (Prometheus Books, © 2014). Reprinted by permission of the publisher. 

More W.R. Klemm.

This is excellent article that outlines why religious organizations make the perfect home for predators. The most common example, and one used in the article, are the priests who molested so many children over the last several decades.

However, there are also lower profile situations we all have encountered. Dennis Merzel lost his sangha as a result of his predatory behavior with female students. And most notorious in integral circles is Marc Gafni - who began his career of predation as a Rabbi. After losing all credibility in the Jewish world, he reinvented himself as an integral teacher. Even then he continued to be predatory with female students (sexual relationships he justifies with his own brand of spiritual bypassing).

Anyway, this is good, important stuff.

Why Predators Are Attracted to Careers In The Clergy

Some further insight into a serious phenomenon

Published on April 20, 2014 by Joe Navarro, M.A. in Spycatcher

The eye-catching headline read, “Which Professions Have The Most Psychopaths?” (The Week, October 30, 2013) What ensued was quite a dialogue on the internet, as everyone seemed to have their own favorite picks or a personal horror story. The article stimulated debate, but unfortunately did not add clarity to a worthy subject. And that subject is: Why would a so-called “psychopath” be found in greater numbers in one profession versus another?

According to the article, CEO positions attract the most psychopaths. Perhaps so, if one considers the history of Enron, Bernard Madoff, and movies such as “The Wolf of Wall Street” (2013). But the one career that caught my eye, and that thirty years ago probably would have escaped me, is that of the clergy (8th in line behind law enforcement, according to the article). I say thirty years ago because prior to the revelations relating to Catholic priests abusing children, one would not think of predators going into the clergy, yet that is a reality. Which begs the question, why a so-called “psychopath” would be attracted to the clergy? As it turns out, there are good reasons for this; that predators understand all too well – but first some caveats.

Unfortunately, the term psychopath is bandied about too much, making things murkier. There is a huge difference between a psychopath as defined by Robert Hare, a sociopath, someone with antisocial personality disorder, someone with conduct disorder, an aggressive narcissist, or someone with dissocial personality disorder. Unfortunately most people, even many clinicians, don’t differentiate, and we should. Too often these terms are lumped together, as in the above captioned article, and that can be confusing. There are distinctions between all these terms, and so rather than use this vague and overused term (psychopath), I will call these individuals predators, which encompasses all of the above noted disorders and pathologies.

I should also note that I am not writing this article to criticize any particular religion, because any religious group, as history has taught us, can be taken advantage of by predators or malignant zealots. Rather, it is an analysis of why predators would choose to imbed themselves within a religious organization or seek to be part of the clergy – so that we can be more aware in order to protect our loved ones and ourselves. Knowing what we do now, it is fitting that we examine predators among the clergy and how they would use their office or a religious organization to take advantage of others.

Having said all of that, we need to be reminded that predators seek to be in organizations (any organization) for a variety of reasons that are both useful and beneficial but that may not be clear to us; including of course so that they can better conduct their predatory activities. The reasons vary, but here are just a few:

1. Organizations provide a convenient infrastructure from which a predator can prey on others for financial gain or to otherwise exploit others (sexually, mentally, physically).

2. Membership in a legitimate institution, be it a club, a branch of the military, or a corporation, gives legitimacy to individuals. We are more respectful and trusting when we are told a certain person is a VP or head of sales for XYZ company rather than just a stranger off the street.

3. Organizations give predators ready and easy access to an identifiable pool of individuals or potential victims. A cable television installer, for instance, can gain access to a home, assess the level of security, appraise what is of value, or determine if the person lives alone.

4. Organizations give predators access to potential victims they otherwise might not come into contact with, or might have to spend a lot of time finding. Predators may even find potential victims conveniently working two cubicles away.

5. Alliances are easy to make in an organization. These can serve to provide the predator information about exploitable weaknesses of others, as well as proprietary, personal, or sensitive data otherwise difficult to obtain.

6. Colleagues within an organization can serve to warn or protect the predator as a result of conspiratorial alliances or because they have a fiduciary interest in those predatory practices (predatory accountants protecting predatory CEOs).

7. Some organizations can be very financially rewarding for predators where they can exercise their anti-social traits (e.g., lack of conscience, indifference to others, bullying, cavalier attitudes, minimal concern for the welfare of employees, narcissism, sense of entitlement, placing profits over people). Often a similarly calloused and indifferent board of directors, interested only in profits, rewards these predators and their anti-social acts. It is a toxic but profitable symbiotic relation that is all too often familiar.

8. Organizations often try to “handle” negative things in-house to avoid bad publicity, so they are reluctant to report even gross criminal misconduct on the part of the predators in their midst; preferring to transfer them, fire them, or have them leave quietly.

9. Organizations are sometimes structured in such a way that the predator merely has to take advantage of existing weaknesses in the organization in order to profit – as we saw with the banking debacle of 2008.

10. Predators know that in civil lawsuits victims will go after the corporation with the deeper pockets rather than go after individuals with limited financial resources.

As we can see, there are a host of reasons why predators join organizations and if you think like a predator, it makes perfect sense. But there is something disturbing about why they would choose the clergy, or for that matter join a religious organization of any kind. It is disturbing because most of us don’t think about these things. Most people don’t think like a predator, but below are some insights that should make you think. These insights are based on conversations I and others have had with predators who intentionally sought to join religious organizations and from studying such individuals:

1. As noted earlier, within organizations, predators have access to a ready/available pool of potential victims. Within a religious order, those potential victims are identified for the predator, who knows how often they will get together and where (Sunday worship service at 11:00 am, at the local chapel, for example). Metronomic frequency of meetings creates opportunities for the predator to exploit directly, or even at a distance, such as committing burglaries based on knowing precisely when no one is home.

2. Some religious organizations require members to expose their faults, sins, or frailties in public. This is “manna from heaven” for predators who then use that information to better access or target their victims. Information like that serves to provide all the exploitable weaknesses a predator needs. As one predator told me, “With that kind of information I know exactly who to target and when.”

3. People gossip in most organizations, and in religious organizations it is no different. These informal social channels can be very effective in divulging who got promoted and has extra cash; who is going on vacation; whose spouse is overseas for seven months; who is naïve or gullible: who needs financial help; or who is having marital problems and is now lonely or vulnerable.

4. Within a religious organization, individuals of different social strata associate with one another with greater ease than in society. This gives the predator of low social status access to people who often live and socialize within restricted or gated communities and who otherwise would be impossible for them to target. In other words, if you can’t afford the country club, you can have access to those same socially higher-status people at a church gathering. This is a favored technique of conmen, grifters, and swindlers especially for Ponzi or pyramid schemes.

5. Many religious organizations preach forgiveness, even for felonies. For predators this is truly a godsend. This means that if they get caught, they can ask for forgiveness and chances are it will be given, in a pious but naïve effort to help the lawbreaker “learn from his mistakes.” Unfortunately, the predator sees this as an opportunity to sharpen his skills and to do his crime again, perhaps this time more carefully.

This apparently is what happened so many times with Catholic priests who were eventually convicted of serial child abuse. They were systematically “forgiven” along the way and thus they left behind a Grand Canyon-sized “debris field of human suffering” – namely children scarred for life, not to mention the trauma of the childrens’ families and the crisis of faith triggered among many devout Catholics as these transgressions were exposed.

If you are only casually familiar with what went on with the priests and the thousands of victims, you must read the Pulitzer prize-winning book Betrayal: The Crisis in the Catholic Church, by the superb investigative staff of The Boston Globe. And if that doesn’t rake at your heart, then Sacrilege: Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church, by Leon J. Podles should make you cringe, cry, and cogitate.

6. Because religious organizations preach brotherly love, even when someone has done horrific crimes, there will be those gullible enough to defend the predator or willing to look the other way. The book Betrayal, by the Boston Globe has account after account of exactly that kind of sickening indulgence. But you don’t only have to look at religious organizations; just look at how many still defend, poodle-like, Jerry Sandusky, the convicted ex-football coach at Penn State, even after so many revelations of child abuse. In the book, Betrayal, there is example after example cited of parishioners, even fellow priests, staunchly defending priests convicted of serial offenses.

7. Another advantage for the predator in a religious organization is that if caught, he or she can very conveniently say it was “Satan's” fault. Whether cheating, taking advantage of the elderly, conducting financial shenanigans, or even abusing children, the predator merely has to say that the “devil” tempted him or her and that’s that. Predators know they can rely on a certain portion of the population to buy into that argument, and so they use it.

8. If the predator is in a position of authority within a religious organization, he or she can claim persecution by the “enemies” of the church or the organization. Any outside scrutiny subjecting the predator to the sanitizing rays of light is thus characterized as, “them,” the unbelievers “against us.” This often compels the group to “circle the wagons” in support of their leader, as we saw with David Koresh and Jim Jones. And of course they will argue that it is we the “outsiders,” who are distrusting of the leader/predator, and who don’t understand, because we simply don’t have “faith,” or we are (the more trendy) “haters.”

For the religious-based predator it is very convenient to label these individuals enemies of the: “the church,” “the Lord”, “the congregation,” “the prophet,” “the leader(s),” “the free practice of religion,” and an attack on the “the anointed,” “the faithful,” or the “righteous,” on and on. Once you label something an “enemy,” it truly does bring the true believers, as Eric Hoffer warned us, further together. This is exactly what happened when inquiries were first made of Warren Jeffs – later convicted of sexual assault on two girls. This is exactly the argument made by those who supported Jim Jones, many of whom are now dead as a result of his command to his followers to poison their own children and themselves.

9. If the predator becomes a leader within the organization, or if lucky, becomes the head of a church or religious group, then he or she is immediately cloaked with power and authority (moral power) that mere corporations don’t have. Keep in mind that most people still have a high respect for their church leaders and are willing to give them greater latitude and the benefit of the doubt.

10. Predators soon realize that the ability to invoke a deity in their defense is a powerful card to hold that trumps all other arguments. They can always say, “I was moved by the lord,” to do this or that, “I was commanded by God to,” do this or that, or “it is the will of the lord,” to do this or that. That is a tough, faith/emotionally-laden argument that is difficult to refute; especially for believers that are already vested having spent time and money in an organization. Thus the rape of children is justified merely by invoking the ostensible desire and will of a deity. And let’s be clear, predators love that they can do that. Once again, this is precisely what Warren Jeffs did with the assistance of repugnantly complicit mothers who willingly offered up their daughters for his sexual pleasure. Fugitive cult leader, Victor, Arden Barnard is alleged to have invoked the same defense, that he had a right to sexually abuse children because it was “God’s word.”

11. There is, it should be noted, no religion or sect that screens for psychopathy as defined by Robert Hare that I am awware of. All you need is to be ordained, or you declare yourself a religious leader and the way is clear for the predator. And so while some organizations, such as in law enforcement, screen for pathologies by using psychometric tools, very few religious organization do so. Which is why the predator would benefit from joining or leading such an organization. Across the planet, there is almost no scrutiny or due diligence that is or will be conducted. To connive, or to “con,” the predator merely needs his victim to have faith and trust in the predator something that is often easily achieved with the vestments of a legitimate religious organization.

12. To be a predator is to overvalue yourself at the expense of others – a key component of both the pathologically narcissistic and the predator (see Dangerous Personalities). Here is where a predator has an advantage because in a religious organization, this overvaluation of self is potentiated by the title that is either conferred, that comes with the office, or bestowed through ordination. For the predator, it is tantamount to being told, “you are” therefore “you can.”

13. Predators know or soon learn that society tends to revere and not question religious authority. People of high status such as famous coaches, TV personalities, politicians, and so on are often given great latitude to the point where allegations of misconduct, even serious criminal offenses are often ignored (Jimmy Savile in the UK; O.J. Simpson in the US).

14. Parents may be more trusting of a religious leader than of the average person. As history has taught us, they may dismiss allegations made by their own children as to sexual abuse by a religious leader or they will remain quiescent so as to not “rock the boat.” It is very tough for parents, especially those from humble background or who are deeply religious, to go up against a popular or charismatic leader, “the church” or a large, well-financed religious order. Often, as we now well know, the fear of retribution, being ostracized or socially marginalized, or excommunicated keeps victims and parents silent.

So, where does this leave us? With the reality that predators are all around us. Anywhere from 1% to 4% or perhaps more of any population, according to researchers, is made up of individuals who are social predators (DSM V, 2013, 659-663). They may seek to join organizations for the additional benefits these organizations bring. It is not the organization; it is the individuals who seek to use those organizations for predation and that is the problem. Individuals who seek religious organizations because there they can more easily target victims and do so much more harm – that is our reality.

We cannot prevent all crimes, nor can we always know how predators will come after us, but knowledge helps. If we are sensitized ahead of time to how predators think, how they use legitimate organizations, and take advantage of others, perhaps then we can protect one more child, or perhaps even ourselves from these social predators.

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Joe Navarro, M.A. is 25 year veteran of the FBI and is the author of What Every Body is Saying, as well as Louder Than Words. For additional information and a free bibliography please contact him through

Psychology Today: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/spycatcher or at www.jnforensics.com – Joe can be found on twitter: @navarrotells or on Facebook. His latest book Dangerous Personalities (Rodale) is available on Amazon.