Curiosity and Humility

I've finished several books in the past couple of weeks and all are worthwhile.

I finished up Ayaan Hirsi Ali's Infidel and it is a spellbinding true story. In addition, it is an eye opener. I think most people would believe that much of the world treats women horribly. And I think that many that I know are either fearful of or contemptuous of the spreading radical Islamic cancer. However, it is one thing to kind of know it or sense it and it is another thing to read the vivid description of a young girl having her genitals mutilated against her will. It is another thing to read a first hand account of the incredible psychological influence of well organized and politically motivated Islamic groups. If you haven't read this book, you ought to do so. I don't know that I come to the same conclusions as the author, but anyone that says Islam is peace needs to have that idea challenged by this book. One of my conclusions from reading this is that I am incredibly thankful that I did not grow up amidst the chaos of east Africa or the cauldron of Islamic fundamentalism. And I am even more thankful that my daughter did not grow up in either of those environments.

Last weekend I stumbled upon a book by Oliver Thomas called 10 Things Your Minister Wants to Tell You: (But Can't, Because He Needs the Job). It is a most refreshing book, especially for a Baptist minister to have penned. It actually says that the Bible doesn't really say much about homosexuality and that we pull the "abomination" stuff from the same area where it says we ought to stone and cast out and mutilate all kinds of folks for all kinds of reasons. And for some reason we've managed to hang onto this one. It also says that systematic exclusion of women from church service is wrong; there are various interpretations of end-times and the post-millenialism of Jenkins and Lahaye fame is both new and not supportable; the creation stories of Genesis are conflicting and incomplete and not intended to really explain how creation happened, but why; and several other juicy ones that I'll let you discover if you choose to read this very short little book. Personally, I thought it was great. To me, it mostly said that as Christians we are allowing ourselves to become dominated by controversial and exclusionary and unsupportable beliefs, rather than carrying out Jesus' message of social justice, kindness, love, and mercy. I'm sure there are conservatives poking pins in little Oliver Thomas voodoo dolls.

Finally, just this evening I finished up Walter Isaacson's fine biography of Einstein, Einstein: His Life and Universe. The biography is good. Einstein the person is spectacular. Non-conformist. Brilliant. Creative. Religious unbeliever. Amazed at the universe around him and blessed with enormous curiosity, powers of concentration, and willingness to question authority and dogma. When new information came to light he changed his conclusions - both in science and in politics. He was a rabid pacifist, but the rise of Nazism caused him to shed his radical pacifism. He was an opponent of Stalinist politics, but refused to go all the way to the extreme of McCarthyism.

There are several quotes from the book that bear recording here.....

Einstein's fundamental creed was that freedom was the lifeblood of creativity. "The development of science and of the creative activities of the spirit," he said, "requires a freedom that consists in the independence of thought from the restrictions of authoritarian and social prejudice." Nurturing that should be the fundamental role of government, he felt, and the mission of education.

There was a simple set of formulas that defined Einstein's outlook. Creativity required being willing not to conform. That required nurturing free minds and free spirits, which in turn required "a spirit of tolerance." And the underpinning of tolerance was humility - the belief that no one had the right to impose ideas and beliefs on others.

For some people, miracles serve as evidence of God's existence. For Einstein it was the absence of miracles that reflected divine providence. The fact that the cosmos is comprehensible, that it follows laws, is worthy of awe. This is the defining quality of a "God who reveals himself in the harmony of all that exists."

Einstein's own description of the US following the fall of McCarthyism...

God's own country becomes stranger and stranger, but somehow they manage to return to normality. Everything - even lunacy - is mass produced here. But everything goes out of fashion very quickly.

And near his end....

But he knew that the aneurysm on his abdominal aorta should soon prove fatal, and he began to display a peaceful sense of his own mortality. When he stood at the graveside and eulogized the physicist Rudolf Ladenberg, who had been his colleague in Berlin and then Princeton, the words seemed to be ones he felt personally. "Briefly is this existence, as a fleeting visit in a strange house," he said, "The path to be pursued is poorly lit by a flickering consciousness."

It is the quote about humility amongst those above that resonates most with me. I will advocate for what I believe or think or observe with passion. But I believe that I have tried for most of my adult life to try to give the other view or the other side at least the benefit of a possibility. I'm proud and I'm convinced much of the time of my own rightness (hopefully not righteousness), but somewhere underneath I try to keep in mind that I might not be right or that at the very least I might learn something from other views.

The other quote that resonates with me so much is that the absence of miracles, that the structure and order of the cosmos, that when properly understood there is no "weird spookiness" to the physics of the universe; is in itself an indicator of a creator/designer/God. (It is for this reason that Einstein wrestled up to his last moments looking for a unified theory that would take all of the "weird spookiness" out of quantum mechanics.)

I remember reading my Biology textbook early in my first semester as a freshman about the enormity of the universe. I still have that textbook and can locate the passages today. (page 698 and 699 of Biological Science by William T. Keeton [2nd edition - 1972]) The passage discussed the possibility of life on other planets and went on to discuss the vast number of stars, likely planets, and statistical probability that life and intelligent life might exist on other planets. I don't know that the discussion of life elsewhere made a great impact on me, but the huge number of planets whirling through the universe impressed me. And the intricate way that life developed on Earth and the amazing biological organisms and systems that evolved got me to thinking. The grandeur and the sense of design from enormous macro concepts like the universe and galaxies all the way down to micro concepts of cells and molecules and atoms and DNA and cellular reproduction were breathtaking to contemplate. They were (and still are) awe-inspiring.

"God who reveals himself in the harmony of all that exists."

That is an affirmation of curiosity and a definition of humility. I think that is why I read and why sometimes I think or write.