George L. Alexander MD's
“Separation of Church and State: The author reviews this key Constitutional concept and its significance for Friends" (2008, 54:1)
Philadephia, PA: Friends’ Journal
-
http://www.friendsjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/emember/downloads/2008/HC12-51063.pdf -
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Hi Non-theist (f)Friends, Quakers and All,
Seems like we've been engaging questions of Non-theism from somewhat 'religious' perspectives (and Quaker at that) re the religion-philosophy divide - reasoning-wise. This just came through in the PhilPapers email list:
'Sceptical Theism and the Paradox of Evil'
I've been impressed with both the quality as well as the structure of this PhilPapers' social network / index. And I think we've been addressing questions of the so-called (theological) "problem of evil" in recent threads.
In searching on "Quakers and the problem of evil"
Mark Russ
Finding a good way to talk about evil
"Suffering and the Problem of Evil"
Added my NtF email on Yo-Yo Ma and eliciting loving bliss neurophysiology here -
- and at the bottom of this, a recent correspondence with a recent Stanford speaker on "Literary Couples and Transforming Trauma." Not specifically about the religious/philosophical "problem of evil"'meme' (i.e. one of my junior qualifying exams at Reed College was on the problem of evil, and I later wrote a thesis in the field of feminist theology / liberation theology (posting CV below)). While the email correspondence in this blog post with Stanford's Barbara von Bechtolsheim and Emily Goodling isn't specifically about the problem of evil, it does focus on communication as a way to potentially transform trauma (evil?) and also explores this re eliciting loving bliss (which could be a far-reaching transformation of evil / trauma, and in N-t f/Friendly ways:)
With Non-the-istic Friendly greetings
(not Skeptical-THEE-istic f/Friendly greetings:),
Scott
--
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- Scott MacLeod - Founder & President
- World University and School
- 415 480 4577
- CC World University and School - like CC Wikipedia with best STEM-centric CC OpenCourseWare - incorporated as a nonprofit university and school in California, and is a U.S. 501 (c) (3) tax-exempt educational organization.
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Thanks, Victor, and NtFs,
Circling back around to the Quaker side (religion side?) of the religion-philosophy divide - re reasoning, I searched on "henry cadbury and the quaker question of evil" ((Harvard and Haverford professor of New Testament, and recipient of Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of American and British Friends), and came across Rex Sprouse's observations here -
https://www.quakerranter.org/cadbury-and-us/ - which I think NtF Quakers could both come into conversation with idea-wise, with as well as it's being short:
Rex A. Sprouse says:
06/28/2018 at 1:38 pm
My thoughts about Quakerism and “the problem of evil”: I really DO believe that all human beings, regardless of their conscious or implicit beliefs, have direct access to the Inner Light, which IF THEY LISTEN TO IT, could lead them to higher levels of moral behavior and move them toward unity with the underlying harmony of the universe (God). In my view, the naïve side of much of Quaker history has been a failure to appreciate how often individuals, collectives, and institutions CHOOSE NOT TO LISTEN; indeed, I think that we fail to appreciate how often WE QUAKERS choose not to listen. In any case, none of this licenses me to resort to violence, but it DOES mean that all kinds of non‐violent resistance to evil may well be called for, and that pacifism is NOT incompatible with non‐violent resistance.
(Am still very skeptical NtF-wise about both the religious/spiritual connotations of 'inner light' as well as re 'universe as God,' but also appreciate the Friendly sociocultural understandings implicit in this language).
Philosophical, evolutionary biological atheist Quakerly (NtF) greetings, Scott
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(Nt)Friends socio-culturally are not nearly as divided (it seems to me) as individual philosophers making analytical distinction after distinction to support their arguments / theses / writings as their careers develop in the (now very big in many languages) University (albeit NtFs seem to be an expression too in Modernity of growing individualism mediated by the Internet / FGC) - and re our 'lift off' from the place-based Quaker Monthly Business Meeting. (There are lots of other 'un-programmed Meeting-related' examples of this - from Pendle Hill to a myriad of Quaker groups unaffiliated with Monthly Meetings). And Quakers have developed their own career paths (sometimes held by "professional Quakers / professional Friends").
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Within some USA concepts of law re 'offenders,' the role of perpetrator is significant with regard to the words "acts,""action" as a substitute for the word "evil" ... and psychiatrists working out of a Friends' Hospital online in Philadelphia might work with "perpetrators" in different ways in Pennsylvania than psychiatrists working out of a Stanford Hospital online with San Franciscans, for example. Am glad we have a centuries' old culture of Friends' Hospital psychiatrists, I'm assuming, working with 'perpetrators,' hypothetically and for example, - compared with other sociocultural practices re "perpetrators" of say religious organizations or philosophical organizations/associations, working with 'offenders,' or legal organizations / lawyers for that matter - in combination with secular legal systems that are evidentiary based (e.g. in the USA).Non-theist Friendly thinking seems to open possibilities for further engagement of psychiatry within legal systems based on evidence re questions of perpetration vis-a-vis "action," or "acts", as a substitute for "evil."Friendly greetings from California,Scott*
If I were to engage a kind of philosophical substitution principle, and re-write the title of Oliveira's paper (or riff with it language-wise), might say:
'Atheist f(F)riends and the da-da of being a Quaker human primate'
'Skepticism, NtFriends, and speaking from one's personal experience re questions of witnessing to peace (re non-violent direct action, or a re holding a vigil as a kind of quiet activism' (which has beneficial effects on society re questions of conscience)
or 'Non-theist Quakes and the absurdity of the prob of evil premised on a concept of the divine' (re Dawkins'"The God Delusion"), or,
'Skepticism-non-non-non-theists, NtFriends and what to do about the harm humans perpetrate (engaging Friendly psychiatry),' or,
'Philosophically (and NtQuaker-wise), theology doesn't make sense like the problems its given rise to'
and even add a hippy twist (not a twisty jitter bug :) my Friendly Jitterys, to riff with Quakes :) ... eg Hippy Anjali Yoga Notations ~
http://www.scottmacleod.com/yoganotations.html ... Have also sometimes wondered about the nature of quaking (giving rise to the name) among early Quakers and re their vocal ministries ... re mental health questions even ... which are in some ways the beginnings of Friends' Testimonies). Friends' Hospital in Philadelphia is old, and the oldest mental health hospital in the country I think.
As I think back to one of my junior qualifying exams at Reed in around 1983, I recall it involved writing about John Hick's 'classic' treatment of the so-called 'problem of evil' in theology - "Hick has identified with a branch of theodicy that he calls "Irenaean theodicy" or the "Soul-Making Defense". A simplification of this view states that suffering exists as a means of spiritual development. In other words, God allows suffering so that human souls might grow or develop towards maturation" ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hick ... which Quakers/Friends in my experience, have even held up in their own peculiar way in the very very old "Meeting for Sufferings" of London Yearly Meeting now Britain Yearly Meeting.
(And I'd explore questions of sexuality - re US laws - Friendly-wise in a different email thread language-wise) ... and re my actual-virtual Harbin Hot Springs' project as well (where Harbin is 2 churches - unaffiliated - and has facilitated HAI workshops and similar for decades)
Would also give a nod to the power issues that liberation theology and feminist theology have given voice to in quite far-reaching ways .... if the priest in Latin America says - as "big man" anthropology - that is evil and this is good, and increases his / her power and abuse thereof (re 'power cor ...") with this use of language, appreciating the many questions raised about this ... re evidence questions here.
It's that day again ... and as kid I'd likely be looking forward to easter egg hunts in the grass outside on a spring day
Reading here from a similar NtFriendly page as John M in some ways ...
I think I'm in the non [NTF-talk] 'Sceptical Theism and the Paradox of Evil' when it comes to theology.
Am also appreciating however the practical way Friends responded to the atrocities in WWII with the "Kinderspeisung," (feeding and providing materiel for kids in war torn Europe) for example, and for which Quakers on both sides of the Atlantic together were awarded the Nobel Prize in 1947 (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quakers). And this address to Friends by the head of the Nobel Peace Prize committee and at the time, theBank of Norway Chair
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1947/ceremony-speech/ - is among the most inspiring Quaker writings I'm familiar with.
Am finding it interesting that Oliveira's article has generated all these emails. Thanks for your observations and thoughts. (Am much more Harbin oriented, both actually and virtually, in my writing these days, and even with a kind of quiet NtFriendly Quaker anthropological Harbin field work orientation in my book).
With Nt(f)Friendly thee-ist greetings,
Scott
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Am curious too how psychiatry online anew could help victims today with such "acts" or "actions" or "harm" or "evil" (and especially re or in collaboration with Friends' Hospital psychiatry?, Stanford Medicine's psychiatry?, Harvard Medicine's psychiatry?, Cambridge University Medicine's psychiatry?, or Project ECHO's psychiatry into Stanford's/Duke's/ Google's Project Baseline, which I learned about at Stanford) ... Online World Univ & Sch for MD degrees in ~200 countries seems like a remarkable opportunity to both potentially provide online care to "victims" (and perpetrators) as well as importantly to develop rigorous research in many related areas and fields (and re countries' legal systems and languages), and at least with faculty to teach about some of this.
Goodness is still a word in my lexicon, albeit California seems to invite thinking about this in new ways ...
Sincerely, Scott
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Thanks, Jean, and NtFs,
Goodness is baked in to Quakerism in my experience, and it seems like Quakers can be moved re conscience (an inner quaking?) to protest wrong doing, the bad, unjust laws, for example, conscientious objection-wise re Friends' sociocultural practices; Non-theist Friends as well.
Scott
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Hi Non-theist Friends,
Not sure exactly what you're responding to Victor and John M, with regard to yes to "law" and "legal" words, but no to "evil" and the word "good" for that matter, but I'm glad the USA has separation of State and Church legally in these regards especially. Family friend (and peripherally a Friend/Quaker, at least by marriage and family),
George Alexander MD, psychoanalyst and psychiatrist wrote the following article in Friends Journal in 2008 with regard to the significance of Church and State separation. George was a genius some might say (as problematic as this word might be to define ... if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, then must be a duck? as a logical philosophical if then statement re truth-seeking where Quakers were once called "Seekers of the Truth" ? ), and philosophically inclined in a far-reaching way, as well, and valued too, in the philosophy-religion chasm, the freedom from religion in philosophy (as a Lacanian, George was also very linguistically oriented re Lacan's "the unconscious is structured like a language"). I was sometimes unsettled in my thinking, however, by George's explicitly stated amorality, philosophically (not immorality). George was very non-judgmental and accepting and tolerant and understanding and knowledgable - and of many species (as an animal behaviorist as well; as a philosopher, there's "no ghost in the machine" (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_in_the_machine) per Gilbert Ryle and others, which is why for George, I think, behaviorism (Skinner et al) is so sensible ... and which non-dualistic philosophical thinking gave rise in part to the experimentalism of animal behaviorism, where we've learned so so much scientifically about human behavior as well).
So when I read that you're eschewing 'bad' and 'good' Victor and John M, and as NtF/non-theist Quakers, I wonder what this might mean. In considering moral questions, which I think both NtFs, Quakers, as well as this thread do re the title of Oliveira's paper 'Sceptical Theism and the Paradox of Evil,' I think there's value in Quaker 'morality' (even as it's developed a bit in conversation with the C of the 3 monotheistic religions CMJ) where it might not be logical to throw the baby (morality) out with the bathwater (illegal, unethical, bad behavior). Even if legal conditions have been met in any given bad (unethical, wrong, harmful, unjust) situations, moral questions may still remain - vis-a-vis Quakerism and vis-a-vis non-theistic Friends (atheist Friends). So I'm reposting this good "Friends' Journal" article by George L Alexander MD for your consideration with regard to the legal separation of religion from government in the US, and appreciate too that psychiatry (which can be informed by the laws of any given state, and at Friends' Hospital in Philadelphia PA too) may be a beneficial and good therapeutic approach/strategy to bad (unethical, wrong, harmful, unjust) situations, both for victims, perpetrators as well as even groups.
To paraphrase Stanford Law Professor Hank Greely re Tweet: “For someone who studies" religion, "fascinating. LONG & a bit technical but I STRONGLY recommend it” -
(Resending: Dec 12, 2018 from ‘[NTF-talk] Response to my post’):
Thanks so much for your NtF "plain speech," Anita ... and Pamela - and your affirmation of morality, Anita. (I hear echoes in your email of Nt-Friend / ntf George L. Alexander MD, psychiatrist and Lacanian psychoanalyst, and family friend, who passed away a few years ago, while living at Kendal-Crosslands; he didn't publish much, but here's an article of his from Friends' Journal -
http://www.friendsjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/emember/downloads/2008/HC12-51063.pdf (2008) - on the
separation of
Church and
State).
(Resending: Aug 31, 2018 from '[NTF-talk] Not Allowing invocation by nonthiests held unconstitutional'):
Are Non-theist f/Friends familiar with the Friends Journal article from 2008 by George L. Alexander on the
separation of
church and s
tate -
https://www.friendsjournal.org/separation-church-and-state/ ? Conner's ruling would seem to suggest that non-theists might be on the "
church" side of this US constitutional distinction, from a US legal ruling perspective.
Am appreciating too Jeanne Warren's email this morning about Quaker history with conscientious objection to unjust laws ... which goes back centuries (pacifism, abolitionism, etc.) ... and re further informing non-theistic Quakers / NtF's relation with both law, as well as morality, perchance.
NtF greetings, Scott
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I think I agree with you, John, but your first sentence "Religious rights should be respected to the extent that they become illegal or discriminatory" could contradict the remaining sentences (which I agree with). Please clarify if inclined.
Thanks, Scott
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Thanks, John M, and NtFs,
"In rare instances the state will forbid a religious practice, such as parents' denying their children medical care for religious reasons. In this instance a cultural value not based on religion trumps a value supported by a religious belief" p. 37
Yet, vis-a-vis your thinking, this could suggest to me that a Quaker or NtF (or other religious believer, or religious lawyer, too), for example, playing a role in such a conflict (e.g. as a state social worker working with the Amish who chose not to vaccinate their children against polio) might be judgmental of the Amish religious values, and instead side with the state's law and scientific values of not harming children. I don't read from the same page as you in this case. (all of this and the following could be phrased as questions too???)
I think I have mostly a question about your use of the phrase "to the extent" -
"You use expressions such as to the extent of, to the extent that, or to such an extent that in order to emphasize that a situation has reached a difficult, dangerous, or surprising stage."
re your "Quakers shouldn’t make moral judgments about others and their beliefs. My sentence, to the extent that they become illegal or discriminatory” should be taken to mean harmful." So is this rewrite of your sentence fair?
"Religious rights should be respected ... to the extent that they become illegal or discriminatory" ... and would choose to read ... "until they become harmful."
Is this an accurate reading of what you intended? Too too often a "religion is respected when it becomes illegal or discriminatory" (which is what I think your sentence means, but may be wrong), hence my re-write.
(I also share with George Alexander a suspicion or caution with modal verbs "should, would, could etc..." ... they can have negative, bossy or imposing effects or ... other negative linguistic or information technological communication effects).
Thanks again for sharing your thinking here.
NtF cheers, Scott
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Are these your questions, Jeanne?
"This doesn't work if a Quaker feels they must disobey the law, as British pacifists did in World War I (and many were sent to jail). On the basis of what do they decide to indulge in illegal behaviour?""That means the law is not an entirely satisfactory basis, there must be something else. What is it?,""On what do NtFs ground beliefs?"
If these are your questions in the context of this varied email thread, Jeanne, I'll seek to briefly speak for myself: I chose to register as a CO with the AFSC/similar and War Tax Resister's League in around 1979 when the US government re-instated the Selective Service / pre-draft (have emailed NtFs about this one other time I think), with Vietnam horrors / tragedy (of all those American and Vietnamese dying), giving partial information on the US governments' registration card thus potentially breaking an unjust law, and I did so in the context of Quakers / Friendly culture/alternative culture / attending anti-war marches in Washington DC in the '70s departing on buses from in front of the Pgh PA Quaker Meeting House.
Quaker / NtF culture, and conscientious objection "memes," would be partly be my response to your questions. I think per George Alexander's article that these perspectives engage both Friendly values and legal values (choosing to go against US law requiring 18 year olds to register for Selective Service / pre-draft in the event of another American war post-Vietnam).
I also think many other varied responses to your questions are implied in this email thread, n'est-ce pas? NtFs?
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Thanks so so much, Jeanne, for your edifying ideas and sharing,
Appreciating especially the Woolman / Quaker abolition references, and with regard to legal questions and "good" and "bad."
Happy Easter in Oxford, and hope you enjoy its beauty there (music, flowers et al.)
NtFriendly greetings, Scott
PS
(With memes, I think of "replicating cultural units" in a social science sense, and informed by Richard Dawkin's 1976 book "The Selfish Gene," as paralleling how genes function re replication, but different and in the cultural sphere, and explore it further with specific examples, etc. here -
https://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/search/label/meme - probably cross-labeled with "Nontheist Friend,""Quaker" labels etc. in some posts, as a FYI; the "meme" idea, although somewhat developed by thinkers over the decades, has its limitations in what it can explain too re a science orientation).
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Jeanne, Angelo, and NtFs,
I might have concluded last email with "... for we human NtF/Quaker primates" re ... "the "meme" idea, [which] although somewhat developed by thinkers over the decades, has its limitations in what it can explain too re a science orientation ... for we human NtF/Quaker primates). "
"Friends are notable for their public service, exemplifying how religions and government can work together to achieve shared goals. For instance, the pursuit of peace, prison reform, and abolition of the death penalty are all motivated by religious as well as by secular values. Attempts by Friends to influence legislation either involve secular arguments or they concern the pursuit of religious freedom. For instance, at the behest of the peace churches after World War I, our government granted conscientious objector status to pacifists for whom military service would conflict with religious convictions. The quest in such instances is to achieve religious freedom for all citizens, and chat in itself is a secular value.
At times the assertion of Friends' religious convictions, involving civil disobedience, trespassing, destruction of military property, or the withholding of taxes to avoid funding the military, have been in conflict with the law. In such instances they accept the penalty and have sometimes gone to jail for their religiously motivated conduct." 39
"Whether the separation of church and state can survive remains to be seen. In the meantime members of all religious groups are assured the same freedoms, including freedom of personal expression, freedom to proselytize, and one vote each." 38
... to evolutionary biology as history (and re Dawkin's - throw religion out the window (all 5,500 years of it, since writing began)! - but it probably won't disappear any time soon. And evolutionary biology history goes back 350 million years, and has created 3-100 million species (depending on how one defines species, all successfully replicating their genes through time). Within a conceptual discourse of the close-genes (94% + are shared?) of the great apes (Orangutans, Gorillas, Chimpanzees, Human primates e.g. see
https://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/search/label/primates), 'good' and 'bad' take on whole new connotations both for Friends/Quakers and legally.
Good and bad re Quaker/now NtF history and re laws too, as questions, continue to play out among various Friendly/NtF/Quaker-
sympathizing peoples as well as in the (US) courts and law schools ... (And am grateful too for Jeanne's mentioning again the slave trade, and Quaker abolitionism, something that Quaker conscience rather than US law, contributed to abolishing; am hopeful that Quaker conscience can contribute to abolishing current expressions of the s trade, even re current statutes 'on the books' / 'on the web' that prohibit these evils). Writing and media-exposure? Am appreciative too that the California Consumer Privacy Act (since June 2018) requiring companies to disclose on their web sites that they share information now matter what, and retroactively in January 2020 for 2019, could be extended to NY, for example (re a Stanford Law talk, then a Stanford Law CodeX session I just attended), in some of these regards re -
https://law.stanford.edu/event/operationalizing-the-ccpa-strategies-from-inhouse-counsel/.
Glad too to be going to hear Stanford historian Jonathan Gienapp tomorrow evening talk about what needs to be fixed in the US constitution -
https://law.stanford.edu/event/publius-symposium-with-jonathan-gienapp/ . I think the Separation of Church and State is still observed and re George's history of this for Quakers in Friends Journal. The US Constitution is old, and the oldest continuous constitution in the world. Quakers have been called a peculiar people, re one reading of conventionalism - and re the US constitution and American (Nt)Friends. :)
NtF Quakerly greetings, and Happy Easter, Scott
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December 11, 2018
Pamela Haymond <pamelahaymond@gmail.com> Unsubscribe |
| Tue, Dec 11, 2018, 3:17 PM
| | |
|
Thanks to John and Brian for their wonderful responses to my post. Sorry it's been so long in responding. I can only handle so much spiritual/religious conversation before I have to shut down from the overdose of negativity I feel when talking about religious beliefs. I wonder how many others have looked at native American religious beliefs? They are obviously not all exactly the same but they seem to mostly have the same underlying thought that worship (as Christians and former Christians know it) is completely unnecessary. Does anyone else see this?
Pamela
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Scott MacLeod <worlduniversityandschool@gmail.com> |
| Apr 20, 2019, 1:36 PM (1 day ago)
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|
Hi Pamela and NtFs,
Circling back around here too:
Re a kind of NtFriendly call for psychiatric services for Quaker Monthly Meetings (and religious groups in all ~200 countries and 7,111 living languages for that matter) in the currently active 'Sceptical Theism and the Paradox of Evil' email thread, and re Google /G+'s closing, and therefore the link in this EMAIL thread no longer working, here's some of what was posted in that no-longer active G+ link, here -
Here too is a panel of Stanford Psychiatrists -
(All re too: Dec. 12, 2018 Thanks so much for your NtF "plain speech," Anita ... and Pamela - and your affirmation of morality, Anita. (I hear echoes in your email of Nt-Friend / ntf George L. Alexander MD, psychiatrist and Lacanian psychoanalyst, and family friend, who passed away a few years ago, while living at Kendal-Crosslands; he didn't publish much, but here's an article of his from Friends' Journal -
http://www.friendsjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/emember/downloads/2008/HC12-51063.pdf - on the
separation of
Church and
State). )
See too in this BLOG post re helping people / NtFriendly caring:
A bit further belated response to your blog post, Scott
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Monday, April 22, 2019
Non-theist Friends,
It seems like non-theism and skeptical theism open possibilities re (N-t)Quaker pragmatism (loosely in the philosophical sense), social change and history with questions of good and bad, both religiously and legally, to engage questions of psychiatry anew. Searched on
"Friends hospital Philadelphia - how would a Quaker monthly meeting seek psychiatric services?" and found this article suggesting change is needed in mental health at Friends Hospital re medical science:
"Friends Hospital: bicentennial a reminder that change still needed in mental health care | Philly History"
Could this an opportunity for non-theist Friends? (It seems that Friends Hospital has a long history of being an asylum, potentially a refuge with regard to the services it offers - and its methods even).
Also found this -
https://friendshospital.com/ - phone number "A Quiet Refuge for Healing - Call 215-831-4600" (if you know of a whistle-blower about such issues in the Quaker Meeting you might be part of).
Friendly-informed MIT OCW-centric World University and School would also seek to offer online psychiatry -
https://wiki.worlduniversityandschool.org/wiki/Psychiatry - (re the legal and 'moral' questions these email threads / discussions have been addressing) and out of our online medical schools (
https://wiki.worlduniversityandschool.org/wiki/World_University_Medical_School) with online teaching hospitals, and potentially in collaboration with Stanford psychiatry (since MIT doesn't have a medical school or teaching hospital, and thus no psychiatry OpenCourseWare). As I see it, it's the non-theistically friendly thinking of a Stanford psychiatry department that would allow online psychiatry to both help Quakers, as well as improve as a medical science with time.
NtFriendly cheers,
Scott
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