(with apologies to Jung)

Job asked: “God, why do bad things happen to good people? Why would You, who are perfect, create a universe filled with so much that is evil?”

Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the whirlwind, saying “WHAT KIND OF UNIVERSE WOULD YOU PREFER ME TO HAVE CREATED?”

Job said “A universe that was perfectly just and full of happiness, of course.”

“OH,” said God. “YES, I CREATED ONE OF THOSE. IT’S EXACTLY AS NICE AS YOU WOULD EXPECT.”

Job facepalmed. “But then why would You also create this universe?”

Answered God: “DON’T YOU LIKE EXISTING?”

“Yes,” said Job, “but all else being equal, I’d rather be in the perfectly just and happy universe.”

“OH, DON’T WORRY,” said God. “THERE’S A VERSION OF YOU IN THAT UNIVERSE TOO. HE SAYS HI.”

“Okay,” said Job, very carefully. “I can see I’m going to have to phrase my questions more specifically. Why didn’t You also make this universe perfectly just and happy?”

“BECAUSE YOU CAN’T HAVE TWO IDENTICAL INDIVIDUALS. IF YOU HAVE A COMPUTATIONAL THEORY OF IDENTITY, THEN TWO PEOPLE WHOSE EXPERIENCE IS ONE HUNDRED PERCENT SATURATED BY BLISS ARE JUST ONE PERSON. IF I MADE THIS UNIVERSE EXACTLY LIKE THE HAPPY AND JUST UNIVERSE, THEN THERE WOULD ONLY BE THE POPULATION OF THE HAPPY AND JUST UNIVERSE, WHICH WOULD BE LESS GOOD THAN HAVING THE POPULATION OF THE HAPPY AND JUST UNIVERSE PLUS THE POPULATION OF ONE EXTRA UNIVERSE THAT IS AT LEAST SOMEWHAT HAPPY.”

“Hmmmmm. But couldn’t You have have made this universe like the happy and just universe except for one tiny detail? Like in that universe, the sun is a sphere, but in our universe, the sun is a cube? Then you would have individuals who experienced a spherical sun, and other individuals who experienced a cubic sun, which would be enough to differentiate them.”

“I DID THAT TOO. I HAVE CREATED ALL POSSIBLE PERMUTATIONS OF THE HAPPY AND JUST UNIVERSE AND ITS POPULACE.”

“All of them? That would be…a lot of universes.”

“NOT AS MANY AS YOU THINK.” said God. “IN THE END IT TURNED OUT TO BE ONLY ABOUT 10^(10^(10^(10^(10^984)))). AFTER THAT I RAN OUT OF POSSIBLE PERMUTATIONS OF UNIVERSES THAT COULD REASONABLY BE DESCRIBED AS PERFECTLY HAPPY AND JUST. SO I STARTED CREATING ONES INCLUDING SMALL AMOUNTS OF EVIL.”

“Small amounts! But the universe has…”

“I WAS NOT REFERRING TO YOUR UNIVERSE. I EXHAUSTED THOSE, AND THEN I STARTED CREATING ONES INCLUDING IMMENSE AMOUNTS OF EVIL.”

“Oh.” Then: “What, exactly, is Your endgame here?”

“I AM OMNIBENEVOLENT. I WANT TO CREATE AS MUCH HAPPINESS AND JOY AS POSSIBLE. THIS REQUIRES INSTANTIATING ALL POSSIBLE BEINGS WHOSE TOTAL LIFETIME HAPPINESS IS GREATER THAN THEIR TOTAL LIFETIME SUFFERING.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“YOUR LIFE CONTAINS MUCH PAIN, BUT MORE HAPPINESS. BOTH YOU AND I WOULD PREFER THAT A BEING WITH YOUR EXACT LIFE HISTORY EXIST. IN ORDER TO MAKE IT EXIST, IT WAS NECESSARY TO CREATE THE SORT OF UNIVERSE IN WHICH YOU COULD EXIST. THAT IS A UNIVERSE CONTAINING EVIL. I HAVE ALSO CREATED ALL HAPPIER AND MORE VIRTUOUS VERSIONS OF YOU. HOWEVER, IT IS ETHICALLY CORRECT THAT AFTER CREATING THEM, I CREATE YOU AS WELL.”

“But why couldn’t I have been one of those other versions instead!”

“IN THE MOST PERFECTLY HAPPY AND JUST UNIVERSE, THERE IS NO SPACE, FOR SPACE TAKES THE FORM OF SEPARATION FROM THINGS YOU DESIRE. THERE IS NO TIME, FOR TIME MEANS CHANGE AND DECAY, YET THERE MUST BE NO CHANGE FROM ITS MAXIMALLY BLISSFUL STATE. THE BEINGS WHO INHABIT THIS UNIVERSE ARE WITHOUT BODIES, AND DO NOT HUNGER OR THIRST OR LABOR OR LUST. THEY SIT UPON LOTUS THRONES AND CONTEMPLATE THE PERFECTION OF ALL THINGS. IF I WERE TO UNCREATE ALL WORLDS SAVE THAT ONE, WOULD IT MEAN MAKING YOU HAPPIER? OR WOULD IT MEAN KILLING YOU, WHILE FAR AWAY IN A DIFFERENT UNIVERSE INCORPOREAL BEINGS SAT ON THEIR LOTUS THRONES REGARDLESS?”

“I don’t know! Is one of the beings in that universe in some sense me?”

“THERE IS NO OBJECTIVE COSMIC UNEMPLOYMENT RATE.”

“Huh?”

“I MEAN, THERE IS NO MEANINGFUL ANSWER TO THE QUESTION OF HOW MANY UNIVERSES HAVE A JOB. SORRY. THAT WILL BE FUNNY IN ABOUT THREE THOUSAND YEARS.”

“Let me try a different angle, then. Right now in our universe there are lots of people whose lives aren’t worth living. If You gave them the choice, they would have chosen never to have been born at all. What about them?”

“A JOB WHO IS AWARE OF THE EXISTENCE OF SUCH PEOPLE IS A DIFFERENT JOB THAN A JOB WHO IS NOT. AS LONG AS THESE PEOPLE MAKE UP A MINORITY OF THE POPULATION, THE EXISTENCE OF YOUR UNIVERSE, IN ADDITION TO A UNIVERSE WITHOUT SUCH PEOPLE, IS A NET ASSET.”

“But that’s monstrous! Couldn’t You just, I don’t know, have created a universe that looks like it has such people, but actually they’re just p-zombies, animated bodies without any real consciousness or suffering?”

” . . . ”

“Wait, did You do that?”

“I AM GOING TO PULL THE ‘THINGS MAN WAS NOT MEANT TO KNOW’ CARD HERE. THERE ARE ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES TO THE APPROACH YOU MENTION. THE ADVANTAGES ARE AS YOU HAVE SAID. THE DISADVANTAGE IS THAT IT TURNS CHARITY TOWARDS SUCH PEOPLE INTO A LIE, AND MYSELF AS GOD INTO A DECEIEVER. I WILL ALLOW YOU TO FORM YOUR OWN OPINION ABOUT WHICH COURSE IS MORE ETHICAL. BUT IT IS NOT RELEVANT TO THEODICY, SINCE WHICHEVER COURSE YOU DECIDE IS MORALLY SUPERIOR, YOU HAVE NO EVIDENCE THAT I DID NOT IN FACT TAKE SUCH A COURSE.”

“Actually, I do have some evidence. Before all of this happened to me I was very happy. But in the past couple years I’ve gone bankrupt, lost my entire family, and gotten a bad case of boils. I’m pretty sure at this point I would prefer that I never have been born. Since I know I myself am conscious, I am actually in a pretty good position to accuse You of cruelty.”

“HMMMMMMMM…” said God, and the whirlwind disappeared.

Then the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before, and healed his illnesses, and gave him many beautiful children, so it was said that God had blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning.

[EDIT: According to comments, this was scooped by a Christian philosopher five years ago. Sigh.]

The Lord spoke to Job out of the whirlwind, saying "MISTAKES WERE MADE."

— Scott Alexander (@slatestarcodex) March 13, 2015

Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the whirlwind, saying "IF YOU CAN'T HANDLE ME AT MY WORST, YOU DON'T DESERVE ME AT MY BEST."

— Scott Alexander (@slatestarcodex) March 10, 2015

The Lord spoke to Job out of the whirlwind, saying "I KNOW YOU'RE UPSET BUT THAT'S DIFFERENT FROM STRUCTURAL OPPRESSION" (h/t @simulacrumbs)

— Scott Alexander (@slatestarcodex) March 13, 2015

[source: sowhatfaith.com]

Patheos’ Science On Religion points out that liberal Protestantism is dying even as more conservative Protestant movements thrive. This seems counterintuitive in the context of society as a whole becoming less religious and conservative. So what’s going on?

In the early 1990s, a political economist named Laurence Iannaccone claimed that seemingly arbitrary demands and restrictions, like going without electricity (the Amish) or abstaining from caffeine (Mormons), can actually make a group stronger. He was trying to explain religious affiliation from a rational-choice perspective: in a marketplace of religious options, why would some people choose religions that make serious demands on their members, when more easygoing, low-investment churches were – literally – right around the corner? Weren’t the warmer and fuzzier churches destined to win out in fair, free-market competition?

According to Iannaccone, no. He claimed that churches that demanded real sacrifice of their members were automatically stronger, since they had built-in tools to eliminate people with weaker commitments. Think about it: if your church says that you have to tithe 10% of your income, arrive on time each Sunday without fail, and agree to believe seemingly crazy things, you’re only going to stick around if you’re really sure you want to. Those who aren’t totally committed will sneak out the back door before the collection plate even gets passed around.

And when a community only retains the most committed followers, it has a much stronger core than a community with laxer membership requirements. Members receive more valuable benefits, in the form of social support and community, than members of other communities, because the social fabric is composed of people who have demonstrated that they’re totally committed to being there. This muscular social fabric, in turn, attracts more members, who are drawn to the benefits of a strong community – leading to growth for groups with strict membership requirements.

The evolutionary anthropologist William Irons calls demanding rituals and onerous requirements “hard-to-fake symbols of commitment.” If you’re not really committed to the group, you won’t be very enthusiastic about fasting, abstaining from coffee, tithing ten percent, or following through on any of the other many costly requirements that conservative religious communities demand. The result? Only the most committed believers stick around, benefiting from one another’s in-group-oriented generosity, social support, and community.

Since then, Sosis has also demonstrated that religious Israeli kibbutz members are more generous in resource-sharing games than both secular, urban Israelis and secular kibbutzim. He argues that this is, in part, because demanding rituals – such as having to pray three times a day and study Torah many hours a week – serve as a signal of investment in the kibbutz community. The more rituals you participate in, the more invested you feel – and the more willing you are to sacrifice for your fellows.

But if your community doesn’t have any of these costly requirements, then you don’t feel that you have to be really committed in order to belong. The whole group ends up with a weakened, and less committed, membership. Liberal Protestant churches, which have famously lax requirements about praxis, belief, and personal investment, therefore often end up having a lot of half-committed believers in their pews. The parishioners sitting next to them can sense that the social fabric of their church isn’t particularly robust, which deters them from investing further in the collective. It’s a feedback loop. The whole community becomes weaker…and weaker…and weaker.

Even though I’ve quoted like half the blog post, it’s worth looking at just to see the empirical and statistical arguments for their hypothesis.

Not that any of this should come as a surprise. This is the same principle of maintaining separation between in-group and out-group members which has worked so well for so many eons. But making the in-group follow specific rules to prove their dedication does seem particularly effective.

I’ve been thinking about this in the context of atheist religion-substitutes. I went to the Secular Solstice last weekend, and it was held in the New York Society For Ethical Culture building. As usual I avoided social interaction by beelining to the nearest reading material, and in this case that was a plaque detailing the group’s history. The Society for Ethical Culture was founded in 1877 by an ex-rabbi (of course it was an ex-rabbi) and looks pretty much exactly like every atheist religious substitute today. That got me a little depressed. Atheism has been trying the same things for the past one hundred fifty years and, I would argue, largely failing for the past one hundred fifty years. Religion substitutes are hard.

The biggest atheist religion-substitute I know of is Sunday Assembly. I recently came across their “Ten Commandments”:

1. Is a 100 per cent celebration of life. We are born from nothing and go to nothing. Let’s enjoy it together.

2. Has no doctrine. We have no set texts so we can make use of wisdom from all sources.

3. Has no deity. We don’t do supernatural but we also won’t tell you you’re wrong if you do.

4. Is radically inclusive. Everyone is welcome, regardless of their beliefs – this is a place of love that is open and accepting.

5. Is free to attend, not-for-profit and volunteer-run. We ask for donations to cover our costs and support our community work.

6. Has a community mission. Through our Action Heroes (you!) we will be a force for good.

7. Is independent. We do not accept sponsorship or promote outside organisations.

8. Is here to stay. With your involvement, the Sunday Assembly will make the world a better place.

9. We won’t tell you how to live, but will try to help you do it as well as you can.

10. And remember point 1…The Sunday Assembly is a celebration of the one life we know we have.

But it’s tough for me to picture these on big stone tablets. And yeah, I know the reason we don’t have the original tablets is that when Sunday Assembly Moses came down from Mt. Sinai he saw the Sunday Assembly people only celebrating life 95 percent, and waxed wroth, and broke the tablets, and then ordered the Levites to slaughter all the men, women, and children who had participated in this abomination. And then…

…okay, that’s probably not the reason they’re not on tablets. But that’s just the thing. It’s impossible to imagine these commandments inspiring strong emotions in anybody. It’s impossible to imagine people sinning against them in a meaningful way. Most of them aren’t even commandments. They’re more like promises not to command. If you absolutely must compare this pablum to a list of ten points, the proper analogy is less to the Ten Commandments than to the Bill of Rights.

(“God shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”)

Atheist religion-substitutes seem unconcerned about or actively hostile to placing rules upon their members. I mean, there are a lot of things that are like “You must be tolerant”. But in practice everybody thinks “intolerant” means “more intolerant than I am, since I am only intolerant of things that are actually bad,” so no one changes their behavior. People say that we have advanced by replacing useless rules like “don’t eat pork” with useful rules like “be tolerant”, but rules against eating pork resulted in decreased pork consumption whereas it’s not clear that rules like “be tolerant” result in anything.

The only secular-ish group I have ever seen which is truly virtuous in this respect is, once again, Giving What We Can. They demand that members give ten percent of their income to charity. To join you must request and sign a paper copy of a form pledging to do this. Every year, the organization asks you to confirm that you are still complying. I don’t know what happens if you aren’t, but I assume it’s too horrible to contemplate. Maybe Peter Singer breaks into your house and kills you for the greater good.

But the point is, here’s an organization that has a very specific rule and demands you follow it. And even though their pledge form looked kind of like a tax return, signing that form was more of a sanctifying and humbling experience than any of the religion-substitutes that try to intentionally generate sanctification. Not because I was at some chapel where someone gave a rousing sermon overusing the word “community”, but because I was binding myself, voluntarily submitting to a higher moral authority.

Someone on my blog a while back used the word “nomic” to refer to a subculture based on following a rule set, sort of like an opt-in religion without beliefs or supernatural elements. I looked to see if it was a real thing but couldn’t find any references other than the card game. But I find the idea interesting. If it contains mechanisms for treating subculture members differently than non-members, it seems like an optional add-on module to government, and a strong candidate for the sort of thing that could develop into a healthy Archipelago.

I.

Some rationalists study ecclesiology. I used to think this was dumb. Now I appreciate it a little more. Let me see if I can explain.

Suppose you have a cause or movement. Let’s say libertarianism. You’re probably not going to get too far on your own, so you start looking for other people who agree with you.

You end up with a wide spectrum of people. Some of them agree with you on nearly everything. Other people consider themselves part of your movement, but disagree with your goals and hate you personally. Maybe you’re kind of a soft libertarian who just wants the government to decriminalize pot and stop ordering illegal drone attacks, but the other guy wants to disband the government entirely and make everyone live in heavily armed communes. And the other other guy is a member of the Libertarian National Socialist Green Party, and you’re not even sure if he has real opinions or just likes chaining political-sounding words together, but that swastika armband of his is starting to creep you out.

If you only work together with the libertarians who agree with you about everything, then you’ll have a nice, low-conflict group who can cooperate naturally and completely to achieve common goals. You’ll also have like three people.

If you work together with everyone who shares a goal with you, you get much more power – money, activist-hours, votes – but you’ve got to make ideological compromises. And sometimes you’ve got to make practical compromises too – for example, letting people you consider idiots have a say in your strategic planning, or holding your nose and agreeing to wear a swastika armband on Tuesdays and every second Thursday.

One option is to refuse to incorporate a formal group. You vote for whichever major-party candidate seems the most libertarian, occasionally picket your local IRS office, and write lots of angry letters to the editor about Big Government. The heavily-armed-commune people also do some similar things, and sometimes you go to each other’s protests, or write articles in each other’s magazines. Occasionally the Libertarian Green Nazis say something, and you get to pretend you don’t know them.

This seems to be the status of the broader libertarian movement right now, as well as a lot of other movements like feminism, transhumanism, socialism, Islam, and atheism – just to name a few.

Another option is that you do incorporate a formal group. You come up with bylaws and membership requirements and elect a Planning Committee and start fretting a lot over who is In and who is Out.

The libertarian version of this seems to be the US Libertarian Party. They are no doubt the strongest face of US libertarianism, but they only capture a tiny part of the energy and power of the movement. Running through the other movements mentioned in order, they can boast groups like the National Organization for Women, MIRI, the US Communist Party, various mosques, and the Secular Student Association. Usually there is more than one group per movement – Islam, for example, boasts everything from your local mosque to ISIS to CAIR.

Muslims have this quasi-messianic goal of the caliphate – a single organization representing and capturing all the strength of Islam. It seems to me to be a very reasonable goal, at least conditional on supporting Islam and wanting it to flourish. Likewise, if there were a Single Feminist Organization that contained and directed the actions of all feminists, that would be a really big deal. If two or more socialists could sit in a room together without each accusing the others of being fascist pigs, maybe socialism would achieve more.

The Big Question of ecclesiology seems to me to be – how do you design a single organization to capture and direct the greatest percentage of your movement’s energy most effectively?

Here there are a bunch of tradeoffs, most notably:

Strict organization versus relaxed organization. If I wanted to capture near 100% of all libertarians, the easiest way would be to spend my own money publishing nice glossy pamphlets with pictures of the Statue of Liberty on them saying in a vague way that more freedom would be nice. Probably most libertarians, presented with a chance to sign their name on a dotted line saying they are “a supporter” of my organization at no cost to them, would be willing to go along. But in terms of energy direction, this is frickin’ useless.

On the other hand, imagine an organization in which the Libertarian Field Marshal gave orders to everyone who signed on – you quit college to canvas door-to-door, you get a Ph. D in economics so we can have someone ready to respond to arguments against the free market if we need it, you become a banker and donate your obscene salary to our group. This group has energy-direction up the wazoo, and it could become incredibly powerful with only a couple dozen members. It also would never get a couple dozen members.

Strict orthodoxy versus relaxed orthodoxy. Maybe you’re allowed to join the group if you “identify” with the “label” of libertarian. Maybe you have to agree to every single point on a ninety-point platform about what the ideal society should be and how we’re going to pursue it. The first group is probably hopelessly conflict-prone and can only act in very large brush strokes. The second group can work together much more easily, but is smaller.

The limiting case of relaxedness is a national government, which “represents” everyone in an entire country, but which is so non-agenty that it is better viewed as a sort of exoskeleton-suit for other movements to take over and control rather than a goal-having movement in its own right. The limiting case of strictness is a single person.

Top-down control versus bottom-up control. Bottom-up control makes members happy, offers a guarantee against certain forms of insanity, and is a good way of resolving disputes and preventing outright civil war. Top-down control is more effective in terms of making sure the group’s actions are unified and not “designed by committee” in the perjorative sense of the phrase. It also means the people who founded the organization aren’t going to suddenly get outvoted by a membership that wants to do something else, which seems to be a surprisingly common problem. For example, the Republican Party started out as the party representing the racially enlightened and highly educated North against the backward South. I wonder how that’s been working out for them?

Closely related here is the problem of value drift. You can go a large part of the way to preventing value drift by some level of hard-coding of principles in a founding document (eg the US Bill of Rights) which is very difficult for future generations to change. On the other hand, if those values prove unexpectedly sub-optimal you get stuck having to say the founding document was “meant as a metaphor” or declaring in 1978 that you got a new revelation from God saying the previous revelation from God was received in error.

If you succeed in these tradeoffs, your reward is an organization that encompasses a large number of mostly-like-minded individuals who invest a lot of effort into working together for a common purpose. If you fail, you get organizations that can never get a coherent platform together or tear themselves apart in internal squabbles or civil wars.

II.

So much for a description of what an atheist ecclesiology might be about. What about the experimental results of such an ecclesiology?

Most of the people I know who have thought about this problem hard agree upon one major ecclesiological principle that neatly summarizes the gist of their investigation into this area:

The Catholic Church is really, really impressive.

It is the oldest continuously-operating organization in the world. It is the largest organization in the world, as measured in number of members. It is probably the richest non-state organization in the world. Although we can debate how closely they have stuck to the founding principles they had as of 114 AD or 1014 AD, they are doubtlessly a lot closer to those principles than, say, modern China is to 1014-AD-China.

Although there are other religions nearly as large as Catholicism – Islam and Hinduism, for example – they lack the same level of organization or really any organization at all. And although there are various governments that are probably a bit more powerful, they cheat by being able to throw anyone who doesn’t support them in jail. So what are the Church’s institutional choices, and how do they contribute to its longevity and success?

The first unusual thing I immediately notice about the Catholic Church is its insistence on turning group membership into a binary. You can be sort-of-libertarian, kind-of-libertarian, occasionally-libertarian-on-some-topics, or super-duper-libertarian – but the Catholics make it very clear that you are either A Catholic or Not A Catholic. You become a Catholic by going through the appropriate rituals, which are obvious and public and difficult to miss. You become Not A Catholic by things like official orders of excommunication.

I agree that this has become sort of washed out in recent years, to the point where there are people who are as just as vaguely Catholic as I am vaguely Jewish – that is, hardly at all except as a fuzzy feeling of connectedness to a group that shaped your culture. But as best I can tell, the Official Church Position is that this is degenerate, and that on God’s computer each person definitely has a Boolean variable representing whether they are Catholic or not.

Second, I notice the Catholic Church formalizes what beliefs and commitments Catholicism does and does not entail. These are the endless creeds and catechisms. Most other organizations have no good equivalent to this – not only is there no Feminist Catechism, but there’s not even a creed for specific limited feminist organizations like NOW or NARAL. Although party platforms are kind of close to this, I feel like on closer inspection they’re effects rather than causes of group membership. They’re talking about “Given the current makeup of the Republican Party, here are the sorts of things we expect Republican candidates to push during the next election”. They’re not saying “If you don’t believe every plank of this platform, get out of the GOP.”

Not only does the Church formalize where they demand conformity, but they formalize where they don’t. I don’t know enough to talk about this accurately, but I think that questions like “What was the Virgin Mary’s eye color?” can be debated by anyone with a half-baked theory and any bishop asked to intervene would get annoyed and say the Church has no opinion on this and shouldn’t force consensus. On the other hand, if someone asks “Was the Virgin Mary even Jesus’ real mother at all?” the Church politely informs you that they are forcing consensus on this question and you can either fall into line with the consensus or be declared a heretic and get out of the Church and in to the pit of eternal fire where the worm dieth not.

Fourth, although I don’t begin to claim to know enough theology to have credible things to say about the demands the Church may make, there are definitely occasional instances of, for example, Catholics being excommunicated for being part of abortion rights groups or the like. So it seems like they are pretty serious about being able to tell you what to do and expelling you if you don’t do it (with the caveat that in most cases with low-level proles they never bother to enforce it). But they likewise seem pretty serious about not abusing that power in stupid ways.

Fifth, the Church is hierarchical. There are many clearly defined levels, it’s obvious who is in charge of whom, and each level has to obey the levels above it or else. The Pope is in charge of all the levels and in theory everyone has to listen to him. You get promoted based on some combination of ability and politics.

Finally, the Church seems really big on rituals. A lot of them seem to be very clear IDENTIFY US AS YOUR IN GROUP AND THIS AS YOUR COMMUNITY NOW rituals – attempts to flip Haidt’s hive switch. Others just lend an air of dignity and grandeur to proceedings.

III.

A paradox: if the Catholic Church is the most successful organization in history, why don’t other organizations follow its example?

There are a few counterexamples here. National armies seem very similar to the Catholic Church in a lot of ways. You’re either in them or out of them. There are induction rituals and dismissal rituals. They are hierarchical with a general on top, colonels and majors in the middle, and the enlisted man on the bottom. When you’re in them, you have to do everything the higher levels say or you get kicked out and make a lot of people very angry. The whole thing is extremely full of rituals and everyone has to venerate various ritual objects in weird ways (for example, the national flag, or the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier). Fraternal organizations like the Freemasons seem to have something kind of similar going on here.

But that just makes the problems weirder. National armies are optimized for effectiveness and nearly everyone considers them impressive models of organizations that Get Things Done. If the Catholic Church – maybe the most culturally powerful organization in the world – and the US Army – doubtless the most physically powerful organization in the world – share a structure, isn’t that a pretty strong point in favor of that structure?

Yet a lot of very sincere, maybe even fanatical movements – the libertarian movement, the feminist movement, the transhumanist movement, the socialist movement – don’t seem to even be considering that model.

Their model is to have a large base of mostly atomized supporters, upon which float many different organizations. The supporters donate money to the organizations, and sometimes accept paying or volunteer jobs there. Occasionally they will wear the organization’s logo on a t-shirt, or affix its bumper sticker to their car, but this is the extent of their identification. The organizations do not have membership rosters per se, except maybe a “donor list” or “supporter list” that exists mostly so they know who to email the newsletter to.

The only political-social organizations that even approach the Church model are political parties – and as we saw before, these fall short in a lot of ways. They demand nothing from supporters, their platforms are notably different from catechisms, and although they sort of have hierarchy and ritual it seems a bit forced and apologizing-for-itself most of the time.

So phrased differently, the paradox goes: why are there so many NGOs and so few Churches?

One answer I reject is that nobody wants to join a Church. I see among my friends something approaching longing for a good Church-like structure. This is hard for me to explain without naming names in a way I worry would be embarrassing, but it seems self-evidently true to me. Certainly this was something I saw a lot in micronations – a longing to be part of something bigger than ourselves.

Imagine that whatever cause you most support – libertarianism, transhumanism, effective altruism, feminism, whatever – had a Church type organization that you could join, led by the spokesperson for that movement you most respect (Ron Paul? Ray Kurzweil? Peter Singer? bell hooks?). You are welcome to go to their local community center, partake in a tasteful initiation ritual, and then they will ask you to do certain things for the good of the movement, which you will be assured the other members of the movement will also be doing. They will have a clearly printed list of what they do or don’t demand consensus on, and members of the movement will follow it for the sake of maintaining cohesion. No more endless “Can you still be a feminist even if you don’t…?” debates. The answer is always “Look at the list printed by the Feminist Pope (Mome?), if it’s not on there, then yes”. Also, their hierarchs wear cool clothes and occasionally speak in dead languages.

Unless every single cliched movie villain speech I have ever seen is wrong, humans long for someone to rule them and tell them what to do. Structure is good. Ability to pick your own in group is good. I have a really hard time imagining that there are no Churches because of a lack of willing adherents.

My guess is that for some reason we have a specific memetic immune response against Churches. Existing religions are grandfathered in. Everyone else who starts evolving towards such a design gets told they’re a cult and soundly mocked. I think this might have happened to Objectivism, which at one point might have been turning into a Church but now looks a little more like an NGO.

Chesterton’s Fence tells us we probably shouldn’t mess with this. But there is still a spot in my heart that misses all of the interesting Churches that there could have been.

EXODUS
Egad, no bondage!
“Live not on evil!”

LEVITICUS
Repel a leper

NUMBERS & DEUTERONOMY
Are we not drawn onwards, we Jews, drawn onward to new era?

JUDGES, PROPHETS, KINGS, & WRITINGS
Now, sir, a war is won
Egad! A base life defiles a bad age.
[Deed]
[Deed]
[Tenet]
[Tenet]

THE GOSPELS
So – let’s use Jesus’ telos.
Dogma: I am God!
Deliverer re-reviled
“Abba, abba…”
Did I do, O God, did I as I said I’d do? Good, I did.
Deified

REVELATIONS
Won’t I panic in a pit now?

(most of these palindromes are not original to me, but I cannot find good attributions)

(I apologize for skipping the Pauline epistles, but I couldn’t find or invent good palindromes to describe them. But if we follow most scholars in rejecting 1 & 2 Timothy, Titus, and Ephesians, then modern commentary on the Pauline epistles could be “some men interpret nine memos”)

(I realize the title “Semite Times” might lead one to expect a more general history of the Jews beyond the Biblical period. I cannot do this concept justice, but a good chunk of modern Israeli history could be “bar an Arab”)

(Sounds Biblical as heck but unfortunately doesn’t seem to correspond to any actual Bible story: “So may Obadiah, even in Nineveh, aid a boy, Amos”.)

I like Pope Francis. He seems to be kind-hearted, intelligent, and genuinely focused on helping the poor. When he expresses opinions, they tend to be ones I agree with, at least as much as is consistent with him still being Catholic. He’s done a lot of substantive good work.

But that’s not what anybody’s focused on. And what they do focus on confuses me.

Suppose that people were to get super excited about President Obama wearing a US flag pin. “He’s so patriotic! He even demonstrates his love for America on his clothing!” Or going to Arlington Cemetary on Memorial Day: “Look how much the sacrifice of American soldiers moves him!”

But really all this proves is that Obama isn’t a total idiot. Wearing a flag pin is an easy way to signal patriotism, and if you’re the President signaling patriotism is a free public opinion boost. In the same way, it’s hard to imagine a self-interested President conceiving of the idea of going to Arlington Cemetery on Memorial Day and not acting on it. It would just be dumb.

Pope Francis does some pretty heart-warming things, like washing the feet of the poor and letting little kids sit in his Pope chair, abandoning his papal luxury palace for a humble apartment, and baptizing orphaned puppies (has he done this yet? I assume it’s only a matter of time).

Thing is, I think of the counterfactual universe where I’m Pope, and having been made aware of the possibility of doing these things, it’s hard to imagine not going through with them. For getting rid of the furniture made of solid gold that no sane person would even want, I can have the entire world talk about my humility. For two hours of my time and the cost of a foot-washing basin, I can be Time Person of the Year.

For me, the story isn’t why Francis is so great, but why his predecessors didn’t do stuff like this all the time. Yes, okay, Pope Benedict XVI gets creeped out by humans and he’s not sure his immune matrix can handle their Earth germs. Fine. What were the other 264 guys’ excuses? Why don’t we get to hear about them secretly sneaking out of the Vatican to help the homeless in a way that makes it almost certain it would leak out (I’m not saying Pope Francis is really doing this, just that if he isn’t it’s probably because he didn’t think of it in time)?

Maybe Francis is just the first Pope who understands PR. The past two Popes were born in the 1920s; maybe they never really figured out the Age of Mass Media. I doubt future Popes will make that mistake.

I am not accusing Pope Francis of being shady or Machiavellian (although Machiavelli’s The Prince does in fact contain a whole chapter on advice for Popes). Just saying that if he were Machiavellian, he’d probably do pretty much what he’s doing now.

EDIT: Jed brings up in the comments what seems to me a good point. Perhaps previous Popes were interested in public opinion, and did do a good job managing it, but believed that people would be more impressed by golden thrones and fancy regalia and ritual than by conspicuous humility. Perhaps that belief was correct. That would say something pretty impressive about the world and the Church – that over the past century the optimal strategy in making people think you are a holy figure worthy of respect has changed from “have a really big solid gold scepter” to “radiate humility and love for all mankind”. Did we enter the Millennium without noticing?

Today was the Day of Atonement. As an atheist, I find it hard to appreciate atonement in its cosmic, maybe-not-even-possible sense. But I can certainly appreciate the power of a good apology.

A few days ago, there was a…

Actually, I just realized that since this involves a real case going on at a real hospital with possible legal ramifications, it would be a terrible idea for me to describe it, so I’m going to change it around so far that it bears no resemblance to the original except a certain ambiguity around the idea of apologies.

So, a few days ago, there was a mishap at my hospital. A patient was having some pain, but was already heavily sedated already and further painkillers might be dangerous. I am still a lowly intern and wasn’t sure what to do, so I called up my attending, who told me to go ahead and administer the drugs. This was late at night, so immediately after doing that I signed the patient over to night shift and went home.

The next morning I came in and learned the patient had gotten loopy from being over-sedated and fallen down trying to walk to the bathroom. This can start a minor panic in a hospital, because we tend to have elderly people who don’t tolerate falls very well, and a bad one can mean anything from broken bones to a big lawsuit.

But in fact, the patient hadn’t gotten any broken bones or head injuries or anything like that. He had scraped his elbow. My attending came in a little after me, heard there was a fall, and freaked out that was some critical injury. I said “Oh, don’t worry, he just scraped his elbow.” The attending was very relieved, and we went into an office and discussed how to change our painkiller policies and prevent problems like this in the future.

A nurse heard the comment and when the patient’s wife came to ask about what had happened, she told the wife that the doctor had said the injuries weren’t a big deal. The wife then very reasonably filed a complaint against me, because all she knew about me was that I had administered the drug that caused the problem and that I had dismissed the resulting fall as “not a big deal”.

The complaint made its way up to a Head Honcho, who called me in for a meeting. I explained that I had consulted my attending about using the drug, and that what I had said had been said in private as an attempt to communicate that the patient was okay. The documentation supported me on both counts and I was Cleared Of Wrongdoing (thank God).

I then said I would call up the patient’s wife to apologize. The Head Honcho told me that I was quite right to want to call the patient’s wife to explain what had happened, but that I hadn’t done anything wrong and I shouldn’t sell myself short by saying “I’m sorry” or “I apologize” or any permutation thereof. It wasn’t about legal issues – the wife has already said she’s not suing us. He was just a nice guy and and thought it would be unfair to make me “confess” to something not my fault.

This incident has gotten me thinking about what exactly “I’m sorry” is supposed to mean.

First, it can mean “This problem was entirely the fault of my own moral failings. I admit to these moral failings, will try to give you whatever recompense I can, and will do everything possible to make this not happen again.”

For example, I cheat on my wife. Then I realize that was wrong and I apologize to her. It’s unambiguously my fault I cheated, and I accept that fault.

Second, it can mean “You are sad. I am sad that you are sad. I wish that this had not happened.”

For example, as per the quote at the top, I go to a funeral and tell the family I’m sorry about their loss.

Third, it can mean “You are sad. The reason seems to be very tangentially related to me or my actions, but no reasonable person would call it my fault. I am sad that you are hurt and if I could have prevented that I would have.”

For example, a doctor tries her best to save a patient, but the patient still dies. She tells the family “I’m sorry I couldn’t do more.” Or my friend in China is upset and I say “I’m sorry I can’t be there to help you get through this.” Or the hero tells the villain “I’m sorry it had to end this way” before shooting him.

Crucially but annoyingly, the first and third meaning are almost opposite each other. The first one is a way of saying “This is my fault”. The third one is a way of saying “This isn’t my fault.” They are both polite, deferential, and respectful of the pain that the victim is suffering. But only one of them admits wrongdoing.

Unfortunately, the English language really doesn’t have a great way of politely and deferentially being respectful of someone else’s pain that you are tangentially related to other than saying “I’m sorry”.

And also unfortunately, the English language really doesn’t have a great way of saying “This was not my fault” without sounding impolite, disrespectful, and like you’re trivializing the other person’s pain.

This is why myself and the Head Honcho are having so much trouble getting together a good statement to give to the patient’s wife. All of his proposed statements sound something like

“I heard you were concerned about my conduct in the case of Mr. X. I appreciate your distress, but I was not the one who chose to administer that drug, and when I described your husband’s injury I only meant that it wasn’t medically critical. The implication that it wasn’t a big deal was a misinterpretation by the nurse who gave you that statement.”

This is completely honest, yet it oozes “I am a callous businessperson who is concerned entirely with covering his own ass and doesn’t care about your pain.”

But all of my proposed statements sound something like:

I’m very sorry that your husband fell. I handed off the decision to give painkillers to a more senior doctor, but I recognize that this was partially my fault as well. Likewise, although I only meant to say that your husband’s injuries were not medically critical, I realize I could have chosen my words better. Please accept my apologies for this distressing incident.”

This makes me sound like a potentially decent person and a responsible doctor. But as the Head Honcho points out, there’s a sort of dishonesty in admitting more blame on paper than I’m willing to admit in my heart. Like, it’s true that I could have chosen my words more carefully, but if someone else were to accuse me of this, I would instantly object that since I had no idea someone would overhear them, distort them, and report the distorted version to someone else, there’s no reason I should have wanted to. The level of misinterpretation that happened to me could have happened to practically anyone at any time if they had the same bad luck – that utterance was not unusually careless by normal human standards.

The miniature angel on my right shoulder tells me I should do everything I can to let this woman know that I care about and regret her suffering, even at the cost of my own pride. It tells me I should accept “heroic responsibility” – that anything that happens is my fault at least far enough that I can learn from it and use it to be a better person next time. But the miniature Robin Hanson on my left shoulder tells me that I am just signaling my own virtue and responsibility while secretly I don’t believe any of what I’m saying.

Right now I’m leaning towards the angel (not that it matters; I can recommend, but the Head Honcho will make the final decision). I think my outlook is that people are reasonable: the patient’s wife, upon hearing what really happened, will read between the lines and realize it wasn’t quite my fault, but will appreciate my phrasing it in a way that emphasizes the importance I place on her concerns. I have talked to the patient’s wife before, I respect her, and I trust her to be a good apology-accepter.

The Head Honcho, who doesn’t know the patient’s wife, might worry otherwise. Perhaps she will be the sort of person who, when I give my apology, won’t buy it. She’ll shout “You could have chosen your words better?! No sh*t, Sherlock!! You chose those words in a very hurtful way, you’re irresponsible, and I’m going to ask the hospital to fire you for not caring about offending people!!”

Not only have I just made her angrier, but I’ve also abandoned my one advantage in this situation – the fact that I didn’t really do anything wrong. By admitting to some wrongdoing, I can no longer make the defense I made above – the one where I couldn’t reasonably expected my words to be twisted in that particular way – without being accused of backtracking and flipflopping and outright lying.

II.

I feel privileged to be hanging around basically decent people like my patient’s wife, and so to have a lot of options in terms of how to apologize. You know who has it really bad? Politicians. I cringe every time I see a story in the media about politicians apologizing or not apologizing.

Politicians can either give the first sort of statement I mentioned – a very dry “It’s not my fault” sort of statement – and look like shifty sleazy people even if, in fact, it was not their fault.

Or they can try to give an apology of the same type I was considering above, and then have all their words twisted and used against them forever until they eventually have to backtrack on it and get torn to pieces for doing so.

Suppose that an attractive female Senator is bringing a motion to the floor, and a male Senator mutters to himself under his breath “I’d like to motion her to the floor.” Unbeknownst to him, his Official Senate Lapel Microphone is on and broadcasts his statement to the entire C-SPAN watching public (so, like, five people).

Of course, the entire nation instantly suspends talking about boring things like the war in Syria or anthropogenic global warming to focus on the new scandal. “Sexism In The Senate?” the cover of TIME says. “Are Female Senators Just Objects For Men’s Amusement?” asks the cover of US News. And eventually the sound of a million screeching voices and the occasional death threat convinces Male Senator With Microphone that he should probably apologize or something.

Male Senator With Microphone probably feels terrible. He embarassed himself in front of his colleagues, he offended the female Senator he was talking about, disrupted the proceedings of the Senate, annoyed millions of average Americans, and maybe in some vague way contributed to sexism. He certainly has every reason and every right to feel bad.

On the other hand, noticing – just to one’s self! – that other people are attractive seems like a harmless and rather universal thing to do, and is hardly anything to feel bad about.

The most honest apology he could give would probably be “I’m sorry I said that aloud instead of just thinking it. I didn’t realize my microphone was on at the time. I will be more careful in noticing when my microphone is and isn’t on in the future.”

But of course that would mean the end of his political career. Everyone would say he was so tone-deaf and out-of-touch that he couldn’t realize the problem was that he was sexist, and not that he got caught being sexist. And the cries for his head would grow three times louder.

He could go a little further than that and remain honest. He could say something like “I am sorry that lots of people were offended by my statement. I did not mean to hurt anyone’s feelings and I will try to do better in the future.”

And then the newspapers, in front page headlines, would gleefully point out that he had only apologized “that people were offended” and not actually admitted wrongdoing. People would shake their heads and talk about how politicians always gave stuttering non-apologies, and eight different activist groups would hold large public demonstrations demanding he show real contrition instead of trying to “deflect the issue”.

Or he could go all out. He could say “I’m incredibly sorry that I wronged Senator Y in that way. Clearly I have some sexism issues I need to work on. I promise I will never do it again and I hope the American people can forgive me for being a bad Senator and a bad person.”

And then he would be torn to pieces.

First, everyone will demand he resign, throwing his own words about being sexist and a bad person back at him. Then, if he doesn’t resign, they will demand he “atone” for his misdeeds by oh, let’s say doing everything that feminist lobby groups want all the time, with the threat of getting constant “I GUESS SENATOR X WASN’T REALLY SINCERE ABOUT WORKING ON HIS SEXISM” any time he can’t comply quickly enough.

And the worst part will be that he will have no defense, because deep in his heart he knows he has given up his pride, his integrity, and his right to stand up for himself in order to very temporarily quiet the hordes.

This Hobson’s Choice between three terrible options is all the average politician has when accused of anything – whether or not the original accusation is even fair (and I have a gut understanding of this, having previously been a politician myself).

So is it any wonder that the average politician usually responds by denying all wrongdoing and accusing someone else?

III.

I am okay at apologizing for intellectual mistakes. There I can get new data and realize I was wrong. This is one reason I so want to apologize for prescribing the wrong painkiller. I thought listening to my attending’s advice and giving that painkiller would be okay. Events proved me wrong. I can apologize for my misjudgment without a hint of dishonesty.

The same is true of honest mistakes, like coming to work late because I accidentally set my alarm wrong. If anything, I over-apologize for these until everyone is sick of hearing me and tries to reassure me with “Really, it’s just an alarm. Not the end of the world.”

But I’m not very good at apologizing for moral mistakes. When I think courses of action are clearly wrong, I don’t do them. When I think courses of action are clearly right, I do them, but then I tend to continue thinking they are right and don’t see anything to apologize for.

Actually, my Yom Kippur was kind of a bust. I tried really hard to repent and I couldn’t really think of anything especially bad I did. It’s not that I’m a bad person, just that my life is kind of boring. I got exasperated with a couple of people more quickly than they deserved, but I feel bad repenting for it when I know that the next time someone is equally annoying I will probably get exasperated equally quickly. I mostly just have nice conversations with nice people, browse the Internet, and do my job moderately well.

I am tempted to ask other people if I have wronged them. It might provide useful data. The problem is, I’m afraid they’re going to say yes, and they will explain the way I wronged them, and then I will say “No, you’re wrong, I acted entirely correctly in that situation”, which would sort of break the whole point of repentance.

But although I am bad at apologizing, I think I am pretty good at accepting apologies. Accepting apologies requires understanding the Principle of Charity, not to mention the Fundamental Attribution Error. It requires going into a person’s shoes, imagining whether you could have done the same thing in the same circumstances, and gradually paring away at your anger until you can picture the absolute minimum amount of wrongdoing and malice they could have had consistent with them doing what they did, which is usually the amount they actually had.

It requires thinking “Yeah, I sometimes notice other people are hot, and so me and that senator are morally equivalent, and since I don’t blame myself for sometimes admiring people’s appearances, well, there but for the grace of not having a microphone in my lapel go I.”

Or “Well, I didn’t know everything about my job immediately after I started either, so if I had called my boss and asked for help and she had been wrong, I wouldn’t want anyone to take it out on me.”

Since English has no good way to express regret and compassion without also expressing fault, I think it is appropriate to apologize for things you don’t think were completely your fault – and I also think it is appropriate to accept those apologies in the spirit in which they were offered.

“This, therefore, is, in conclusion, my reason for accepting the religion and not merely the scattered and secular truths out of the religion. I do it because the thing has not merely told this truth or that truth, but has revealed itself as a truth-telling thing. All other philosophies say the things that plainly seem to be true; only this philosophy has again and again said the thing that does not seem to be true, but is true. Alone of all creeds it is convincing where it is not attractive”

Forgive me if I go into Angry Internet Atheist Mode for a second, but…

Yes, it’s told so many truths. Like that God created the world in seven days. And that there was a giant flood. And that it’s morally acceptable to condemn people to eternal torture. And that homosexuality is wrong. And that slaves should submit to their masters. And women to their husbands. And that the Second Coming will occur before the last of this generation passes away. And that people who are capable of doing so should castrate themselves. And that you should not suffer a witch to live. And that epilepsy is sometimes caused by demons. And that it’s a really really good idea to kill Babylonian children.

And that everything is a combination of essence and accidents. And that things have final and formal causes. And that the planets are arranged in a succession of crystalline spheres, each with a governing angel. And that capitalism is a terrible idea. And that church councils like the one that killed Jan Huss are infallible.

And after you’ve subtracted all the things that, in the light of modernity, obviously the Bible couldn’t have actually mean or obviously couldn’t really have been Biblically supported, what are you left with? Ideas like “humanity is flawed”. Gee, thanks religion. Surely only God could have noticed this startling and well-concealed insight!

When religion makes non-trivial testable claims, whether in its holy books or from later clergy trying to interpret those holy books, those claims have a spectacular record of being exactly as wrong as you would expect from chance – and then some. So what the stars are the “truth telling thing” people talking about?

Let’s ask one. From Unequally Yoked:

In some ways, I find myself in a similar position to Chesterton. I find that a lot of Christian theology works for me in a way that plenty of other philosophies have not. When I say ‘works’ I mean pretty much what Chesterton does—that it matches many of the core assumptions I make about the world, and it harmonizes some of the conflicting ones in ways I didn’t expect, but seem to fit.

Time for a metaphor here, and I’m going to sort of steal it from Alasdair MacIntyre.

Suppose that one of the Roman civil wars – let’s say the one precipitating the Year of Four Emperors – goes on for decades and turns into an apocalypse. Roman civilization and learning are destroyed. All the Romans have are fragments of their old culture. Something something Mt. Olympus. Some kind of apple thrown at some kind of party caused the fall of Troy. There are these books in a cave that tell the future, who knows how they got there? We should avoid hubris, but we don’t know why.

Then someone from a very distant colony arrives, bearing intact copies of the Iliad and the Odyssey and a few other important books that reveal all the tenets of Greco-Roman paganism.

Suddenly, everything makes sense! The reason we go on pilgrimages to Mt. Olympus is because the gods live there. The reason an apple caused the fall of Troy was because it was thrown by the Goddess of Discord! The reason these books in a cave tell the future was because they were written by the Sibyl, who gained the gift of prophecy after a love affair with Apollo. We should avoid hubris because Jupiter is jealous and will zap us with lightning bolts.

On the other hand, the Iliad and Odyssey would continue to be laughably wrong about all testable claims, like that the ocean is perfectly circular or that there’s an island inhabited by Cyclopses.

Because Roman religion was originally shaped by the Iliad and Odyssey and then fractured into confusing fragments, restoring exposure to the source of the religion will cause this feeling of “suddenly everything I believe fits together and makes sense.” But none of this subjective feeling of sense-making will correspond to ability to make correct claims about the external world.

Modern Western civilization spent about fifteen hundred years having its thought processes completely shaped by Christian doctrine. Over the past few centuries, changes in science and philosophy have shattered a lot of Christian doctrine and replaced it with more modernist ideas, but they haven’t succeeded completely and certainly not at the deepest level. Most people contain various strata of conflicting Christian and modernist ideas superimposed upon one another, and not all the Christian ideas are conveniently labeled “Christian”.

Exposure to the Christian ideas in their original form should allow a lot of aspects of modern culture to be viewed in a new light. To give a trivial example, dislike of homosexuality is pretty common in our culture, but has zero intellectual foundation outside of an ethical system that people generally aren’t exposed to unless they specifically study Christian philosophy. Less trivial examples might be beliefs about guilt, penance, justice, innocence, marriage, modesty, humility, etc, etc, etc.

If this were the whole picture, then things could go one of two ways. People could be exposed to really high-grade modern philosophy that removes the remaining Christian elements (like makes the consequentialist argument against stigmatizing homosexuality), suddenly have a revelation of beauty and consistency, and become full-on atheists. Or people could be exposed to the purest form of Ye Olde Time Religion, suddenly have a revelation of beauty and consistency, and become full-on religious people.

Buuuuut it’s more complicated than that because I think the modernist beliefs and the religious beliefs are held in different ways, although don’t ask me to get more technical than that. Maybe the modernist beliefs are held explicitly and endorsed? And the religious beliefs are held kind of subconsciously as aliefs? And so I think the high-grade modernist philosophy and the Ye Olde Time Religion are appealing in different ways and to different parts of our belief structure.

This applies not just to Christianity but to any claim that old ideas should be taken seriously because they match our intuitions and aesthetics. Reactionaries, I’m looking at you here.

Friday was the anniversary of Chesterton’s death, the religious blogosphere is eulogizing him, and I thought I’d join in. I enjoyed and recommend Chesterton’s novels, especially The Man Who Was Thursday and Napoleon of Notting Hill, his works of nonfiction like Heretics, and even his poems (all of these are links to freely available fulltext versions online).

Classical philosophy holds that evil is merely the absence of good, but for me, at least, the opposite reduction is more tempting (albeit just as wrong). Evil is extremely obvious – you can look at people involved in animal cruelty, or bullying, or whatever, and you can almost see the actively malicious force animating them onward. On the other hand, good is most easily perceived as unusual skill at avoiding evil. Vegetarians are unusually good because they take extra effort to avoid hurting animals, people who donate to charity are unusually good because they take extra effort to avoid greed.

I credit three authors with giving me a visceral understanding of active, presence-rather-than-absence Good: G. K. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, and Jacqueline Carey. Two of those are very religious and write quite consciously from a Christian perspective. The third writes about kinky sex. Go figure.

But actually when I think about it more closely, the moral beauty in Carey’s writing comes mostly from her constructed religion, which is suspiciously similar to Christianity. So it seems that there’s a fact to be explained here.

Can an atheist appreciate Chesterton? A better question might be whether an atheist can happily appreciate Chesterton as offering a beauty that she, too, can partake in, or whether the appreciation must be along the lines of “Yup, these are the nice things we can’t have.”

Keep The Horse Before The Cart

So I think an important point to make before going any further is that, through 90% of Christian history G. K. Chesterton and C. S. Lewis probably would have been burnt at the stake.

Not just for denominational reasons, although that would have been enough. Promoting joy as a sign of sanctity and as a proper state for man – that’s a burning for the Epicurean heresy right there. Believing righteous non-Christians could get into Heaven – that’s a burning. A suggestion that that humor and lightness were chief attributes of God and the angels – more burning. Doubting the literal truth of some of the Old Testament? Uncertainty whether the New Testament was divinely inspired in a more-than-metaphorical all-great-art-is-divinely-inspired way? Claims that praying sincerely to false gods was praiseworthy and basically just another way of praying to God? Burning, burning, burning.

The moral qualities that shine in Lewis and Chesterton – joy, humor, a love of the natural world, humanity, compassion, tolerance, willingness to engage with reason – are all qualities they inherited from modernity which would be repugnant to many of their Christian predecessors. They are all totally within the milieu of early 20th century England and totally foreign to medieval Italy or ancient Judea.

St. Augustine could not have written The Great Divorce, because while Lewis was talking about how the blessed in Heaven suffer great hardship to meet the damned in order to radiate love and wisdom at them and help bring them to Heaven, Augustine was writing about how the greatest pleasure of the blessed was getting to watch the tortures of the damned, metaphorically munching popcorn as they delighted in sinners getting what they deserved. Tertullian didn’t even wait until after he died to start getting delighted, famously saying that:

“At that greatest of all spectacles, that last and eternal judgment how shall I admire, how laugh, how rejoice, how exult, when I behold so many proud monarchs groaning in the lowest abyss of darkness; so many magistrates liquefying in fiercer flames than they ever kindled against the Christians; so many sages and philosophers blushing in red-hot fires with their deluded pupils; so many tragedians more tuneful in the expression of their own sufferings; so many dancers tripping more nimbly from anguish then ever before from applause.”

What Lewis, Augustine, and Tertullian had in common was Christianity; what set Lewis apart was modernity. What made C. S. Lewis saintly, as opposed to the horrifying sadists who actually got the “St.” in front of their names, was the perspective of a culture that had just spent a few centuries thinking about morals from a humanistic perspective.

When Pope Francis said that we need to build a “culture of life” that can protect innocent children from harm, he wasn’t taking a revelation from the Biblical angels but from the Better Angels Of Our Nature. The Biblical angels are the ones who would be tasked with enforcing God’s promise of blessing on anyone who takes Babylonian infants and smashes them against rocks (Psalm 137:9, look it up).

During the tradition from the Dark Ages to modernity, people got technologies like the printing press and the frigate and started learning more about other cultures, seeing that they were decent people and that no one religion had a monopoly on morality. The decline in infectious diseases banished death from an everyday presence to a lurking evil and made casual slaughter seem less appealing; the gradual decline in war resensitized people to violence. And all this time there were philosophers inventing things like deontology and consequentialism and freedom and equality and humanism and saying that yes, people did have inherent moral worth. And religion eventually decided that if it couldn’t beat them it might as well join them, at least to a degree, and it was this concession that allowed the moral decrepitude of people like Tertullian and Torquemada to evolve into the moral genius of people like Chesterton and Lewis.

So my thesis is that Lewis and Chesterton didn’t become brilliant moralists by revealing the truths of Christianity to a degraded modern world. They became great moralists by taking the better parts of the modern world, dressing them up in Christian clothing, and handing them back to the modern world, all while denouncing the worse parts of the modern world as “the modern world”.

And so rah humanism and all that. But the original question remains: what is it about the Christian clothing that is such a necessary ingredient?

A Cupboard Full Of Secret Ingredients

First of all, the power of myth.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that all three of the people I named as influences on my sense of moral beauty were writers of speculative fiction. Fiction has greater opportunity to be beautiful and to show complicated internal dynamics of humanity than abstruse philosophy or dry preaching does, and speculative fiction has a better opportunity to present superstimuli, including moral superstimuli. I think that people who write speculative fiction ordinarily tend to be kind of dismissed, but that because Lewis and Chesterton were working from within a tradition that had its own myths, they managed to get through the filter of “Oh, it’s just fantasy, ignore it”. Narnia was dignified by being a metaphor for the Bible, which earned its dignity through hoary age and civilizational influence.

Second of all, legitimacy.

I sometimes write about morality. It tends to be in a light-hearted “here’s what I think” style, first of all because I’m genuinely uncertain about a lot of stuff, second of all because I don’t want to sound preachy. Religion is really good at helping people be certain of things, and religious people get a free pass to sound preachy because preaching is what religions are supposed to do.

I don’t think there’s a niche for non-religious versions of Chesterton and Lewis. There are people like that New York Times ethics columnist who talk about ethics, but I think if they were to start getting poetic about it, people would start challenging their right, be like “Who told you what is or isn’t necessary for the integrity of the human spirit?” This is a tough question. But Lewis and Chesterton have a great answer: “God did”. They can, as the Bible puts it, “speak like one who has confidence”.

Third of all, a different perspective.

You can seem deep just by saying something different than everyone else does. I don’t think Lewis and Chesterton were too far from the modern moral mainstream, but I think they use a completely different aesthetic. Where most people talk about the bravery of defying the mainstream, a Christian writer can talk about the bravery of not defying the mainstream when everyone thinks you should. Where most people talk about the importance of high self-esteem, a Christian writer can talk about taking care to avoid pride. Both sides have valid and important insights, but if a culture is doing everything it can to saturate you with one of them, the other will be a powerful breath of fresh air.

Chesterton – I haven’t yet noticed this in Lewis – has this sort of gambit where he agrees with some modern virtue, and then says the correct way to attain the modern virtue is through doing the opposite of the modern virtue. Or maybe the opposite, where he agrees with what we should be doing, but then says the end goal is exactly the opposite of what everyone would think:

The outer ring of Christianity is a rigid guard of ethical abnegations and professional priests; but inside that inhuman guard you will find the old human life dancing like children, and drinking wine like men; for Christianity is the only frame for pagan freedom.

People make fun of this, and rightly so (Steven Kaas attributes to Chesterton’s dog the quote “Arf arf arf! Not because arf arf! But exactly because arf NOT arf!”) but I think it is fundamental to his project. He gets to maintain his belief in modern virtues while getting there through an unexpected path that seems deep and profound and unexpected.

Fourth of all, a focus on the individual.

Despite everything everyone says about modern society being too individualistic, there seems to be a sense in which the opposite is true. The problems we are comfortable talking about are ones like racism, sexism, income inequality, terrorism, crime. Social problems. Problems in the community. The idea of talking about what goes on in the individual soul, of having strong opinions about it, isn’t a very modern sensibility at all. The only exception are psychologists and therapists, who really want to be scientific and so scrupulously avoid sounding poetic.

I could come up with some just-so stories about why this is – we like to think scientifically, but intrapersonal dilemmas don’t lend themselves to this kind of analysis? Focus on individuals doesn’t generalize well, which is a problem in the age of mass media? Christians were abnormally obsessed with the individual soul because of virtue ethics + the idea of damnation and salvation? I’m not sure. Anyway, religion has a head start on individualist vocabulary and thought processes which non-religion doesn’t really have good alternatives for (PSYCHODYNAMICS DOES NOT COUNT AS A GOOD ALTERNATIVE).

All of these are kind of banal and not the sort of thing that could prevent an atheist from fully appreciating Chesterton. But then there’s the big one.

What Lewis, Chesterton, and Carey have in common is this belief in Good as an active, vibrant, force, in Good being not just powerful, but so powerful that it’s kind of terrifying. As something not just real, but the most real thing.

Atheists can have Good be terrifying – utilitarianism has broken much stronger minds than my own – but it’s really hard to have it be real. I’m not saying atheists can’t believe in Good, just that atheist good is a sort of – I hate this term but I’ll use it anyway – social construct. It’s real in the same sense the US Government is real. The US Government is certainly powerful – just ask any Iraqi. But it’s not one thing, with an essence and a personality and angel wings of red-white-and-blue fire. It’s just an abstraction over a lot of ordinary people doing their thing.

And this would seem to be the death blow for atheists having something as strong and convincing as a Lewisian or Chestertonian world-view. Except that I kind of picked up a similar vibe from Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. I didn’t think of it when I was naming the three authors who first made me think of Good as a thing, but it is another work that portrays Good as this burning, all-powerful force, and although it has some magic in it, it doesn’t go all the way to reinventing Christianity like Carey does.

I’m not sure whether this is sleight-of-pen, whether it only works because of the magic there because even if the magic and morality aren’t explicitly linked it still triggers sort of morality-is-magic circuits. Or whether it only works if you’re literally responsible for saving the world. But it seems encouraging.

I think the truth of Lewis and Chesterton is not only appreciatable by atheists but derives from humanist ideas. The beauty of Lewis and Chesterton I’m not sure about, but I maintain some hope that it can be saved as well, even if I’m not sure how to do it.

But I do seem to be gradually getting better at this important skill.

For example, today I saw a hilarious video on the Patheos blog Why I Am Catholic. It was one of those shows where some comedians pretending to be a news team go out and ask the “man on the street” for opinions on increasingly ridiculous news items. In this case, they were asking for opinions on how the new Pope is doing – a new Pope, remember, who has not yet been elected. Watch it. It’s pretty good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iz-LxZnPjJA

Anyway, my immediate reaction was “Man, who could possibly have guessed that Catholics would be so quick to praise a nonexistent father figure just because someone exerted mild social pressure on them to do so?”

Several news sources both secular and religious have tried to provide me with information on the potential successors without success. The articles tends to be a bunch of pictures of identical-looking old guys in red robes, which then go on to point out that this old guy in red robes was head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, but this old guy in red robes was head of the European Congress of Bishops, whereas this old guy in red robes was head of the Pontifical Council for Justice.

Some stories do classify them as either “liberal”, “moderate”, or “conservative”, which sounds more promising. But they never quite give any hint of what these terms could possibly mean, as all the cardinals seem about equally opposed to homosexuality and abortion and women priests and as far as I can tell everything else.

Proooobably there are aspects of this which are fascinating for Catholics, but as an atheist, I want two things from a Pope.

First, I kind of want him to be progressive. I have also accepted this will never happen*. For a while I thought I could kind of get away with hoping for relative progressivism, like rooting for the guy who was stuck in the 18^th century over the guy who was stuck in the 15^th century. But the differences between them seem so slight as to make this a dangerous game. And it seems sort of like a form of cultural imperialism to demand the head of a religion I don’t believe should parrot my views and ignore the views of his religion’s actual members.

But second, and less controversially, I want him to be hilarious. “Pope” is a funny word. Everyone knows this is true, even if they don’t admit it. And the Papacy itself tends to involve a person who looks like Emperor Palpatine going around in a huge hat saying silly things and mumbling prophecies of doom. I want someone who can carry on that legacy.

I understand it’s not always an unalloyed good to mock what is holy. But if something makes a claim to holiness, and falls short, and does it in a really funny way, such that you can still take good-hearted cheer in the bungled attempt without trying to mock the idea of holiness itself – well, I think that’s all in good fun.

So I’ve been reading through the biographies of some of the important cardinals and, while looking for evidence of their strong opinions on important issues, I’ve mostly just been collecting interesting or bizarre facts about them. And I thought that just in case any other atheists also wanted to know which of the papabile cardinals were most hilarious, I might as well turn it into a blog post.

Since this doesn’t solve the “all papal candidates look alike” problem, I’ve also replaced their pictures with a picture of someone else whose name sounds like theirs. To, you know, help keep them separate in my mind.

Cardinal Angelo Scola
Country of Origin:	Italy
Odd Professorships Held:	Professor of Contemporary Christology, Professor of Theological Anthropology
Position on Abortion:	Pro-life
Key Quote Indicative Of His Intellectual Prowess:	“Would not Husserl’s reduction, together with the critique of constituting intentionality, rise up in protest against such a notion of foundation? On the other hand, to say that the foundation is already in place is not to reduce it to a ‘supreme being’ that can be adequate, as an object, to the conceptual representation of a subject, as naive realism would have it. Could the foundation, so conceived, stand up to Heidegger’s well-known critique of onto-theology?” (source)
Key Quote Which Is Also, Confusingly, Indicative Of The Intellectual Prowess Of The Same Person:	“Having abandoned the Christian faith, and disappointed by the claims of Enlightenment reason, [non-believers] find themselves defenceless before reality. To-overcome this anguish they resort to magic, which would allow them to gain the protection of occult powers, and they do not refrain from seeking an alliance with these same powers of evil. [But] participation in satanic sects and cults leaves man ever more defenceless before Satan. In this sense it can be supposed that those who belong to satanic sects risk becoming more easily the prey of realities such as witchcraft, the evil eye, diabolical disturbances and demonic possession.” (source)
Possible Scandals:	● His mentor, Emanuele Severino, was censured by the church for teaching “neo-Parminideanism” ● Seriously, there are still people who believe Parmenides around? Man, if you’re going to get in trouble with the Church for teaching heterodox philosophy, why would you choose the one philosopher who’s even worse than what the Church already believes?
Probability of Secretly Being A Vampire:	Low
Probability Of Election Precipitating The Apocalypse, According To Questionable Prophecy By Medieval Irish Saint:	Low

Cardinal Peter Turkson
Country of Origin:	Ghana
Background:	Son of a carpenter; this is expected to play well in the Vatican
Position on Abortion:	Pro-life
Key Quote	“Conditions exist for definitively going beyond a Westphalian international order in which the States feel the need for cooperation but do not seize the opportunity to integrate their respective sovereignties for the common good of peoples. Of course, this transformation will be made at the cost of a gradual, balanced transfer of a part of each nation’s powers to a world Authority and to regional Authorities, but this is necessary.” (source)
Possible Scandals:	● Showed sketchy anti-Muslim YouTube video at important conference; video later turned out to be totally fake ● Lack of long-form birth certificate meanswe can’t be sure he’s really from the Vatican ●Curse of Ham
Probability of Secretly Being A Vampire:	Low
Probability Of Election Precipitating The Apocalypse, According To Questionable Prophecy By Medieval Irish Saint:	Moderate to high

Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco
Country of Origin:	Italy
Odd Professorships Held:	Professor of Contemporary Atheism
Position on Abortion:	Pro-life
Key Quote:	“Why say no to forms of legally recognised co-habitation which create alternatives to the family? Why say no to incest? Why say no to the paedophile party in Holland?” (source)
Possible Scandals:	● Keeps getting death threats because of above quote. ● That whole “Professor of Atheism” thing really is kind of suspicious
Probability of Secretly Being A Vampire:	Moderate, but I might just be saying that because of the picture
Probability Of Election Precipitating The Apocalypse, According To Questionable Prophecy By Medieval Irish Saint:	Low

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone
Country of Origin:	Italy
Odd Professorships Held:	Professor of Special Moral Theology
Celebrity Endorsements:	The ghost of Pope John Paul II, in a dream
Position on Abortion:	Pro-ch…no! Wait! Pro-life
Key Policies for Papacy	The Cardinal is a huge soccer fan and used to give amateur commentary on local matches. He has suggested the Vatican participate in international soccer, stating that “we could, in future, field a team that plays at the top level, with Roma, Internazionale, Genoa and Sampdoria” and that “If we just take the Brazilian students from our Pontifical universities we could have a magnificent squad”. He later claimed to have been joking.
Possible Scandals:	● Cardinal Bertone is accused of lying about the text of a secret apocalyptic prophecy to cover up a part where Rome is declared to become the throne of the Antichrist
Probability of Secretly Being A Vampire:	Low
Probability Of Election Precipitating The Apocalypse, According To Questionable Prophecy By Medieval Irish Saint:	Low – but if he’s already covered up one apocalyptic prophecy can we really trust him on this one?

Cardinal Christoph Maria Michael Hugo Damian Peter Adalbert, Count von Schönborn
Really?	Yes
Country of Origin:	Czechoslovakia/Austria
Born In Ominous Castle Upon Hilltop?	Yes
Odd Professorships Held:	Professor of Dogmatics
Position on Abortion:	Pro-life
Key Quote:	“The modern world needs badly to hear this message. What frequently passes for modern science —with its heavy accretion of materialism and positivism— is simply wrong about nature in fundamental ways. Modern science is often, in the words of my essay, “ideology, not science.” (source)
Possible Scandals:	● Might have maybe kinda once condemned sexual abuse, proving him to be obviously crazy and unfit for the position. ● Impeccable anti-science credentials, but does he hate gay people enough?
Probability of Secretly Being A Vampire:	The only part of that question stopping me from saying “100%” is the word “secretly”
Would I Still Probably Prefer Him To Anyone Else On This List?	Signs point to yes

Footnote:

1: When I was young, I read a passage from an alternate history book where James Joyce joins the priesthood, was eventually elevated to the papacy under the name Pope Stephen X, and reformed the Church, Irish-style. It had a lasting effect on me and you can find it here. Search for “The Stephenites were the most radical of all the Catholic clergy.“