Author: Jim

Washington Post – The prosperity gospel

;widows: 2;-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;text-decoration-style: initial;text-decoration-color: initial;word-spacing:0px”> by Cathleen Falsani

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/opinions/outlook/worst-ideas/images/350-prosperity-gospel.jpg

In the Gospel of Saint Matthew, we are told that Jesus said, “You cannot serve both God and money” and, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

The “prosperity gospel,” an insipid heresy whose popularity among American Christians has boomed in recent years, teaches that God blesses those God favors most with material wealth.

The ministries of three televangelists commonly viewed as founders of the prosperity gospel movement – Kenneth Hagin, Kenneth Copeland and Frederick K.C. Price – took hold in the 1970s and 1980s. One of the oldest and best-known proponents of prosperity theology, Oral Roberts – the television faith-healer who in 1987 told his flock that God would call him home if he didn’t raise $8 million in a matter of weeks – died at 91 last week.

But the past decade has seen this pernicious doctrine proliferate in more mainstream circles. Joel Osteen, the 46-year-old head of Lakewood Church in Houston, has a TV ministry that reaches more than 7 million viewers, and his 2004 book “Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential,” has sold millions of copies. “God wants us to prosper financially, to have plenty of money, to fulfill the destiny He has laid out for us,” Osteen wrote in a 2005 letter to his flock.

As crass as that may sound, Osteen’s version of the prosperity gospel is more gentle (and decidedly less sweaty) than those preached by such co-religionists as Benny Hinn, T.D. Jakes and the appropriately named Creflo Dollar.

Few theological ideas ring more dissonant with the harmony of orthodox Christianity than a focus on storing up treasures on Earth as a primary goal of faithful living. The gospel of prosperity turns Christianity into a vapid bless-me club, with a doctrine that amounts to little more than spiritual magical thinking: If you pray the right way, God will make you rich.

But if you’re not rich, then what? Are the poor cursed by God because of their unfaithfulness? And if God were so concerned about 401(k)s and Mercedes, why would God’s son have been born into poverty?

Nowhere has the prosperity gospel flourished more than among the poor and the working class. Told that wealth is a sign of God’s grace and favor, followers strive for trappings of luxury they can little afford in an effort to prove that they are blessed spiritually. Some critics have gone so far as to place part of the blame for the past decade’s spending binge and foreclosure crisis at the foot of the prosperity gospel’s altar.

Jesus was born poor, and he died poor. During his earthly tenure, he spoke time and again about the importance of spiritual wealth and health. When he talked about material wealth, it was usually part of a cautionary tale.

Cathleen Falsani is the religion columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times and the author of “The Dude Abides: The Gospel According to the Coen Brothers.”

 

It is the responsibility of all of us to invest time and effort in uncovering our biases and in verifying our sources of information.

It is the responsibility of all of us to invest time and effort in uncovering our biases and in verifying our sources of information. 

As noted in earlier chapters, we cannot investigate everything ourselves. But precisely because of that, we need to at least carefully investigate our favorite sources of information— be they a newspaper , a website, a TV network, or a person. In Chapter 20 we will explore in far greater depth how to avoid brainwashing and how to distinguish reality from fiction. Here I would like to offer two simple rules of thumb. 

 

First, if you want reliable information , pay good money for it. If you get your news for free , you might well be the product. At present, the dominant model in the news market is “exciting news that costs you nothing— in exchange for your attention.” You pay nothing for the news, and get a low-quality product. Even worse, you yourself unwittingly become the product. Your attention is first captured by sensational headlines, and then sold to advertisers or politicians. 

 

A far better model for the news market would be “high-quality news that costs you money but does not abuse your attention.” In today’s world, information and attention are critical assets. It is crazy to give up your attention for free, and to get in exchange only low-quality information. If you are willing to pay for high- quality food, clothes, and cars— why aren’t you willing to pay for high-quality information? 

 

The second rule of thumb is that if some issue seems exceptionally important to you, make the effort to read the relevant scientific literature. And by scientific literature I mean peer-reviewed articles, books published by well-known academic publishers, and the writings of professors from reputable institutions. Science obviously has its limitations, and it has gotten many things wrong in the past. Nevertheless, the scientific community has been our most reliable source of knowledge for centuries. If you think the scientific community is wrong about something, that’s certainly possible, but at least know the scientific theories you are rejecting, and provide some empirical evidence to support your claim. 

 

Scientists, for their part, need to be far more engaged with current public debates. Scientists should not be afraid of making their voices heard when the debate wanders into their field of expertise, be it medicine or history. Silence isn’t neutrality; it is supporting the status quo. Of course, it is extremely important to go on doing academic research and to publish the results in scientific journals that only a few experts read. But it is equally important to communicate the latest scientific theories to the general public through popular science books, and even through the skillful use of art and fiction. 

 

Does that mean scientists should start writing science fiction? That is actually not such a bad idea. Art plays a key role in shaping people’s views of the world, and in the twenty-first century science fiction is arguably the most important genre of all, for it shapes how most people understand things such as AI, bioengineering, and climate change. We certainly need good science, but from a political perspective , a good science-fiction movie is worth far more than an article in Science or Nature.

 

Harari, Yuval Noah (2018-09-04). 21 Lessons for the 21st Century (p. 238). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

 

NYTimes: Why Did Racial Progress Stall in America?

Why Did Racial Progress Stall in America? nyti.ms/3mLsoVG

 This article discusses 2 major trends that started at the end of Reconstruction until today.   I came of age at the peak of the “we” curve and have witnessed its decline over my adult life time.
Many in my generation see the decline from “we” to “I” as  our generation’s lost opportunity.  Our youthful vision of a better fairer America has been consumed by greed and I hate.
We can only hope that future generations do better.

“It was Black Americans’ undaunted faith in the promise of the American “we,” and their willingness to claim their place in it, against all odds, that won them progress between the end of Reconstruction in the 1870s and the end of the civil rights movement in the 1970s. Collectively, these migrants and their children and grandchildren steadily narrowed the Black-white gap over those years.

Image

“Big” Lester Hankerson during a voter registration push outside the Longshoreman’s Hall, Savannah, Ga., 1963.

Credit…Fred Baldwin

In the last half-century, however, that collective progress has halted, and many who fought so hard for this progress have now lived to see it reversed. U.W. Clemon, an African-American lawyer who won a precedent-setting Alabama school desegregation case over 40 years ago — and recently took up a remarkably similar legal battle in the same county — summarized the historical arc well, saying ‘I never envisioned that I would be fighting in 2017 essentially the same battle that I thought I won in 1971.'”

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NYTimes: Google Researcher Timnit Gebru Says She Was Fired For Paper on AI Bias

Google Researcher Timnit Gebru Says She Was Fired For Paper on AI Bias  nyti.ms/2I8oves

“Researchers worry that the people who are building artificial intelligence systems may be building their own biases into the technology. Over the past several years, several public experiments have shown that the systems often interact differently with people of color — perhaps because they are underrepresented among the developers who create those systems.

Dr. Gebru, 37, was born and raised in Ethiopia. In 2018, while a researcher at Stanford University, she helped write a paper that is widely seen as a turning point in efforts to pinpoint and remove bias in artificial intelligence. She joined Google later that year, and helped build the Ethical A.I. team.

After hiring researchers like Dr. Gebru, Google has painted itself as a company dedicated to “ethical” A.I. But it is often reluctant to publicly acknowledge flaws in its own systems.”

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Interesting quote from “21 Lessons for the 21st Century”

Hi – I’m reading “21 Lessons for the 21st Century” by Yuval Noah Harari and wanted to share this quote with you.

“Even scientists are not immune to the power of groupthink. In fact, scientists who believe that facts can change public opinion may themselves be the victims of scientific groupthink. The scientific community believes in the efficacy of facts, and those loyal to that community continue to believe that they can win public debates by throwing the right facts around, despite much empirical evidence to the contrary.”

Start reading this book for free: https://a.co/bCYLpbV

**** Interesting quote from “21 Lessons for the 21st Century”

Hi – I’m reading “21 Lessons for the 21st Century” by Yuval Noah Harari and wanted to share this quote with you.

“From an evolutionary perspective, trusting in the knowledge of others has worked extremely well for Homo sapiens. Yet like many other human traits that made sense in past ages but cause trouble in the modern age, the knowledge illusion has its downside. The world is becoming ever more complex, and people fail to realize just how ignorant they are of what’s going on. Consequently, some people who know next to nothing about meteorology or biology nevertheless propose policies regarding climate change and genetically modified crops, while others hold extremely strong views about what should be done in Iraq or Ukraine without being able to locate these countries on a map. People rarely appreciate their ignorance, because they lock themselves inside an echo chamber of like-minded friends and self-confirming news feeds, where their beliefs are constantly reinforced and seldom challenged.3”

Start reading this book for free: https://a.co/3Pa06FX

Interesting quote from “21 Lessons for the 21st Century”

Hi – I’m reading “21 Lessons for the 21st Century” by Yuval Noah Harari and wanted to share this quote with you.

“It takes a lot of courage to fight biases and oppressive regimes, but it takes even greater courage to admit ignorance and venture into the unknown. Secular education teaches us that if we don’t know something, we shouldn’t be afraid of acknowledging our ignorance and looking for new evidence. Even if we think we know something, we shouldn’t be afraid of doubting our opinions and checking ourselves again. Many people are afraid of the unknown and want clear-cut answers for every question. Fear of the unknown can paralyze us more than any tyrant. People throughout history worried that unless we put all our faith in some set of absolute answers, human society would crumble. In fact, modern history has demonstrated that a society of courageous people willing to admit ignorance and raise difficult questions is usually not just more prosperous but also more peaceful than societies in which everyone must unquestioningly accept a single answer. People afraid of losing their truth tend to be more violent than people who are used to looking at the world from several different viewpoints. Questions you cannot answer are usually far better for you than answers you cannot question. Finally, secular people cherish responsibility. They don’t believe in any higher power that takes care of the world, punishes the wicked, rewards the just, and protects us from famine, plague, or war. Therefore we flesh-and-blood mortals must take full responsibility for whatever we do—or don’t do. If the world is full of misery, it is our duty to find solutions. Secular people take pride in the immense achievements of modern societies, such as curing epidemics, feeding the hungry, and bringing peace to large parts of the world. We need not credit any divine protector with these achievements—they resulted from humans developing their own knowledge and compassion. Yet for exactly the same reason, we need to take full responsibility for the crimes and failings of modernity, from genocides to ecological degradation. Instead of praying for miracles, we need to ask what we can do to help.”

Start reading this book for free: https://a.co/02Ap2Mn

Interesting quote from “21 Lessons for the 21st Century”

Hi – I’m reading “21 Lessons for the 21st Century” by Yuval Noah Harari and wanted to share this quote with you.

“There is something deeply troubling and dangerous about people who avoid killing just because “God says so.” Such people are motivated by obedience rather than compassion, and what will they do if they come to believe that their god commands them to kill heretics, witches, adulterers, or foreigners?”

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