Recent Religious Studies

The BBC recently released the results of a survey they had commissioned with the research consultancy ComRes.

Here are some of the results…

• Half of the people surveyed didn’t believe in Jesus’ resurrection (including a quarter of people who described themselves as Christian)
• There was an equal split among those who say they believe in a life after death (e.g. reincarnation, heaven, hell) and those who do not (at 46% each).

More from the survey can be found HERE.

Tables from the survey HERE.

Another recent study from the Pew Research Center says that “For years, the percentage of Americans who do not identify with any religion has been rising, a trend similar to what has been happening in much of Europe (including the United Kingdom). Despite this, in coming decades, the global share of religiously unaffiliated people is actually expected to fall, according to Pew Research Center’s new study on the future of world religions.”

The main reason given is that “This relative decline is largely attributable to the fact that religious ‘nones’ are, on average, older and have fewer children than people who are affiliated with a religion. In 2015, for instance, the median age of people who belong to any of the world’s religions was 29, compared with 36 among the unaffiliated. And between 2010 and 2015, adherents of religions are estimated to have given birth to an average of 2.45 children per woman, compared with an average of 1.65 children among the unaffiliated.”

In other words, the religious are outbreeding the nonreligious.

I’d like to suggest that the religious have always been outbreeding the nonreligious and the only way the percentage of those who do not identify with any religion has been rising recently in spite of that is because of the internet.

As I’ve said previously, “if you look back on the rise of the nonreligious, it seems to coincide with the rise of the internet,” and “for the first time in the history of humanity, religion will have to fight it out in the marketplace of ideas like it’s never had to do before.”

I guess only time will tell which way it will go.

A report of the study is HERE.

The study is HERE.

Things To Ponder…

#1

What kind of proof could there ever possibly be for atheists for an omni-max Supreme Being as imagined by believers?

Arthur C. Clarke once proposed that “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Suppose a more advanced civilization wanted to fool us into thinking “the” omni-max Supreme Being God was making itself known to us? How would we be able to tell the difference? In order for us to really “know,” if it was some all-knowing being or not, wouldn’t we have to be all-knowing ourselves? Even if it was able to prove it had supernatural abilities (or was supernatural itself) somehow, it would always be possible that there were a whole host of other supernatural beings that were superior.

#2

How could any being ever really ever know if it knew everything? How could any being ever really know for certain it was all-knowing? How could it ever know that there was nothing beyond its own knowledge? How does one know what one might not be aware of? So, even if some being thought it could be the all-knowing omni-max Supreme Being, how could it ever know it was for sure? It might be that as far as it could tell it was, but it could never really know for certain. And if that’s the case (and EVEN IF IT’S NOT), how could any human (who is clearly not all-knowing) think that they know something else is? In other words, wouldn’t you have to be all-knowing yourself in order to know if something else was?

#3

Let’s assume there is some Supreme Being God for argument’s sake. Why should we necessarily worship it? Maybe it’s “evil” as far as we can tell, or maybe it doesn’t have our best interests at heart. Just because it might have made us, does it necessarily follow that we should worship or love it? Shouldn’t it still have to gain our trust or give us good reason to have some affection for it? If it seems to be against us and our future advancement, shouldn’t we contest it? It seems to me that as far as we’re concerned, WE are what matters, and if there is some being who has other interests that we must be sacrificed for, it needs to sell us on the importance of that sacrifice, or that being’s interests should be disregarded, and an effort should be made for our own interests instead.

Humanism and the UUA

Michael Werner presented his talk on “The History of Humanism and the Unitarian Universalist Association” to the Exploring Humanism group at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Charlotte on August 9, 2013. I’ve finally been able to put all the excerpts together into one video for the first time. His talk was shortly after his related book came out, “Regaining Balance,” which can be found in Kindle edition HERE.

The Surprising Thomas Jefferson

 Although I’ve read just about every biography on Thomas Jefferson in print (including Dumas Malone’s 6 volume work), all of the correspondence between him and John Adams, the Library of America volume “Jefferson Writings” (including his autobiography, his “Notes on the State of Virginia,” and selected letters, addresses, and public and private papers), multiple biographies of all the primary founders he interacted with (Washington, Franklin, Madison, Monroe, Adams, Hamilton, etc.), books on his friendship and association with Madison, multiple history books that covered him, and many essays/articles/encyclopedia entries/etc. about him on and offline, as well as watched many documentaries (including Ken Burns’ “Thomas Jefferson”), I’m still occasionally surprised to learn something new about him when I don’t expect to….

Time after time I run across sentences that start like this. “Although Thomas Jefferson’s interests in [x] is little known…”

For example, several years ago I was reading a book on codes.

I got to the section of the book called “Cipher Devices and Machines.” The very first entry is: “Thomas Jefferson’s Wheel Cypher.” It starts out by saying, “Although Thomas Jefferson’s cryptographic interests are not well known, he designed a cypher device which was the basis of one adopted by the U.S. military over a hundred years later.” Later it says, “This device was well ahead of its time and in fact superseded a number of attempts in Europe. Yet neither the United States military nor the fledgling diplomatic corps was to benefit from the wheel cypher because Thomas Jefferson apparently never used it. Occupied with his many activities and presidential responsibilities, he put it aside. Not until 120 or so years later was a similar version of the wheel cypher made available to the U.S. armed forces, and its worth is verified by the fact that the U.S. Navy made use of such a mechanism for decades after its introduction.”

Doing some additional research on it, I find it described as the “oldest known cipher device,” that it was “beyond doubt the most advanced, secure and user friendly cipher system of its time,” and this:

“Jefferson’s wheel cipher was to be reinvented at least twice. Etienne Bazeries, a French military cryptanalyst, invented his Bazeries cylinder in 1891 but it was never adopted by the military. Then Captain Parket Hitt of the US Army invented it in strip form in 1913. The strip form was made into a cipher called the M-138A. In 1915, Major Joseph Mauborgne redesigned it into the 25 wheels of the M-94, which became the main battlefield cipher for the US military until 1942.

“The US M-94, except for the number of wheels, is an exact replica of Jefferson’s cipher wheel. Jefferson’s invention of this 120 years earlier, while being somewhat preoccupied with the founding of a new country, is testament to his extraordinary genius. The concept of a rotor device with interchangeable wheels was the precursor to the various rotor-based cipher machines, such as the Enigma and Hagelin machines, which were developed in the early 1900s.”

Note that the number of wheels in the M-94 was 25 and Jefferson’s wheel cipher had 36.

I really wasn’t expecting to run across Jefferson while reading a book about codes, but I keep getting re-introduced to him in surprising situations.

For example, did you know that Jefferson was probably the foremost wine connoisseur of his time?

When he was living in Paris as the American Minister to France, he made two wine country tours (traveling as a tourist and paying his own way) through France, Germany, and Italy. He took meticulous notes on viticulture and winemaking practices that each of these areas weren’t sharing with each other, so he came to know more than any other single individual of his time about the subject. He imported great quantities of wine to America and started the first vineyard in the U.S. near his home at Monticello.

He is considered to be the “Forefather of the American Wine Industry.”

Did you know he is also considered the “Father of our National Architecture”?

He was already well educated in architecture before his time in France, and took the opportunity to study European architecture in his travels and time there. He is considered the earliest of the great American architects. Aside from designing his homes Monticello and Poplar Forest [actually training the carpenters and stone and brick workers himself], he also designed the Virginia State Capitol, the University of Virginia, and helped Charles L’Enfant with the plans and design of the “Federal City” in Washington DC. Jefferson’s influence set a precedent for the neoclassical style of our national architecture.

Did you know he is also called the “Father of American Archaeology”?

As just one example of his efforts in this area, he organized an archaeological expedition to explore an Indian burial mound on his property. According to one source:

“Rather than the commonly accepted excavation method of starting from the top and digging down, Jefferson chose to remove a wedge from the mound, taking care to remove artifacts intact. Inside the barrow he found more than a thousand skeletons in various layers of stone, soil, and bones. He decided that it must have been a communal burial mound for generations of Piedmont Indians….

“In pursuing this dig, Jefferson was the first to use the method of stratification, the study of the way layers of earth and artifacts relate to one another. According to William Kelso, director of archaeology for the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, Jefferson’s methodology for this excavation set the standard for archaeological inquiry for a hundred years.”

He had an impact on meteorology. Aside from keeping meticulous weather records all his life and encouraging others to do so, he and the Reverend James Madison (related to President James Madison) made the first simultaneous meteorological measurements in America in 1778. “He was a strong advocate for a national meteorological system, and encouraged the federal government to supply observers in each county of each state with accurate instruments.” The “Thomas Jefferson Award” is “the highest and most prestigious award bestowed upon Cooperative Weather Observers” by the National Weather Service “for outstanding achievements in the field of meteorological observations.” Jefferson also created the U.S. Coast Survey, an ancestor agency of NOAA in 1807.

He had a significant impact in American agriculture. He invented a new type of plow of “least resistance”; he is credited with introducing Brussels sprouts, eggplant, cauliflower, broccoli, olive plants, Italian rice, and various grasses to America; he brought the “Paccan Tree” to the eastern U.S.; and he was one of the first Americans to advocate crop rotation and contour plowing (among other things).

Aside from inventing a new type of plow and the wheel cipher, he is credited with inventing the swivel chair and a spherical sundial, designing an improved version of the dumbwaiter, and perfecting a polygraph machine for duplicating his correspondence among other things (like designing the Great Clock at Monticello).

Weirdly, he even turns up in such odd places as the history of macaroni and cheese. Thomas Jefferson evidently had a macaroni making machine and introduced macaroni and cheese to America in 1802 when he first served it in the White House. [It seems that he may have learned about the dish during his time in France or England. The origins of macaroni and cheese seem to be from an English recipe for “macaroni baked with cream and cheese,” so Jefferson didn’t actually invent it.]

He wrote the “Manual of Parliamentary Practice for the Use of the Senate of the United States” (the first book on parliamentary procedure in America), developed the United States’ monetary system (was almost the father of the metric system), and was the father of the Patent Office [“The patent system he created remains the basis for the patent system of today. Much of the present structure, rules, and guidelines, were established by him.”]

I could go on and on about his accomplishments, but I’ll just sum up here….

So, aside from his roles as President and Vice President of the United States, American Minister to France, Secretary of State, author of the Declaration of Independence, Governor and Representative of Virginia, Founder of the University of Virginia, author of the Bill to Establish Religious Freedom in Virginia (a precursor to the First Amendment), etc., he was a lawyer, writer, architect, agriculturist, surveyor, naturalist, archaeologist, paleontologist, inventor, diplomat, philosopher, agronomist, linguist, cryptographer, classical scholar, avid reader and collector of books, musician, husband, father, and revolutionary.

He was considered, “A fine mathematician and astronomer, he could reckon latitude and longitude as well as a ship captain. He calculated the eclipse of 1778 with great accuracy and was able to make suggestions for the improvement of almanacs on the equation of time. Jefferson was considered expert in anatomy, civil engineering, physics, mechanics, meteorology, architecture, and botany. He was able to read and write Greek, Latin, French, Spanish and Italian. He was recognized as a pioneer in ethnology, geography, anthropology and… paleontology. Because of his wide range of knowledge, Jefferson was ahead of his time in several lines of inquiry and advanced of contemporary scientists. Even so, Jefferson never failed to acknowledge that in science he was ‘an amateur.'”

The source above relays this fairly well-known story, “President John F. Kennedy, while entertaining a group of Nobel Laureates, quipped that this was probably the greatest gathering of intellect in the White House since Jefferson dined there alone.”

My Second Year (1959)

There were two significant events this year.

The first was that we moved in Concord, NC from 15 Milton Lane to 29 Hyde Park Avenue.

The second was that my grandfather on my father’s side died on 06/12/1959.

Of course, I wasn’t told of his death, but not long afterwards we drove past someone who looked like him walking down the street. I pointed out that we were passing my grandfather by, but my parents didn’t seem to believe me. It made me mad at them for leaving him behind.

Online Tests

In the past week or so, I’ve taken some of those online tests to see if they could guess my age based on one thing or another.

Based on one test where I was asked to pick words to describe different things, my age was calculated to be 24.

Based on my political views, my age was calculated to be 26.

Based on my ability to pick colors, my age was calculated to be 42.

Considering I’m 59-years-old, these tests seem to be wildly off the mark.

There was another test that promised to calculate my IQ based on posts I made on my FB page. It was calculated to be 215. Right between da Vinci and Tesla. That one obviously seemed more accurate.

First Memories (1958)

My first memory is from the day I was brought home from the hospital after my birth. Actually, I was brought to my grandparents’ house.

I was being given a bath–on my back–on the dining room table when I began relieving myself. It was a beautiful golden stream… shooting up into the air and arching toward the kitchen before falling and splattering onto the kitchen floor. It was the most amazing thing I had ever seen up until that time.

This wonderful yellow fountain drew my attention away from me and to my larger surroundings. There were two women to my left giving me a bath (my mother and someone else) and there was a woman in the kitchen (probably my grandmother), who turned to watch with concern.

I had no idea who any of these people were, where I was, or even that the urine stream was coming from me. I was just fascinated by it.

Obviously, I didn’t “remember” that this memory came from the day I was taken home from the hospital. The reason I know it was from then is because my parents once asked me about my first memories. I told them this story, and (with some surprise that I had remembered it) they told me when it happened.

I’ve always thought I’ve had a continuous memory from that day I was brought home from the hospital with no blank years (or “childhood amnesia”). Of course, I don’t remember every last thing that happened, just as I don’t remember mundane things that happened two months ago.

But I do remember things like having my diaper changed, being given baths, learning to crawl, being fascinated by gravity, learning to walk and talk, the first time I recognized myself in the mirror, and so on.

My next significant memory is from a few months later when my parents took me to a local cemetery–Cabarrus Memorial Gardens—at night to watch a light show at the fountain there. Here again I was relaying one of my early memories to my parents when they asked. I remembered it as some kind of fireworks in a cemetery, but they clarified that it was a light show at the fountain.

My Baby Book says I first smiled at 1 week, I was immunized against whooping cough at 3 months, and I learned to crawl at 4 months.

Here are some pictures of my first 6 months…


My next significant memory is of learning to walk and talk. My Baby Book says I stood up by myself at 9 months (November 13), and that I took my first step alone a few days later (November 21).

The main thing I remember about learning to walk was that I was getting along pretty fast on the ground crawling by then. I was a somewhat frustrated that learning to walk was slowing me down because I could crawl so much faster. In fact, until I got better at walking, I’d frequently resort to crawling when I was in a hurry.

Here are some of the pictures taken around then…


So, I was walking at 9 months and talking by 10 months (right before my first Christmas). According to my Baby Book, my first words were: Hey there, bye-bye, da-da, mama, Santa Claus, light, cracker, water, Pap-paw, car keys, and quack-quack.

My Baby Book says I got a duck, a top, a music box, a blue outfit, a corn popper, a toy train, a red wagon, some pop beads, a drum, “the five little pigs,” and “a little whistling engine” for Christmas. We went to my grandparents’ house on my mother’s side on Christmas Eve and went to my grandparents’ house on my father’s side for Christmas day.

Here are some of the pictures taken around my first Christmas along with a trip I made with my parents to the University of North Carolina to close out the year.

Pseudonyms

Humble Jerry

“Humble Jerry” in 1975

Over the years I’ve used pseudonyms for one reason or another: for writing, to protect my privacy online, or for fun or humor. Here are some of them….

Humble Jerry

The first pseudonym I ever used was “Humble Jerry.” It was the name I used for a regular column I wrote for my high school paper (see above for the associated picture of me used with the column). I got the name from the speech president Gerald R. Ford gave when he pardoned Nixon. He said, “I do believe, with all my heart and mind and spirit, that I, not as President but as a humble servant of God, will receive justice without mercy if I fail to show mercy.” Rather than using “Gerry” as he was sometimes called, I distanced myself from making a direct reference by using “Jerry” instead. Above is the picture of me used in my column.

Celery Blink

This was the second pseudonym I used in the high school paper. It was an unusual combination of words made up to sound like a name if you didn’t know their meaning. In this case I picked a vegetable and facial expression. I even made up a family tree for Celery that included such names as: Asparagus Sneer, Pea Wink, Okra Frown, Artichoke Squint, and Arugula Smile.

Apriori Arkhai 

In online philosophical forums I sometimes used this name.  Of course, “a priori” is Latin “from former,”  meaning “knowledge that is justified independently of experience,” and  “Arkhai” is from Greek philosophy meaning “first principles” or starting points, so it’s somewhat redundant. I liked the alliteration.

Hugh Mann, A. Hugh Mann, and I. Hugh Mann

All these were obvious word plays for “human,” “a human,” and “I human.” I thought any of these could be good everyman names.

Som Osog

In religious debates with my brother I got tired of typing out “only son of god” and started to shorten it to the acronym “OSOG.” To tweak my brother a bit, when gmail came out, I decided to get that name for a gmail address, but they required at least 6 characters, so I picked “SOM” or “son of man” to put on the front end. I thought the result ended up sounding like it could be a middle eastern name.

Spurious Satrap

I thought this would be a good name for a pretentious government official, and I used the name in a humor piece. Of course, “spurious” means “not genuine, authentic, or true; not from the claimed, pretended, or proper source; counterfeit” and “Satrap” is a subordinate governor or official.

Ergo Naught

This is Latin for “therefore nothing.” I thought this would be a humorous name to conclude any nonsense writings.

Sine Nomine

This is Latin for “without a name.”  I thought it was a good generic pseudonym.

Nomen Dubium

This is Latin for “doubtful name,” which is another good generic pseudonym.

Anonymous

As almost everyone knows, “Anonymous” means “without any name acknowledged and/or known.” I thought it would be interesting to reimagine “Anonymous” as an actual person—possibly an ancient Greek or Roman philosopher referred to with a single name like Socrates, Aristotle, etc.–who had opinions on everything (and seemed to live forever). I also thought it would be interesting to release sayings into the social media under that name. Of course, “Anonymous” could be the first name for A. Hugh Mann.

Ignotus Anonymous

“Ignotus” is Latin for “unknown.” This would be for any occasion where the imagined person “Anonymous” required a first name. “Ignotus” could also be the first name for I. Hugh Mann.

Nonumnos

Early Greek for “nameless.” This one could be used in a similar manner as “Anonymous.”

My Birth Day

baby picture
In the 1950s, a polio vaccine was developed, the helical structure of DNA was discovered, the first organ transplants were performed, IBM developed the computer language Fortran, and the term “artificial intelligence” was coined.

The construction of the Interstate Highway System had begun, the civil rights movement had started, the Kinsey Reports were published, Hugh Hefner launched Playboy, and Walt Disney opened Disneyland.

Sir Edmund Hillary had reached the South Pole, the U.S. Nuclear Submarine “Nautilus” had passed under the Ice Cap at the North Pole, and the Mid-Atlantic Ridge was discovered on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean.

There was a conflict in Korea in the early years of the decade, and Castro overthrew the regime in Cuba by the end of it.

There was a “Cold War” climate in America with concerns about communism. And it was a period of conformity, conservatism, and consumerism.

At the end of WWII the United States had emerged as the world’s mightiest military power, and an era of prosperity had begun. The economy was booming, the suburbs were booming, and babies were booming.

Consumerism was king as banks began to offer more loans and credit. People were buying new homes in the suburbs, new cars with tail fins and lots of chrome, new time-saving household appliances, and new black and white televisions. Owning a television in the early years of the 1950s was a rare thing. By the middle of the decade, just over half of Americans owned one, and by the end of it, over three-quarters had one.

There were also signs of rebellion in this conformist climate with an anti-materialistic literary movement that appealed to “Beatniks” and the “Beat Generation,” who challenged the restrictive social and sexual mores of the time. Another type of rebellion seemed to be taking place in the art world with the advent of abstract expressionism which shifted the center of art culture from Paris to New York City.

And while Jazz was the preferred music of the Beat Generation, a new type of “devil’s music” began coming to the fore by the middle of the decade. Rock & Roll was beginning to have an impact with teenagers that would only grow over time.

While they were a concern to some, comic books were popular, as was science fiction, and people were flocking to theaters to watch horror movies in 3D.

The “Jet Age” was just beginning to go commercial with the first international passenger jets taking off by the end of the decade. And the “Space Age” was launched in 1957 with the Russian spacecraft Sputnik. The U.S. responded three months later with Explorer 1 on January 31, 1958. It returned data for four months, discovered the Van Allen radiation belt, and signaled the beginning of  the “Space Race.” Later that year, NASA was born on October 1, 1958.

But before NASA was born, and while Explorer 1 was still sending back data, I was born into this world in Concord, North Carolina at Cabarrus County Hospital on Thursday, February 13, 1958.

Dwight D. Eisenhower was in the middle of his second term as President, and I can say I was born when there were 48 states in the USA and 9 planets in our solar system.

Also happening on that day: Ford introduced the 300 hp Thunderbird, the city of Hiroshima asked former President Truman for an apology for the atomic bombing, and New Orleans had to cancel a pre-Mardi Gras parade because of 2 inches of snow.

Elvis Presley’s song “Don’t” was topping the music charts, “Old Yeller” was the #1 movie, and Jack Benny was hosting a “Shower of Stars” television special later that evening on CBS to celebrate his 40th(!) birthday party which would be the next day.

Of course, I wasn’t aware of any of this at the time. I was too busy adjusting to my new environment.

It wasn’t long before I had my first picture taken (above) and I got my name in the paper (a name that would be legally changed 6 months later to the one I have now).

birth announcement