Christianity and the changing of the Mazeways.

Anthony FC Wallace (1923-2015)

For years I would see strange opinions popping up on message boards, evangelicals are forgetting the gospel, I was not the first to post one of those messages. I first regarded it as New Atheist slander.I soon joined the ranks of such prophets, however, yet no one listened because we were just cranks on a message board. After what we have seen over the last seven months* it seems absurd for anyone to question it, People keep asking how can it be that Evangelicals would forget to be Evangelical?" The answer is provided by historian Wayne Flynt of Auburn University, and the answer is obvious, they are changeling. Flyant his devoted his life to studying his fellow southerners: Flynt’s answer is that his people are changing. The words of Jesus, as recorded in the Gospels, are less central to their thinking and behaviour, he says. Church is less compelling. Marriage is less important. Reading from a severely abridged Bible, their political concerns have narrowed down to abortion and issues involving homosexuality. Their faith, he says, has been put in a president who embodies an unholy trinity of materialism, hedonism and narcissism. Trump’s victory, in this sense, is less an expression of the old-time religion than evidence of a move away from it....[Flynt says] 'Arguably, what has constituted white evangelical Christian morality for 200 years no longer matters, which is to say we’re now a lot like Germany, a lot like France, a lot like England, a lot like the Netherlands, and what we have is a sort of late-stage Christian afterglow.'[1]

How could people so committed to a value system and way of life, a world view, the Bible,Jesus,change? Everyone I know still talks about how unbelievable it all is,Not just Evangelicals going for and becoming completely sold out to a a man who embodies the antithesis of all that they stand for, not only the election to the Presidency of a totally unqualified clown, not only that he fundies vest this man with an anointing that makes him seem almost divine in their minds, but also the decline of Western civilization, the resurgence of racism and the seeming collapse of ordinary civilizing norms. But we need not be puzzled. it's all explained by going back to my old sociology days.There is a sociological theory, which I will discuss, that accounts for this change, That is explained by a theory in sociology of religion, the theory of "the Mazeways" by Anthony F.C. Wallace. An Anthropologist was born In 1923 in Toronto he died in 2015 in Pennsylvania, where he went to school (University of Penn 1950). Wallace began working on his general theory, the Theory of "Revitalization Movements" (RM) in the late 40s as a student with a paper on the Delaware tribe of native Americans. By the earlly 90s his theory was well developed and largely accepted, having it's major period of development in the 60s. [2]

A RM is a deliberate, organized, conscious effort by members of a society to construct a more satisfying culture. Politico-religious movements arise in periods of great social stress promising deliverance from deprivation, foreign domination, social exploitation,or conflicts over colonialism, economic exploitation and racial conflict; these movements employ new transformations of spirit based upon reshuffling of old cultural vales, which seem to have failed. The classic example is the native American ghost dance, which Wallace studied. Wallace also studied the Delaware in early fomentation of his theory,[3] [4]

Wallace's theory began as a theory about native American culture and religious movements. It deal with visionary leaders with ecstatic experiences. But he was not just applying hunter gatherer culture to post industrial society. He also studied Christianity and Islam and used modern examples of American Society. Wallace has developed a full array of methodologies from field work to participant observer,to laboratory experiment, to archival etnohisotry.[5] The result is that he has become of the most commonly sited social scientists, accepted by every major social science field and considered one of the true greats of anthropology. [6] After re-mainspring his theory after all these years I think he is the only one who really explains what is going on in terms of the sense that everything is falling apart. Moreoer in the 60s Luthar Gaqrloch and Virginia Hines applied Wallace's theory favorably to the study of Pentecostalism and Black Power movements, He took a paradigmatic approach from Thomas Kuhn and studied the effects of technology on modern society.[7]

The Theory in thumbnail

RMs start in times of stress, they occur during times of disillusionment or disappointment.It is a process in which the people involved see their culture as a system that has let them down and is no longer working for them.The classic processes of cultural change are evolution, drift, diffusion, historical change, acculturation and all these produce changes in cultures as systems; however, these changes may not be the result of deliberate intention of the member of that society, but rather a gradual chain-reaction effect. The process cascades effecting multiple other changes and spurring more reaction.

Stages in the movement

There are several stages in the movement I wont bother to go into but I will highlight the crucial stages that I think really speak to our time. There is a steady state (that's a stage in the theory) where people become depressed, crumble under the new situations and it becomes the new normal. They go through increased individual stress then hit the stage of cultural distortion. The state of cultural distortion is significant, In that period people are trying to find new solutions and old elements such as values and traditions that were once comforting are abandoned or compete with each other or changed in ways previously thought unimaginable,[8]

Mazeways (yes, one word) are crucial here because it is mazeway change that creates much of the stress and it is mazeway change that people try playing with and manipulating to understand the new situation.For example sex, drugs, rock and roll. But mazeway shift creates more stress.[9] Mazeways are the links that enable the individual to connect with the larger culture through her understanding of daily life. They include things as innocent as table manners to things as serious as the moral code, For example the idea of being a law abiding citizen, having a social time table and career plan, playing by the rules, seeking conventional rewrds of good behvior. These are marked by things like style and career path all of these are mnazeways,

Mazeway Reformation is crucial and it applies to either secular movements or religiosity. The individual's understanding no longer correlates with that of the culture, appropriate example, someone who believes one goes to hell for being gay suddenly sees gay marriages around her

. The leader

Within the context of organization of the movement, Wallace evokes sociologist Max Weber's notion of the "charismatic leader." The prophet is a chrism tic leader endued with special status and abilities, He relates his vision to concerts and they accept him absolutely. "As God is to the Prophet so the Prophet is (almost) the follopwrs"[10] Don't forget Wallace's primary data applies to native American culture so he says the prophet and many of his followers will have ecstatic experiences. But the theory has also been applied to modern secular society. The leader "is regarded as an uncanny person of unquestionable authority in one or more spheres of leadership sanctioned by the supernatural...followers defer to the charismatic leader not because of his status in an existing authority structure but because of a facilitating personal power."[11]

In Wallace's theory a society is like an organism,Its a living entity meaning it's dynamic,is compassed of various members and parts which fomentation together and work in certain ways. That dynamic includes tensions and conflicts and times of stress occur there are cascades of effect that lead to social breakdown, When the system is seen not to function the movement begins.

What Wallace calls internal incongruities of the Mazeways it leads to anxiety and loss of meaningful way of life disillusionment with the Mazeways sets in. "This process of deterioration can, if not checked,lead to the death of society."[12] Society is an organism with parlous parts,when when society is seen as dysfunctional organism and has let people down,they fail to accomplish their preconditioned traditional expectations. I interprit the theory to mean that a given subset of the society can have a revitalization movement or can off, or the same principles could be applied to a whole nation.

Applying the theory to the current situation

RMs promise deliverance from deprivation, foreign domination, social exploitation,or conflicts over "colonialism, economic exploitation and racial conflict;" these are reflected and named in the literature (fn3-4) These were issues in the last presidential election. America as the colonial power not as the colony figures into the conflict with illegal aliens and the boarder wall, especially the idea of Mexico to pay for the wall. Fear of foreign domination certainly figured into the campaign

. Certainly the bit about the Charismatic leader applies, supernatural aid. Even though Trump has not had ecstatic experiences he has been vested with sanctifying Grace by his followers and is practically worshiped in some quarters. Televangelists have declared that anyone trying to thwart Trump will dealt with by God and Trump is Gods man. The uncanny acceptance of Trump's unchristian manner are explained by the e shuffle of the mazeways, the rules are suspended for the leader, he's too important because his mission is so vital, to make the culture work again for the deprived. The talk of make America great again and take America back are indicative of the shift of mnazeways the culture is broken they can/t find their way

. We can explaimn why old people are racist and why they are reacting for Trump, They lived for years in silent defeat by civil rights moment, But why are young people dedicated to alt right and racism? A minority of young people are alienated, and racist. Trump's vocabulary was a statistical fluke spread over a few states.[13]Yet, that minority of disaffected racists could be virulent, They may have been raised on the reshuffled mazeways of the Reagan era then we never got a chance to change the educational system,which Trump is understudying all the more.

The issue is not as simple as racism vs democrats. There are lots of overstates who are not racist, I think the revitalization movement theory exclaims the evangelical's change. a lot of middle age to older people who were raised on the model of abide by the law, follow the rules be a church goer and you will get rich, the American dream. That mazeway as been changed shuffled distorted. collapsed and otherwise mutilated. There has been a persist amt substitute growing on talk radio,

In The U.S. We have had a succession of revitalize movements starting with the 60s counter culture,then the Reagan counter revolution then the Obama answer to economic collapse, now the Trump vacation from sanity, That's a lot of Maseway shifting and it has bred anew generation of antisocial people who never knew the old maszeways and there are still a lot of hold overs who are alienated American dream types.

*First published:June 05, 2019. Sources

[1] Gary Silverman, "How the Bible Belt Lost God and Found Trump," Financial Times (APRIL 13, 2017) On line version (access 9/14/17) URL: https://www.ft.com/content/b41d0ee6-1e96-11e7-b7d3-163f5a7f229c

[2] Encyclopedia Britannica, Volume 8; Vol. 12 (15 ed.) Encyclopedia Britannica ISBN 0852296339

[3] Anthony F.C. Wallace and ed. Robert S. Grumet, Revitalization and Mazeways: Essays on Cultural Change Vol 1 Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press 2003, 9-12..

In 1956 Wallace published a seminal paper "Revitalization Movements that really began his theory as a coherent whole, which was at that time a theory about Native American culture.

[4] Encyclopedia.com. "The Revitalization Movmeent" The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright The Columbia University Press, no date given, (acess 8/13/17) URL http://www.encyclopedia.com/philosophy-and-religion/other-religious-beliefs-and-general-terms/religion-general/revitalization

[5] Robert S. Grumet, "Foreword," Revitalization and Mazeways, op. cit., x

. [6] Ibid, vi

i [7] 5

[8] Wallas 10-16

[9] 16

[10] Wallace, op cit, 21

[11] Ibid

[12] Ibid 16

[13] CHAUNCEY DEVEGA. "Are younger Whites Less Raciost? New Research..." Salon (Dec 20,2016) http://www.salon.com/2016/12/20/will-young-people-save-us-new-research-into-the-racial-attitudes-of-young-whites-suggests-its-not-that-simple/ Posted by Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) at 9:51 AM

Jesus Christ copy cat savior ? Dionysian Mysteries

Dionysian Mysteries

1) Dionysus was not born of a virgin.

The Greek god Dionysus is said to be the god of wine, actually he began as a fertility god in Phrygia and in Macedonia, Thrace, and other outlying regions. The origin of the cult is probably in Asia. (Charles Seltman, The Twelve Olympians, New York: Thomas Y. Corwell Company, 1960.)

"In the myths about Dionysus the most important is the tale of his birth. His mother was Semele...in fact she was an earth goddess...the usual form of the story is that Zeus loved Semele and consorted with her...." (Ibid, 171). Hera, of course was jealous and tricked the girl into asking Zeus to show himself to her in his true from. She was fried by his thunderbolts which cannot help but constantly shoot from his true form, but Zeus was able to save the child that she carried. I can find no authority who says that Dionysus mother was a virgin. But this is one of the tricky ones, she may have known no mortal man, but she was not the product of virginal conception. She was also not mortal herself, so the idea of her having a Virginal conception is out of the question, because whatever she did would be supernatural anyway, and we don't' know what gods she dated before Zeus.

2) Dionysus not laid in a manger.

There is one very tiny aspect of a manger-like thing in the Dionysus myth, and it is not very central. A flower basket which could double as a crib was used as one of many fertility symbols. In fact there is no real manger connection at all. Near the end of the 5th century BC the Greek Euripides wrote a play, The Bacchae, one of the major sources of Dionysian mysteries. I've seen skeptics claim that he was laid in a manger at his birth. But he was not, he was laid in Zeus's thigh until he came to term and there is no manger scene at all (Stelman,171).

3) Title "Son of god" Other similarities.

Euripides does refer to Dionysus as "son of god." But that is just profanatory. In mythology gods were like people, they were born, they had parents, and they lived in families. Why? Probably because people do. The phrase "son of god" and the general concept may be "influenced" by paganism in a general sense (see above) but the specific notion of Jesus' incarnation is totally different. Jesus is the incarnation of the divine logos, the second person of the Trinity, God incarnate. He is the incarnation of the rational that created the universe; not a mythological demigod, the offspring of a god and mortal. Besides that, the term "Son of God" in Judaism of Jesus' day was understood as a Euphemism for the Messiah.

4) Dionysus Dying and Rising.

In some stories Dionysus is torn apart by the Titans. In other stories it is Hera's orders that he be torn apart. But he was torn apart, not crucified. Moreover, since he was not an historical figure he was not a flesh and blood man. He did not really die, and his resurrection is not really bodily. His dying and rising are an echo of the death of plant life and fertility in winter and his rising is the rising of the plants in the Spring. "He was the vine which is always pruned as nothing else which bears its fruit; every branch cut away, only the bare stock left, through the winter a dead thing to look at...he was always brought back to life..." (Edith Hamilton, Mythology, Mentor edition, original copywriter 1940, pp. 61-62). Hamilton says that his rising did offer hope of new life, the immortality of the soul. "He was the assurance that death does not end all."

But this is very different from the historical claims of Christ's resurrection. Dionysus did not have an historical existence, no empty tomb, no flesh and blood body seen and felt by witnesses afterward. He is merely the archetype suggested by seasons, the human wish for a rejuvenation and the circularity of nature.

"In Christianity everything is made to turn on a dated experience of a historical Person; it can be seen from I Cor. XV. 3 that the statement of the story early assumed the form of a statement in a Creed. There is nothing in the parallel cases which points to any attempt to give such a basis of historical evidence to belief" A. D. Nock (Early Gentile Christianity and Its Hellenistic Background", 1964, p. 107).

5) Not a savior

Moreover, the followers of Dionysus did not gain their sense of eternal life from Dionysus himself, nor form his death, but from their own drunken ecstasy in the "Béchamel." (Yamauchi, in "Easter: Myth, Hallucination or History," and c.f. M. Nilsson, The Dionysiac Mysteries of the Hellenistic and Roman Age, 1957).

His death was not an atonement and his resurrection has not even the semblance of an historical, much less history making aspect. But perhaps it was a dress rehearsal.

6) Moreover, he was not crucified as Till claims but instead was torn apart by the Titans.

Trump's war on breathing

This essay was written during the Trump Presdiency I think it is important to think about it now.

One major crime of the Trump Presidency was Trump's war on EPA.

We can quantify how many lives Trump's lattest scheme will end. That scheme being the repeal of Major Obama era carbon emissions rules. "The Environmental Protection agency announced on Tuesday that Scott Pruitt, the Chief of the agency, had signed a measure to repeal President Barack Obama's signature policy to curb greenhouse gas emissions from power plants...." [1]

The Clean Air Task Force (CATF) has studied the effects of fine particle emissions from power plants since the year 2000. These are empirical scientific epidemiological studies. There are now 7,500 deaths each year from power plant emissions. [2] This may sound like a lot but its actually down by 50% from the time before the Obama regs,

In 2000, 2004 and again in 2010, the Clean Air Task Force issued studies based on work by Abt Associates quantifying the deaths and other adverse health affects attributable to the fine particle air pollution resulting from power plant emissions. Using the most recent emissions data, in this 2014 study, CATF examines the continued progress towards cleaning up one of the nation's leading sources of air pollution. This latest report finds that over 7,500 deaths each year are attributable to fine particle pollution from U.S. power plants. This represents a dramatic reduction in power plant health impacts from the previous studies....Our 2004 study showed that power plant impacts exceeded 24,000 deaths a year, but by 2010 that had been reduced to roughly 13,000 deaths due to the impact that state and federal actions were beginning to have. The updated study shows that strong regulations that require stringent emission controls can have a dramatic impact in reducing air pollution across the country, saving lives, and avoiding a host of other adverse health impacts. The study also shows regrettably that some areas of the country still suffer from unnecessary levels of pollution from power plants that could be cleaned up with the application of proven emission control technologies.[3]

The 2004 study showed 24,000 deaths a year, I show above its down to 7,500, that's 17,000 lives a year saved by the regs!. [4] Market forces are moving us away from Coal. There is no question this will be, power plants are closing and the large industry is committed to it. Coal Fired energy in US has fallen from 51% in 2008 to 30% in 2016. [5] The market story creates a complex issue. The question becomes how much, how soon? We can retard the drift away from coal as Trump is trying to do,or we can facilitate moving to more healthy sources of energy that furnish employment.  Neither candidate in the election had the presence of mind to say that. The shift has meant 80% less sulfur dioxide, 64% less nitrogen oxide, 34% less carbon dioxide [6] For those who don't know those things are  not good to breath.

Those who are oppose to saving lives will always argue jobs. the Trade-off, jobs vs breathing. Jobs will always win, We see this in the election. of Trump. The Koch brothers (Charles and David sons of Fred C.) and other billionaires have orchestrated a huge grass roots campaign that started long before the election,It was working overtime during Obama's time as the rightful  president. That movement produced the bedrock of Trump's support.[7]

It involved a massive public relations campaign taking over local news broadcasting across the country plus grass roots ralleys. They fomented the lie that science is undecided about climate change [8]and since climate change can't be proven to be caused by humans the greatest risk is in disturbing our wonderful life style which allows the K boys and Trump to get richer. They fostered the image among these grass roots types that science and climate change and pollution are just fancy ideas by egg heads or the cultural elite who can afford to control their so corralled "carbon foot prints," ":whatever that is" (nudge nudge).Trump's second  phase of EPA destruction has been replaced by anti-EPA people  Trump has put in charge of the agency,

The old time administrators are angry and depressed and some long time officials retired or were fired by Trump. they were then dismissed as "disgruntled" but they report the agency is being destroyed from  within,[9] "Scott Pruitt, a fierce defender of fossil fuels, is on a crusade to gut the environmental agency he now leads..They can now toast Scott Pruitt in coal country, perhaps with plastic flutes of toxic rain. Tuesday brought what New Yorker writer Jane Mayer has called the “triumph of the anti-environmental movement.” It’s a triumph you can watch on Wednesday’s installment of PBS’ Frontline." (see fn 8) [10]Pruitt was not merely a critique of the EPA he advocated eliminating it and now he has his chance.

It's not just limited to power plants, in April OP ED published "Trump's War On EPA Continues in which we said,

U.S. automakers may not have to reach fuel efficiency standards that were set during President Obama's administration, as the Environmental Protection Agency says it's reopening a review of the rules.President Trump is expected to make that announcement Wednesday in meetings with auto industry executives and workers in Michigan.In Washington, a senior White House official said the president wants to "set standards that are technologically feasible, economically feasible and allow the auto industry to grow and create jobs."The Obama-era rules stemmed from an agreement the government reached with major vehicles in the summer of 2011, setting carbon dioxide emissions targets for passenger cars and light trucks that were equivalent to the industry's fleet of achieving an average of 54.5 miles per gallon by the 2025 model year.The reopening of the rules review comes after a request from the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, an industry group that represents both domestic and foreign automakers. The group's request came last month, after the confirmation of Scott Pruitt as EPA administrator. [read More] [11]

Studies show the situation is even more alarming with auto emissions than with power plants. The new MIT study puts auto emission deaths at 50,000/yr [12] including powerboats and other sources it goes up to to 200,000/yr! [13]

Of course the big counter argument will always be jobs, supposedly breathing costs us jobs. There two levels of argument, the more abstract level asserts that economic efficiency equals job growth and anything that costs profits is inefficient. The pragmatic level merely asserts that clean energy cant sustain employment, both are totally wrong. Energy fro solar will employ 79 times the labor force of coal. [14] The entire renewable energy industry is more labor intensive than fossil fuel technology. Wind energy alone already employs 75,000 workers in the U.S. [15]

John Kenneth "Ken" Galbraith, in The New Industrial State, [16] tells us that the bench mark economic efficiency is not written in stone but can be measured anyway we choose to measure it. We choose to measure it in terms of profit margin because those who own the means of production want it that way. They don't value human life so they don't consider that 200,000 as anything but Collateral damage. Economic efficiency could me measured in terms of our ability to supply vital resources to those who need them. As log as we allow those who put profits over lives our efforts to support a vital economy will be negated, We might have jobs but those we seek to support will die of cancer caused by the jobs we do to support them. We need to endure government regulation as long as the wonders of production don't care who they kill to get richer. We need to vote in a government that will regulate pollution.



update: " Today, April 25 (2024), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced a suite of final rules to reduce pollution from fossil fuel-fired power plants in order to protect all communities from pollution and improve public health without disrupting the delivery of reliable electricity."[17]

Sources

[1] Lisa Friedman and Brad Plumer, "E.P.A. Announces Repeal of Major Obama-Era Carbon Emissions Rule," New  York Times, (OCT. 9, 2017) on line ed. 
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/09/climate/clean-power-plan.html?smid=fb-share
(accessed 10/11/17)

[2] Clean Air Task Force, Clean Air Task Force 114 State Street 6th Floor Boston, MA 02109 

• Joseph Chaisson, Research and Technical Director, http://www.catf.us/fossil/problems/power_plants/
• (accessed 10/11/17)
• board of directors: http://www.catf.us/about/board/
• (accessed 10/11/17)
• Jeff Gleason, Board Chairman, Deputy Director, Southern Environmental Law Center
  Charlottesville, VA
• Deputy Director, Southern Environmental Law Center
  Charlottesville, VA
• [3] Ibid
  
  
  [4] Ibid
• [5] Union of Concerned Scientists, "A Dwindling Role for Coal." UCS website, no date or author given.http://www.ucsusa.org/clean-energy/coal-and-other-fossil-fuels/coal-transition#.Wd9twvlSzIU
• (accessed 10/11/17)
• [6] Ibid
• [7] Patrice Tadonio, "War o EPA," Fontline, PBS aired Oct. 11,2017
• http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/this-was-a-hostile-takeover-how-the-war-on-the-epa-was-waged/ (accessed 10/13/17)
• [8] Joseph Hnman, "Climate Change: the 97% Solution," Metacrock's blog. (feb 9. 2017)
• http://metacrock.blogspot.com/2017/02/climate-change-97-solution.html (accessed 10/15/17)
• [9] Frontline op cit
• [10] James Warren, "The Climate Change Skeptic Leading Trump's War on EPA." Vanity Fair (Oct. 11.2017)
• https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/10/scott-pruitt-war-on-the-epa (accessed 10/12/17)
• [11] Joseph Hinman, "Trump's War on EPA Continues," Resistance is Not Futile, OPED, (April 17, 2017) https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1105458450094819345#allposts/src=sidebar  (accessed 10/13/17)
• [12] Christopher Mims, "More Americans Die from Car Pollution Than From car Accidents," Quartz(Oct 15, 2013).
• https://qz.com/135509/more-americans-die-from-car-pollution-than-car-accidents/ 
• (accessed 10/13/17)
• [13] Jennifer Chu. "Study: Air Pollution kills 200,000 early Deaths Each Year in The US," MIT News, Mass. Institute  Technology (Aug 2012)
• http://news.mit.edu/2013/study-air-pollution-causes-200000-early-deaths-each-year-in-the-us-0829 (accessed 10/13/17)
• [14]Mark Perry, "Inconvenient energy fact: It takes 79 solar workers to produce same amount of electric power as one coal worker" A Ideas, (May 3,2017)
• http://www.aei.org/publication/inconvenient-energy-fact-it-takes-79-solar-workers-to-produce-same-amount-of-electric-power-as-one-coal-worker/ (accessed 10/13/17)
• [15] "Benefits of renewable energy," Union of Concerned Scientists, no date
• http://www.ucsusa.org/clean-energy/renewable-energy/public-benefits-of-renewable-power#bf-toc-3 (accessed 10/13/17)
• [16] John Kenneth "Ken" Galbraith,  The New Industrial State, Princeton: Priomceton University Press, 1967
• 
  

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[17]"Biden-Harris Administration Finalizes Suite of Standards to Reduce Pollution from Fossil Fuel-Fired Power Plants" EPA, April (2024) https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/biden-harris-administration-finalizes-suite-standards-reduce-pollution-fossil-fuel ______________________________________________

God,Science, and ideology,a book by Joseph Hinmman

God.Science, and ideology, by Joseph Hinman, is a great book. Ot argues that positions which teach the superiority of science over religion in such a way as to negate the truth content of the religious is not a scientific position but an ideological one. The books takes down such atheist greats as Dawkins and discusses the strongest God arguments.

This is an important book that spans an immense literature in a balanced and very readable form. For anyone interested in why some believe and others do not, this book will inform you of the entire range of literature in which not only can the proper questions be asked, but the reader can evaluate the often hidden ideological nature in which answers are proposed Ralph W. Hood, Jr., Ph.D.

Professor of Psychology and LeRoy A. Martin Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies

"Hinman is highly stimulating, brilliant in places. It is rare to find a book so exuberant yet still rational."

--Lantz Fleming Miller, Ashoka University

https://www.amazon.com/God-Science-Ideology-examining-religious-scientific/dp/0982408765