lpetrich

I just got that and read it -- its author is a sociologist who studies religion and who defends a "secularization paradigm". That book contains lots of very interesting and illuminating observations.

Secularization mainly comes about through people becoming indifferent to religion, rather than consciously rejecting it. Thus, in a discussion of people's claimed reasons for not going to church, SB concludes that they are not trying very hard to find a suitable one.

Secularization does not mean that end of religion; it means removal of religion from the broader society, though individualized religion may persist. To contrast, he discussed the position of the Church in medieval European society, and I was reminded of some present-day Islamic societies.

The New Age fits that paradigm very well, with its making a principle out of cafeteria theology and often considering the self a sort of manifestation of divinity or some such. And even many branches of Xtianity tend in that direction; consider the success of the Rev. Norman Vincent Peale and "The Power of Positive Thinking" -- quite the opposite from being an evil sinner who can never do anything right on his/her own initiative and who must take orders from the Church in order to make it into Heaven. SB notes that reasons for going to church have shifted over the years from "god demands it" to it being pleasurable.

And as the churches decline, there is a natural reason why the conservative, fundamentalist ones become the most prominent ones -- the alternatives are much wimpier, and are slowly dissolving away.

SB finds the opposite of the widely held view that competing churches are good for religion and monopoly churches bad -- the strongest ones have generally been monopolies. Coexistence of churches is rather bad for claims of exclusive truth -- if Catholics and Protestants have to live next to each other, they may eventually conclude that Protestants are not necessarily evil anti-tradition heretics and Catholics not necessarily evil Pope-lackey idolators.

Some sects manage to succeed by creaing their own subcultures, thus creating local monopolies -- consider the Amish and the Hutterites. And Judaism over the last 2 millennia.

This may partially explain why fundamentalism continues to be strong in the US -- it's possible to retreat into a whole subculture of "Christian" versions of the broader culture. But even there, many fundies act much like the rest of the population -- and often commit the same sins as the rest of the population.

SB notes that estimates of US church attendance are rather inflated -- many more people claim to go to a house of worship than actually do so, as shown from studies of how many people actually go to various churches.

SB also notes that Religious-Right lobbyists typically use secular arguments, avoiding god-told-us-so arguments in favor of secular arguments like abortion is baby-killing and creationism is legitimate science. And he notes that the RR gets influence out of proportion to its numbers by its great zeal -- and also that the RR has not gotten very much of what it wants.

And he even note an interestring conundrum that results from the necessity of coalition-forming: a Protestant fundie may believe that Catholics are idolators who lick the Pope's boots and do all sorts of unbiblical things, but this same fundie will have to work alongside those very same Catholics when lobbying for government support of religious schools.

So perhaps there is hope for the US after all.

lpetrich

And about science and religion, Steve Bruce makes some very interesting comments -- comments that help illuminate why so many creationists are engineers.

He first points out that science is only one influence contributing to the secularization of Western society -- he points to lots of others, like the rise of what he calls "bureaucratic rationality".

But back to the main subject, he suggests going beyond the familiar conflicts between them to look at the mentalities behind them.

In general, scientists tend to be less religious than the general public, especially the more eminent ones. When they prefer some religion, they tend to prefer the non-fundie sorts. But the "harder" sort of sciences tend to have more religiosity than the "softer" sorts; natural scientists tend to be more religious than social scientists, and among social scientists, the natural-scientist-like ones like economists tend to be more religious than (say) anthropologists, who scored very low.

He suggests that there is a similar sort of mentality and methodology shared by "hard" scientists and many of the more conservative religionists like Xtian and Muslim fundies -- a belief that the truth is out there to be discovered, a taste for precision, especially numerical precision, and so forth. Thus, someone who tries to work out the precise date of the end of the world has something in common with someone who tries to work out the precise dates of the next eclipses.

This may explain why so many creationists are engineers -- they are doing applied "hard" science. And this may explain why so many students from Islamic countries go into the natural sciences and engineering.

Admittedly, one does have to do a bit of tiptoeing here and there to avoid running into doctrinally troublesome parts of science, but one can often get away with doing so in many specialties of science. Thus, one can become a doctor while avoiding thinking about evolution -- even though the idea of evolution is essential for understanding the use of animal models for human functions and diseases, and for understanding why disease organisms develop resistance to antibiotics.

Also, SB proposes a distinction between "advanced science" and "mundane science", with the latter being where much of the religiosity is concentrated, like all those creationist engineers.

Finally, the irreligion of anthropologists is interesting, and something that SB barely comments on -- one might expect these people to say that "religion is a universal human craving; therefore, I must try to make myself believe in a religion."

Secular Pinoy

Sounds interesting. I may have to look for that book. Is it a new book? When was it published, and is it available in paperback?

CJD

Thanks for the review, Ipetrich. It does sound interesting. Sociology of religion has been one of my favourite pastimes, and I would consider myself a "Bergerite." Contra Bruce's book (which I have yet to read), Peter Berger edited a collection of essays titled, The Desecularization of the World: Resurgent Religion and World Politics (1999), wherein the assumption we live in a secularized world is challenged throughout. The book itself covers several regions and religions. Also, Berger's conception of "secularization" matches that of Bruce's. Bruce's thesis might be different if it was wider in scope, so he is probably largely right in his description of the secularized West (and possibly he and Berger would agree on the essentials of Bruce's book). The main contention between the two would most likely be Berger's tendency to think that the religious resurgence will be a global phenomenon. What follows is a brief description from Publisher's Weekly:

Regards,

CJD

*edited to remove irrelevant material . . .

lpetrich

It's the current book of the month here at II.

And as I had mentioned earlier here, Steve Bruce does discuss fundie movements. He does not expect secularization to be an absolute straight line, however. And he makes the point that fundies tend to be less ascetic and much more like the rest of society than they had been in decades past. Consider all the fundies who get divorced, for instance.

Rusting Car Bumper

Many engineers are religious because engineering is not science at all. It is often a form of rigid thinking within a paradigm.

Engineers know enough science to be dangerous as they say. When I was in school I moved from engineering to physics and I can say the paradigm of thinking is quite different. It was quite easy to find engineering students who were taught storybook narratives about scientific theories which were not quite right. These storybook ideas allowed them enough understanding to make proper decisions as would eventually be applied in engineering.

I actually question his claim that "hard" scientists are more religious that social ones. This has not been my experience and it tends to contradict other things I've read regarding religious identification surveys.

He is a sociobiologist so maybe he has an unconscious interest in painting the picture this way.

For example, you described one thing he said this way

This is exactly the kind of thing I would expect a sociobiologist to say. That is, he will give higher creedence to larger social factors in a group rather than individual decision or influence. In fact your description implies he merely dismisses their reasons as "not trying very hard!"

DC

lpetrich

DigitalChicken:
Many engineers are religious because engineering is not science at all. It is often a form of rigid thinking within a paradigm.

Something like SB's distinction between "mundane science" and "advanced science" -- with engineers practicing "mundane" science and "real" scientists practicing "advanced science".

Engineers know enough science to be dangerous as they say. ... (on engineers using canned paradigms)

Which almost seem like sacred books.

I actually question his claim that "hard" scientists are more religious that social ones. This has not been my experience and it tends to contradict other things I've read regarding religious identification surveys.

That's an interesting question; SB was quoting from a survey that someone else had done.

He is a sociobiologist so maybe he has an unconscious interest in painting the picture this way.

How is he supposed to be a sociobiologist?

(people giving reasons for not going to some house of worship...)
... In fact your description implies he merely dismisses their reasons as "not trying very hard!"

He concludes that because a lot of the reasons given are very contrived, like being too busy or religious services being too boring or churches being too physically cold.

And, DC, what do you think is the real story here?

never been there

No, engineering is not science, it is more like a craft of ideas, or even an art. Knowing enough science is simply the tool.

That being said, engineers generally have a wider understanding of epistemology than scientists because we usually have to proceed with information of uncertain accuracy, and need to determine just how something became a "fact".

I thought the subject title was rather odd until I remembered my Muslim colleagues from grad school. Starting with Euro-North Americans, I suspect the prevalence of engineers among creationist website owners merely reflects which fundies can write html. No, really.

Students from poorer countries are usually on scholarship, and poor countries can't subsidize the finer things in life until the infrastructure gets done. Poor countries tend to be more religious, please start that chicken-and-egg argument in another thread

The more likely common thread between the near-total secularism of the majority of technoids in North America and the intensely religious minority is that we all tend to hold strong views one way or the other and we all think we're right.

never been there

Forgive the afterthough - first, out of a class of 36, we had two Christians of non-establishment denominations, and two Catholics. One Hindu classmate was fairly involved in his family's temple. That's all. I doubt anyone else even went to church.

I suspect that in places with lots of creationists, you find many of them go into engineering because if you have the knack for science but are a fundy you go into engineering because it just deals with the mathematical end of the sciences. You can't become a biologist and reject evolution, you can't be a physicist and ignore the Big Bang theory, chemistry involves biology and physics, but you can become an engineer and use just the 'safe' topics.

I first encountered creationism fairly late in life, at university. I dismissed the Christian-type creationists as mere contrarians, but was struck dumb when an Iranian fundy colleague (he wouldn't have been given a government scholarship if he hadn't been a 'bearded one') working with me in fermentation technology turned to me and asked "You don't actually believe this evolution bullshit, do you?". My line of work is very caught up with selection, just like Darwin and his pigeons.