Thursday, December 18, 2008
Not God - Fear?!
I have written before here about how the "behavioral" sciences are not really sciences at all. They are an application of the scientific method to phenomena that can never act in an entirely repeatable manner and therefore can never rise to the level of true science. Well, let's add another argument to the quiver here when it comes to the "behavioral" sciences.
Consider this MSNBC article on the sources of altruistic behavior:
But back to the point - data are facts - interpretation is theory, this fuzzes the line there seriously. Does bad data occur? Sure, but there are mathematical, actually statistical, tools to weed out bad data, where is that here?
Next point - incomplete measurement. Acting cooperatively is not the whole story here. Of course some people act cooperatively absent religious motivation, we're dealing with behavior here, there are always exceptions to the rule. But what about the quality of that behavior. Is there data on the levels of selflessness involved. After all, some cooperative behavior is based in self-gratification - is it really charity?
Which leads me to the real bottom line on all this. Cooperative behavior may, in fact, be rooted at least initially, in attempt to please authority, even in religious people. But, we religious people rely on that obedience, along with the rest of our religion, to transform us into people that will behave cooperatively without consideration of self.
Which I think makes this "study" a serious weapon aimed at the church. You see, despite the problems I have with it as science, I think it contains truth. I do think most religious people behave altruistically out of obedience and not a genuine expression of God's nature within us. The church has fallen just a bit short. We give people an authority to fear, but we do not give them a God that transforms.
This "study" is an assault on the faith, but it is one for which we have given them the ammunition. Too many of us, way too many of us, behave altruistically in a slavish manner rather than in the manner of a person set free by their Lord. Too often the church promotes this to maintain its own authority, never realizing that it actually has none - it should only be reflecting God's.
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Consider this MSNBC article on the sources of altruistic behavior:
Religion and its promotion of empathy get undue credit for our unselfish acts. Instead, it’s our less-than-virtuous psychological perception that a moral authority is watching us that promotes altruism, a new review essay suggests.Now, in the first place, note that tiny little word "essay" in there. What these psychologist's are doing is "re-interpreting" existing data. Much of this they are doing by discarding large chunks of it. As they say (I really love this) "Also, studies that do show a link between altruism and religion are often based on self-reports — subjects saying they did something unselfish, rather than direct observation of them doing so. This type of data is notoriously unreliable." Well, so is pretty much every other behavioral study ever done! I mean this is a convenient time to bring up that particular little argument - it pretty well undoes the entire profession and training of the people claiming the argument.
The essay is based on two psychologists’ re-examination of dozens of studies that have dealt with the relationship between religious participation and so-called prosocial behavior, a term that includes charity, cooperation, volunteerism, honesty, trust and various forms of personal sacrifice. The Biblical parable of the Good Samaritan is a classic example.
But back to the point - data are facts - interpretation is theory, this fuzzes the line there seriously. Does bad data occur? Sure, but there are mathematical, actually statistical, tools to weed out bad data, where is that here?
Next point - incomplete measurement. Acting cooperatively is not the whole story here. Of course some people act cooperatively absent religious motivation, we're dealing with behavior here, there are always exceptions to the rule. But what about the quality of that behavior. Is there data on the levels of selflessness involved. After all, some cooperative behavior is based in self-gratification - is it really charity?
Which leads me to the real bottom line on all this. Cooperative behavior may, in fact, be rooted at least initially, in attempt to please authority, even in religious people. But, we religious people rely on that obedience, along with the rest of our religion, to transform us into people that will behave cooperatively without consideration of self.
Which I think makes this "study" a serious weapon aimed at the church. You see, despite the problems I have with it as science, I think it contains truth. I do think most religious people behave altruistically out of obedience and not a genuine expression of God's nature within us. The church has fallen just a bit short. We give people an authority to fear, but we do not give them a God that transforms.
This "study" is an assault on the faith, but it is one for which we have given them the ammunition. Too many of us, way too many of us, behave altruistically in a slavish manner rather than in the manner of a person set free by their Lord. Too often the church promotes this to maintain its own authority, never realizing that it actually has none - it should only be reflecting God's.
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