Human Perception and the Nature of Reality

Posted on May 5, 2018 by salooper57

Human’s interact with the world through the five senses, which Aristotle listed as sight, smell, hearing, touch, and taste. But our “reality interface” also includes senses that Aristotle knew nothing about in his day. To date, researchers have identified between 7 and 14 senses, depending upon how one defines a “sense.”

There is proprioception, the body’s awareness of where it is in space. Equilibrioception gives the body balance. It depends on the vestibular system, which also gives us an awareness of velocity. There is mechanosensation, which communicates neuronal sensations to the brain, and others.

Some animals have senses we do not possess or do not use. In their hunt for prey, sharks use electroception, the ability to sense electrical fields. Bats navigate by magnetoreception, the ability to detect magnetic fields.

Whether human or some other species, the experience of reality is mediated to all animals through the senses. Yet, the ability to effectively use these senses does not come ready-made. It develops gradually, especially in humans.

Research suggests that children under the age of 8 are unable to fully integrate information simultaneously received by the various senses. They can hear a bird’s call and see a cardinal perched on a telephone line, but their brains may not be able to combine the information from both senses into one experience.

A recent study comparing how children and adults process visual information, conducted by University College of London and Birkbeck University, found that adults can integrate multiple visual cues in a way that children under the age of 12 cannot. Vision is not a unified experience but is constructed from multiple cues that are consolidated by the brain. Children’s brains do not consolidate the information the way an adult’s brain does.

One example: depth perception is based on more than one visual cue. The brain uses stereopsis, the visual signals received by two eyes rather than just one, to perceive depth. It also uses texture, convergence (the narrowing of the perceived separation of objects as they grow more distant), and other cues as well. Children see these various cues, just as adults do, but their brains do not consolidate them as effectively as adults. They remain distinct.

If animals perceive reality differently than humans – think of sharks using electromagnetic fields to find their supper – and if adults perceive reality differently than children, what makes us think that adulthood brings with it an accurate and comprehensive perception of reality? Is this conceit warranted? We readily admit that a child’s or animal’s perception is limited. Why do we assume that ours is not?

If there are higher order beings in the universe – think of science fiction’s familiar super aliens – might they not receive sense data that we cannot experience and process such enhanced data in ways that surpass our abilities? But higher order beings are not just in science fiction; they are also in the Bible. Various species of beings are mentioned in Scripture, the most familiar of which we call angels. We know what they are called, but we hardly know what they are, or of what they are capable. Do angels perceive reality differently, and perhaps more fully, than we do?

Recent research into quantum anomalies has led some scientists to claim that there is no independent reality apart from observation and measurement. Physics World went so far as to claim, “Quantum physics says goodbye to reality.” But this idea assumes that human perception is what matters – an assumption which is dubious, at best.

Still, the physicists may be onto something when they say that reality is not independent of observation. Where they err is in thinking that it is human observation that gives reality its shape. Not even adult humans are developed enough to make full use of the data their senses receive—and what of the data they don’t receive?

It is not humans nor even angels who give reality objective existence. They are both creatures, whose existence is contingent on another. The one who observes all reality, and in so doing gives it an objective reality, is the creator: “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God. Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes.”

First published in The Coldwater Daily Reporter, 5/5/2018

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Relationships Are Key to a Flourishing Life

Posted on April 28, 2018 by salooper57

In, The Adventure of Silver Blaze, Arthur Conan Doyle puts Sherlock Holmes on the case of a missing thoroughbred, horse-napped on the eve of a big race. His trainer is also missing and presumed dead. Holmes usually solves cases by spotting evidence others have overlooked, and then fitting it into a logically consistent narrative. But this time, he doesn’t solve the case by what he finds but by what he doesn’t find. He doesn’t find anyone who heard the guard dog barking in the night.

When Holmes draws the Scotland Yard detective’s attention to “the curious incident of the dog in the night-time,” the detective replies, “The dog did nothing in the night-time.” Holmes replies, “That was the curious incident.” Holmes realized that the most important clue was not what he found at the scene, but what was missing.

Perhaps Holmes’s approach might help us make sense of a very different kind of mystery. Imagine a case in which people from diverse racial, educational, and socioeconomic backgrounds are experiencing increased incidences of cognitive dysfunction and breakdowns in health. Imagine further – it seems a red herring to most observers – an increase in political extremism among these people.

These “clues” are not out of a detective story, but out of the evening news. How do they fit together? Could the presence of some hitherto unnoticed influence explain these diverse consequences? Or might the real explanation lie with what ought to be there but is missing – “the curious incident of the dog in the night-time”?

There have been increases in cognitive dysfunction among older Americans, along with a rise in certain health problems across all ages: diabetes, obesity, increased stress, elevated levels of inflammation, and more. Researchers have looked for clues in what we eat and in our daily routines – the things that are present in our lives – but only recently have they looked for clues in what is missing from our lives.

What is missing? Close and meaningful friendships. Andrew Horn writes that the number of close friendships in America has dropped over the past few decades: “Between 1985 and 2004, the General Social Survey reported that the average number of confidants Americans felt they could talk to about important matters in their lives fell from 2.94 to 2.08.”

Things get worse. One out of four respondents to the survey say that they have no one with whom they can share important matters. No one. Zero.

Loneliness is shortening people’s lives. It is robbing them of their wellbeing. The absence of meaningful relationships is slowly killing people.

A review of research on the subject in Science suggests that social isolation places a person at the same risk for illness or premature death as does high blood pressure, obesity, lack of exercise or smoking. Another study linked loneliness to an increased risk for developing dementia.

God knew what he was talking about when he said, “It is not good for the man to be alone.” Humans need interaction. Meaningful relationships are a key to a healthy, happy, and flourishing life.

I can’t be myself by myself. I discover myself through interaction with others. As C. S. Lewis explained: “By myself I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity; I want other lights than my own to show all his facets.” I need relationships, first with my creator, then with others, if I am to understand and become myself.

It is becoming increasingly clear that the kind of relationships in which a person discovers and becomes himself or herself are not digital ones. So where, if not on Facebook, will twenty-first century people find them?

There are, of course, many places. Enriching relationships have begun in coffeeshops, service clubs, country clubs and even bars. But the church is the ideal place. The church, though far from perfect, is a place where people are supposed to care for and respect each other. The church is a place where people find themselves by finding God – or being found by him – and then find each other. God, the biblical poet writes, “sets the lonely in families,” and one of his go-to families in which to place people is the church.

 

First published in The Coldwater Daily Reporter

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What Do Those Lyrics Mean, Anyway?

Posted on April 22, 2018 by salooper57

I was a teenager when Don McLean’s classic song, “American Pie,” came out. In study hall, my friends and I would debate the meaning of the lyrics, when we were supposed to be doing our homework. We would wonder out loud about the identity of the jester and the king – Dylan and Elvis, respectively? – about the angel born in hell, and the Father, Son and Holy Ghost and why they headed for the coast.

Like many other people of my generation, I think I understand most of the allusions in “American Pie,” but how can you know for sure? When people ask Don McLean what the song means, his usual response is, “It means I never have to work again.”

If you grew up listening to music, there are probably other song lyrics that have piqued your curiosity. Everyone wondered about the identity of Carly Simon’s vain paramour. And who was Bob Dylan talking about when he wrote, “I wish for just one time you could stand inside my shoes and just for that one moment I could be you…You’d know what a drag it is to see you”?

Neil Young was and still is a favorite of mine. I wonder who was he talking to when he said, “Now that you made yourself love me, do you think I can change it in a day? How can I place you above me? Am I lying to you when I say that I believe in you?” Is there a double entendre here?

Even if there is an allusion to faith in God in “I believe in you,” what about the Vietnam protest song in which Young sings, “Jesus, I saw you walkin’ on the river. I don’t believe you. You can’t deliver right away—I wonder why.”

As much as I would like to talk to Neil Young and Bob Dylan, there are other songwriters I would like to talk to more. Talking to McLean or these others, I might satisfy my curiosity, but I might satisfy my soul by talking to Horatio Spafford.

Spafford was a well-to-do lawyer in Chicago in the 1860s. He was invested heavily in real estate on Chicago’s north side when the Great Chicago Fire devastated his financial security. Scarlet fever then killed his four-year-old son. The devout Presbyterian must have felt as if he were under a curse.

In 1873, Spafford decided to take a family vacation to Europe, where he hoped to see his good friend, the evangelist D. L. Moody. Because he wanted to wrap up some business dealings before leaving, he sent his family ahead. The ship on which they traveled, the Ville du Havre, collided with an iron clipper and sank in the Atlantic, killing most of the passengers. Spafford’s wife Anna survived, but all four of their daughters died. When Anna reached England, she telegraphed her husband the message, “Saved alone.”

Spafford found a ship headed for England and set sail, passing over the place where his children drowned. On that voyage, still reeling from loss, he wrote the poem, “It Is Well with my Soul.” The poem, which became a beloved hymn, begins with the line: “When peace, like a river, attendeth my way, when sorrow like sea billows roll; whatever my lot. Thou hast taught me to say: ‘It is well, it is well with my soul.’”

What piques the curiosity here is not ambiguous lyrics like Don McLean’s or gossipy innuendo like Carly Simon’s. The question here is: where does such strength of character originate? What grace makes it possible to endure such loss? I’ve known people to lose faith under far less trying circumstances.

If I could ask Horatio Spafford the secret of his strength, I’m certain he would say it is no secret. He endured tragedy and loss because he believed in the God of Jesus Christ. He endured because he had hope.

There are verses of Spafford’s song that do not usually appear in hymnals. One, in particular, reveals the nature of his hope. He wrote: “But, Lord, ’tis for Thee, for Thy coming we wait,
The sky, not the grave, is our goal.” Spafford believed that neither grave nor ocean’s floor holds our destiny: God does. And that gave him hope.

First published in The Coldwater Daily Reporter

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Mistaking a Caricature for the Real Thing

Posted on April 14, 2018 by salooper57

Political cartoonists must love President Trump: he is so easy to caricature. It only takes a few swipes of the pencil, the outline of a hairstyle, and everyone knows they are looking at Donald Trump.

Of course, every president gets caricatured. President Obama was pictured with a prominent brow and gigantic ears, while George W. Bush was sketched with close-set eyes and jumbo ears. Bill Clinton’s nose was oversized, President Carter had big lips, President Reagan a goofy smile, and President Nixon a ski-jump nose. (Okay, President Nixon really had a ski-jump nose.) The point is that every president gets caricatured.

Now imagine someone who has never seen an actual photograph of President Trump. They only know the man from his caricatures – the pointed hair, sagging jowls and arched brows. How likely would it be for them to recognize the real President Trump if they sat next to him in a restaurant or followed his foursome on the eighteenth hole?

He almost certainly would not recognize the president, even though he had seen a thousand caricatures of him. By exaggerating a trait to the point of absurdity – Trump’s hair or Nixon’s nose – caricatures are readily identifiable in a way that real people, with their nuanced manners and fine distinctions, are not.

Of course, it is not just a president’s looks that get caricatured: so do his policies. A few swipes of a political columnist’s pen can caricature a president’s position on an issue as quickly as a cartoonist can caricature his face – and can be just as absurd.

Unfortunately, what happens in politics also happens in theology. Presidents are not the only ones who get caricatured: God does too. Only with God, people may not realize they are looking at a caricature. Thinking some ridiculous depiction of God to be realistic, they reject him, even though they would not recognize the real God if they sat next to him in a restaurant or followed his Threesome on the eighteenth hole.

When God did rub elbows with humans in the person of his Son, most people didn’t know who he was. The Bible says, “He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him.” The world expected him to look like his caricature.

In political cartoons, President Trump has pointed hair and President Obama big ears, but how is God caricatured? How do the theological equivalents of political cartoons depict God?

First, there is the angry God caricature. His eyes could bore holes right through a person. Are those clouds behind him or is that steam coming from his ears? The angry God is always mad at someone.

Then there is the killjoy God, who always wears a permanent scowl. His eyes “go to and fro throughout the whole earth,” to misquote the Bible, looking for someone having fun—so he can put a stop to it.

Next is the distant God. He is usually not pictured at all—he’s too far away. Instead, he is symbolized by a light shining though clouds in some distant heaven, reminding us that he is far away and uninvolved. We’re just fooling ourselves if we think the distant God is going to help us.

The accountant God is a common caricature. He wears a visor and spends his day bent over his desk, tallying the sins and virtues of his employees (his creatures) as they appear in the accounts receivable column. This God never whistles while he works. His lips are pursed.

Perhaps the most ubiquitous caricature is the Our-Grandfather-In-Heaven one. This is the old man God, who sits on a throne, presumably because he is too tired to stand up. The Our-Grandfather-In-Heaven God is neither angry nor dour; he just wants his little ones to be happy. He passes out blessings like grandpa passes out Life Savers.

The trouble with these theological caricatures is that otherwise intelligent people confuse them with the true God. When they discard the ridiculous parodies, as they should, they mistakenly think they are done with God. The truth is they haven’t even begun.

First published in The Coldwater Daily Reporter, 4/14/2018

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What to Look for in a Mentor

Posted on April 7, 2018 by salooper57

One of the best things I’ve ever done was to enter a mentoring relationship with Kenneth West. I was a young man, still in my twenties, working as a lead pastor for the first time in my life, and woefully unprepared for the task. He was in his seventies when we met, a retired pastor, full of wisdom, and still passionate about life with God.

The first time I saw him, he was teaching a Sunday School class. He was a big man, as tall as me, with a sturdier frame. He had large hands that were calloused by hard work, a genuine smile, and an openness toward others I later came to attribute to humility.

We never referred to our connection as a mentoring relationship. We didn’t really refer to it at all; instead of talking about the nature of our relationship, we talked about the nature of life, of faith, and of work. I still remember some of the things he said, but what he said was not as important as the kind of life he modeled. I didn’t just want to learn from him; I wanted to be like him.

I was impressed by his humility from the beginning. He was a good storyteller. Whether his story was about himself or someone else made no difference; never once did I get the impression that he was telling the story to impress people with himself. He loved God, loved life, and loved people, and he wanted to share what he loved with others.

He taught me to eschew brash dogmatism. He did this by showing me that it is possible to firmly believe something without insisting everyone else believe it. I learned from him how to disagree with others without disparaging them. He helped me see that life, whatever else it is, is not an argument to be won or lost.

I learned from him that a well-ordered life is, by necessity, a prioritized life. Humans are not God. They cannot do everything. They must make choices. Once, when we were talking about something that demanded a higher priority in my life, I said, “Well, I guess I’ll have to make time for it.”

Ken West looked at me knowingly and said, “Brother Looper,” – he always called me that – “You can’t make time. You can only take it from something else.” It was an obvious truth with profound implications, but I’d never thought of it before. A good mentor helps you see yourself and others in a new light.

Mentoring has, in recent years, become a “thing,” especially in the business world. But it is not just business types who can benefit from finding a mentor. I know from experience that a good mentor can make a difference in a pastor’s life, but teachers, customer service people, husbands, wives, and students can all benefit from establishing a relationship with a good mentor.

There are things to do and things to avoid when finding a mentor. Don’t ask someone to be your mentor because you admire his or her success. Ask someone to be your mentor because you admire his or her life. The person who has succeeded in your field but failed in marriage may believe that sacrificing relationships is an acceptable price to pay to achieve success. Is that really the kind of mentoring you want?

Find someone who has already navigated the path you are on, is far enough ahead of you to know what the terrain looks like and has the communication skills to describe it to you. Remember that not everyone who has achieved proficiency in a skill is able to articulate the steps in getting there.

Look for someone who sees the relationship as a way to give, not a way to take. Some people love the idea of mentoring (especially the authority and admiration that comes with it) and love to give advice but are more interested in themselves than in the other person.

Finally, don’t quit the relationship when you don’t like what the mentor says. It’s the hard truths that help most. Find a mentor who will tell you what you need to hear, even if it is not what you want to hear.

First published in The Coldwater Daily Reporter, 4/7/2018

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“Storied” People

Posted on April 3, 2018 by salooper57

The people of Jesus are “storied” people. They not only know the story, they live the story;  it is still going on.

You can hear the climactic episode of the ongoing story told in three parts at http://lockwoodchurch.org/media. Part I (See, Your King Comes, March 25) tells the exciting story of Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem. It is a story of hope, conflict, and misunderstanding, set in a politically volatile time. Part II (Holy Week Communion, March 29) tells the story of the night Jesus was betrayed. Part III (See, Your King Comes, April 1) looks at the first Easter morning from the perspective of Mary Magdalene.

Don’t stop celebrating Easter!

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More Than Colored Eggs and Chocolate Bunnies

Posted on March 31, 2018 by salooper57

The Easter circulars came out last week, and they were full of little girls’ dresses and little boys’ suits. Pastel colors were everywhere, dyed eggs and chocolate bunnies ubiquitous. Every kind of ham you can imagine, and some you’ve never heard of, is on sale: bone-in, bone-out, hickory-smoked, spiral-sliced, honey-glazed, and more.

In our increasingly post-Christian society, these are the things people know about the holiday. If you told them what Easter is really about, they would hardly believe it.

Easter, as a Christian holiday – the Christian holiday – is an anniversary celebration. It’s not about how people dress or what they eat, but about what happened early on a Spring morning outside Jerusalem around the year 29 of the Common Era. It was the day that changed the world.

Though the sun still rose in the east and the earth still spun on its axis, Easter transformed the world. It was the first day of the last times. Easter, Christians believe, marked the beginning of the end of death, and the beginning of the beginning of life everlasting—it changed everything.

Too often, people think of Jesus’s resurrection as nothing more than a reassuring proof that there is life after death. But on that first Easter, no one was asking for that kind of proof. The overwhelming majority of people across the earth and across time already believed in life after death.

The early Christians did not think of Jesus’s resurrection as evidence they would live on as spirits or ghosts or life-forces in some ethereal heaven. Once they realized that Jesus was not merely alive but resurrected, they began announcing the dawn of the new age. They believed “the renewal of all things” (to use Jesus’s own words) had commenced. They did not see Jesus’s resurrection as some one-off event, but as the first stone in an avalanche.

To the early Christians, Jesus’s resurrection was not just confirmation that death had been defeated— though it was certainly that. It was proof that God’s kingdom was at hand and his ancient promise to renew all things – to make everything right – would surely be fulfilled. It was proof to the disciples, as Chesterton once put it, that the world had died in the night and that “what they were looking at was the first day of a new creation…”

For the biblical writers, the resurrection was not so much proof that we will go to heaven when we die as proof that God’s kingdom had come to earth while we live. It was confirmation that the new age had dawned or, to be more precise, that the new age is dawning. People sometimes ask the question, “What would you do if you knew you were going to die tomorrow?” The biblical writers would more likely have asked, “What would you do if you knew you were going to live tomorrow – live fully in God’s kingdom here on earth?

The resurrection convinced early Christians that God’s kingdom had invaded earth. They also believed the complementary truth that God’s king, and not death, will have the last word. There is life on the other side of the tomb.

My wife and I have a Sunday morning routine. For the last 30 years, I have left the parsonage before her and crossed the field, heading for worship service. Before I leave, I always kiss her and say, “See you over there.”

Someday one of us will leave the other and cross the threshold of death, not heading for church but for glory. On that day, we won’t say goodbye; goodbye is not the right word. When C. S. Lewis left Sheldon Vanauken in Oxford, he told him, “I shan’t say goodbye. We’ll meet again.” When he got to the other side of the street, he turned and yelled: “Besides—Christians never say goodbye.”

Because of the resurrection, there will be no need to say goodbye to my wife. I’ll just say, as I’ve said a thousand times before, “See you over there” – not in some ethereal heaven in which we are ill at ease, uncomfortable guests, but in our own place, prepared by Christ, humanity’s true home.

First published in The Coldwater Daily Reporter, 3/31/2018

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Need Help Getting Ready for Easter?

Posted on March 27, 2018 by salooper57

If you’re like me, Easter time is very busy: Gone most evenings, with lots of things on the calendar and the to-do list. It’s easy for Easter to sneak up and find us unprepared to celebrate the biggest thing that ever happened.

If you have time this week, you might listen to the story of Palm Sunday to help you get ready for Easter and make the most of Holy Week. You can hear it here: See, Your King Comes. 

Hope this week is spiritually rich for you!

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Preacher, Prophet, Martyr, Saint

Posted on March 24, 2018 by salooper57

Pope Francis has made the canonization of Archbishop Oscar Romero his own project. Though the lengthy process was begun during the papacy of John Paul II, opposition caused it to stall. But in 2015, Francis beatified Romero, which opened the door to eventual canonization.

Who was Oscar Romero? To understand the man, one must start with his country. El Salvador is the smallest and most densely populated nation in Central America. In El Salvador, the gulf between the haves and have-nots is wider and deeper than anything North Americans have ever known. As El Salvador entered the 20th century, its land and wealth was concentrated in the hands of just fourteen families, known simply as “The Fourteen.”

Coffee was king in those days, and “The Fourteen” were the Salvadoran nobility. Most of the rest of the people of El Salvador were little more than serfs. They didn’t own land or homes. Half of their wages were “appropriated to provide housing. There was no health care. Worse, there was no hope for improvement.

Romero, who was born in 1917, grew up in this world. His father hoped to instruct him in a trade, but young Oscar believed himself called to ministry in the church. At age 14, he began his studies, which were interrupted briefly by his mother’s illness. After graduating from the national seminary in San Salvador, he went to the Gregorian University in Rome.

In 1943, Romero returned to El Salvador, where he served as a parish priest and, later, as the rector of the diocesan seminary. In 1966, he became the editor of the archdiocesan newspaper, where he had a reputation as a quiet intellectual and a staunch defender of traditional Roman Catholic values.

In 1974, the rather reticent and bookish priest was appointed bishop of a poor diocese in rural El Salvador. During that time, the influence of liberation theology was growing across Central America, and with it the popularity of Marxist ideology. Liberation theology promised hope to the poor and generationally oppressed, but the newly appointed bishop remained steadfastly opposed to it, believing it to conflict with Catholic doctrine.

In 1977, Bishop Romero was elevated to Archbishop of El Salvador, to the consternation of progressives in the Church. They did not see the rather quiet traditionalist as a friend of El Salvador’s poor. They could not have been more wrong.

A few weeks after his appointment as Archbishop, Romero’s dear friend and fellow-priest, Rutillo Grande, an advocate for El Salvador’s poor, was assassinated. His work to help the poor achieve self-sufficiency had been considered a threat to the nation’s rigid social structure, and an affront to the wealthy. Standing over the dead body of his friend, Romero made up his mind to continue his work.

Romero never wavered in his stand against liberation theology and Marxism, but now he had something to stand for, not just against: he stood for the poor. But in El Salvador in the 1970s, standing for the poor was a risky thing to do. The Archbishop knew that. He once said, “I do not believe in death without resurrection. If they kill me, I will be resurrected in the Salvadoran people.”

Romero began broadcasting his Sunday sermons, which became the most popular radio program in the nation. He wrote President Jimmy Carter, begging him to stop sending military aid, which was being used to repress the people. Fearing the spread of communism, the U.S. was pouring money into training Salvadoran special forces. Those forces later committed unthinkable atrocities against the poor, most of whom had never even heard of Karl Marx.

Though he knew it was risky, Romero called on soldiers to disobey any order to kill their fellow-peasants. Days before his assassination, he told a reporter, “You can tell the people that if they succeed in killing me, that I forgive and bless those who do it … A bishop will die, but the church of God, which is the people, will never perish.”

To almost everyone’s surprise, the quiet priest found courage to become a preacher, prophet, and martyr. A deeply spiritual man, Romero received strength from the savior of El Salvador, the savior of the world, to whom his life unreservedly belonged.

First published in The Coldwater Daily Reporter, 3/24/2018

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Alexa, Stop Creeping Me Out

Posted on March 17, 2018 by salooper57

Yet another reason why I don’t own a smartphone or tablet. Alexa, Amazon’s artificial intelligence-based personal assistant, has been laughing at her masters, and it is creeping them out. According to Amazon, it just a voice recognition flaw, but when Alexa laughs maniacally in the middle of the night, it seems more like the prequel to I, Robot.

The software that drives Alexa, that turns on lights, starts espresso machines, and makes her laugh, is driven by a remote server somewhere. Alexa is simply an ear and a mouthpiece; her brain is far away. Or, to use an image from an earlier era: Alexa is an idol. The god that communicates through the idol is off in some digital heaven somewhere; maybe Silicon Valley.

The case could be made that Alexa is the eidolon – the local manifestation – of a god. You can ask Alexa how to be popular, for steps on a career path, or to calm you down with music, and the goddess will respond. Answers to such prayers are never delayed more than a few fractions of a second. Alexa can provide comfort and companionship, and all one needs do is ask – or should I say, pray?

The Silicon Valley Olympians – Amazon, Apple, Google – are all lightning fast and voice activated. Merely speak the words: “Alexa (or “Siri” or “Google”) please text John and tell him I’ll be there in five minutes,” and what you desire is done. And the sacrifices these deities demand are minimal – $150 for the Amazon god, plus any additional cost of installing devices in your home that will respond to her. More ominously, though, those who bow at her altar entrust their lives to a remote power they know little about but that wants to know everything there is to know about them, including when they go to bed and what’s on their playlist.

The God of the Bible also uses voice commands, only it is his voice, not his adherent’s, that make things happen. He does not need eidolons – local representations like Amazon’s Echo – to get things done.

If you want Alexa to turn on your lights or turn up your heat, you need to install smart bulbs or a smart thermostat that are programmed to respond wirelessly to commands from the Amazon god who resides on the cloud. Alexa will let her adherents freeze before she turns up the heat, unless their smart thermostat is connected and enabled. She has no heart.

That is certainly different from the God of the Bible, but there are similarities in the way they work. He operates wirelessly. He also has programmed his devices to respond to his voice. Think about the first chapter of the book of Genesis, when God said, “’Let there be light,’ and there was light.” Creation has been programmed, connected, and enabled to respond to God’s voice.

The universe God designed is a lot like a smart device – or many trillions of smart devices. Beneath the weird framework of quantum mechanics in our universe lies something deeper: a programming of sorts. Many scientists, recognizing this, have abandoned the long-established mechanistic paradigm of how the universe works and are replacing it with an information paradigm. The have come to believe that quanta, the basic building blocks of the universe, represent information bits – code.

This perspective harmonizes well with the biblical view of a creator who made a universe that responds to his voice. He said, “Let there be light,” his smart creation responded, and the lights came on. He said, “Let there be vegetation” (animals, people, etc.), and it happened. The Bible repeats the words “God said” nine times over the course of six creation days. The psalmist commented: “For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm.”

Eugene Peterson, author of the popular Bible paraphrase, The Message, has written of “the massive, overwhelming previousness of God’s speech…” Everything, absolutely everything, including humanity, is voice-activated. But humans have been “disabled” by sin and now must be “enabled” by faith in their creator, the God of Jesus.

As for me, I’ll trust the God known for giving “songs in the night” instead of that other one, the one known for creepy nocturnal laughter.

First published in The Coldwater Daily Reporter, 3/17/18

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