Lynn at Bore Me to Tears is writing about Saddleback’s Rick Warren being tapped to do the official praying for America at Obama’s inauguration.
I found rival TED videos I’m watching and trying to connect this morning, first by author-pastor Rick Warren and then by philosopher and cognitive scientist Dan Dennett, refuting Warren’s best-selling book about humans and our “purpose” for being who we are, starting about 15 minutes into his talk and going great guns from there:
The key to our [human] domination of the planet is culture, and the key to culture is religion.
Bringing purpose to their lives is a wonderful goal and I give [Rick Warren] an A-plus on this . . .a fantastic achievement. . How does he do it?
. . .It’s been going on for thousands of years and he’s just the latest brilliant practitioner of it. . .Every time you read it or say it, you make another copy in your brain!
[Philosopher Dan Dennett calls for religion — all religion — to be taught in schools, so we can understand its nature as a natural phenomenon.] More about Dennett here.
Whose truth are we gonna listen to?
[Warren says] “Surrendered people follow God’s word even if it doesn’t make sense.”
. . .You don’t like my interpretation? Don’t listen, don’t listen, that’s the Devil speaking!
Dennett’s last line is particularly good imo: “I wish this meme would go extinct!”
Cocking A Snook! 
Sam writes about when it’s personal . . .
Being a southerner born and bred and therefore well-versed in church speak as politics, the Power of Story in religion was the first thing I really paid attention to about Obama — back in the primary season even before he gave his big race speech that won me over, after the Rev. Wright feeding frenzy.
It is why I was wary, why I was relatively late to the party.
I remember concluding that Intelligence was using Religion to communicate with the masses but now I wonder anew, who is using who?
[Warren says] “Surrendered people follow God’s word even if it doesn’t make sense.”
I used to say, “Show me a Saddleback Christian and I’ll show you someone that’s capable of anything.” In fairness, some go just for the music, donuts, business contacts – and don’t take it seriously; others, however, are taking these messages to heart – and becoming monsters.
I also used to think of him as a “gateway drug” to the harder stuff. He teaches contempt for one’s own reason and conscience, but refuses to satisfy the [palate] with graphic, lurid descriptions of Hellfire and End Days scenarios (long-story-short: it turns off Sunday-morning seekers). For this reason, some people become frustrated, and actually leave his church in search of it elsewhere. He strips away the conscience, whets the appetite, primes people for God Knows What – then sends them out into our communities.
Situational psychology then — Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment. Saddleback must be a vinegar barrel, maybe like the military mindset of breaking down inductees’ individual personality and judgment, the better to mold an efficient, reliable cadre of precision devotees to follow the institutional imperative en masse, rather than seek and question and deviate all over the place, all while oxymoronically claiming the higher purpose is to train them to be true to themselves, watch out for each other and be vigilant defenders of freedom.
Or maybe Richard Florida would appeal to Obama more than Zimbardo? Even leaving religion out of it, he makes the same point about the dangers of mindless hierarchy defending status quo power structures and traditions, as bad business, bad government and bad for society —
Thanks, JJ, for the link. Also thanks for helping talk sense about the issue, whether or not it does any good in the end.
I continually reassured my conservative friends that Obama would lead from the center, but this is a little too center for me.
Sam, in the end, has anything really ever helped anything BESIDES talking sense about it? 🙂
Chris, I was thinking like you all morning. Then I heard an MSNBC segment with Warren, promoting Dateline tomorrow night, and then Obama answering liberal criticism by saying that he’s still a fierce supporter of gays and lesbians, and of issues like abortion rights, but that he wants a noisy mix of voices and views who don’t agree participating in the inauguration, and that civil rights lion Joseph Lowery for example, will also be speaking. He’s giving the benediction I think.
[EDIT to ADD — just read this at HuffPost: “One progressive pastor I spoke with on Wednesday, who was critical of the Warren selection, said she would have been fine had the two pastors merely switched spots in the program.” I don’t see how it’s better to close with Warren and be sent into the new administration with his charge upon us all; if it has to be one or the other, isn’t the announced order better, so Lowery can do that?]
Here is a five-minute video of HIM in Selma, Alabama, just to round out our collection. 🙂
His money line is, “we need more folks in this country who are GOOD-crazy!”
OTOH, black civil rights don’t always translate into gay civil rights, right?
So I dunno, still trying to fathom what all this really means, dare we hope that Obama’s as far-thinking and deviously smart about layers of story as I credit him with being, and so he’s put Warren in the invocation role to demonstrate that he belongs only there, behind a pulpit, and NOT in policy decisions or ballot initiatives? —
Huff Poster reports that tomorrow night on Dateline, Pastor Rick will say:
“I don’t hate gays, I gave them water and doughnuts!”
Reportedly Whoopi on the View this morning, impatient with Warren’s invite to pray for the inaugural being given too much significance by all sides, said: “We did not put him in office to pick a preacher!”
*****************
And Whoopi has a point if you consider what I just saw in the Chronicle of Higher Education’s News Blog — when it comes to science policy at least, perhaps we’re finally escaping magic god power games at the federal level?
Wired link to his science advisers.
Rick Warren is no moderate. He’s just as intolerant as the old pastor-politician-celebrities except cleaned up to look more presentable (and apparently as Lynn reports and he confirmed justifying himself, bearing doughnuts.) This thought reminded me of something Favorite Daughter had written, and she just helped me find it:
Andrew Sullivan dishes out a thought!
I found a new mom blogger through her comment at Dana’s, hosting a polite discussion of same-sex marriage mostly from the POV of what was ideal for children, making the case that society ought not legalize any form of secular marriage unless there’s sufficient study findings to convince the majority it was as good for kids as the traditional “ideal” has proven to be, so that we wouldn’t be “experimenting” with children’s welfare.
Whereupon I made the following comment:
John Cloud in Time magazine:
Number one son, themcp writes about this topic, of intolerance and distrust on both sides of political and religious ideological lines. I posted my thoughts on the subject at writestuff444, but the gist is in agreement with Christopher..everyone needs to think about the powerful people who want us to disagree, we common folk, just trying to get by with a little help from our friends. Perhaps that’s the message for the New Year. Creating happy networks, of respect and tolerance where we can find common ground amongst our diverse ideas of how the world should be run.
Dale’s take at Meming of Life is pretty sanguine.
Al Sharpton goes public, big surprise: 🙂
You tell em’ Al!! Even during the civil rights movement and all the protests that occurred there, white or black churches did very little all those years ago to work against racial injustice or poverty. It was northern churches that led the way, just like in abolition. California always seems like such a bipolar state! Unlike our steady little Indiana..who did surprise the rest of the country by electing Obama, but not me. I always knew we had this kind of centrist calmness at our core. Midwestern pragmatism at it’s best.
NYT reports the first female head of a denomination — a liberal one — will deliver the sermon for the national prayer service:
Also the famous gay bishop and his partner are included: