Unio Mystica in Montreal

Nuns Brains Probed for God

The Carmelite nuns live a life of silent prayer, separated from the modern world by the high stone wall that surrounds their monastery in an industrial part of Montreal. Except for medical care, they rarely leave their sanctuary. But that changed late last month, when they began to make periodic visits to, of all places, a science lab.

The sisters arrive at the neuro-science laboratory in the University of Montreal's psychology department two at a time, wearing habits sewn from thick, dark cloth, high white collars and veils that frame their faces and flow down their backs. On their feet are sensible brown laceups that appear to have never seen the outdoors before.

They come to take part in an experiment that will probe a mystical and very private part of their lives. Sister Diane, the monastery's prioress, and Sister Teresa admit to being nervous as they peer curiously into a dark chamber about the size of a walk-in closet and equipped with an old barber's chair.

It is here that they have agreed to try to relive unio mystica, a religious experience so intense that Christians profess to sense their Lord as a physical presence. The nuns hope to help Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard uncover just what happens in their brains when they feel the hand of God.

My favorite part of this article is the following section:

When the analysis of all three experiments is done, he hopes to have a clear biological picture of an experience that mystifies even those who have lived it. Ultimately, he would like to know enough about how it works to be able to offer the same experience to anybody seeking spiritual growth.

Sister Diane says she is certain that Dr. Beauregard will discover a biological basis for the Carmelites' spiritual experience, one she says is shared by all human beings. God equipped people with the brains they need for a spiritual life, she insists. "Our body has a spiritual component. To be a human being is to be a spiritual being. I'm convinced this will show in the results."

Sister Diane is possessed of a deep and lovely faith! Some people find the idea of a "biological basis for the Carmelites' spiritual experience" threatening, with the implication that "it's all in our heads." Sister Diane, on the other hand, believes that this is a gift from God Himself. Beautiful.

And I like the part about "offering the same experience to anybody seeking spiritual growth." I wonder what that will actually mean, though; an electrical zap to the brain when somebody's got a jones for God? That would seem to take the journey away, and everything one might learn from it. The effort counts for something, after all. If I hadn't gone through the pain of getting sober - if they had just zapped me when I needed to get my mind in order - I wouldn't have learned how to pray. I wouldn't have learned how to meditate and order my own mind. I wouldn't have learned all the things I learned (often the very hardest way), and God wouldn't have been able to "instruct my heart, not by ideas, but by pains and contradictions."

It would have been a flat experience, in other words, one without depth. Pain is the price of admission to a new life, it says in the 7th Step. In every case, it adds.

Meditation May Bolster Brain Activity

Buddhist Meditation May Produce Lasting Changes in the Brain

Nov. 10, 2004 -- Meditation may not only produce a calming effect, but new research suggests that the practice of Buddhist meditation may produce lasting changes in the brain.

Researchers found that monks who spent many years in Buddhist meditation training show significantly greater brain activity in areas associated with learning and happiness than those who have never practiced meditation.

The results suggest that long-term mental training, such as Buddhist meditation, may prompt both short and long-term changes in brain activity and function.

In the study, which appears in this week's online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, researchers compared the brain activity of eight long-time Buddhist monks and 10 healthy students.

The average age of the monks was 49, and each had undergone mental training in meditation for 10,000 to 50,000 hours over the course of 15 to 40 years.

The students' average age was 21. They had no prior experience in meditation and received one week of meditative training before the start of the study.

Both groups were asked to practice compassionate meditation, which does not require concentration on specific things. Instead, the participants are instructed to generate a feeling of love and compassion without drawing attention to a particular object.

Researchers measured brain activity before, during, and after meditation using electroencephalograms.

They found striking differences between the two groups in a type of brain activity called gamma wave activity, which is involved in mental processes including attention, working memory, learning, and conscious perception.

The Buddhist monks had a higher level of this sort of gamma wave activity before they began meditation, and this difference increased dramatically during meditation. In fact, researchers say the extremely high levels of gamma wave activity are the highest ever reported.

The monks also had more activity in areas associated with positive emotions, such as happiness.

Researchers say the fact that the monks had higher levels of this type of brain activity before meditation began suggests that long-term practice of Buddhist or other forms of meditation may alter the brain.

"A Masterly Instrument"

From Evelyn Underhill's 1936 book, Worship, in the chapter titled "Liturgy a Work of Art":

A certain restraint, a sense of style, is characteristic of all good liturgical action; for it exists to express the common worship of the family, not the fervour of the individual soul. Therefore the individual who prays from within the liturgy has to sacrifice something of his own will and feeling to the corporate movement; must submit to the ritual discipline, and lose his own prayer in that of the fellowship, if he is to "understand by dancing that which is being done." But on the other hand, there are great compensations. If his religious preferences and enthusiasms are checked, and subordinated to "liturgical good manners," his reserves are respected too. The Christian liturgy, as Guardini has said, is "a masterly instrument which has made it possible for us to express our inner life in all its fullness and depth, without divulging our secrets . . . we can pour out our hearts, and still feel that nothing has been dragged to light which should remain hidden."

I'm very interested in the idea that the Liturgy is "a masterly instrument which has made it possible for us to express our inner life in all its fullness and depth, without divulging our secrets . . . we can pour out our hearts, and still feel that nothing has been dragged to light which should remain hidden." I think this is why the liturgical churches have produced such great art, and the non-liturgical sects haven't, for the most part; the shepherding of secrets and the "reserve" of emotion (and the discipline involved) make it possible to "pour out our hearts" into art.

Reminiscent of Flaubert's admonition to "Be regular and orderly in your life, like a bourgeois, so that you can be violent and original in your work."

Another interesting thread in the "emotion/religion" linkage. This is exactly the kind of thing I'd like to research, myself; another was de Caussade's "God instructs the heart; not by ideas but through pains and contradictions." These are such fascinating topics for research projects, I think! We've come to a place where science has become so powerful that it is forgetting the importance of simple human wisdom. Wisdom requires a "big picture" view, though; this is what is disappearing. Science is particularizing everything, even itself. There are no generalists anymore, because scientific disciplines have become too deep and too technical for one person to understand a great deal in a broad way.

The "big picture" isn't possible in science anymore, and the vast amount of information around now is making it difficult to see the large view in any area. But we need to connect with wisdom from the past, and then write our own, in continuation. This is why the Bible is important, still. And so is The Illiad and The Odyssey, and Oedipus Rex and Antigone.

Meantime, I'll try to find if there's any existing research on either of these topics and will publish it. Religion and its connection to art via emotion and psychology is one of the very most interesting topics to me in the world.

Worship

From Evelyn Underhill's Worship, 1936:

The painted cave of those prehistoric worshippers of an unknown God who were "simple-minded enough to give of their best to the supra-sensible powers," the Pagan temple, the Christian cathedral, are all expressions of the same fundamental human need to incoporate, make visible, the spirit of worship; to lavish skill, labour, and wealth on this most apparently "useless" of all the activities of man. So, too, the ritual chant, with its accompaniment of ceremonial movement and manual acts, is found to exert a stablizing influence at every level of his religious life. And when this costly and explicit embodiment is lacking, or is rejected where once possessed, and the Godward life of the community is not given some sensible and institutional expression within the social complex, worship seldom develops its full richness and power. It remains thin, abstract, and notional: a tendency, an attitude, a general aspiration, moving alongside human life, rather than in it.

It is true that worship, when thus embodied, loses - or seems to lose - something of its purity; but only then can it take up and use man's various powers and capacities, turning the whole creature towards the Eternal, and thus entering the texture of his natural as well as his supernatural life. Certainly, it is here that we encounter the greatest of the dangers that accompany its long history; the danger that form will smother spriit, ritual action take the place of spontaneous prayer, the outward and visible sign obscure the inward grace. But the risk is one which man is bound to take. He is not "pure" spirit, and is not capable of "pure" spiritual acts. Even though in his worship he moves out towards absolutes, and in and through that worship absolutes are revealed to his soul, it is at his own peril that leaves the world of sense behind, in his approach to the God Who created and informs it. This humbling truth must govern all his responses to Reality.

Here's some ritual chant: "the Service of Compline as chanted by the choir of St. Joseph of Arimathea Theological Seminary in Berkeley, California."

Where Shall Wisdom Be Found?

A review of Harold Bloom's new book of the same title.

Where shall wisdom be found? Harold Bloom finds it in the same place as the question -- the Book of Job -- as well as in Ecclesiastes and the writings of Plato, Homer, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Montaigne, Bacon, Samuel Johnson, Goethe, Emerson, Nietzsche, Freud, Proust, St. Augustine and in the Gospel of Thomas. Bloom's new book, which compares and contrasts what he calls the "wisdom writing" in these varied works, "rises out of personal need, reflecting a quest for sagacity that might solace and clarify the traumas of aging, of recovery from grave illness, and of grief for the loss of beloved friends." He tells us, "Since childhood, I have been comforted by Talmudic wisdom," and he cites wisdom writing that helped him rally when he "was ill, depressed, or weary." He also says, "We most of us know that wisdom immediately goes out the door when we are in crisis" and that he has "not found that wisdom literature is a comfort."

These claims may seem inconsistent, but inconsistency does not trouble him. His section on Emerson approvingly quotes that writer's "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" and alludes to Whitman's "I am large, I contain multitudes." Such familiar sayings contrast with a central delight of Bloom's book -- its inclusion of wonderful aphorisms likely to be new to many readers. One of my favorites is the Viennese satirist Karl Kraus's "Psychoanalysis is itself that disease of which it purports to be the cure," although my delight had dimmed by the time I encountered Bloom's third repetition of this remark.

As the foregoing suggests, Bloom's book is inconsistent (or multitudinous) in quality as well as in attitude. Often his fervent discussion yields shimmering insights. Consider his treatment of what he calls the "Nietzschean" position that what makes one poem more memorable than another "must be that the memorable poem, the poem that has more meaning, or starts more meaning going, is the poem that gives (or commemorates) more pain." Bloom comments, "Strong poetry is difficult, and its memorability is the consequence of a difficult pleasure, and a difficult enough pleasure is a kind of pain."

I've just finished writing elsewhere that the Church - and by this I refer to all of the ancient religious traditions - is the only place (aside from university history and classics departments) still deeply in touch with the distant human past. I believe these enduring writings are an important repository of human experience - of the life of the human being qua human being on earth - and will become more and more important as the world goes more and more techno. It will be necessary to have a baseline of experience from which to draw conclusions about the essence of human nature - or at least about the manner in which human nature evolves, if it does (and I believe it does, in fact).

Also, the Church is one of the few places still thinking (hopefully, but definitely not in every case) about "the spiritual life," and about "meaning" in those particular terms. It's always been my opinion that writers and artists also deal primiarly in the spiritual, but you don't seem to see, in art, these days, a drawing together of the various threads of experience and meaning into a large coherent whole; instead, the focus seems to be on shining light on the particular, and almost for its own sake, now that the "universal" is out of favor. Religion still insists, in its seeking of God, that human experience is universal - for if not, how could religious principles be applied?

Deus ex machina

The urban world may look quite different in the not-too-distant future:

Nanotechnology alone offers exciting and disquieting possibilities. Originally proposed by Nobel physicist Richard Feynman forty years ago, nanotech manipulates individual atoms and molecules to build things—anything, in fact. Experts anticipate that within the next few decades, large-scale objects, including buildings, could be fabricated using microscopic robots called assemblers, which would join to make a cybernetic glue, able to assume any shape and size. Such an instrument would eliminate traditional constraints of design and construction. Standard, irreducible components, such as the 2 X 4, the brick, steel shapes, nails and screws, will be replaced by microscopic parts. Form, texture, color, and strength would be defined at the cellular level. Orthogonal geometry, demanded for efficiency by standard frame construction, could disappear altogether.

This is not science fiction; nanoscience is quickly becoming reality. In the last year or two, IBM researchers have fashioned a computer circuit from a single carbon molecule, and Cornell scientists have built a microbe-sized motor, the first nanoscale machine. Eric Drexler, who coined the word "nanotechnology" in his 1986 book, Engines of Creation, expects dramatic benefits for design, manufacturing, electronics, medicine, and every other human endeavor. Everything we make will become better, faster, stronger, smaller, and cheaper. For architects, nanoconstruction could finally accommodate the restless search for new forms, allowing varieties never before achieved or even imagined. We will be able to construct anything we envision through a virtual wave of the wand. Buildings may be conceived and executed through computer programming by entering only a few parameters and requirements. How big is it? What does it feel like? BANG! Instant architecture.

But this assumes that designers will control the process. Nanotech’s opponents see it as an untamable force, because its potential for self-replication could get out of hand. Picture trillions upon trillions of invisible mechanical pests filling the environment and utterly consuming the earth. Assuming we can avoid catastrophe, an important question is whether architecture will require architects. Will expertise become unnecessary when anyone could punch her desires into a keyboard and produce her dream home? Moreover, a building may not necessitate anyone at all to summon it into existence. Spontaneous assembly could allow nanobots to go on auto-pilot. While Feynman saw nanoscience as arranging atoms "the way we want them," in actuality they could develop unpredictably, in ways we may or may not want.

Here's Bill Joy's original piece about nanotechnology, "Why the future doesn’t need us," referred to in the above article.

The Tunnel

This is a duplicate, one that also appears on my other blog. There is more to say about Zen stories, and what they are and what they do, but I'll do that another time.

Zenkai, the son of a samurai, journeyed to Edo and there became the retainer of a high official. He fell in love with the official's wife and was discovered. In self-defence, he slew the official. Then he ran away with the wife.

Both of them later became thieves. But the woman was so greedy that Zenkai grew disgusted. Finally, leaving her, he journeyed far away to the province of Buzen, where he became a wandering mendicant.

To atone for his past, Zenkai resolved to accomplish some good deed in his lifetime. Knowing of a dangerous road over a cliff that had caused death and injury to many persons, he resolved to cut a tunnel through the mountain there.

Begging food in the daytime, Zenkai worked at night digging his tunnel. When thirty years had gone by, the tunnel was 2,280 feet long, 20 feet high, and 30 feet wide.

Two years before the work was completed, the son of the official he had slain, who was a skillful swordsman, found Zenkai out and came to kill him in revenge.

"I will gived you my life willingly," said Zenkai. "Only let me finish this work. On the day it is completed, then you may kill me."

So the son awaited the day. Several months passed and Zenkai kept digging. The son grew tired of doing nothing and began to help with the digging. After he had helped for more than a year, he came to admire Zenkai's strong will and character.

At last the tunnel was completed and the people could use it and travel safely.

"Now cut off my head," said Zenkai. "My work is done."

"How can I cut off my own teacher's head?" asked the younger man with tears in his eyes.

And there are 100 other Zen stories, here.

My ambition, though, is to write some Zen stories with women as the protagonists, and in which their male partners are described as "so greedy that she grew disgusted." Women are always used as devices in these stories, to get the men into a dramatic mess. I saw this same dynamic in the recent film "Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter....and Spring." The young monk is tempted away from the monastery by a woman, and ends up killing another man out of jealousy. He returns embittered and goes through this kind of years-long redemption.

And actually, I've only ever run into one or two Zen stories at all in which women figure as main characters. What about "Reiko, the daughter of a Samurai"? This is why I loved Die Walküre so much; surely there must be some archetypical adventurous woman! Is it that a woman would never make so terrible a mistake that she'd spend a lifetime atoning for it? Is it that a woman cannot leave home to travel and adventure, because she cannot be alone?

Or is it that such a woman is by definition completely evil and unredeemable? The latter, I suspect. Well, time to dig out some different archetypes. A-mazon, after all.

Ise Shrine and the Long Now

"This Shinto shrine at Ise named Jingu Shrine is rebuilt every twenty years. Its first incarnation was in 04 C.E. This type of design, which utilises ephemeral materials while capitalizing on the human element, is a great inspiration for The Long Now Foundation. This object has done something which Stonehenge and the Great Pyramids have not; it aided the survival of its institution."

From the Long Now Foundation website:

The Long Now Foundation hopes to provide counterpoint to todays "faster/cheaper" mind set and promote "slower/better" thinking. We hope to creatively foster responsibility in the framework of the next 10,000 years.

I originally found this organization through its other fascinating endeavor, The Rosetta Project:

The Rosetta Project is a global collaboration of language specialists and native speakers working to build a publicly accessible online archive of ALL documented human languages. Our goal is to create the most broad and complete reference work on the languages of the world to date- a reference work of relevance for academic researchers and educators as well as native communities looking for materials in support of language revitalization work.

We are creating this unprecedented digital library of human language through an open contribution, peer review process and we invite you to participate. All documents and data sets are freely available through this growing online database as well as archived on an extreme longevity micro-etched nickel disk- a contemporary "Rosetta Stone" for the languages of the world.

So, then, what is this website for?

This blog was supposed to be about religion. I'd wanted to argue for it in the context of the modern world and from a rationalist - maybe, rather, pragmatist - point of view.

I'd wanted to say: you can be modern and religious, too. You can be a scientist and go to church. Religion has things that are good for us, and we should not dismiss them out of hand. I'd wanted to make William James' point that religion is a good, a benefit to human life, because it concerns itself with "the more eternal things," and that we should take this to heart and explore it from a modernist point of view.

This is what I still believe. But religion is also a weapon, and it's being used against me right now. So how can I argue any of this any longer?

I can, I suppose, even though I can't subject myself to the abuses any longer. I've learned an important lesson over the years, and that is that a person has always to be open to new thought, new ideas, and the best (the only?) way to keep oneself open is through contradiction. (Imagine that I'm saying that now! From De Caussade, and something I wanted to actually do psychology research in: "God instructs the heart not by means of ideas, but by pains and contradictions.")

Through placing oneself at the edge, at the borders where all the wars are, and going through the pain of the conflict. You do learn this way. And I have learned. Maybe that's what I actually feel now, in fact: that the current endless round-and-round about homosexuality is old news and no longer profitable to me. It is simply a dead end, and it's time for something new. Maybe this pain is the birthing of that, whatever it is.

So I suppose I can still still use this blog, instead of shutting it down. I want to talk, anyway, about science, and mathematics, and research in biology and psychology. Perhaps I'll go back to school and really do that research I mentioned above. I want to still talk about religion as a force, even if I'm not personally involved. (Of course, I have to be involved in spiritual things in some way, even if only in A.A.) I want to talk about "The Theory of Everything," maybe, and I guess I still can. Maybe things will get interesting, in fact. I've been trying to write about my own religious conversion and have found the results stilted and very uneven; maybe there's a reason, and maybe Christianity as it exists right now is simply not right for me, not enough....

Leaving the Church....

I feel so much more relaxed when I consider it. So much more at ease, and much less tense and worried.

The thought of just getting out for good is becoming more and more appealing by the day. I won't have to keep up this silly argument about homosexuality any longer - secularists mostly don't care. I live in one of the most tolerant states in the nation (but of course a person still has to be careful), one that early passed anti-discrimination laws and lately a domestic partnership bill. (I think that the tolerance here is due to the huge immigrant population, and because we have the highest per capita percentage of scientists in the nation. Religion is a diverse affair here, so no one group has the upper hand. And people seem to be reasonable and veyr "live-and-let-live," across the board.) It's easy to be gay here, even in the Church.

But I don't think I want to support the Christian Church any longer. If I convert to Catholicism, I'll just be waiting for the day when I'm eventually denied Communion - which is the main reason I'd convert in the first place. The hierarchy is cracking down, and I'd likely get caught in the crackdown.

The only hope is if the American Church splits. Then, I'd be happy to stay. But I can't tolerate the fighting any longer, and the deafness of the opposition. They are tasting new power now, aligned with the "Global South," and they are in the mood for punishment. We should deny them the opportunity by simply breaking away. They can have the Communion; I don't care at all anymore.

The best move, though, would be to leave entirely. I had God before I came to the Church, and I'll have God when I leave. I will have to go through withdrawal (see "Anglo-Catholic," below, for why), but it will be better in the end.

Anglo-Catholic

I went to The Church of the Resurrection yesterday for solemn high mass. It's a beautiful, beautiful church, and the liturgy is indeed very high there, complete with a reading of "The Last Gospel" (John 1:1-17) after the Benediction and Dismissal, and "The Angelus" at the end of the mass - something I've never seen before. This service was called "Harvest Thanksgiving," and I gather it has something to do with English custom. (Again! The Anglophilia in this church!)

The Mystery Worshipper who reviewed Resurrection described "the delighful, prayer-filled haze of incense" - and so it was. I can still see the layers of smoke drifting through the air by the half-open windows facing the street. I do love incense, at least occasionally; it evokes hugely potent sense memories - and "occasionally" is more wonderful, to me, in fact, than experiencing it every week. (A few weeks ago I went to a dim sum place with a friend for lunch and spent part of our time together sniffing the tea leaves, which had the same strong, dense smell as church incense. I even asked the waiter what kind of tea it was; "flower tea" was the answer, whatever that is. I'll find it sometime, though, of this I am certain; I know I shall not rest until I do.)

In any case, it was the most fussy, nosebleed-high mass I've ever been to - even beating out St. Mary's, and that's really saying something. So much going on! The precise movement and ritual; the wildly colorful vestments, including birettas - over the top, there, IMO, but I can live with it; the many, many genuflexions; the incense. Ah, the incense. The fragrant haze surrounding us all, like the impressionistic fog of a film dream sequence, throughout the whole hour-and-a-half of the service and afterwards. The whole service like a dream, actually - the sweet music, and the murmur of prayers and chants, and the bells: all part of the slow, slow, methodical buildup to the climax of the communion itself. A kind of calm serenity about it all. Then an easy descent back to the world, to rest and pray, to give thanks. And then the last gospel reminded us what the whole thing was all about: that the Word has existed from the very Beginning - that the Word was with God, and the Word was God. That, unbelievably, the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. Don't forget.

Then getting slowly up to leave at the end, almost regretfully, to go outside into a beautiful cold sunny morning. All a dream.

(Man! I am really hooked now, and what in the world am I going to do about that? Cold turkey at some point, I guess....)

Superman dead

The story of Christopher Reeve has always unnerved me. Here was a man whose onscreen role was that of the world's strongest human, an invulnerable creature from another planet with "powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men." (I just pulled that phrase out of some musty recess in my mind that contains everythings from 1950s and 60s TV. In those days, George Reeves - that name again! - was The Man of Steel. He eventually committed suicide because he was typecast in the role, or so went the story.)

Then Chris Reeve fell off a horse and never walked again. He couldn't breathe without help; he couldn't turn his head or move a muscle; he couldn't eat or even pee by himself. I'm sure he thought about suicide every day of his life since 1995. Yet instead he suffered, publicly and achingly, for the sake of his child and his wife and for future unnamed others he could possibly help on account of his fame. The Passion of Christopher Reeve took 10 years to complete.

Handsome, wealthy, decent, kind, and totally destroyed, in an absurd accident. I felt nothing but relief for him this morning when I heard the news.

Requiem aeternum dona eis Domine.
Et lux perpetua luceat eis.

(And how unfair life on your earth is, BTW, Domine. If you don't mind my saying so.)

The God of the Infinitesimal

An inchoate thought is forming in my head now, after having read Psalms 1, 2, and 3 today as part of Morning Prayer. I will have to think it out further, but the basic idea is that the Scriptural point of view - and I mean "point of view" literally in this case - is all wrong for our lives in the 21st Century. It's too much in the large visible world.

Today we know that not sin but bacteria and viruses cause disease. We know about T-cells - lymphocytes which recognize and destroy foreign cells. We know about neurons and synapses; we know about the possible connection between the corpus callosum and autism; we know that the brain scans of schizophrenics look different than those of others. We know what dust mites look like magnified 400X; they look like dragons, in fact, like prehistoric monsters. We even know something about top quarks and spin, and possible curled-up physical dimensions too tiny to ever be seen.

But the Psalmist knows none of this. He (she?) knows about armies and vengeance and cattle and wheat and chaff and sea-monsters and all deeps and multitudes. Scripture is silent about so much of what we know and take for granted. It is gross and crude and, as a result, simplistic. It is a history lesson, instead of being a point of departure into the realm of the mystical.

This is why the voices of Hildegard of Bingen and the other mystics are today growing louder; they speak of this inner world of the unseen:

O Holy Fire which soothes the spirit
life force of all creation
holiness you are in living form
You are a holy ointment
for perilous injuries
You are holy in cleansing
the fetid wound.

O breath of holiness
o fire of loving
o sweet taste in the breast
you fill the heart
with the good aroma of virtues.

The solution is to write more stuff like the above for use in approaching the Mysterium Tremendum of God - which, while still Tremendum, belongs also to the realm of the invisibly tiny.

And let's not forget, while we're at it, that the Psalmist thought heaven was about 100 feet up, and that there were "waters above the heavens" - that is, above God's throne where angels circled Him and sang praises. And that the fact of the still-expanding universe was discovered less than 100 years ago. The Psalmist's world was much, much smaller - and also much larger - than the wolrd we know.

Is approaching immortality immoral?

An article in Reason asks this question.

What if a biomedical researcher discovered that lives were being cut short because every human being was infected in the womb by a disease organism that eventually wears down the human immune system's ability to protect us? Until that discovery, the "natural" average lifespan was the proverbial three score and ten years.

Once the discovery is made, another brilliant researcher devises a "vaccine" that kills off the disease organism. Suddenly the average lifespan doubles to seven score (140 years). In a sense, this is exactly where we find ourselves today. There are no "vaccines" yet to cure the disease of aging. But biomedical researchers understand more with each passing year about the processes that cause the increasing physical and mental debilities that we define as aging. Aging is no more or less "natural" than cholera, smallpox, diabetes, arteriosclerosis, or any disease that cuts short human lives.

Nevertheless, a number of prominent bioethicists and other policy intellectuals are arguing that we should oppose any such life-doubling "vaccine" on the grounds that it would interfere with the "natural" course of human life.

Here are the arguments put forward "against":

Callahan makes three arguments. First, he points out that the "problems of war, poverty, environment, job creation, and social and familial violence" would not "be solved by everyone living a much longer life." Second, he asserts that longer lives will lead mostly to more golf games, not new social energy. "I don't believe that if you give most people longer lives, even in better health, they are going to find new opportunities and new initiatives," Callahan writes.

And thirdly, Callahan is worried about what longer lives would do to child bearing and rearing, Social Security and Medicare. He demands that "each one of the problems I mentioned has to be solved in advance. The dumbest thing for us to do would be to wander into this new world and say, 'We'll deal with the problems as they come along.'"

Am I crazy, or are they leaving out one of the main concerns: that there won't be enough room and/or resources to deal with these expanding lifespans? Human beings are already decimating the world's fisheries, for instance, and a catastrophe looms if something isn't done about this soon. Farming methods are getting better every year, of course, and that may take some of the pressure off. But what happens when lifespans continue to increase? Where do we put all the people? And how do we feed them? What about housing? What if there are tensions between the young and old on this account - as indeed there already are, in terms of Social Security, for instance. As machines take over more and more of the work, where will the jobs come from? And won't people just continue to try to hang on, in whatever way they can, long after their usefulness has come to an end? Will euthanasia become a booming business at that point? Will death become a ritual? Or perhaps the old can fight the wars instead of the young, and we can solve the problem that way. Will childbearing be extended into women's later years - into their 60s, 70s, or 80s?

Isn't this sort of a big ethical issue? Am I missing something here?

How is religion like Madison Avenue?

Simple: it creates a need that didn't exist before, and then offers to fill it.

And it doesn't deliver.

In order to save time

I link here Andrew Sullivan's ancient (10 years old already!) article about homosexuality and the Church. I'm tired of saying the same thing over and over and over again, so when I get into it with somebody on a blogsite or other internet forum, I will simply send them here to read this article.

And, I intend to link other articles to this post in the future, plus a summary of my own argument, so that I will eventually have everything in one place and will no longer have to repeat myself. Ahhhhhh.

Neurosociology

Per Steven R. Quartz, Associate Professor, Division of Humanities and Social Sciences at the California Institute of Technology and a member of the Computational and Neural Systems program; also Director of the Social Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory:

Studies of our biological constitution make it increasingly clear that we are social creatures of meaning, who crave a sense of coherence and purpose. Yet, our modern way of life seems to provide fewer and fewer opportunities to engage in the group life that satisfies these human needs—indeed, many of its structures and institutions stunts these very needs. In addition to these obstacles within the design of modern life, it's my hunch that modernist culture is based on a profoundly mistaken view of human needs. The upshot is a deeply flawed view of human happiness as the private pursuit of self actualization. The implications are profound, and range from an enormous cost in public health terms to more and more social conflicts, terrorism being just one manifestation of these.

As science advisor, I would initiate a program at the intersection of science and culture to investigate what modern brain science reveals about human needs and how such an understanding can be applied to create both ways of living and a culture that better satisfies them—for lack of a better word, I'd call this "neurosociology."

I think we will find that the staggering advances in brain science reveal human needs to be vastly different from the modern view—for example, that we aren't the asocial, consumptive selves Freud thought we were, but instead are deeply social and need not only to belong but to identify with groups and purposes larger than ourselves.

This initiative would attempt to use this new knowledge to design ways of living that provide more opportunity for real meaning and social engagement that the human brain requires—from how we ought to think about the design of communities, the workplace, learning institutions, and entertainment and leisure. This initiative would also have to focus on a deeply troubling problem: although science is the engine of our society, its core values and insights have had only a weak influence on our culture. This is a troubling gap: for science, and therefore, our civilization, to sustain itself, we require a culture that is built on the core values and insights of science itself, one that endows human life with the meaning we all crave. Aligning the design of life and a sustaining culture with the human needs that brain science is beginning to reveal would, I think, have a profound impact on many of the most troubling social dilemmas we face.

To sum it up, I would recommend the creation of a new science of human flourishing and significance, a nascent neurosociology, whose goal would be a happiness worth having.

Fermat, or Perfection is Eternal

From the Fermat's Last Theorem Poetry Challenge page.

(Author: Everett Howe, Hendrik Lenstra, and David Moulton.)

"My butter, garcon, is writ large in!"
a diner was heard to be chargin'.
"I HAD to write there,"
exclaimed waiter Pierre,
"I couldn't find room in the margarine."

What will become of us?

I don't know whether or not I can continue belonging to the Christian church. What's happening in the Anglican Communion is hitting too close to home these days; it's too difficult to invest your heart so deeply in something, and then to watch it all torn to pieces before your eyes.

I've been thinking seriously lately about converting to Catholicism. I want to be able to go to mass every day, and it's difficult to do this in the Episcopal Church. And the never-ending chaos in ECUSA is wearing on a person. I've been thinking, too, for awhile now, that Episcopalians are just too smart for their own good. They don't know how to do the simple thing - to enjoy life, to enjoy God and religious belief, to simply have faith. This is one source of the chaos, and it's why I sometimes feel alienated from the church as well. My experiences in A.A. have made things stark and plain to me: I've put my faith in a Power Greater Than Myself, and that's the end of it. If I want to stay alive, and to stay sane, I simply do this, without question.

But I can't be a Catholic, for reasons that Andrew Sullivan laid out so clearly. And for other reasons as well. I may at some point reconsider this, but for now I just can't go there. I just want to go to church to worship God, to receive the Sacrament, and to find some peace and comfort in this harsh world. I'm a religious person now, and I'm finding that ECUSA is not a strong anchor for me.

So, what, then? What will religion become? I've been writing some stories lately - near-future SF - trying to work out this question. I believe that religion still has a place; that it might, in fact, be more necessary than ever as human life goes more and more techno. But right now, I wonder if Christianity will be able to survive; I mean, if it can't deal with homosexuality - an utterly harmless thing, after all! - how will it cope with Futureworld?

I'm depressed, today, I know. Maybe I will feel differently tomorrow. I will go to St. Thomas this Sunday, or to Resurrection, and enjoy the music and the ritual and the incense and the colors and the prayers. Maybe I shouldn't think any further ahead than this. If I can continue this blog, and my religious life, I will. If not, not. That's how things go.

Right now, I think I'll just post the words to "The Holly and the Ivy," which we are singing later this year. They struck me as perfectly gorgeous, and a wonderful illustration of what Christianity can be, when it's showing its good face. It can make blessed the world, and the ordinary human life; it can shine pure light on them, making them sweet and holy and beautiful. It can show precisely why life is eminently worth living:

The holly and the ivy,
When they are both full grown
Of all the trees that are in the wood
The holly bears the crown

O the rising of the sun
And the running of the deer
The playing of the merry organ
Sweet singing of the choir

The holly bears a blossom
As white as lily flower
And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ
To be our sweet Saviour

O the rising of the sun
And the running of the deer
The playing of the merry organ
Sweet singing of the choir

The holly bears a berry
As red as any blood
And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ
To do poor sinners good

O the rising of the sun
And the running of the deer
The playing of the merry organ
Sweet singing of the choir

The holly bears a prickle
As sharp as any thorn;
And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ
On Christmas Day in the morn.

O the rising of the sun
And the running of the deer
The playing of the merry organ
Sweet singing of the choir

The holly bears a bark
As bitter as any gall;
And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ
For to redeem us all.

O the rising of the sun
And the running of the deer
The playing of the merry organ
Sweet singing of the choir

The holly and the ivy
Now both are full well grown,
Of all the trees that are in the wood,
The holly bears the crown.

O the rising of the sun
And the running of the deer
The playing of the merry organ
Sweet singing of the choir

Michaelmas

Today is the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels: Michael ("Who is like God?"); Gabriel ("God is my champion"); Raphael ("God heals"); Uriel ("God is my light").

"El," pretty obviously, is a Hebrew suffix (or prefix) that means "God." So: Michael, Gabriel, Ariel, etc. More about this:

The word El appears in other northwest Semitic languages such as Phoenician and Aramaic and in Akkadian ilu as an ordinary word for god. It is aso found also in the South-Arabian dialects and in Ethiopic, and as in Hebrew it is often used as an element in proper names. In northwest Semitic texts it appears to be often but not always used of one single god, of "the God", the head of the pantheon, sometimes specifically said to be the creator.

El is used in both the singular and plural, both for other gods and for the God of Israel. As a name of God, however, it is used chiefly in poetry and prophetic discourse, rarely in prose, and then usually with some epithet attached, as "a jealous God." Other examples of its use with some attribute or epithet are: El ‘Elyon ("most high God"), El Shaddai ("God Almighty"), El ‘Olam ("everlasting God"), El Hai ("living God"), El Ro’i ("God of seeing"), El Elohe Israel ("God, the God of Israel"), El Gibbor ("Hero God"). In addition, names such as Gabriel ("Hero of God"), Michael ("Who is Like God"), and Daniel ("God is My Judge") use God's name in a similar fashion.

This must be where they got the names, too, for people on the planet Krypton, in the Superman stories: Jor-el, Kal-el. It all comes together at last.

Some more angels:

Ye watchers and ye holy ones,
bright seraphs, cherubim, and thrones,
raise the glad strain,
Alleluia!

Cry out, dominions, princedoms, powers,
virtues, archangels, angels' choirs,
Alleluia! alleluia! alleluia!
Alleluia! alleluia!

The reading at the mass was from Revelation 12:

7 And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,

8 And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven.

9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

10 And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.

11 And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.

War in heaven! Between the dragons and the angels!

I've got to read this book someday.

Is this science, commerce, or religion?

Private rocket ship aims for space prize

MOJAVE, California (Reuters) -- A three-seat rocket plane with stubby wings and a nose studded with round windows will try to blast out of Earth's atmosphere above the Mojave desert on Wednesday to qualify for a $10-million prize designed to spur commercial space travel.

The Ansari X Prize will go to the first team to build a spacecraft without government help, launch three people or their weight equivalent at least 62 miles straight up, then repeat the feat with the same craft within two weeks.

SpaceShipOne, the first to try for the prize, was built by aircraft designer Burt Rutan's company, Scaled Composites, and financed by Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allen.

Watching a piece on this, this morning, on the news, I realized that the old world is falling away beneath us all now, and the old religions will not be able to compete - at least, not in their present form. What could the story possibly consist of? Jesus as Rocket Man? God=mc²? Ayn Rand may win, after all: the engineer as diety.

V_e=sqrt(2G*M/R), alleluia, alleluia!

Next: Leviathan Tours, Inc. Accompany the whales in the Sea-pod Swimmer Angelfish, as they migrate to their southern breeding range! I'll get right on this.....

Religion and art?

I've been searching the web for months now, trying to find something substantive on the topic of Christianity as Muse. Eighteen centuries of religious art, music, and literature, and at least two centuries of continued exploration of religious themes in secular art - and I've found one or two mildly interesting leads.

Bizarre. Maybe I can get a grant and do some research myself.

China, Christianity, and totalitarianism

Jesus in Beijing: How Christianity Is Transforming China and Changing the Global Balance of Power

That's Eve Tushnet's review of a book by David Aikman, from which here are some excerpts:

It seems gauche to address the political effects of Christian conversion. Nonetheless, Aikman offers many predictions. On his account, Chinese Protestants tend to be reformist rather than radical, emphasizing a slow transition to liberal democracy. They do not engage in much political agitation. In short, don’t picture a Protestant Solidarnosc.

Even if Protestant leaders decline to play an explicit role in bringing China to liberal democracy, the spread of Christianity will almost certainly aid in that transition. Russia emerged from the furnace of Communism devastated both economically and spiritually. Slowly, Chinese entrepreneurs are beginning to build the habits of the market. But liberty—economic or otherwise—relies on an underlying network of trust. Societies where people believe nothing, where they have had belief kicked out of them, lack this necessary foundation.

Moreover, embracing Christianity brings Chinese seekers into a mindset that replaces traditional Chinese nationalism and xenophobia with the community of believers. Under Communism the central relationship is between the individual and his master, the state. Replacing this threatened, isolated understanding of the self is one of the crucial tasks in renewing a society that has suffered through totalitarianism. Even non-Christians should welcome the spread of Christianity in China as an extraordinarily good sign for that country’s renewal. (Aikman also argues that Christianization has the potential to transform China from an antagonist of the United States into an ally.)

Eudaemonia, the Good Life

Why I think religion (or something quite like it) has a future:

Flow, however, doesn't have shortcuts. When I was an undergraduate one of my teachers, Julian Jaynes, a peculiar but wonderful man, was a research associate at Princeton when I was an undergraduate. Some people said he was a genius; I didn't know him well enough to know. He was given a South American lizard as a laboratory pet, and the problem about the lizard was that no one could figure out what it ate, so the lizard was dying. Julian killed flies, and the lizard wouldn't eat them; blended mangos and papayas, the lizard wouldn't eat them; Chinese take-out, the lizard had no interest. One day Julian came in and the lizard was in torpor, lying in the corner. He offered the lizard his lunch, but the lizard had no interest in ham on rye. He read the New York Times and he put the first section down on top of the ham on rye. The lizard took one look at this configuration, got up on its hind legs, stalked across the room, leapt up on the table, shredded the New York Times, and ate the ham sandwich. The moral is that lizards don't copulate and don't eat unless they go through the lizardly strengths and virtues first. They have to hunt, kill, shred, and stalk. And while we're a lot more complex than lizards, we have to as well. There are no shortcuts for us to reach flow. We have to indulge in our highest strengths in order to get eudaemonia. So can there be a shortcut? Can there be a pharmacology of it? I doubt it.

The third form of happiness, which is meaning, is again knowing what your highest strengths are and deploying those in the service of something you believe is larger than you are. There's no shortcut to that. That's what life is about. There will likely be a pharmacology of pleasure, and there may be a pharmacology of positive emotion generally, but it's unlikely there'll be an interesting pharmacology of flow. And it's impossible that there'll be a pharmacology of meaning.

Homer Sweet Homer

Epic poetry, religion, and research. I've hit the trifecta this morning.

In a new study, European researchers suggest that the rhythms of ancient poetry can synchronize the body's heart and respiration rates. Similar positive effects have been linked to the Catholic rosary prayer and the yoga mantra.

It's far from clear if doctors will ever consider prescribing required reading lists to their patients. But the results are definitely intriguing, said Francois Haas, director of cardiopulmonary rehabilitation research at New York University School of Medicine.

"If there's a message, it's that our internal rhythms can be modified by external stimuli," Haas said.

In the new study, researchers from Austria, Germany and Switzerland studied 20 healthy men and women, average age 43, who repeated parts of a German translation of Homer's The Odyssey after they were read to them. Machines monitored their hearts and lungs as they read.

Their findings appeared recently in the current online edition of the American Journal of Physiology — Heart and Circulatory Physiology.

I'm not in the least surprised by this. And of course - O Rejoice in the Web! - I was able to find a German Odyssey online! (That is a great site, BTW. Another great site.) Apparently the German translation retains the hexameter, but the English doesn't. Anyway, here's a section:

Sage mir, Muse, die Taten des vielgewanderten Mannes,
Welcher so weit geirrt, nach der heiligen Troja Zerstörung,
Vieler Menschen Städte gesehn, und Sitte gelernt hat,
Und auf dem Meere so viel' unnennbare Leiden erduldet,
Seine Seele zu retten, und seiner Freunde Zurückkunft.
Aber die Freunde rettet' er nicht, wie eifrig er strebte,
Denn sie bereiteten selbst durch Missetat ihr Verderben:
Toren! welche die Rinder des hohen Sonnenbeherrschers
Schlachteten; siehe, der Gott nahm ihnen den Tag der Zurückkunft,
Sage hievon auch uns ein weniges, Tochter Kronions.
Alle die andern, so viel dem verderbenden Schicksal entflohen,
Waren jetzo daheim, dem Krieg' entflohn und dem Meere:
Ihn allein, der so herzlich zur Heimat und Gattin sich sehnte,
Hielt die unsterbliche Nymphe, die hehre Göttin Kalypso,
In der gewölbeten Grotte, und wünschte sich ihn zum Gemahle.
Selbst da das Jahr nun kam im kreisenden Laufe der Zeiten,
Da ihm die Götter bestimmt, gen Ithaka wiederzukehren;
Hatte der Held noch nicht vollendet die müdende Laufbahn,
Auch bei den Seinigen nicht. Es jammerte seiner die Götter;
Nur Poseidon zürnte dem göttergleichen Odysseus
Unablässig, bevor er sein Vaterland wieder erreichte.


What's the relevance to this blog? Another quote from the article:

Even in its German translation, The Odyssey is written in a complicated rhythmic formula called dactylic hexameter, in which each of the six sections of a line of poetry include a long syllable followed by a long syllable, a short syllable or two short syllables.

According to the online encyclopedia Wikipedia.com, here's an example of a dactylic hexameter: "Down in a/deep dark/hole sat an/old pig/munching a/bean stalk."

As they read the verses, the breathing rates of the subjects slowed down, and their heart and breathing rates became more synchronized. The rates fell almost entirely out of tune when the subjects breathed normally while not reading, suggesting the same thing happens in everyday life.

Previous research, which examined the effects of reciting the Rosary devotion — also known as Ave Maria or Hail Mary — and the "OM" yoga mantra, found that both reduced respiration levels to six breaths a minute, helping the heart work more effectively. The authors suggested the rosary may have become popular because the physiological effects of saying it made people feel better and perhaps more amenable to the devotion's religious message.

Zero-grav

U.S. company offers public chance to experience weightlessness

After years of effort, the first commercial tour service to offer zero-gravity airplane flights in the United States is finally open for business. For just under $3,000, regular folks can get a tamed-down taste of what astronauts feel on NASA's "Vomit Comet."

Passengers aboard the modified Boeing 727-200 jet will experience weightlessness for about 25 seconds at a time, courtesy of the plane's special parabolic flight path. The physics behind the experience is analogous to what happens during a roller-coaster ride or a fast elevator descent. But inside the jet's padded passenger cabin, fliers are able to tumble in the air or do a "Superman" fly-through, similar to the acrobatics performed on the international space station.

This is the way Hollywood has always created the weightlessness sequences in films like Apollo 13.

I've read about this before, and it really does look like fun. One guy I saw interviewed on TV after a flight had a completely rapturous look on his face; he could barely speak, his eyes sort of bright and unfocussed. That was ten times better than sex, is what he was thinking; of this I have abolutely no doubt.

So, naturally, I think: why not take folks on a tour of the Mysterium Tremendum of God? Why not some sort of venture, probably altruistic rather than capitalistic, to work at getting the same sort of effect through mysticism? I'm sure it would be "parabolic" also. And I have to believe it would be at least twice as good as Zero-G - which makes the M.T. of G. twenty times better than sex, minimum! And it's free, and available anytime.

Well, something to think about, anyway, as I finish The Cloud of Unknowing. If I ever do, that is. (That is one seriously boring book, I must say, considering the topic.)

Religious zero-grav....

Freud vs. Lewis

The Question of God, on PBS last night.

Watched this last night with one eye while I was doing some work on the computer. I hate that PBS playacting thing - actors playing Lewis and Freud and pontificating at the audience, in phony accents, from behind phony desks. It's truly annoying. Definitely not "Ken Burns' Civil War."

But some good points raised during the panel discussion. One of the women said something I've been saying for years: we can't shunt emotion off to the side, as if it were some sort of impediment to rational thought, some damper on the intellect. Emotional reactions are part of our perceptual faculty, and it's necessary to understand them in order to get the Truth. The example I've seen used at times is the "hair standing up on the back of the neck" thing when we're walking alone on a dark street and we hear or see something worrying. (Actually, as I write this I realize that this is certainly the same physical response that my dog has - the raising of the hackles - when he's frightened. It makes us look bigger, like cat fur puffing out in the presence of an enemy?) We have these reactions for a reason, and we'd better pay attentiong. This wasn't fleshed out in relation to religious experience, though, I suspect because nobody knows how to express it yet. (I found it interesting, and telling, that the women were the ones who raised this point.)

What's amazing, though, is that we're still having the same "believer/skeptic" argument, and in the same terms, after all these years. There's some sort of disconnect (in language, I think) between religious people and non-believers. Maybe it's because religious people are careful not openly debunk what they may believe to be Biblical "myths," in deference to literalists; skeptics don't care at all about that. Perhaps we need to develop some language to talk about this, or at least to set out some basic axioms that everyone can agree to?

It's also hilarious when religious people try to describe religious experience to those who haven't had it! They always end up hemming and hawing and eventually saying: "Well, there are no words to describe it!" I think this tends to make the nonbelievers even more skeptical than they already are; you could see this in Michael Shermer's eyes, which would have been rolling if he weren't on camera, I suspect. I know exactly what is going on, from both sides, though.

Throwing the last stone

From this page.

In his essay "The Will to Believe" James speaks of religion as presenting a "momentous option." One must choose either to believe or not to believe. In James' view, given the nature of religion, remaining indifferent is, in effect, to choose not to believe. He goes on to say the following:

...Science says things are; morality says some things are better than other things; and religion says essentially two things.

First, she says that the best things are more eternal things, the overlapping things, the things in the universe that throw the last stone, so to speak, and say the final word. "Perfection is eternal" - this phrase of Charles Secrétan seems a good way of putting this first affirmation of religion, an affirmation which obviously cannot be verified scientifically at all.

The second affirmation of religion is that we are better off even now if we believe her first affirmation to be true.

...To preach skepticism to us as a duty until "sufficient evidence" for religion be found, is tantamount therefore to telling us, when in the presence of the religious hypothesis, that to yield to our fear of its being error is wiser than and better than to yield to our hope that it may be true. It is not intellect against all passions, then, it is only intellect with one passion laying down its law.

I can't remember, anymore, what it was like to doubt. "Faith," according to Webster's 1913, is this:

\Faith\, n. [OE. feith, fayth, fay, OF. feid, feit, fei,
F. foi, fr. L. fides; akin to fidere to trust, Gr. ??????? to
persuade. The ending th is perhaps due to the influence of
such words as truth, health, wealth. See {Bid}, {Bide}, and
cf. {Confide}, {Defy}, {Fealty}.]
1. Belief; the assent of the mind to the truth of what is
declared by another, resting solely and implicitly on his
authority and veracity; reliance on testimony.

2. The assent of the mind to the statement or proposition of
another, on the ground of the manifest truth of what he
utters; firm and earnest belief, on probable evidence of
any kind, especially in regard to important moral truth.

Faith, that is, fidelity, -- the fealty of the
finite will and understanding to the reason.
--Coleridge.

3. (Theol.)
(a) The belief in the historic truthfulness of the
Scripture narrative, and the supernatural origin of
its teachings, sometimes called historical and
speculative faith.
(b) The belief in the facts and truth of the Scriptures,
with a practical love of them; especially, that
confiding and affectionate belief in the person and
work of Christ, which affects the character and life,
and makes a man a true Christian, -- called a
practical, evangelical, or saving faith.

Without faith it is impossible to please him
[God]. --Heb. xi. 6.

The faith of the gospel is that emotion of the
mind which is called ``trust'' or ``confidence''
exercised toward the moral character of God, and
particularly of the Savior. --Dr. T.
Dwight.

Faith is an affectionate, practical confidence
in the testimony of God. --J. Hawes.

4. That which is believed on any subject, whether in science,
politics, or religion; especially (Theol.), a system of
religious belief of any kind; as, the Jewish or Mohammedan
faith; and especially, the system of truth taught by
Christ; as, the Christian faith; also, the creed or belief
of a Christian society or church.

Which to believe of her, Must be a faith that reason
without miracle Could never plant in me. --Shak.

Now preacheth the faith which once he destroyed.
--Gal. i. 23.

5. Fidelity to one's promises, or allegiance to duty, or to a
person honored and beloved; loyalty.

Children in whom is no faith. --Deut. xxvii.
20.

Whose failing, while her faith to me remains, I
should conceal. --Milton.

6. Word or honor pledged; promise given; fidelity; as, he
violated his faith.

For you alone I broke me faith with injured Palamon.

--Dryden.

Assent. Confidence. Fidelity. Fealty. See?