Bradley Wright's Blog

Gold leaves reflected in water (pic)

2009-11-21T06:00:00.000-05:00

I love photos of cool reflections in the water. This is a beaver dam in fall, with the sun hitting some maples-turning-yellow on the other bank. I think that I should have used a longer exposure, not sure...

Irv Piliavin

2009-11-20T10:10:00.000-05:00

My graduate school advisor, Irv Piliavin, passed away on Thursday.

Irv shaped me as a sociologist in many ways. He had a mad-capped approach to the study of crime, poverty, and social psychology, and he was fearlessly creative in studying each topic. He's well known for conducting subway studies of altruism in which he (and his wife Jane) had a confederate fall down in need of assistance, and they recorded how many other passengers helped as a function of whether the confederate acted drunk as well. This helped us to understand the roll of deservingness in altruism.

Irv was also the first researcher to conduct a longitudinal study of homeless people. He designed a survey in which homeless people were interviewed at one point in time and then reinterviewed six months to a year later, allowing the researcher to use wave 1 measures to predict what happened to the homeless respondents by wave 2. This helped us to understand homelessness.

Irv also published various articles on control theories and rational choice analysis of crime, published in the best journals. This helped us to understand criminal behavior.

I did my Masters and Ph.D. with Irv on his homelessness research, and he was such a joy to work with and for. He has a mockingly-abrasive style with students that scared off some, but once you saw past it to the deeply caring man that he was, it was no problem. He held very high standards for his students, something that helped me greatly. I joined the sociology program as perhaps the most clueless student in Wisconsin's history, for I had never even had a sociology class or read a sociology book before enrolling in the Ph.D. program. (Don't ask what I was thinking.) Irv, over the years, moved me to being a real sociologist, for which I am so deeply grateful.

Some stories about Irv (and there are a lot of them):

When I turned in the first draft of my master's thesis, he returned it with a single comment on the front page--"This is neither accurate nor interesting." Though crushing at the time, the comment was right on, and that's been my research mantra since: Is this mostly accurate and interesting.

Another student, a year or two behind me in the program, started working with Irv, and during one research meeting, the new student admitted that he had not finished he work that Irv had given him. Irv just stared at him, then picked up the phone, and dialed the receptionist (actually pretended to dial), and said, "hello [administrator's name], cancel [this student's] funding." I was behind the student, chortling, but the student was panick stricken, until he heard me laughing.

After I finished my Ph.D., Irv and his wife Jane took Cathy and me out to dinner, and at the end of the meal, Irv announced that he would pay for me to to get a tattoo and so we went down the street and looked around a tattoo parlor. Thankfully I didn't, but he was ready.

I got to have breakfast with Irv and Jane last year at a conference, and it delighted my heart to see him again.

I, and many others, will miss him, and we're so much better off for having known him.

What? Another mean-spirited New Atheist?!

2009-11-17T06:00:00.000-05:00

Richard Dawkins, apparently not wanting to be left behind by Christopher Hitchens hyperbole, takes his own shots at the Catholic Church:

"Rome is possibly "the greatest force for evil in the world," Dawkins announces, "a disgusting institution" that is "dragging its flowing skirts in the dirt and touting for business like a common pimp."

Ah, the sweet smell of religious bigotry.

Red leaves, curved trees (pic)

2009-11-14T06:00:00.001-05:00

I happened to notice some very bright red leaves along the roadside, and so I lined it up with shapes and colors in the background (that are actually 40-50 feet back). I think that it works.

A remarkably mean-spirited comment by a New Atheist

2009-11-12T06:00:00.004-05:00

Christopher Hitchens is one of the more prominent "New Atheists," and in a recent interview, here is his view on Mother Teresa:

"The woman was a fanatic and a fundamentalist and a fraud, and millions of people are much worse off because of her life, and it's a shame there is no hell for your bitch to go to."

Nice...

Two thoughts about this.

1) I don't know Mr. Hitchens at all, but I'd be willing to bet that he himself does little-to-nothing to help the poor. Not because he's an atheist, but because our condemnations of others often reflect our own insecurities.

2) The New Atheists, as a group, face a dilemma. They've already gotten lots of mileage about saying that they don't believe in religion and that God doesn't exist, but that message is getting stale. If they are to be widely featured in the media, they need a new message. This provides incentive to become more and more inflammatory. Maybe denouncing Mother Teresa is becoming the atheists' version of Godwin's law of Nazi analogies?

Thanks Jeff!

Searching Gus' room

2009-11-10T11:28:00.001-05:00

Well, I've had my suspicions, and so today, when Gus, my high school junior son, was at school, I searched his room, and sure enough I found it. He still has Halloween candy! Excellent (and I'm sure going to miss him when he goes off to college).

Waterfall and leaves (pic)

2009-11-07T06:00:00.000-05:00

Michael Hout on the religiously unaffiliated

2009-11-05T06:00:00.000-05:00

Michael Hout has written some influential articles about the increase in the religiously unaffiliated in the 1990s. In particular, he's advanced an explanation that this increase resulted from conservative Christians' foray into partisan politics in the 1990s (e.g., Moral Majority, Christian Coalition). Here's an update of his work in this area, as summarized on the blog Immanent Frame.

******

Rethinking secularism:
Unchurched believers
posted by Michael Hout and Claude S. Fischer

In 2002 we reported that the fraction of American adults with no religious preference doubled from 7 to 14 percent during the 1990s. Data from this decade show that the trend away from organized religion continues, albeit at a slower pace. Our analysis of the entire time series, presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association in 2009, led us to the conclusion that the trend probably started earlier than we had thought—probably around 1985, 1986, or 1987—and that our previous estimate of the rate of change was, consequently, too high.

Click here for the rest of the article

Megachurch... the movie

2009-11-03T06:00:00.000-05:00

My friend Scott Thumma is prominently featured in this movie about mega-churches. Though he's a humble research professor at Hartford Seminary by day, by night he's a movie star. Here's the trailer for it.

Ferns in fall (pic)

2009-10-31T07:36:00.001-04:00

Yep, New England is a pretty easy place to take photographs in the fall.

Further evidence of "no religion" becoming a religion

2009-10-29T07:23:00.000-04:00

It is now possible for you to become a "secular celebrant" of life's milestones such as birth or a wedding. Sign up for the training here.

Why should you do it? Well, terrible things happen if these people aren't available. In the words of the announcement:

"As we move through life, we celebrate many occasions filled with joy and love, accomplishment and striving, loss and grief. Unfortunately, the choice of persons to conduct ceremonies for these occasions is usually between religious clergy and impersonal civil officials.

For the 16% of the U.S. population not affiliated with any religion,
this can be a traumatic experience."

I can certainly understand someone not wanting a religious ceremony that doesn't fit with their beliefs, but I had never realized how traumatic it is for people to deal with impersonal civil officials. I can only hope that this training makes its celebrants very personable, so it too doesn't impose further trauma.

Thanks Jeff!

Godwin's law of Nazi analogies

2009-10-24T06:00:00.001-04:00

I recently came across a law that we can all believe in: Godwin's Law of Nazi Analogies.

It states that "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."

Also,

"Godwin's Law applies especially to inappropriate, inordinate, or hyperbolic comparisons of other situations (or one's opponent) with Hitler or Nazis or their actions."

Now, Godwin's law applies to the amount of people talking on-line, but we could think of variations of it, such as the distance between conversationalists on the political spectrum.

We could develop it further, but I don't want to be an analogy Nazi.

The asymmetry of Christian and atheist blogging

2009-10-23T06:00:00.002-04:00

I've been reading some of the better known atheist-focused blogs recently, and I've been struck by their presentation and persuasion styles. Many of the blog posts are criticisms of Christians.

Some are rather heavy-handed insults of Christians. For example: Christianity is associated with mental illness. Others are more respectful in tone, bust still highly critical, such as Friendly Atheist (which is one of my favorites). It seems that the better the put-down of Christianity, the better the atheist blogger.

In contrast, most Christian blogs tend to focus on elaborating Christianity and urging Christians to do better. A Christian blog that posted primarily anti-atheist insults would miss the mark because part of Christianity is loving others, which usually doesn't include insulting them.

I suppose there are other reasons for this too, in part because there are far more Christians than Atheists, at least here in the U.S. (where most the bloggers that I read live). Maybe 2/3rds+ Christian and several percent atheist.

Whatever the reason, the result is an asymmetrical dialogue across the blogs. I'm not saying that's good or bad, just noticing it.

Why it's probably best that I'm not a Mormon

2009-10-21T06:00:00.000-04:00

As I understand it, Mormons believe that if things go well for them, they will become Gods with their own people/ planets. Now, that being the case, it's probably best that I'm not a Mormon because I wouldn't make a very good God.

If I were a God, I would wake my people up in the middle of some random night, tell them to go outside and spin around several times and then go back to bed. Then I would laugh as over the years they would make this a ritual embedded with all sorts of meaning.

Basically, it would be a cosmic game of Simon-Says

Mormons in class II

2009-10-19T06:00:00.000-04:00

When the Mormon missionaries presented in class, they had an interesting presentational strategy in terms of how to make Mormonism appealing to the listeners. Specifically, they went to lengths to present Mormonism as sort of basic Christianity+. They have the Bible, like other Christians, but they also have the Book of Mormon and modern day prophets. This seemed to accomplish two purposes: It made their religion look more beneficial, and it also made them seem less alien and strange because they too were Christian.

This Christian+ strategy worked best in the presentation, but during the questions some of the greater differences came out. Among other things, it came about that they think that they will become Gods in afterlife with their own planets or peoples to rule--which seems different from conventional Christian belief. Here's a description of that belief (though I can't vouch for its accuracy).

Another application of religion to science

2009-10-17T06:49:00.001-04:00

(From one of those funny things people write on tests). thanks K!

Mormons in class

2009-10-16T08:10:00.003-04:00

Last week I had some Mormon missionaries speak to my class about their faith. We were studying rational choice theories of religion, and so the Mormons are a good fit because they spend a lot of time talking about the benefits of their faith when they tell it to others.

They spoke for 40 minutes (which was actually a little too long) about their beliefs without an ounce of cynicism or embarrassment. It struck me as very different than at the university, where we're conditioned to either not talk about our religious beliefs or if we do, to distance ourselves from our beliefs--either with disclaimers or intellectual analysis. But these Mormons were both emotionally engaged and completely sincere in how they presented themselves.

The only time they go flustered was when a student asked about whether the Mormon church had a history of racism.

Everything is amazing but nobody is happy

2009-10-14T18:16:00.000-04:00

Thanks John!

My birthday!

2009-10-08T06:00:00.000-04:00

Today is my birthday, so let me know if you need an address or zip code information for sending me gifts. :-)

I think that I'll celebrate it by writing and teaching. Yahoo!

The new Conservative Bible

2009-10-07T06:00:00.000-04:00

Here's another unhelpful way to mix politics and religion... work is beginning on new translation of the Bible to reinforce a politically conservative viewpoint.

Here's an example of the changes it makes:

"Socialistic terminology permeates English translations of the Bible, without justification. This improperly encourages the "social justice" movement among Christians. For example, the conservative word "volunteer" is mentioned only once in the ESV, yet the socialistic word "comrade" is used three times, "laborer(s)" is used 13 times, "labored" 15 times, and "fellow" (as in "fellow worker") is used 55 times."

It will also:

"Express Free Market Parables; explaining the numerous economic parables with their full free-market meaning."

"Exclude Later-Inserted Liberal Passages: excluding the later-inserted liberal passages that are not authentic, such as the adulteress story"

Ugh...

Thanks Richard.

Eric Kaufmann's Breeding Ground for God

2009-10-05T06:00:00.002-04:00

Eric Kaufmann studies religion, fertility, and politics, and what makes him unique is that he's willing to make predictions about the future. Most sociologists, myself included, won't touch the future--being content to trying to explain what has happened. Kaufmann uses cutting edge demography analysis to compare rates of secularization vs. fertility to figure out the religious composition of Europe in the coming decades. Now, who knows if his predictions are will be correct, but you can read them here in this article.

He writes: "The pivotal question is where the balance lies between religious fertility and religious abandonment in the secular cutting-edge societies of France and Protestant Europe. The population balance in these countries stands at roughly 53 per cent non-religious to 47 per cent religious. My projections, based on demographic differences between the populations and current patterns of religious abandonment, suggest that the secular population will continue to grow at a decelerating rate for three or four more decades, to peak at around 55 per cent. The proportion of secular people will then begin to decline between 2035 and 2045."

Cool stuff...

John Wright--Hang gliding stud

2009-10-03T06:00:00.000-04:00

Here's a really cool video of my brother hang gliding. He flew for 33 miles and up to 13,000 feet high. Remarkable. (I couldn't embed the video, so you have to click on the link).

The biggest problem for atheists? Perhaps children.

2009-10-01T06:00:00.000-04:00

Here's an interesting article about the link between religion and having children. Various sociologists have written that much of the social changes that we associate with religion can be linked to differential rates of child-bearing by religion. Since kids tend to have the same religious beliefs as their parents, the religions in which people have the most kids would stand of a good chance of growing the most.

It turns out that the religiously unaffiliated tend to have relatively low reproduction rates, which might limit the spread of this approach. Put differently, some conservative religions take seriously the command to go forth and multiply.

"The commandment to “be fruitful and multiply” the Krishevsky family follows quite closely. Last Saturday, the great grandmother, Rachel Krishevsky passed away at the age of 99, leaving behind no less than 1,400 children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and even great-great-grandchildren."

There is an irony that most discussion about changes in religion in society focus on debating points, but a much more simple process might be a driving force.

Thanks John.

The media, politics, and religion

2009-09-29T10:25:00.002-04:00

Here's an interesting article from Rod Dreher, of the Dallas Morning News. He writes about how the mainstream media, e.g., New York Times and Washington Post, selectively covers the role of religion in American politics with the result that:

"It is fair to say that our news media, through heavily biased reporting and analysis, are turning significant numbers of American voters against religious conservatives and are delegitimizing the place believers have made for themselves at the table."

What do you think? Is he on to something?

Thanks Jeff!

Mormon missionaries

2009-09-26T06:00:00.000-04:00

I bring in guest speakers for my sociology of religion class, and so I started trying to get a hold of some Mormon missionaries. Well, it took me the better part of the week and numerous phone calls before I could get a hold of any. Just like the old saying... you can never find a Mormon missionary when you need one.