While I clearly understand why many people would rather not share with everyone they know, the fact that they participate in naturism (nudism), I thought it might be encouraging for some of my readers to know that at least one of us has done so without experiencing any significant repercussions. A little over six months ago, I decided to set up Facebook accounts for my wife and myself, as a way to facilitate communication with our son as he was away on a missions trip. Since he was already using Facebook as a means of keeping in touch with his friends, we thought it would be a great way for us to interact with him and get photos and updates, so that we would be able to more effectively support his efforts with our prayers.
Having already lived through the experience of having Yahoo! mash together my "personal" and "naturist" profiles in all of the Yahoo! Groups that I frequent, I decided that if I was going to set up a Facebook account, I wanted to represent myself truthfully, as an integrated, whole person. As I have previously put it to one of my Facebook friends, I want to present myself to the outside world in the same way that I try to order my soul--not compartmentalized, but a fully integrated whole. I decided to go ahead and be recklessly (some might say foolishly) honest about who I am and what I stand for, and let the chips fall where they may. Now, nearly seven months later, my "friends list" has grown to a little over 200 people, consisting of those I know from virtually every part of my life: personal friends; relatives; old school acquaintances; music contacts; people with whom I have worked; my pastor and his wife; other members of our church; even bishops and archbishops from the conservative branch of Anglicanism our church is affiliated with. From the very beginning, it will have been evident to anyone who has checked out my profile and perused the pages I have "liked," that I am a naturist. Further, anyone receiving my wall posts, will have seen (along with comments on food, music and theology) many references and links to naturist articles, including those on my own blog. In all this time, apart from a couple of "well, that's ok for you but it's not my kind of thing" comments, I've really not run into any opposition to the views I have been expressing. While this is probably at least partly attributable to the good character of the people I have in my circle of acquaintances, I haven't been all that discriminating about who I have accepted as Facebook friends. I've pretty much just accepted requests from anyone who sends one. I've also tracked down a good number of old acquaintances, and sent out friend requests to a number of people who's work I have admired (in music, the arts, or theological writing for instance) even if I've never met them, and I have been "friended" by many of them.
The nearly total absence of any condemnation about my naturist convictions is, I think, as it should be, given that there are no biblical proscriptions against social nudity. But cultural attitudes being as they are, it has been personally heartening to me, that no one has tried to make a moral issue of it. It gives me both joy and hope to think that the Christians with whom I am closely associated are apparently theologically astute enough to know the difference between biblical moral imperatives, and matters of Christian liberty, and know better than to take their moral cues from the surrounding culture. (The Church can err on either side of morality, being either too permissive, or overly legalistic.)
No one who wishes to see moral reform should be a cultural relativist with regards to morality. The unclad human body is either morally neutral, or it is not. Naturists are moral reformers, whether they think of themselves in those terms or not. Naturism calls upon people to regard their own bodies and those of others as acceptable, not something to be feared or reviled. So in that sense, naturism in a program of moral reform which exchanges the modern expectations of privacy which have become enshrined as a cultural aversion to nudity, for body acceptance more like that of the pre-industrialized ages, where nudity was, of necessity, accepted as part of life.
Despite the discomfort it may cause, technology continues to erode our expectations of privacy, and "Social Networking" is making us more transparent to one another. So far, my experience of Social Networking (my Facebook experiment in personal authenticity, if you will) has emboldened me to continue to speak-out for body acceptance and body freedom. The readership on this blog has been increasing, and I am now getting hundreds of hits from all over the world. Many have linked here from my Facebook and Twitter pages. Of course, I have no guarantee that it won't all come crashing down tomorrow with some major rift occurring in one or more relationships, but I am learning to leave the future in God's hands. At least from here forward, any new friendships I develop will be "full disclosure" relationships, and I think I kinda' like that--it's as freeing as, well...shedding my clothes!
Blessings in Christ,
Gregg Gatewood
http://www.facebook.com/stringsinger
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Friday, October 1, 2010
The Determinism of Evolutionary Psychology
My recent post has received a great deal more attention than any of my previous posts, to date. (Thank you, and welcome to all of the new readers from around the globe.) Discussion of the article has not been confined to the comments section here. There was a comment about the post by "Ben" on the Naturist-Christians-org Yahoo! Group. Since it occasioned some clarification of my position in my response, I'm re-posting both here:
My response:
Re: New Naked Truth Blog Post
Ben,
From the context of your comment, I take it that what you mean by "evolutionary psychologists are getting a bad rap " in my post, is that these scientists sometimes say things that could be considered favorable to our perspective as naturists. While that may be the case (evolutionary psychologists say all sorts of things, some of them truly bizarre, but they are certainly not monolithic in their pronouncements), this may be missing the real point of what I was saying.
Despite the fact that evolutionary psychologists sometimes say things that sound like we make "choices" or have "preferences", it is their basic perspective that all of human behavior is determined--a mechanistic system of "stimulus and response" without any real freedom of choice in a true libertarian sense. Just as many evolutionists will occasionally slip into speaking in terms of "design" when they expound upon "adaptation", evolutionary psychologists often speak in terms of "choice" (ie: using words like "preference") when what they are really doing is describing "behavior." (Sometimes they can't help themselves since, as Francis Schaeffer noted, they are constrained by having to "live in the world as God has created it." Things appear the way they are because that is the way He has made them.) If pressed though, most will admit that "free will" has nothing to do with the human interactions they are studying. Those who actually believe that some sort of free choice exists, have no evolutionary justification for that belief, and do so by borrowing from a theistic worldview. Theistic evolutionists, overlay ideas which only fit within a theistic worldview upon the scientistic view that allows for nothing but deterministic event causation of matter and energy interacting over time. Evolution + Theism = Square Peg + Round Hole. This determinism is an unavoidable corollary of the scientism that is the reining paridigm underlying all of contemporary scientific thought (at least among the scientific elites), and has recently been forcefully reiterated in Stephen Hawing's latest book. (see http://bit.ly/bnAf9g)
My larger point then, is that it is Christians, not evolutionists, who hold a worldview which has the justification to refute the idea that "seeing someone nude automatically elicits a sexual response." That idea is deterministic, and therefore fits very well within the evolutionary worldview of scientism. Scientism allows for nothing supernatural (beyond or above nature) like the soul--it denies the existence of the soul. The existence of the soul only makes sense in a theistic worldview, and it is the soul that is the source of our ability to interact freely with the world around us. Because our souls are spiritual (supernatural) rather that physical, they are not constrained by the deterministic laws of the physical world (event causation), and we can choose (our soul directing our bodies) to initiate actions in the physical realm (agent causation). Scientism denies the existence of agent causation, and reduces all human behavior to event causation--all events, including the actions of our bodies, are said to be determined by pre-existing conditions and the laws of physics and chemistry acting upon our purely material (soulless) bodies.
We as Christians and naturists know better than this by our experience (and by our intuition!) We know that the choices we make are our own. But scientistic evolutionists deny that there is any such thing as a spiritual "self" directing the actions of our bodies. This is why I give very little credence to the pontifications of evolutionary psychologists. Why should I believe the random scratchings upon paper caused by the pen held in the hand of the evolutionary psychologist which is jerking in response to the pre-existing and purposeless biochemistry of his physical body? How could they contain veridical information having anything to do with the world as it really is? I would rather stand upon what I know to be true--nudity (and by extension, naturism) does not cause an automatic sexual response!
Sorry for the length of my response, but I hope this makes my position more clear.
Blessings, Gregg Gatewood
In Naturist-Christians-org@yahoogroups.com, "Ben" wrote:
...I also think that evolutionary psychologists are getting a bad rap in the original post. I try to keep up with scientific literature, and I see no studies indicating simple nudity as a source of sexual stimulation in cultures where nudity is normal behavior. There is certainly a lively debate in the scientific community about why human females, unlike other genetically similar species, hide their time of fertility. That debate has led to several hypotheses being advanced including some involving humans wearing various ornamentation including jewelry and/or articles of clothing. In fact, one theory asserts that women in American culture are more likely to elicit a sexual response from men when wearing specific items of clothing than when totally naked.
My response:
Re: New Naked Truth Blog Post
Ben,
From the context of your comment, I take it that what you mean by "evolutionary psychologists are getting a bad rap " in my post, is that these scientists sometimes say things that could be considered favorable to our perspective as naturists. While that may be the case (evolutionary psychologists say all sorts of things, some of them truly bizarre, but they are certainly not monolithic in their pronouncements), this may be missing the real point of what I was saying.
Despite the fact that evolutionary psychologists sometimes say things that sound like we make "choices" or have "preferences", it is their basic perspective that all of human behavior is determined--a mechanistic system of "stimulus and response" without any real freedom of choice in a true libertarian sense. Just as many evolutionists will occasionally slip into speaking in terms of "design" when they expound upon "adaptation", evolutionary psychologists often speak in terms of "choice" (ie: using words like "preference") when what they are really doing is describing "behavior." (Sometimes they can't help themselves since, as Francis Schaeffer noted, they are constrained by having to "live in the world as God has created it." Things appear the way they are because that is the way He has made them.) If pressed though, most will admit that "free will" has nothing to do with the human interactions they are studying. Those who actually believe that some sort of free choice exists, have no evolutionary justification for that belief, and do so by borrowing from a theistic worldview. Theistic evolutionists, overlay ideas which only fit within a theistic worldview upon the scientistic view that allows for nothing but deterministic event causation of matter and energy interacting over time. Evolution + Theism = Square Peg + Round Hole. This determinism is an unavoidable corollary of the scientism that is the reining paridigm underlying all of contemporary scientific thought (at least among the scientific elites), and has recently been forcefully reiterated in Stephen Hawing's latest book. (see http://bit.ly/bnAf9g)
My larger point then, is that it is Christians, not evolutionists, who hold a worldview which has the justification to refute the idea that "seeing someone nude automatically elicits a sexual response." That idea is deterministic, and therefore fits very well within the evolutionary worldview of scientism. Scientism allows for nothing supernatural (beyond or above nature) like the soul--it denies the existence of the soul. The existence of the soul only makes sense in a theistic worldview, and it is the soul that is the source of our ability to interact freely with the world around us. Because our souls are spiritual (supernatural) rather that physical, they are not constrained by the deterministic laws of the physical world (event causation), and we can choose (our soul directing our bodies) to initiate actions in the physical realm (agent causation). Scientism denies the existence of agent causation, and reduces all human behavior to event causation--all events, including the actions of our bodies, are said to be determined by pre-existing conditions and the laws of physics and chemistry acting upon our purely material (soulless) bodies.
We as Christians and naturists know better than this by our experience (and by our intuition!) We know that the choices we make are our own. But scientistic evolutionists deny that there is any such thing as a spiritual "self" directing the actions of our bodies. This is why I give very little credence to the pontifications of evolutionary psychologists. Why should I believe the random scratchings upon paper caused by the pen held in the hand of the evolutionary psychologist which is jerking in response to the pre-existing and purposeless biochemistry of his physical body? How could they contain veridical information having anything to do with the world as it really is? I would rather stand upon what I know to be true--nudity (and by extension, naturism) does not cause an automatic sexual response!
Sorry for the length of my response, but I hope this makes my position more clear.
Blessings, Gregg Gatewood
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