In fact, he believes the major barriers to belief in God are not rational but psychological. Psychological factors are not determinative, but strongly shape our perception and approach to God.
To see how this relates to kids leaving the faith, let’s briefly consider Vitz’ own story. He grew up in a “wishy-washy” Christian home in the Midwest. He became an atheist in grad school and remained so until his re-conversion back to Christianity in his late thirties. While he would have denied it at the time, he now realizes that his reasons for becoming an atheist from 18-38 were “intellectually superficial and largely without a deep thought basis”. Vitz is convinced that this phenomenon is widespread today.
Rather than reasoning to his atheistic beliefs, he was simply socialized into them. He cites three reasons for his initial conversion. First, he had a degree of social unease coming from the Midwest. It seemed terribly dull, provincial, middle class, and narrow. He wanted to be part of the glamorous secular world at Michigan when he arrived on campus as an undergrad. Just think about all the young people arriving in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago or other big cities or campuses who are embarrassed by their fundamental upbringing. This kind of socialization, says Vitz, has pushed many people away from God.
Second, he wanted to be accepted by the powerful and influential people in his field of psychology. His professors at Stanford had two things in common—their intense ambition and rejection of religion. Vitz concludes, “In this environment, just as I had learned how to dress like a college student by putting on the right clothes, I also learned to think like a proper psychologist by putting on the right, that is, atheistic or skeptical, ideas and attitudes”.
The third factor is personal convenience. Vitz explains, “The fact is, it is quite inconvenient to be a serious believer in today’s neo-pagan world. I would have to give up many pleasures, some money and a good deal of time. I didn’t have enough pleasures, I didn’t have enough time, and I didn’t have enough money to do any of that as far as I was concerned”. Doubts about God often follow when young people grasp how inconvenient Christianity can really be. I’ve had countless discussions with young people about God, the Bible, evolution, and other apologetic issues only to discover that what is really driving their doubts is immoral behavior (usually sex). This is not always true, but I’m surprised how many times it is.
This is what parents need to prepare for before sending their children off to college. Do you have a plan?
What do you need in order to have a planet that supports complex life? First, you need liquid water at the surface of the planet. But there is only a narrow range of temperatures that can support liquid water. It turns out that the size of the star that your planet orbits around has a lot to do with whether you get liquid water or not. A heavy, metal-rich star allows you to have a habitable planet far enough from the star so the planet can support liquid water on the planet’s surface while still being able to spin on its axis. The zone where a planet can have liquid water at the surface is called the circumstellar habitable zone (CHZ). A metal-rich star like our Sun is very massive, which moves the habitable zone out further away from the star. If our star were smaller, we would have to orbit much closer to the star in order to have liquid water at the surface. Unfortunately, if you go too close to the star, then your planet becomes tidally locked, like the moon is tidally locked to Earth. Tidally locked planets are inhospitable to life.
Circumstellar Habitable Zone
Here, watch a clip from The Privileged Planet: (Clip 4 of 12, full playlist here)
But there’s more.
The Galactic Habitable Zone (GHZ)
So, where do you get the heavy elements you need for your heavy metal-rich star?
You have to get the heavy elements for your star from supernova explosions – explosions that occur when certain types of stars die. That’s where heavy elements come from. But you can’t be TOO CLOSE to the dying stars, because you will get hit by nasty radiation and explosions. So to get the heavy elements from the dying stars, your solar system needs to be in the galactic habitable zone (GHZ) – the zone where you can pickup the heavy elements you need but not get hit by radiation and explosions. The GHZ lies between the spiral arms of a spiral galaxy. Not only do you have to be in between the arms of the spiral galaxy, but you also cannot be too close to the center of the galaxy. The center of the galaxy is too dense and you will get hit with massive radiation that will break down your life chemistry. But you also can’t be too far from the center, because you won’t get enough heavy elements because there are fewer dying stars the further out you go. You need to be in between the spiral arms, a medium distance from the center of the galaxy.
Like this:
Galactic Habitable Zone and Solar Habitable Zone
Here, watch a clip from The Privileged Planet: (Clip 10 of 12, full playlist here)
The GHZ is based on a discovery made by astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez, which made the front cover of Scientific American in 2001. That’s right, the cover of Scientific American. I actually stole the image above of the GHZ and CHZ (aka solar habitable zone) from his Scientific American article (linked above).
These are just a few of the things you need in order to get a planet that supports life.
Here are a few of the more well-known ones:
a solar system with a single massive Sun than can serve as a long-lived, stable source of energy
a terrestrial planet (non-gaseous)
the planet must be the right distance from the sun in order to preserve liquid water at the surface – if it’s too close, the water is burnt off in a runaway greenhouse effect, if it’s too far, the water is permanently frozen in a runaway glaciation
the solar system must be placed at the right place in the galaxy – not too near dangerous radiation, but close enough to other stars to be able to absorb heavy elements after neighboring stars die
a moon of sufficient mass to stabilize the tilt of the planet’s rotation
plate tectonics
an oxygen-rich atmosphere
a sweeper planet to deflect comets, etc.
planetary neighbors must have non-eccentric orbits
By the way, you can watch a lecture with Guillermo Gonzalez explaining his ideas further. This lecture was delivered at UC Davis in 2007. That link has a link to the playlist of the lecture, a bio of the speaker, and a summary of all the topics he discussed in the lecture. An excellent place to learn the requirements for a suitable habitat for life.
WINTERY KNIGHT 