This story starts 30 years ago. While I was away at grad school my dad and brother, Mark, went to Muskegon and bought Mark's first moped. Over the years my little brother has accumulated quite a stash of mopeds. The total number of mopeds he owns is classified.
And a couple years ago he ran into the Ghost Riders.
Then Mark turned me onto my Honda Metro II scooter a couple of months ago. I figure he didn't think I was ready for a moped. Between then and now, every Monday has either been cold or rainy or busy. Tonight was busy, too, but a meeting got canceled. So, I called my brother.
"Where you at?" I asked. Not much for phone etiquette, I know.
"In my garage," Mark answered. He's cool with the lack of phone etiquette.
"I can be there in the time it takes to get my scooter from my house to yours. You going to Founders?"
"Sure. Come on over."
I got to Mark's house on the other side of town then the two of us drove to Founders microbrewery downtown. I got there and saw about 30 mopeds parked, but only about three scooters. And my 2nd-cousin Lee was there who I hadn't seen in 25 years. He was riding the orange Motobecaine Mark helped him find last year. I looked over the various mopeds parked there. It was a cool sight.
I figure that although I like my scoot, I'll probably be riding my wife's "pink Puch" to subsequent Ghost Riders meetings. I'm buying the pink Puch as soon as Mark gets it running. It's not pink, really, sort of a champaign color. The people have about a half-dozen old guys like me and Mark, but mostly a bunch of kids in their 20s.
After a few minutes of introductions to Mark's friends in the Ghost Riders, we all took off on a ride. My little Honda has this gentle, purring, 4-cycle engine that would never disturb anyone's sleep and its exhaust emissions have a bouquet not dissimilar to rose-water, in my unbiased opinion. This is in contrast to the sound and fury of over two dozen 2-cycle engines. These brethren of the chain-saw engine were belching so much smoke that I could sense Rachel Carlson spinning in her grave. Spotted Owls, no doubt, quaked in their nests this night.
I was unfamiliar with the protocol. The first stop on our ride was to the gas station, where we all bragged about our mileage. A fitting start as we extended a two-wheeled, two-cycle, 100mpg middle finger to the foreign despots who've doubled the price of gasoline of late.
My brother brought his dog in the bike trailer he's modified for canine transport. It's a chick magnet (which would work better if he was more than two years younger than me), but it means he tends to stay near the back of the pack. Since I was the new guy, I kept with him.
However, since I was running flat-out most of the time and sometimes felt a need for more power on hills or catching up, I figure I'll be doing some performance mods on my scooter.
Other guys have some very fast rides. Oddly, these guys would stay near the back then zoom to the front whenever we came upon a red light, where they'd stay in the middle of the intersection until everyone had gotten through. They would act as sheep dogs keeping the herd together. I wonder if the police would approve.
It was great fun to course through the streets of Grand Rapids in a roaring horde of mopeds. A mobile cloud of two-cycle exhaust fumes. After the ride, Mark and I went back to his house and we hung out for a while before I scootered home well after 11:00pm.
I've heard that scooters and mopeds are a fad. Maybe so, but I had a great time with my brother tonight.
Monday, June 02, 2008
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Indiana Jones and the Hollywood Stupid Tax
Imagine the following scenario: soldiers of an enemy nation invade this country, kill several US servicemen, seize control of a government base, kidnap a college professor and coerce him to help them steal government property.
Further, after this college professor escapes imagine foreign agents of this same enemy nation threaten and attempt to kidnap him at gunpoint in broad dailight in a crowded restaurant.
If such things were to occur, wouldn't the citizens and government of the US be justified to feel some anxiety, almost paranoia in response?
The opening scenes of the latest Indiana Jones movie show those very crimes being perpetrated against Professor Jones and his young side-kick Mutt. And though I thought it unbelievable that the Soviets could mount such attacks on US soil, I was willing to go along for the sake of the story.
My complaint is that after this narrative setup, Messrs. Lucas and Spielberg feel obligated to pay the Hollywood stupid tax and invoke the dread scourge of McCarthyism. So be it, but I find it then altogether incongruous that Indiana Jones should then express the customary Hollywood sentiment that the Communists are really no big worry.
Either the Commies were credible antagonists OR the Red Scare was justified. You can't have it both ways.
The problem is that Stalinists make effective antagonists. Lucas and Spielberg know this and I think they did a good job of making them appear suitably evil. It's a pity they could not be true to their art.
Further, after this college professor escapes imagine foreign agents of this same enemy nation threaten and attempt to kidnap him at gunpoint in broad dailight in a crowded restaurant.
If such things were to occur, wouldn't the citizens and government of the US be justified to feel some anxiety, almost paranoia in response?
The opening scenes of the latest Indiana Jones movie show those very crimes being perpetrated against Professor Jones and his young side-kick Mutt. And though I thought it unbelievable that the Soviets could mount such attacks on US soil, I was willing to go along for the sake of the story.
My complaint is that after this narrative setup, Messrs. Lucas and Spielberg feel obligated to pay the Hollywood stupid tax and invoke the dread scourge of McCarthyism. So be it, but I find it then altogether incongruous that Indiana Jones should then express the customary Hollywood sentiment that the Communists are really no big worry.
Either the Commies were credible antagonists OR the Red Scare was justified. You can't have it both ways.
The problem is that Stalinists make effective antagonists. Lucas and Spielberg know this and I think they did a good job of making them appear suitably evil. It's a pity they could not be true to their art.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Lindsey Graham for Veep
Given the current state of the Republican party, Mr. McCain is challenged to find a running-mate who clearly understands his vision and where he wants to take the party. Afterall, Mr. McCain is no young man, so he needs to make it clear that the future course of the party will be consistent with his vision. Mindful of this, I suggest Senator Lindsey Graham as his running mate.
Over the course of the last several years, Mr. Graham has been the Senator more likely to articulate policies most congruent with Mr. McCain's. Moreover, no less a Republican than Rush Limbaugh has taken to calling Mr. Graham "vice president" over the course of the last several years. So, come on Republicans, our party has nominated the Maverick, give us more.
Over the course of the last several years, Mr. Graham has been the Senator more likely to articulate policies most congruent with Mr. McCain's. Moreover, no less a Republican than Rush Limbaugh has taken to calling Mr. Graham "vice president" over the course of the last several years. So, come on Republicans, our party has nominated the Maverick, give us more.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Evolution In A Bucket
When I was a tender lad, the origins argument consisted of two competing narratives roughly equivalent to the partisans in conflict in the old Spencer Tracy movie, "Inherit The Wind." You either believe the dates printed in your Schofield Reference Bible, or you think you're a monkey's nephew.
Later, when in college, I learned that Creationists distinguish between Evolution in the small and Evolution in the large. Specifically, Creationists assert that we have verified proof with things like fruit flies, domesticated animals, or antibiotic-resistant bacteria that selective breeding and mutation can change the morphology of animals. But the evolution we see in the lab, and that we see in nature, is only evolution WITHIN species, not BETWEEN species.
Quite frankly, this distinction between micro and macro evolution seems to have the fossil record going for it. Though we see a lot of different fossils, we don't find a lot of "missing links." If Darwinian evolution explains the presence of millions of distinct species on this planet, then Darwinian evolution posits the existence of many millions more transitional forms between those species. When this complaint was first raised, well over a century ago, the reply was that "we haven't dug them up yet." Time has gone by and the transitional forms remain missing and the reply is twofold: not everything gets fossilized and missing links don't last many generations. The theory is called "punctuated equilibrium." Still it bothers me that there are so many species and so few (any?) transitional fossils. I'm no geologist, I may be wrong, so if there are lots of fossilized missing links out there, I'd like to hear of it.
I am more familiar with mathematical optimization and computer algorithms. Over the last couple decades I've heard of "genetic algorithms" or "evolutionary algorithms" that have been applied in some contexts, but when I'd read more, the details would get fuzzy and I'd lose the thread of what was being described.
However, in a completely different context, I heard a scientist describe an algorithm he called a "simulated anneal" that I could understand quite handily. Let's suppose you have a problem of connecting various things much like the atoms of a metal. Each connection contributes positively or negatively to some objective function. You want to come up with the "global minima" of the objective function. There are too many connections to exhaustively try them all. What to do? One approach is to look at every pair of atoms and make the link that's "best" then connect those pairs of atoms to the pair that's "best" and so on until everything's connected.
This is called a "greedy algorithm" and it often produces a poor result, getting caught in what's called a "local minima" of the objective function. This process is like dropping a marble in a bucket and letting it roll to the lowest point it finds. The trouble is that if the floor of the bucket is shaped inconveniently, say like a mountain range, you may find the marble trapped in a mountain valley whereas had it been dropped elsewhere it would have rolled to the lowland plains.
If this isn't good enough, if you need to get the marble to the bottom of the bucket, you need to dislodge it from its local minima. How do you do this? By shaking the bucket.
In the algorithm I described above, this is analogous to replacing the deterministic rule that I'll make the "best connections" with another rule. I'll add a random variable, analogous to temperature of an annealing vat of metal, to all pair-wise scores and decide whether to link or not on the basis of score+temperature. This biases the solution in the right way, but it doesn't lock it into local minima.
The idea is that over time if you repeatedly perform the process above, the solution (or marble in the bucket) will probabilistically spend more time in better local minimas. By slowly reducing the temperature, you get a solution that's much more likely to be better than you'd get from the greedy algorithm. This process is analogous to the formation of crystal domains in an annealed vat of metal.
Now, there's nothing biological in the last five paragraphs. It's just math and considerations of systems behaving not unlike what you see in soap bubbles or heat-treated metal. I was surprised when someone told me THAT algorithm I just described is also termed an evolutionary algorithm.
Does this mean that any algorithm that includes a random element and an objective function (i.e. fitness) can be termed Evolutionary? This furrows my brow because it makes the notion very expansive. I don't think of soap bubbles settling into minimum energy configurations in this way. I can't think of any Creationist who can have a problem with this sort of mathematics.
Now, could we by selective breeding do the same sort of optimization on successive generations of an animal? Isn't this what the fruit fly experiments demonstrate?
The Bible was written before Carl Linnaeus devised his system of classification. Thus the Creationist must tread lightly. My college Bible classes used the "baramin" which combines two Hebrew words, "bara" and "min." The Hebrew word "min" is translated "kind" but I think this word does NOT mean species in a Linnaeus sense. The phenomena in the Bible is procreation. Those parts of the Bible which speak of animals bringing forth "after their own kind" are places where this Hebrew is employed. Could the word "kind" merely reflect an animal's genotype? That is, does the Bible intend to convey only that the animals delivered their own DNA (with mutations perhaps) to the next generation?
Suppose, for sake of argument that we engage in a program of selective breeding among dogs. So much so that we come up with one breed of dog that cannot successfully mate with another breed. If this occurred, could we claim that speciation had occurred? Would this PROVE the Bible is wrong? I rather doubt it.
I don't know what the Creationist or the Evolutionist would say to this. However, when I've thought in these terms, the lines have tended to blur. No doubt both sides will want to burn me as a heretic.
Later, when in college, I learned that Creationists distinguish between Evolution in the small and Evolution in the large. Specifically, Creationists assert that we have verified proof with things like fruit flies, domesticated animals, or antibiotic-resistant bacteria that selective breeding and mutation can change the morphology of animals. But the evolution we see in the lab, and that we see in nature, is only evolution WITHIN species, not BETWEEN species.
Quite frankly, this distinction between micro and macro evolution seems to have the fossil record going for it. Though we see a lot of different fossils, we don't find a lot of "missing links." If Darwinian evolution explains the presence of millions of distinct species on this planet, then Darwinian evolution posits the existence of many millions more transitional forms between those species. When this complaint was first raised, well over a century ago, the reply was that "we haven't dug them up yet." Time has gone by and the transitional forms remain missing and the reply is twofold: not everything gets fossilized and missing links don't last many generations. The theory is called "punctuated equilibrium." Still it bothers me that there are so many species and so few (any?) transitional fossils. I'm no geologist, I may be wrong, so if there are lots of fossilized missing links out there, I'd like to hear of it.
I am more familiar with mathematical optimization and computer algorithms. Over the last couple decades I've heard of "genetic algorithms" or "evolutionary algorithms" that have been applied in some contexts, but when I'd read more, the details would get fuzzy and I'd lose the thread of what was being described.
However, in a completely different context, I heard a scientist describe an algorithm he called a "simulated anneal" that I could understand quite handily. Let's suppose you have a problem of connecting various things much like the atoms of a metal. Each connection contributes positively or negatively to some objective function. You want to come up with the "global minima" of the objective function. There are too many connections to exhaustively try them all. What to do? One approach is to look at every pair of atoms and make the link that's "best" then connect those pairs of atoms to the pair that's "best" and so on until everything's connected.
This is called a "greedy algorithm" and it often produces a poor result, getting caught in what's called a "local minima" of the objective function. This process is like dropping a marble in a bucket and letting it roll to the lowest point it finds. The trouble is that if the floor of the bucket is shaped inconveniently, say like a mountain range, you may find the marble trapped in a mountain valley whereas had it been dropped elsewhere it would have rolled to the lowland plains.
If this isn't good enough, if you need to get the marble to the bottom of the bucket, you need to dislodge it from its local minima. How do you do this? By shaking the bucket.
In the algorithm I described above, this is analogous to replacing the deterministic rule that I'll make the "best connections" with another rule. I'll add a random variable, analogous to temperature of an annealing vat of metal, to all pair-wise scores and decide whether to link or not on the basis of score+temperature. This biases the solution in the right way, but it doesn't lock it into local minima.
The idea is that over time if you repeatedly perform the process above, the solution (or marble in the bucket) will probabilistically spend more time in better local minimas. By slowly reducing the temperature, you get a solution that's much more likely to be better than you'd get from the greedy algorithm. This process is analogous to the formation of crystal domains in an annealed vat of metal.
Now, there's nothing biological in the last five paragraphs. It's just math and considerations of systems behaving not unlike what you see in soap bubbles or heat-treated metal. I was surprised when someone told me THAT algorithm I just described is also termed an evolutionary algorithm.
Does this mean that any algorithm that includes a random element and an objective function (i.e. fitness) can be termed Evolutionary? This furrows my brow because it makes the notion very expansive. I don't think of soap bubbles settling into minimum energy configurations in this way. I can't think of any Creationist who can have a problem with this sort of mathematics.
Now, could we by selective breeding do the same sort of optimization on successive generations of an animal? Isn't this what the fruit fly experiments demonstrate?
The Bible was written before Carl Linnaeus devised his system of classification. Thus the Creationist must tread lightly. My college Bible classes used the "baramin" which combines two Hebrew words, "bara" and "min." The Hebrew word "min" is translated "kind" but I think this word does NOT mean species in a Linnaeus sense. The phenomena in the Bible is procreation. Those parts of the Bible which speak of animals bringing forth "after their own kind" are places where this Hebrew is employed. Could the word "kind" merely reflect an animal's genotype? That is, does the Bible intend to convey only that the animals delivered their own DNA (with mutations perhaps) to the next generation?
Suppose, for sake of argument that we engage in a program of selective breeding among dogs. So much so that we come up with one breed of dog that cannot successfully mate with another breed. If this occurred, could we claim that speciation had occurred? Would this PROVE the Bible is wrong? I rather doubt it.
I don't know what the Creationist or the Evolutionist would say to this. However, when I've thought in these terms, the lines have tended to blur. No doubt both sides will want to burn me as a heretic.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Where Is The Archimedean Point?
I've been a bit troubled with thoughts of Descartes and his "cogito ergo sum" and trying to figure out exactly what it is that's bothering me.
Tonight, listening to The White Horse Inn I heard the term Archimedean Point. The immediate context was not Cartesian solipsism, but a sort of gnostic quietism. They were talking about "Barnes & Nobel Christianity" and all the self-help gospel types who provide spiritual "secrets" of looking inward in a sort of post-verbal, certainly post-rational, way.
The White Horse guys are masters of snark. And they laid into these people they termed gnostics with delicious sarcasm. Of course, they were unfair in their criticism, but they have a valid point and they miss a valid point that they oughtn't.
First, let me agree with the White Horse guys. It is wrong to tell people to "look inside yourself" for the divine. Luther was right when he said, "simul justus et peccator." If you tell a sinner to look within, you should also warn that person to expect to see sin when he does so. This is where the White Horse guys hit it out of the park. Calvin called the human heart "an idol factory." The Bible calls the human heart "desperately wicked" and "deceitful." Its greatest deceit is excusing and rationalizing away sin. Shame on any putative Christian preacher who blows off this point.
Second, let me disagree with the White Horse guys. My Bible tells me that as a believer in Christ, I have an indwelling Holy Spirit. And my bible also states that, despite the fall, I'm made in the image of God. Thus, when I "look within" I shouldn't be surprised to find God indwelling and God imaged in the architecture of my psyche. The White Horse guys need to be a little more charitable.
Putting these together, what do we get? If you look into my psyche, you'll find a mix of the sinful and the divine. Alexander Solzenitzen says the battle line between good and evil runs through the center of every man's heart. Thus, I'll have to test what I find within myself to see if it really is the divine or whether it is sinful self-deception.
How am I going to do that? That's where I heard Archimedean Point and thought it important. Archimedes said, "give me a lever and a place to stand and I will move the world." Upon what does Descartes stand when he says, "cogito ergo sum?" Nothing outside himself. As the guy on Mythbusters says, "there's your problem."
If you fail to establish an Archimedean Point outside yourself, that relativizes yourself and everything in your world, you've nothing to push against. You're like the astronaut in zero-gee pushing on a lever and flying backwards in reaction.
This is where God comes in. Three decades ago I gave my presentation in Epistemology class and the critique I heard was that it wasn't Cristocentric enough. You need a Christocentric Archimedean point.
Now, let's suppose you believe in orthodox protestant Christianity. Then you understand that God has disclosed himself in verbal propositional terms in Scripture. Thus, when you "seek God within yourself" you should not be surprised when a lot of Bible verses come to mind. Those are Bible verses that are made out of WORDS and those words hang together RATIONALLY. At least, that's how it is with me. When God speaks to me, when he delivers a "word of knowledge" it is through a Bible verse popping into my head unbidden.
That's what you do. If your heart says something ridiculous about having an adulterous affair, take a delivery from the clue train Exodus 20:14, you're hearing the deceitful part. If your heart says you're doing something wrong and it can provide chapter-and-verse, you're hearing the divine.
Tonight, listening to The White Horse Inn I heard the term Archimedean Point. The immediate context was not Cartesian solipsism, but a sort of gnostic quietism. They were talking about "Barnes & Nobel Christianity" and all the self-help gospel types who provide spiritual "secrets" of looking inward in a sort of post-verbal, certainly post-rational, way.
The White Horse guys are masters of snark. And they laid into these people they termed gnostics with delicious sarcasm. Of course, they were unfair in their criticism, but they have a valid point and they miss a valid point that they oughtn't.
First, let me agree with the White Horse guys. It is wrong to tell people to "look inside yourself" for the divine. Luther was right when he said, "simul justus et peccator." If you tell a sinner to look within, you should also warn that person to expect to see sin when he does so. This is where the White Horse guys hit it out of the park. Calvin called the human heart "an idol factory." The Bible calls the human heart "desperately wicked" and "deceitful." Its greatest deceit is excusing and rationalizing away sin. Shame on any putative Christian preacher who blows off this point.
Second, let me disagree with the White Horse guys. My Bible tells me that as a believer in Christ, I have an indwelling Holy Spirit. And my bible also states that, despite the fall, I'm made in the image of God. Thus, when I "look within" I shouldn't be surprised to find God indwelling and God imaged in the architecture of my psyche. The White Horse guys need to be a little more charitable.
Putting these together, what do we get? If you look into my psyche, you'll find a mix of the sinful and the divine. Alexander Solzenitzen says the battle line between good and evil runs through the center of every man's heart. Thus, I'll have to test what I find within myself to see if it really is the divine or whether it is sinful self-deception.
How am I going to do that? That's where I heard Archimedean Point and thought it important. Archimedes said, "give me a lever and a place to stand and I will move the world." Upon what does Descartes stand when he says, "cogito ergo sum?" Nothing outside himself. As the guy on Mythbusters says, "there's your problem."
If you fail to establish an Archimedean Point outside yourself, that relativizes yourself and everything in your world, you've nothing to push against. You're like the astronaut in zero-gee pushing on a lever and flying backwards in reaction.
This is where God comes in. Three decades ago I gave my presentation in Epistemology class and the critique I heard was that it wasn't Cristocentric enough. You need a Christocentric Archimedean point.
Now, let's suppose you believe in orthodox protestant Christianity. Then you understand that God has disclosed himself in verbal propositional terms in Scripture. Thus, when you "seek God within yourself" you should not be surprised when a lot of Bible verses come to mind. Those are Bible verses that are made out of WORDS and those words hang together RATIONALLY. At least, that's how it is with me. When God speaks to me, when he delivers a "word of knowledge" it is through a Bible verse popping into my head unbidden.
That's what you do. If your heart says something ridiculous about having an adulterous affair, take a delivery from the clue train Exodus 20:14, you're hearing the deceitful part. If your heart says you're doing something wrong and it can provide chapter-and-verse, you're hearing the divine.
A Reason To Vote Against Mr. Obama
Heretofore, I've enumerated at least one specific reason why someone would vote for Mr. Obama. In the last week, Mr. Obama has provided a specific reason to vote against him.
When Mr. Obama was in San Francisco chatting informally with the rich power elite, he referred to rural Pennsylvania with these words:
When I first read Mr. Obama's remarks I didn't think them particularly nasty or elitist. Perhaps this reflects poorly on my own tendencies toward arrogance.
Update: I forgot to stress that Mr. Obama's remarks are not so much troubling because they are elitist, but for the values they reflect.
But upon closer reflection, I started thinking about what this reflects about Mr. Obama's underlying worldview. What's primary in his thinking is the economic determinism latent in his remarks. What drives and defines the people of rural america are economic factors like jobs or government handouts. I don't believe any of this, but it appears Mr. Obama does. Karl Marx also believed in economic determinism and I don't agree with him, either. Am I saying Mr. Obama is a marxist? No, but sharing the same ecoomic worldview as Karl Marx makes it harder to not be a marxist.
Moreover, look at Mr. Obama's view of human suffering. Mankind, at least in rural Pennsylvania, suffers because of inadequate government compassion and activism. This kind of thinking is statist at best. Contrast this with Mr. Reagan's claim that government wasn't the solution, but that government was the problem. I don't think the government is my momma at whose breast I must be fed. But this is not the reason I have in mind to vote against Mr. Obama.
My reason to vote against Mr. Obama has to do with the opiate of the masses. Another idea of Karl Marx's.
Mr. Obama painted a picture of human pain, and then described how poor people self-medicate to dull that pain. One of those painkillers is religion. Religion, qua religion, as Mr. Obama has posed it, has nothing to do with events of 2000 years ago when our Saviour was crucified and rose again.
I think this explains why Mr. Obama was a member for 20 years of Trinity Church in Chicago. You'll recall that Mr. Obama has claimed he's not a racist, that he doesn't think God should damn America, etc. But he joined and stayed in that church where such things issue from the pulpit. Why? I think it's because he wasn't listening.
There is another explanation for why people in small towns in Pennsylvania go to church. This reason doesn't carry much weight with the power elites. There might just be something to religion. People might go to church because they find truth there.
If you don't believe that way, that's up to you and I'll respect you for it.
But if you believe there's only political expediency or economic painkillers in religion, and then you make any claim of faith, be it Islam, Christianity, or anything, you're a phony.
Because Mr. Obama's remark leads me to believe he's a religious phony, that's a reason to vote against him.
When Mr. Obama was in San Francisco chatting informally with the rich power elite, he referred to rural Pennsylvania with these words:
You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.
When I first read Mr. Obama's remarks I didn't think them particularly nasty or elitist. Perhaps this reflects poorly on my own tendencies toward arrogance.
Update: I forgot to stress that Mr. Obama's remarks are not so much troubling because they are elitist, but for the values they reflect.
But upon closer reflection, I started thinking about what this reflects about Mr. Obama's underlying worldview. What's primary in his thinking is the economic determinism latent in his remarks. What drives and defines the people of rural america are economic factors like jobs or government handouts. I don't believe any of this, but it appears Mr. Obama does. Karl Marx also believed in economic determinism and I don't agree with him, either. Am I saying Mr. Obama is a marxist? No, but sharing the same ecoomic worldview as Karl Marx makes it harder to not be a marxist.
Moreover, look at Mr. Obama's view of human suffering. Mankind, at least in rural Pennsylvania, suffers because of inadequate government compassion and activism. This kind of thinking is statist at best. Contrast this with Mr. Reagan's claim that government wasn't the solution, but that government was the problem. I don't think the government is my momma at whose breast I must be fed. But this is not the reason I have in mind to vote against Mr. Obama.
My reason to vote against Mr. Obama has to do with the opiate of the masses. Another idea of Karl Marx's.
Mr. Obama painted a picture of human pain, and then described how poor people self-medicate to dull that pain. One of those painkillers is religion. Religion, qua religion, as Mr. Obama has posed it, has nothing to do with events of 2000 years ago when our Saviour was crucified and rose again.
I think this explains why Mr. Obama was a member for 20 years of Trinity Church in Chicago. You'll recall that Mr. Obama has claimed he's not a racist, that he doesn't think God should damn America, etc. But he joined and stayed in that church where such things issue from the pulpit. Why? I think it's because he wasn't listening.
There is another explanation for why people in small towns in Pennsylvania go to church. This reason doesn't carry much weight with the power elites. There might just be something to religion. People might go to church because they find truth there.
If you don't believe that way, that's up to you and I'll respect you for it.
But if you believe there's only political expediency or economic painkillers in religion, and then you make any claim of faith, be it Islam, Christianity, or anything, you're a phony.
Because Mr. Obama's remark leads me to believe he's a religious phony, that's a reason to vote against him.
Sunday, April 06, 2008
Uncertain? Who's Fault Is That?
It occurred to me this morning, that Truth and Certainty have something to do with communication. I think Truth is What God Knows. And if I'm to have any truth, God has to tell me. Now, this is a rather odd formulation if you aren't a theist. But if there is a God it doesn't matter that you're not a theist.
Now, communication is a process where ideas in my mind become ideas in your mind. Since communication isn't a perfect thing, there may be some change of the ideas during this process. I think in terms of language and I express ideas in my native language in either spoken or written words. My skill with language and my clarity of thought will bear upon the effectiveness with which thoughts get into your head. If your language differs from mine, or your cultural idioms differ, we should expect some translation will be necessary.
Christianity teaches that God discloses truth to mankind in General and Special revelation. Special revelation includes the Bible. And the communication model I've described above fits the process of reading and interpreting the Bible.
In dialog with an apostate years back I was confronted with a number of "contradictions" in the Bible. I used scare quotes around contradiction because I claimed then that there are no contradictions in the Bible. Now, we can easily interpret the Bible in a malicious fashion so as to contrive contradictions. e.g. Jesus said he was a vine, and John said he was a lamb, and a lamb is not a vine. (In this sense of "malicious interpretation" I'll concede that contradictions can be construed by the skeptic.) The matter is not that a contradictory interpretation can be contrived, but that no harmonious interpretation exists.
I was plowing through the list of contradictions my interlocutor had given me and I formulated harmonious explanations for all but one. And that one had me flummoxed. It was a crisis of faith. And I prayed about it.
Prayer changes things most frequently by changing the person doing the praying. And in the prayer I acknowledged a fair degree of pride in my ability to solve such problems. And pride is not one of the cardinal virtues of the Christian. In fact, it's on the vice side of the tally sheet.
And I realized two questions were in play: 1) is the Bible contradictory? and 2) am I skilled enough at hermeneutics to resolve this apparent cotradiction? If *I* fail to interpret a text correctly is it the text's fault or is it mine? Once the thought occurred to me that my failure to solve this hermenutical puzzle might be MY fault, the solution presented itself and all was well. Contradiction and Crisis of faith resolved. If curious, I've written up the "contradictions" here and here. (I apologize for the woodenness of my prose.)
In the truth and certainty debate, it is important to consider where blame for one's uncertainty should be placed. I think consideration of blame can help bring together the parties in an intramural debate between those asserting "philosophical uncertainty" and those who do not. Placing blame helps us distinguish "philosophical uncertainty" borne of creaturely humility from pagan, post-modern skepticism.
My atheist and agnostic friends blame uncertainty about the existence of God and his speaking in Scripture upon God and Scripture itself. And if there is no God, then uncertainty about his existence, indeed certainty of his non-existence is perfectly reasonable. However, if you are a Christian Theist, then there is a God who has spoken.
But did God mumble? If God mumbles, then he is to blame for any uncertainty about what he's said. I don't think anyone in the Emergent Church movement would grasp this thistle. I think it is slanderous to suggest they do.
If God speaks clearly, any uncertainty could be the fault of our ears. Christianity asserts that all men are fallen, and Reformed Christianity asserts that the fall touches man's every capability. (This is TULIP'S T.) I think this explains my atheist and agnostic friends' uncertainty about the existence of God. They were born deaf and have subsequently stuffed cotton in their ears. (Rom 1:20)
Catholicism seems to munge moral and metaphysical categories. The Catholic notion of grace has a metaphysical component that serves to bridge the gap between created and uncreated beings. (By means of metaphysical grace infused within the bones of a saint, Catholicism has claimed that a relic can perform miracles.) The goal of redemption in Catholic terms is the visio Dei that not only consists of the complete cleansing of the sinner of his sins, but a bridging of the impedance mismatch between the non-being of creatureliness and ultimate beingness of the Uncreated One. (Apologies if I've misrepresented Scholastic thinking. I'm only a Baptist after all.)
This metaphysical impedance mismatch between creature and uncreated might be to blame why God might speak clearly, but (incompletely) redeemed man not hear clearly enough to be certain.
I think we want to ask our brothers who claim "philosophical uncertainty" if they blame this uncertainty upon their creaturely finitude. This seems to be what R.C. Sproul is thinking about when he says he'd have to be omniscient to possess "philosophical certainty." And I'm cool with this. I think it's wrong, but this isn't a test-of-fellowship disagreement. If you blame your philosophical uncertainty upon your creaturely finitude, that is an expression of creaturely humility.
Indeed, creaturely humility is one of the cardinal virtues of Christianity.
Now, communication is a process where ideas in my mind become ideas in your mind. Since communication isn't a perfect thing, there may be some change of the ideas during this process. I think in terms of language and I express ideas in my native language in either spoken or written words. My skill with language and my clarity of thought will bear upon the effectiveness with which thoughts get into your head. If your language differs from mine, or your cultural idioms differ, we should expect some translation will be necessary.
Christianity teaches that God discloses truth to mankind in General and Special revelation. Special revelation includes the Bible. And the communication model I've described above fits the process of reading and interpreting the Bible.
In dialog with an apostate years back I was confronted with a number of "contradictions" in the Bible. I used scare quotes around contradiction because I claimed then that there are no contradictions in the Bible. Now, we can easily interpret the Bible in a malicious fashion so as to contrive contradictions. e.g. Jesus said he was a vine, and John said he was a lamb, and a lamb is not a vine. (In this sense of "malicious interpretation" I'll concede that contradictions can be construed by the skeptic.) The matter is not that a contradictory interpretation can be contrived, but that no harmonious interpretation exists.
I was plowing through the list of contradictions my interlocutor had given me and I formulated harmonious explanations for all but one. And that one had me flummoxed. It was a crisis of faith. And I prayed about it.
Prayer changes things most frequently by changing the person doing the praying. And in the prayer I acknowledged a fair degree of pride in my ability to solve such problems. And pride is not one of the cardinal virtues of the Christian. In fact, it's on the vice side of the tally sheet.
And I realized two questions were in play: 1) is the Bible contradictory? and 2) am I skilled enough at hermeneutics to resolve this apparent cotradiction? If *I* fail to interpret a text correctly is it the text's fault or is it mine? Once the thought occurred to me that my failure to solve this hermenutical puzzle might be MY fault, the solution presented itself and all was well. Contradiction and Crisis of faith resolved. If curious, I've written up the "contradictions" here and here. (I apologize for the woodenness of my prose.)
In the truth and certainty debate, it is important to consider where blame for one's uncertainty should be placed. I think consideration of blame can help bring together the parties in an intramural debate between those asserting "philosophical uncertainty" and those who do not. Placing blame helps us distinguish "philosophical uncertainty" borne of creaturely humility from pagan, post-modern skepticism.
My atheist and agnostic friends blame uncertainty about the existence of God and his speaking in Scripture upon God and Scripture itself. And if there is no God, then uncertainty about his existence, indeed certainty of his non-existence is perfectly reasonable. However, if you are a Christian Theist, then there is a God who has spoken.
But did God mumble? If God mumbles, then he is to blame for any uncertainty about what he's said. I don't think anyone in the Emergent Church movement would grasp this thistle. I think it is slanderous to suggest they do.
If God speaks clearly, any uncertainty could be the fault of our ears. Christianity asserts that all men are fallen, and Reformed Christianity asserts that the fall touches man's every capability. (This is TULIP'S T.) I think this explains my atheist and agnostic friends' uncertainty about the existence of God. They were born deaf and have subsequently stuffed cotton in their ears. (Rom 1:20)
Catholicism seems to munge moral and metaphysical categories. The Catholic notion of grace has a metaphysical component that serves to bridge the gap between created and uncreated beings. (By means of metaphysical grace infused within the bones of a saint, Catholicism has claimed that a relic can perform miracles.) The goal of redemption in Catholic terms is the visio Dei that not only consists of the complete cleansing of the sinner of his sins, but a bridging of the impedance mismatch between the non-being of creatureliness and ultimate beingness of the Uncreated One. (Apologies if I've misrepresented Scholastic thinking. I'm only a Baptist after all.)
This metaphysical impedance mismatch between creature and uncreated might be to blame why God might speak clearly, but (incompletely) redeemed man not hear clearly enough to be certain.
I think we want to ask our brothers who claim "philosophical uncertainty" if they blame this uncertainty upon their creaturely finitude. This seems to be what R.C. Sproul is thinking about when he says he'd have to be omniscient to possess "philosophical certainty." And I'm cool with this. I think it's wrong, but this isn't a test-of-fellowship disagreement. If you blame your philosophical uncertainty upon your creaturely finitude, that is an expression of creaturely humility.
Indeed, creaturely humility is one of the cardinal virtues of Christianity.
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
RC Sproul Is Mistaken
I just heard a quote where RC Sproul speaks of "absolute certainty about anything" and that this requires omniscience. I disagree. But first, let's make clear that I think he's right about everything else a Presbyterian can get right. (I'm a Baptist and Presbyterians sprinkle and I don't hold that against him.) Moreover, we must recall that Dr. Sproul is not a mathematician, but a theologian. And he's betrayed his ignorance of mathematics in the past.
Let's consider the claim that one must have omniscience to have absolute certainty about anything through the contrapositive. Consider the set of propositions known to omniscience. Every proposition therein will be absolutely certain, by the definition of omniscience. Now consider any finite subset of propositions drawn from the omniscience set. Each element of this finite subset will not be made less certain by this process.
For Dr. Sproul to claim that no one can have absolute certainty about anything is equivalent to positing the impossibility of the last paragraph's finite subset OR the impossibility of anyone ever possessing any such set. If these things are simultaneously possible, then Dr. Sproul's premise is mistaken. Q.E.D.
This assertion that you need omniscience to know anything with absolute certainty implies that nobody can ever know ANYTHING God knows, because it would serve as a counter-example.
Now, for purposes of illustration consider this example. Omniscience knows all the digits of PI. Let's suppose I possess this proposition: "PI is approximated by 3.14159." This is a remarkably ignorant statement. There is a countably infinite number of digits of PI that are left out of this proposition. HOWEVER, no matter how many digits you add to your knowledge, they cannot conspire to overthrow this proposition.
Consider Pope Benedict XVI's lecture at the University of Regensburg. He asserted that reason must be the basis of talk about God. Islam holds a contradictory notion about God's nature, claiming God's transcendence makes his will beyond our categories. To Islam there's no problem with God giving irrational or evil commands. Conversely, Christianity asserts an image relationship between God and man and that the transcendent deity discloses himself in a fashion comprehensible to mankind.
One might even go so far as to call that disclosure a finite subset of propositions drawn from the omniscience set.
Let's consider the claim that one must have omniscience to have absolute certainty about anything through the contrapositive. Consider the set of propositions known to omniscience. Every proposition therein will be absolutely certain, by the definition of omniscience. Now consider any finite subset of propositions drawn from the omniscience set. Each element of this finite subset will not be made less certain by this process.
For Dr. Sproul to claim that no one can have absolute certainty about anything is equivalent to positing the impossibility of the last paragraph's finite subset OR the impossibility of anyone ever possessing any such set. If these things are simultaneously possible, then Dr. Sproul's premise is mistaken. Q.E.D.
This assertion that you need omniscience to know anything with absolute certainty implies that nobody can ever know ANYTHING God knows, because it would serve as a counter-example.
Now, for purposes of illustration consider this example. Omniscience knows all the digits of PI. Let's suppose I possess this proposition: "PI is approximated by 3.14159." This is a remarkably ignorant statement. There is a countably infinite number of digits of PI that are left out of this proposition. HOWEVER, no matter how many digits you add to your knowledge, they cannot conspire to overthrow this proposition.
Consider Pope Benedict XVI's lecture at the University of Regensburg. He asserted that reason must be the basis of talk about God. Islam holds a contradictory notion about God's nature, claiming God's transcendence makes his will beyond our categories. To Islam there's no problem with God giving irrational or evil commands. Conversely, Christianity asserts an image relationship between God and man and that the transcendent deity discloses himself in a fashion comprehensible to mankind.
One might even go so far as to call that disclosure a finite subset of propositions drawn from the omniscience set.
Friday, March 28, 2008
What Exactly Do I Owe This Black Man?
Mr. Obama's pastor, Jeremiah T. Wright has made some statements that his defenders rationalize as expressions of black rage. He's gone so far as to say, "God damn America." And Mr. Obama has asked for a more frank and open discussion about race.
This is true. Blacks and whites seldom speak frankly about race. Thus, I have often reacted to black rage with a shrug and the remark, "I don't owe you anything." Yet that's the message of Mr. Wright and his ilk: "We're owed." The rationale is that blacks are disadvantaged by America's legacy of slavery.
I can understand that a child afflicted with fetal alcohol syndrome and born to a crack-whore mother and raised in a ghetto and sent to an inner city school will face an almost insurmountable nexus of disadvantages. Are any of these things necessarily a black thing? I think it's racist to think so. Did I sell the booze, etc.? I think the weight of that culpability is on someone else's shoulders.
Why is Mr. Wright so angry that he says, "God damn America?" What were the disadvantages of his family? According to this biography his father was a pastor and his mother was a doctor--I presume a PhD. Compared to my own parent's 6th and 8th grade education, I maintain that Mr. Wright had a relatively privileged family background.
Perhaps Mr. Wright who was born in 1941 was denied educational or vocational opportunities in his youth? The Brown vs Board of Education ruling occurred when he was 12 years old. The Civil Rights Act was passed when he was in his early 20s. His biography does not show any insurmountable difficulties. Update:I just checked the fine print of the Wiki article on apartheid. Apartheid ended in 1995. That was 13 years ago and on another continent! But to listen to fellows like Mr. Wright, it's still ongoing. Why didn't he say "God damn South Africa?"
I do not find any justification for Mr. Obama's pastor's outrage. In fact, today I came upon this picture of Mr. Wright's house. Perhaps in a less racist America, Mr. Wright could afford this house instead.
America's legacy of slavery is that politicians like Mr. Obama attach themselves to men like Mr. Wright for the power he has accumulated to himself. Mr. Wright accumulates that power by pandering to the grievances of blacks with legitimate complaints of disadvantage. His message of "we're owed" is clearly false in Mr. Wright's life. How does "we're owed" help any disadvantaged person of any color overcome his disadvantaged station in life?
If you think "we're owed" you'll have an excuse for all of your own failings. if you think "we're owed" you'll think someone else needs to do something for your benefit and this encourages passivity on your part. This does make the slaves on the liberal plantation easier to control after all.
I think I owe this to the black man: You're my equal. Act like it. Man up. Take control of your life and overcome whatever disadvantages. If you fail, open your eyes and learn why you failed. It wasn't for lack of 40 acres and a mule a century before you were born.
This is true. Blacks and whites seldom speak frankly about race. Thus, I have often reacted to black rage with a shrug and the remark, "I don't owe you anything." Yet that's the message of Mr. Wright and his ilk: "We're owed." The rationale is that blacks are disadvantaged by America's legacy of slavery.
I can understand that a child afflicted with fetal alcohol syndrome and born to a crack-whore mother and raised in a ghetto and sent to an inner city school will face an almost insurmountable nexus of disadvantages. Are any of these things necessarily a black thing? I think it's racist to think so. Did I sell the booze, etc.? I think the weight of that culpability is on someone else's shoulders.
Why is Mr. Wright so angry that he says, "God damn America?" What were the disadvantages of his family? According to this biography his father was a pastor and his mother was a doctor--I presume a PhD. Compared to my own parent's 6th and 8th grade education, I maintain that Mr. Wright had a relatively privileged family background.
Perhaps Mr. Wright who was born in 1941 was denied educational or vocational opportunities in his youth? The Brown vs Board of Education ruling occurred when he was 12 years old. The Civil Rights Act was passed when he was in his early 20s. His biography does not show any insurmountable difficulties. Update:I just checked the fine print of the Wiki article on apartheid. Apartheid ended in 1995. That was 13 years ago and on another continent! But to listen to fellows like Mr. Wright, it's still ongoing. Why didn't he say "God damn South Africa?"
I do not find any justification for Mr. Obama's pastor's outrage. In fact, today I came upon this picture of Mr. Wright's house. Perhaps in a less racist America, Mr. Wright could afford this house instead.
America's legacy of slavery is that politicians like Mr. Obama attach themselves to men like Mr. Wright for the power he has accumulated to himself. Mr. Wright accumulates that power by pandering to the grievances of blacks with legitimate complaints of disadvantage. His message of "we're owed" is clearly false in Mr. Wright's life. How does "we're owed" help any disadvantaged person of any color overcome his disadvantaged station in life?
If you think "we're owed" you'll have an excuse for all of your own failings. if you think "we're owed" you'll think someone else needs to do something for your benefit and this encourages passivity on your part. This does make the slaves on the liberal plantation easier to control after all.
I think I owe this to the black man: You're my equal. Act like it. Man up. Take control of your life and overcome whatever disadvantages. If you fail, open your eyes and learn why you failed. It wasn't for lack of 40 acres and a mule a century before you were born.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Real and Phony Martyrs
On Sunday, Pope Benedict XVI baptized a Christian convert named Magdi Allam. This placed Mr. Allam and the Pope at risk of retribution from Islamic extremists. You may recall a year ago the Pope merely suggested that REASON should be the operant basis for interfaith dialog, whereupon adherents to "the religion of peace" started rioting, burning things, and killing people.
With this in mind I wondered what in the world had gotten into the Pope's head. Though some Moslems think that leaving Islam is a sin to be punished by Allah, a significant number start sharpening their knives.
I now think that this is exactly what the Pope is thinking. The reality of Christianity is never so obvious as when the martyr stands in the coliseum indifferent to the lions. Ours is a faith predicated upon the Resurrection and to people looking forward to Resurrection martyrdom is no loss. Thus, I won't be terribly surprised, though horribly grieved, to note that Mr. Allam, or even the Pope has been murdered by some swine.
Contrast this with phony martyrs: Feckless losers who have no significance to their lives except killing as many people as flagrantly as possible then saving the last bullet for themselves. I'm thinking of the fellows who shot up Columbine High School some years ago. These men did the devil's work and traded their souls for a few weeks' worth of posthumous headlines.
John Lennon failed to consider these swine pigs when he sang, in "Imagine" no hell below us and above us only sky. Society cannot work without justice and how can there be justice for the murder-suicide without hell? Or call it what you will a just repayment after this life for crimes personally committed during this life.
Nowadays, when you hear of "martyrs" on the news, they are more often than not murder-suicides essentially the same as the swine of Columbine. They strap on a bomb vest and kill Israeli or Iraqi civilians. If there's a deity that rewards such behavior with Paradise, he's the devil. I want to go to where that deity isn't.
The man who bravely stands for his God and for his faith when dogs would murder him for no other reason than that he stands for it--he is a man. He is no phony martyr.
With this in mind I wondered what in the world had gotten into the Pope's head. Though some Moslems think that leaving Islam is a sin to be punished by Allah, a significant number start sharpening their knives.
I now think that this is exactly what the Pope is thinking. The reality of Christianity is never so obvious as when the martyr stands in the coliseum indifferent to the lions. Ours is a faith predicated upon the Resurrection and to people looking forward to Resurrection martyrdom is no loss. Thus, I won't be terribly surprised, though horribly grieved, to note that Mr. Allam, or even the Pope has been murdered by some swine.
Contrast this with phony martyrs: Feckless losers who have no significance to their lives except killing as many people as flagrantly as possible then saving the last bullet for themselves. I'm thinking of the fellows who shot up Columbine High School some years ago. These men did the devil's work and traded their souls for a few weeks' worth of posthumous headlines.
John Lennon failed to consider these swine pigs when he sang, in "Imagine" no hell below us and above us only sky. Society cannot work without justice and how can there be justice for the murder-suicide without hell? Or call it what you will a just repayment after this life for crimes personally committed during this life.
Nowadays, when you hear of "martyrs" on the news, they are more often than not murder-suicides essentially the same as the swine of Columbine. They strap on a bomb vest and kill Israeli or Iraqi civilians. If there's a deity that rewards such behavior with Paradise, he's the devil. I want to go to where that deity isn't.
The man who bravely stands for his God and for his faith when dogs would murder him for no other reason than that he stands for it--he is a man. He is no phony martyr.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Let's Not Be Frank
At this moment in my DVD player is a film series from the 1970s. When I was an undergrad I worked in the library and one of my more enjoyable duties entailed showing films for various assemblies. What I enjoyed most was on Sunday evenings setting up and showing a series of films starring Francis Schaeffer entitled, "How Shall We Then Live." I bought the DVDs last year and this week on a lark my wife started watching them again.
Francis Schaeffer was one of my heroes. I recall emerging from my agnosticism negotiating exactly how much of a thinker I could be while remaining true to Christianity. Francis Schaeffer and C.S. Lewis were significant influences in my defining the relationship between Christian Theism and philosophical thought.
Toward the end of "How Shall We Then Live" Schaeffer tends to get dark in his warnings of where we're going as a society. Secular humanism was the great Satan of those days, but at least it was humanistic. Contrast that with what Pope John Paul II called our culture of sex and death.
This darkness of tone, this warning of impending statist anti-humanism became much more apparent in Schaeffer's follow-on movie series, "What Ever Happened To The Human Race."
I caught a vibe back then that something wasn't quite right, but I couldn't put my finger on anything. I was and continue to be committed to pro-life. I had to admit the truth of Schaeffer's thesis in that film series. There really is no difference between one government that declares Jews to be non-persons, and another that declares the same about Blacks as the US did prior to the Civil War. And who's to prevent the Supreme Court from declaring that the unborn are non-persons, too? And thereby Francis Schaeffer violated Godwin's Law in his anti-abortion rhetoric, and taught a generation of pro-lifers to do likewise.
This was something I enthusiastically supported. But I think that was a mistake. Today I spoke with a friend about adoption and abortion. I've always said that I think every pro-lifer has a moral obligation to be willing to adopt and to do so if that will prevent an abortion. I heard long ago that the number of couples wanting to adopt is roughly equal to the number of abortions. Why has the pro-life movement done nothing about this? What have we done except vote for corrupt idiots who'll promise to nominate strict constructionist judges in the empty hope that Roe v Wade will be overturned?
Why is it easier to fly across the world to China or Korea to adopt than it is to adopt a child right here? Why haven't we asked this of our pro-life legislators?
It is too easy to say that Francis Schaeffer blinded us with Godwin's law. But I doubt that. It's more natural to oppose force with force. Godless feminazis get one Supreme Court to overturn abortion laws. We'll get our own Supreme Court to reinstate them. Let's face it, pro-life politics is a great way to keep Christians voting for Republicans who mumble incoherencies about "the sanctity of life" without having to actually DO ANYTHING about it.
So, now, I read that Francis Schaeffer's son, Frank, has come out condemning his father's political activism. I have never had much respect for junior. He always seemed to be something of a parasite on his father's ministry. Like Yoko Ono's baleful influence seen in "Let It Be." I think he saw this and tried unsuccessfully to attain a measure of independent achievement.
The complete extent of his failure has been seen in his recent denunciation of his father. Mr. Schaeffer has taken his place in that long line of ghoulish children who dine on a dead parent's reputation. He has thus made his stock and trade deconstructing and discrediting his father's work. Let's not be Frank.
It may be so, my lord.
Hear, nature, hear; dear goddess, hear!
Suspend thy purpose, if thou didst intend
To make this creature fruitful!
Into her womb convey sterility!
Dry up in her the organs of increase;
And from her derogate body never spring
A babe to honour her! If she must teem,
Create her child of spleen; that it may live,
And be a thwart disnatured torment to her!
Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth;
With cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks;
Turn all her mother's pains and benefits
To laughter and contempt; that she may feel
How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
To have a thankless child! Away, away!
-- William Shakespeare in King Lear
Francis Schaeffer was one of my heroes. I recall emerging from my agnosticism negotiating exactly how much of a thinker I could be while remaining true to Christianity. Francis Schaeffer and C.S. Lewis were significant influences in my defining the relationship between Christian Theism and philosophical thought.
Toward the end of "How Shall We Then Live" Schaeffer tends to get dark in his warnings of where we're going as a society. Secular humanism was the great Satan of those days, but at least it was humanistic. Contrast that with what Pope John Paul II called our culture of sex and death.
This darkness of tone, this warning of impending statist anti-humanism became much more apparent in Schaeffer's follow-on movie series, "What Ever Happened To The Human Race."
I caught a vibe back then that something wasn't quite right, but I couldn't put my finger on anything. I was and continue to be committed to pro-life. I had to admit the truth of Schaeffer's thesis in that film series. There really is no difference between one government that declares Jews to be non-persons, and another that declares the same about Blacks as the US did prior to the Civil War. And who's to prevent the Supreme Court from declaring that the unborn are non-persons, too? And thereby Francis Schaeffer violated Godwin's Law in his anti-abortion rhetoric, and taught a generation of pro-lifers to do likewise.
This was something I enthusiastically supported. But I think that was a mistake. Today I spoke with a friend about adoption and abortion. I've always said that I think every pro-lifer has a moral obligation to be willing to adopt and to do so if that will prevent an abortion. I heard long ago that the number of couples wanting to adopt is roughly equal to the number of abortions. Why has the pro-life movement done nothing about this? What have we done except vote for corrupt idiots who'll promise to nominate strict constructionist judges in the empty hope that Roe v Wade will be overturned?
Why is it easier to fly across the world to China or Korea to adopt than it is to adopt a child right here? Why haven't we asked this of our pro-life legislators?
It is too easy to say that Francis Schaeffer blinded us with Godwin's law. But I doubt that. It's more natural to oppose force with force. Godless feminazis get one Supreme Court to overturn abortion laws. We'll get our own Supreme Court to reinstate them. Let's face it, pro-life politics is a great way to keep Christians voting for Republicans who mumble incoherencies about "the sanctity of life" without having to actually DO ANYTHING about it.
So, now, I read that Francis Schaeffer's son, Frank, has come out condemning his father's political activism. I have never had much respect for junior. He always seemed to be something of a parasite on his father's ministry. Like Yoko Ono's baleful influence seen in "Let It Be." I think he saw this and tried unsuccessfully to attain a measure of independent achievement.
The complete extent of his failure has been seen in his recent denunciation of his father. Mr. Schaeffer has taken his place in that long line of ghoulish children who dine on a dead parent's reputation. He has thus made his stock and trade deconstructing and discrediting his father's work. Let's not be Frank.
It may be so, my lord.
Hear, nature, hear; dear goddess, hear!
Suspend thy purpose, if thou didst intend
To make this creature fruitful!
Into her womb convey sterility!
Dry up in her the organs of increase;
And from her derogate body never spring
A babe to honour her! If she must teem,
Create her child of spleen; that it may live,
And be a thwart disnatured torment to her!
Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth;
With cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks;
Turn all her mother's pains and benefits
To laughter and contempt; that she may feel
How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
To have a thankless child! Away, away!
-- William Shakespeare in King Lear
Friday, March 14, 2008
Reducing My Carbon Footprint
A couple weeks ago my brother called me. He wanted me to get on eBay and find out what a Honda Metropolitan II sold for. I told him. He said he had one for sale. Well, not his, it belonged to his boss. The price was right.
Now, sometime in the mid '70s, my brother got a moped, a Puch. And between then and now he's bought a few dozen more. He says he doesn't collect them, he hoards them. I thought it would be fun to tool around with him sometime. So, I asked him to keep an eye out for one if it came on sale.
It's a 50cc Honda scooter that's classified as a moped. It's top speed is about 25mph IFF you're going downhill with a tailwind. This afternoon I saw the temps were in the 50s for the first time ever. I gave him a call, brought him the money, got the license and registration, and went to his house to pick it up.
He lives on the west side of GR and Mary rode along to drive back the van. She asked if I wanted to wear long underwear and I scoffed at her. Nevertheless, I took my hose hat and gloves and put on a flannel shirt beneath my leather jacket.
I set off to bring it home. When your vehicle has a top speed that's 25mph with a nominal speed well below that, you have to plan your route carefully. At the secretary of state's office, they had a moped safety brochure and I'd read it this afternoon. Setting off, I was filled with paranoia. Potholes are particularly bad this year and I could easily see myself falling in never to be found, just paved over by an inattentive road crew. Traffic whizzed past and I felt more kinship with the pedestrians on the sidewalk who invariably looked and smiled.
When I got home, I turned off the moped (or is it a scooter?) and just whooped. It was a blast, but I should have worn long underwear.
My brother brags that he gets 100 miles to a gallon. With gas at $3.40, that's a consideration. I've plotted a side-road route between here and work. If it ever warms up I intend to see what the commute is like. I'm looking forward to it.
Now, sometime in the mid '70s, my brother got a moped, a Puch. And between then and now he's bought a few dozen more. He says he doesn't collect them, he hoards them. I thought it would be fun to tool around with him sometime. So, I asked him to keep an eye out for one if it came on sale.
It's a 50cc Honda scooter that's classified as a moped. It's top speed is about 25mph IFF you're going downhill with a tailwind. This afternoon I saw the temps were in the 50s for the first time ever. I gave him a call, brought him the money, got the license and registration, and went to his house to pick it up.
He lives on the west side of GR and Mary rode along to drive back the van. She asked if I wanted to wear long underwear and I scoffed at her. Nevertheless, I took my hose hat and gloves and put on a flannel shirt beneath my leather jacket.
I set off to bring it home. When your vehicle has a top speed that's 25mph with a nominal speed well below that, you have to plan your route carefully. At the secretary of state's office, they had a moped safety brochure and I'd read it this afternoon. Setting off, I was filled with paranoia. Potholes are particularly bad this year and I could easily see myself falling in never to be found, just paved over by an inattentive road crew. Traffic whizzed past and I felt more kinship with the pedestrians on the sidewalk who invariably looked and smiled.
When I got home, I turned off the moped (or is it a scooter?) and just whooped. It was a blast, but I should have worn long underwear.
My brother brags that he gets 100 miles to a gallon. With gas at $3.40, that's a consideration. I've plotted a side-road route between here and work. If it ever warms up I intend to see what the commute is like. I'm looking forward to it.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
A Specific Reason To Vote For Obama
I've been listening to the latest spin about Mr. Obama's run for president and how his supporters are being grilled by right-wing talk radio. The problem question: name one specific reason why you support Mr. Obama. And the right-wing meme is that there's no specific reason, just a velvet fog of good intentions.
Well, let me provide a specific reason to vote for Mr. Obama. He's a Liberal and will pursue a Liberal program of governance. This isn't in any way news to anyone. He's stated any number of expansive government initiatives he'd like to see enacted. This is the antithesis of Mr. Reagan's thesis that "government is the problem."
I think that the Democrats and Republicans have done the country a disservice in turning the word "Liberal" into a demon term. Most voters simply do not know what the words Conservative and Liberal mean. For instance, when Mr. Huckabee advances a pro-life position while also advancing an agenda of activist solve-all-your-problems government, people think that means he's Conservative. Same goes for Mr. Bush who creates a new Medicare drug entitlement initiating a major new spending program to pay for it. This isn't Conservatism. It got so bad that Mr. Bush's Wilsonian approach to foreign policy and his huge domestic spending increases were fleetingly called "Big Government Conservatism." No, Big Government Conservatism, just like Compassionate Conservatism are simply code-words for the "Liberalism that dares not speak its name."
Given the Republicans who are running for President, it looks like the Republicans will be trying to expand the tent to fit more populists and liberals. And given Mr. Bush's failure to control the Federal Bureaucracy, we've seen a federal government that is not recognizably Conservative. Need a fresh example: the Department of Justice has filed briefs to support the Washington DC handgun ban. Hint: defending gun control is not conservatism.
Why vote for a faux-Conservative who'll say nice things about Mr. Reagan and rule as a Liberal? Wouldn't voting for Mr. Obama be mere truth in advertising? He's clearly a Liberal and he'll rule as a Liberal if he's elected. Better than what we have now.
Well, let me provide a specific reason to vote for Mr. Obama. He's a Liberal and will pursue a Liberal program of governance. This isn't in any way news to anyone. He's stated any number of expansive government initiatives he'd like to see enacted. This is the antithesis of Mr. Reagan's thesis that "government is the problem."
I think that the Democrats and Republicans have done the country a disservice in turning the word "Liberal" into a demon term. Most voters simply do not know what the words Conservative and Liberal mean. For instance, when Mr. Huckabee advances a pro-life position while also advancing an agenda of activist solve-all-your-problems government, people think that means he's Conservative. Same goes for Mr. Bush who creates a new Medicare drug entitlement initiating a major new spending program to pay for it. This isn't Conservatism. It got so bad that Mr. Bush's Wilsonian approach to foreign policy and his huge domestic spending increases were fleetingly called "Big Government Conservatism." No, Big Government Conservatism, just like Compassionate Conservatism are simply code-words for the "Liberalism that dares not speak its name."
Given the Republicans who are running for President, it looks like the Republicans will be trying to expand the tent to fit more populists and liberals. And given Mr. Bush's failure to control the Federal Bureaucracy, we've seen a federal government that is not recognizably Conservative. Need a fresh example: the Department of Justice has filed briefs to support the Washington DC handgun ban. Hint: defending gun control is not conservatism.
Why vote for a faux-Conservative who'll say nice things about Mr. Reagan and rule as a Liberal? Wouldn't voting for Mr. Obama be mere truth in advertising? He's clearly a Liberal and he'll rule as a Liberal if he's elected. Better than what we have now.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Who'd Vote For A Black Man?
I just read the news that Mr. Obama's vote counts in the recent New York primary election were disappointing. Particularly, those precincts of New York where he has received zero, count them, zero votes.
I understand that the Democrat party is not as enlightened as the party of Lincoln in its handling of race relations. The party of slavery, after all, numbers among its Senators the former klansman Mr. Robert Byrd. Thus, when a black gets all uppity and runs for President, I can understand that Democrat voters might prefer someone a little "whiter," like Mrs. Clifton.
Of particular interest in this primary election's results was Mr. Obama's performance in New York's 94th District where right-thinking Democrats understand a black man's place in society. I suspect the baleful influence of the Dutch, who created Apartheid, and settled that part of New York, and who named that district where Mr. Obama got ZERO VOTES, Harlem.
Or maybe not and there is a poll tax in Harlem?
I understand that the Democrat party is not as enlightened as the party of Lincoln in its handling of race relations. The party of slavery, after all, numbers among its Senators the former klansman Mr. Robert Byrd. Thus, when a black gets all uppity and runs for President, I can understand that Democrat voters might prefer someone a little "whiter," like Mrs. Clifton.
Of particular interest in this primary election's results was Mr. Obama's performance in New York's 94th District where right-thinking Democrats understand a black man's place in society. I suspect the baleful influence of the Dutch, who created Apartheid, and settled that part of New York, and who named that district where Mr. Obama got ZERO VOTES, Harlem.
Or maybe not and there is a poll tax in Harlem?
That Was An Invalid Response
Freezing rain canceled church, so I was sitting at the kitchen table relaxing on a Sunday morning. The phone rang.
I answered as I always so, "Steve Poling speaking." It is something all my friends expect and well within the guidelines I learned in grade school about how to use the telephone.
This approach has the advantage of immediately putting telemarketers on the defensive as they will invariably ask, "May I speak with Steve Poling?" When I'm feeling unkind, I answer them with, "What did I just say?" In any event, I won't buy anything from anyone who asks to speak with Steve Poling after I tell them that I am speaking.
In recent years this alternative telephone protocol has brought unexpected benefits. Nowadays computers can do rudimentary speech recognition. Thus some telemarketers' computers will wait until someone says, "Hello," before launching into their pitch. "Steve Poling speaking," is insufficiently close to "Hello" for the computer to cope. The result is usually a few seconds of dead air sufficient to convince me to blow off this robocall.
However, this morning the telemarketing call only paused briefly before replying, "That is an invalid response." Telemarketing computers are offering telephone etiquette advice? I hung up.
I answered as I always so, "Steve Poling speaking." It is something all my friends expect and well within the guidelines I learned in grade school about how to use the telephone.
This approach has the advantage of immediately putting telemarketers on the defensive as they will invariably ask, "May I speak with Steve Poling?" When I'm feeling unkind, I answer them with, "What did I just say?" In any event, I won't buy anything from anyone who asks to speak with Steve Poling after I tell them that I am speaking.
In recent years this alternative telephone protocol has brought unexpected benefits. Nowadays computers can do rudimentary speech recognition. Thus some telemarketers' computers will wait until someone says, "Hello," before launching into their pitch. "Steve Poling speaking," is insufficiently close to "Hello" for the computer to cope. The result is usually a few seconds of dead air sufficient to convince me to blow off this robocall.
However, this morning the telemarketing call only paused briefly before replying, "That is an invalid response." Telemarketing computers are offering telephone etiquette advice? I hung up.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Sucky Pro-Life Rhetoric
I just read the following exchange:
MR. RUSSERT: But you said you would ban all abortions.
GOV. HUCKABEE: Well, that's not just because I'm a Christian, that's because I'm an American. Our founding fathers said that we're all created equal. I think every person has intrinsic worth and value...
Now, I'm pleased that Mr. Huckabee is pro-life. And I'm not ragging on him, I'm ragging on every Republican politician within living memory.
Let's make one thing very clear: I am not pro-life because I am a Christian. Christianity is a religion that places ethical demands upon Christians. Pro-life politicians are NOT running for Preacher, Priest, or Pope. Politicians, particularly Republican presidential candidates are not and shall not be in a position to extend any ethical demands of Christianity to the general populace. CHRISTIANITY SHOULD NOT EVEN BE MENTIONED IN THIS CONTEXT.
Several Republican presidential candidates say that they are pro-life. Mr. Bush says he is pro-life. This is good. WHY are these people pro-life? Simply stated, abortion is a procedure for terminating a pregnancy without producing a live birth. This procedure is legal by judicial fiat. Pro-life politicians say they want to change this. Why? Tell us why you think so.
I am pro-life and I'm pro-life for reasons I'll not rehearse here. I'm sick of fellows like Mr. Bush talking about "the sanctity of life" which is code for something, but it isn't a straight reason.
The trouble with talking in code is that all the pro-lifers will recognize the code as will the pro-choicers. Great, we can choose up sides and throw rocks at each other. That's all. Nobody needs think at all, just just have to follow.
Let's suppose Mr. Huckabee has some absolutely killer reasons for being pro-life, trot them out, tell them to Mr. Russert. And let's suppose Mrs. Clinton trots out her reasons for being pro-choice. With the reasons available for everyone to examine, we'll know who's a "true" pro-lifer or pro-choicer and who's just mouthing codewords to get votes.
And if we have the arguments out there duking it out, people will be thinking about these things. I believe in this thing called Democracy and that demands an informed electorate. I believe in reason and the ability of people of good will to discuss disagreements and come to whatever compromises are possible. Generally, we think no compromise is possible in the pro-life vs pro-choice argument. Yes, abortion or not is either killing the unborn or not. But perhaps some accommodation can be made for the unwilling mother? Can nothing be done to avoid unwanted pregnancies altogether?
I don't think pro-life voters are idiots, and I wish Republican politicians would quit treating us like it.
MR. RUSSERT: But you said you would ban all abortions.
GOV. HUCKABEE: Well, that's not just because I'm a Christian, that's because I'm an American. Our founding fathers said that we're all created equal. I think every person has intrinsic worth and value...
Now, I'm pleased that Mr. Huckabee is pro-life. And I'm not ragging on him, I'm ragging on every Republican politician within living memory.
Let's make one thing very clear: I am not pro-life because I am a Christian. Christianity is a religion that places ethical demands upon Christians. Pro-life politicians are NOT running for Preacher, Priest, or Pope. Politicians, particularly Republican presidential candidates are not and shall not be in a position to extend any ethical demands of Christianity to the general populace. CHRISTIANITY SHOULD NOT EVEN BE MENTIONED IN THIS CONTEXT.
Several Republican presidential candidates say that they are pro-life. Mr. Bush says he is pro-life. This is good. WHY are these people pro-life? Simply stated, abortion is a procedure for terminating a pregnancy without producing a live birth. This procedure is legal by judicial fiat. Pro-life politicians say they want to change this. Why? Tell us why you think so.
I am pro-life and I'm pro-life for reasons I'll not rehearse here. I'm sick of fellows like Mr. Bush talking about "the sanctity of life" which is code for something, but it isn't a straight reason.
The trouble with talking in code is that all the pro-lifers will recognize the code as will the pro-choicers. Great, we can choose up sides and throw rocks at each other. That's all. Nobody needs think at all, just just have to follow.
Let's suppose Mr. Huckabee has some absolutely killer reasons for being pro-life, trot them out, tell them to Mr. Russert. And let's suppose Mrs. Clinton trots out her reasons for being pro-choice. With the reasons available for everyone to examine, we'll know who's a "true" pro-lifer or pro-choicer and who's just mouthing codewords to get votes.
And if we have the arguments out there duking it out, people will be thinking about these things. I believe in this thing called Democracy and that demands an informed electorate. I believe in reason and the ability of people of good will to discuss disagreements and come to whatever compromises are possible. Generally, we think no compromise is possible in the pro-life vs pro-choice argument. Yes, abortion or not is either killing the unborn or not. But perhaps some accommodation can be made for the unwilling mother? Can nothing be done to avoid unwanted pregnancies altogether?
I don't think pro-life voters are idiots, and I wish Republican politicians would quit treating us like it.
Friday, December 28, 2007
Southern Baptists and Liberalism
I've said before that I'm a Fundamentalist. Sometimes I'll say I'm an Evangelical and blur that distinction that I want to draw into tight focus now. Fundamentalist, like Puritan is a demon-term that is applied to behaviors and attitudes no self-respecting Puritan or Fundamentalist would identify with. So, when I say Fundamentalist, I mean to say that there are certain key ideas that are "fundamental" to Christianity. Did Adam have a navel? I don't care. It's not a "fundamental" of the Christian faith. Did Christ rise from the dead? I do care. You have a right to deny this. But if your religion denies it, it isn't Christianity. If you agree that similar non-negotiables exist in the Christian faith, you are to that extent a Fundamentalist, too.
Over a century ago German rationalism re-examined Christian dogma and rejected certain supernatural elements of the religion, while retaining certain moralistic teachings and rites and forms of Christianity. This redefinition of Christianity is either a rearrangement of trivialities OR constitutes a heretical poseur that's no more Christianity than Islam or Judaism is. Fundamentalism claimed the latter and Theological Liberalism claimed the former. The institutional machinery of a number of Protestant denominations embraced Theological Liberalism and in response the Fundamentalists dropped out. I am a member of a Baptist association that dropped out of the Northern Baptist Convention very early and has historically been somewhat militant and defensive about its Fundamentalism.
The Southern Baptist Convention also saw inroads of Theological Liberalism and many Baptists dropped out, too. Jerry Falwell and the Bible Baptists of the south came out and were separate from a Southern Baptist Convention that was "going liberal." However, something significant happened in the 1970s: The Southern Baptist Convention reversed this trend. Theological Conservatives were able to wrest control of the Southern Baptist Convention from the Theological Liberals. This did not happen without a fight and many Southern Baptists lined up on opposite sides of this conflict. The educational institutions of the Southern Baptist Convention remained solidly within the Liberal camp so that my alma mater, Cedarville University, was asked by the Southern Baptist Convention to serve as a conservative alternative.
Southern Baptists have been active and prominent in Democrat politics for a long time. Mr. Jimmy Carter was a Southern Baptist Sunday School teacher. Mr. Bill Clinton sang in a Southern Baptist choir. Mr. Albert Gore attended a Southern Baptist seminary. Nevertheless, these men have not participated in the resurgence of orthodoxy within the Southern Baptist convention.
So then, it was with interest that I learned that Mr. Paul Pressler claimed that Mr. Huckabee had been a slacker in the war against secularists within the Baptist church. Very interesting. Is Mr. Huckabee one of those Southern Baptists?
Mr. Huckabee has been playing a game of "identity politics" that I strongly dislike. I'd prefer a politician who articulates political positions congruent with my own to a politician who goes to my church. However, if Mr. Huckabee is going to play the game of identity politics, he'd better be the RIGHT KIND OF BAPTIST. Because if he isn't, Republican Primary voters may say "Die Heretic!" and push him off the bridge.
Over a century ago German rationalism re-examined Christian dogma and rejected certain supernatural elements of the religion, while retaining certain moralistic teachings and rites and forms of Christianity. This redefinition of Christianity is either a rearrangement of trivialities OR constitutes a heretical poseur that's no more Christianity than Islam or Judaism is. Fundamentalism claimed the latter and Theological Liberalism claimed the former. The institutional machinery of a number of Protestant denominations embraced Theological Liberalism and in response the Fundamentalists dropped out. I am a member of a Baptist association that dropped out of the Northern Baptist Convention very early and has historically been somewhat militant and defensive about its Fundamentalism.
The Southern Baptist Convention also saw inroads of Theological Liberalism and many Baptists dropped out, too. Jerry Falwell and the Bible Baptists of the south came out and were separate from a Southern Baptist Convention that was "going liberal." However, something significant happened in the 1970s: The Southern Baptist Convention reversed this trend. Theological Conservatives were able to wrest control of the Southern Baptist Convention from the Theological Liberals. This did not happen without a fight and many Southern Baptists lined up on opposite sides of this conflict. The educational institutions of the Southern Baptist Convention remained solidly within the Liberal camp so that my alma mater, Cedarville University, was asked by the Southern Baptist Convention to serve as a conservative alternative.
Southern Baptists have been active and prominent in Democrat politics for a long time. Mr. Jimmy Carter was a Southern Baptist Sunday School teacher. Mr. Bill Clinton sang in a Southern Baptist choir. Mr. Albert Gore attended a Southern Baptist seminary. Nevertheless, these men have not participated in the resurgence of orthodoxy within the Southern Baptist convention.
So then, it was with interest that I learned that Mr. Paul Pressler claimed that Mr. Huckabee had been a slacker in the war against secularists within the Baptist church. Very interesting. Is Mr. Huckabee one of those Southern Baptists?
Mr. Huckabee has been playing a game of "identity politics" that I strongly dislike. I'd prefer a politician who articulates political positions congruent with my own to a politician who goes to my church. However, if Mr. Huckabee is going to play the game of identity politics, he'd better be the RIGHT KIND OF BAPTIST. Because if he isn't, Republican Primary voters may say "Die Heretic!" and push him off the bridge.
Friday, December 21, 2007
McCain’s starting to look better to than this guy
I am an Evangelical Christian. I have identified with the Religious Right from the late 1970s. I have consistently voted and supported candidates congruent with the aims of the Religious Right AND the Religious Right has heretofore been identified as Conservative in its orientation. I am a Fundamentalist Baptist.
Last year I declared that John McCain is a media hoax and I've thought Mr. McCain's only strength in Republican primary elections came from Democrat crossovers. We saw that in 2000 and we're going to see that again next month, bringing us to Mike Huckabee. I predict Mr. Huckabee will draw a lot of CROSSOVER Democrat votes in the Michigan primary election to throw sand in the works of the Republican presidential selection machinery.
I don't like the Arkansas school of Politics. Today my wife got a push-poll robocall from what seems to be the Huckabee campaign misrepresenting Mr. Thompson's position on abortion. (My phone number is well known to Conservative/Republican databases, and I wasn't surprised by such.) I think it is OK for a politician to truthfully say, "I'm against X and my opponent is for X." This is just truth in advertising, not negative campaigning. You might like X and this information will help you vote for the other guy. It's a completely different thing to apply Arkansas spin: "I'm against abortion and my opponent once helped abortionists!" It's sleazy politics to distort an opponent's record in this fashion. If Mr. Thompson is for abortion, show me his votes, quote his words endorsing the practice. Don't repeat agitprop of the pro-abortion activists who dug this up during opposition research. For heaven's sake, don't lie (or say Clintonian half-truths) about the other guy.
Update: I am told that an independent group supporting Mr. Huckabee is responsible for similar calls in other states (NH, SC) and that Mr. Huckabee's campaign has asked them to stop. I am unaware of Mr. Huckabee doing anything to repair this group's damage to the body politic. Political lies damage more than any one candidate, they sew cynicism through the entire electorate. Mr. Huckabee owes it to the Republican party to denounce Common Sense Issues of Colorado, aka Trust Huckabee.
(All candidates who are pro-life should demonstrate how strongly they support this position by stating their reasons for it. Saying, "I was pro-life before he was," is useless.)
Mr. Huckabee has a record as governor that, though pro-life, does not demonstrate much adherence to Conservative principles. It is good to be pro-life, but pro-life politics is painless when you can say Washington won't let you DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT. The politician can mouth pro-life platitudes to keep the Republican base on board while ruling like a Liberal. If I'm tired of Arkansas politics, I'm dead-tired of the Bush school of politics. Mr. Huckabee seems to capture that infuriate-the-Left plus dishearten-the-Right combination of religious platitudes plus free spending that made me hate Mr. Bush.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has expressed his disbelief in the Virgin Birth of Christ and other miraculous claims of Christianity. He has every right to to hold and express this opinion. But he has no right to call it Christianity. Similarly, no Republican candidate has any right to redefine Conservatism in his own image. Mr. Huckabee has every right to be a pro-life liberal. If that is who he is, he should embrace that identification.
Several prominent Conservative voices have pointed out that Mr. Huckabee is no Conservative and has less than impressive foreign policy positions. Mr. Huckabee's campaign has interpreted this as a personal attack. Then his campaign gone on to counter-attack with falsehoods. (Did he learn this tactic in the from another Arkansas governor?) When Mr. Huckabee's operatives say that Mr. Rush Limbaugh just repeats the New York-Washington elite's talking-points, they misrepresent Mr. Limbaugh's record in a fashion that no one who listens to Mr. Limbaugh can believe. Did he learn this tactic from Nevada Senator, Harry Reid? Even if you think Mr. Limbaugh is the anti-christ (he's not) this is stupid politics.
Mike Huckabee is to Evangelical Republicans as Jesse Jackson is to Black Democrats. He has played a divisive game of identify politics. Vote for me because you share the color of my skin or my religion is sucky politics. When Mr. Bush nominated Ms. Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court, the White House used identity politics to hide her lack of judicial gravitas and liberal background. Written large between the lines was the message, "You Evangelical rubes should get on board because she's an Evangelical, too." I didn't buy it and the Republican base didn't buy it, either.
I will not get behind the Mike Huckabee campaign for these reasons.
Update: I have recently learned some more things that I don't like about Mr. Huckabee.
Last year I declared that John McCain is a media hoax and I've thought Mr. McCain's only strength in Republican primary elections came from Democrat crossovers. We saw that in 2000 and we're going to see that again next month, bringing us to Mike Huckabee. I predict Mr. Huckabee will draw a lot of CROSSOVER Democrat votes in the Michigan primary election to throw sand in the works of the Republican presidential selection machinery.
I don't like the Arkansas school of Politics. Today my wife got a push-poll robocall from what seems to be the Huckabee campaign misrepresenting Mr. Thompson's position on abortion. (My phone number is well known to Conservative/Republican databases, and I wasn't surprised by such.) I think it is OK for a politician to truthfully say, "I'm against X and my opponent is for X." This is just truth in advertising, not negative campaigning. You might like X and this information will help you vote for the other guy. It's a completely different thing to apply Arkansas spin: "I'm against abortion and my opponent once helped abortionists!" It's sleazy politics to distort an opponent's record in this fashion. If Mr. Thompson is for abortion, show me his votes, quote his words endorsing the practice. Don't repeat agitprop of the pro-abortion activists who dug this up during opposition research. For heaven's sake, don't lie (or say Clintonian half-truths) about the other guy.
Update: I am told that an independent group supporting Mr. Huckabee is responsible for similar calls in other states (NH, SC) and that Mr. Huckabee's campaign has asked them to stop. I am unaware of Mr. Huckabee doing anything to repair this group's damage to the body politic. Political lies damage more than any one candidate, they sew cynicism through the entire electorate. Mr. Huckabee owes it to the Republican party to denounce Common Sense Issues of Colorado, aka Trust Huckabee.
(All candidates who are pro-life should demonstrate how strongly they support this position by stating their reasons for it. Saying, "I was pro-life before he was," is useless.)
Mr. Huckabee has a record as governor that, though pro-life, does not demonstrate much adherence to Conservative principles. It is good to be pro-life, but pro-life politics is painless when you can say Washington won't let you DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT. The politician can mouth pro-life platitudes to keep the Republican base on board while ruling like a Liberal. If I'm tired of Arkansas politics, I'm dead-tired of the Bush school of politics. Mr. Huckabee seems to capture that infuriate-the-Left plus dishearten-the-Right combination of religious platitudes plus free spending that made me hate Mr. Bush.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has expressed his disbelief in the Virgin Birth of Christ and other miraculous claims of Christianity. He has every right to to hold and express this opinion. But he has no right to call it Christianity. Similarly, no Republican candidate has any right to redefine Conservatism in his own image. Mr. Huckabee has every right to be a pro-life liberal. If that is who he is, he should embrace that identification.
Several prominent Conservative voices have pointed out that Mr. Huckabee is no Conservative and has less than impressive foreign policy positions. Mr. Huckabee's campaign has interpreted this as a personal attack. Then his campaign gone on to counter-attack with falsehoods. (Did he learn this tactic in the from another Arkansas governor?) When Mr. Huckabee's operatives say that Mr. Rush Limbaugh just repeats the New York-Washington elite's talking-points, they misrepresent Mr. Limbaugh's record in a fashion that no one who listens to Mr. Limbaugh can believe. Did he learn this tactic from Nevada Senator, Harry Reid? Even if you think Mr. Limbaugh is the anti-christ (he's not) this is stupid politics.
Mike Huckabee is to Evangelical Republicans as Jesse Jackson is to Black Democrats. He has played a divisive game of identify politics. Vote for me because you share the color of my skin or my religion is sucky politics. When Mr. Bush nominated Ms. Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court, the White House used identity politics to hide her lack of judicial gravitas and liberal background. Written large between the lines was the message, "You Evangelical rubes should get on board because she's an Evangelical, too." I didn't buy it and the Republican base didn't buy it, either.
I will not get behind the Mike Huckabee campaign for these reasons.
Update: I have recently learned some more things that I don't like about Mr. Huckabee.
Friday, December 14, 2007
A Modest Proposal
This week at a time when nobody was watching, the Republican Presidential candidates had a debate. I did not see this debate. I've been following this debate season second-hand. We've had talking snowmen and sappy crooning posing questions that Democrats might like to hear of the Republicans, and that the newsies running the debates find interesting. Indeed, in the debate prior to that, questions of no interest to the Republican primary voter, were posed by operatives of the Clinton campaign.
The problem is that the news media does not share the interests of the Republican primary voter. It's my opinion that the Republican primary candidates should route around damage. There's no reason why the respective state Republican Parties should conduct the debates themselves. The video can be distributed via YouTube or some other internet mechanism. If the candidates want to make snarky comments dissing their competitors, they can post them to Scrappleface.
If the drive-by media wants to attend , let them sit in the back and after everyone's discussed the substance of interest to Republican voters, they can ask the respective candidates to repeat their Scrappleface snarks.
The problem is that the news media does not share the interests of the Republican primary voter. It's my opinion that the Republican primary candidates should route around damage. There's no reason why the respective state Republican Parties should conduct the debates themselves. The video can be distributed via YouTube or some other internet mechanism. If the candidates want to make snarky comments dissing their competitors, they can post them to Scrappleface.
If the drive-by media wants to attend , let them sit in the back and after everyone's discussed the substance of interest to Republican voters, they can ask the respective candidates to repeat their Scrappleface snarks.
Sunday, December 02, 2007
Christmas Music
I like to listen to Jazz Brunch on the local radio station. It's a Sunday morning thing to return from church and listen to tunes that I don't generally hear. Sadly, this ritual works only 11 months of the year. After Thanksgiving, the DJ picks non-stop Christmas Jazz tunes. And it's a lot better to hear Larry Carlton do "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen" than someone else.
My problem is that today's date is December 2nd. Christmas is 23 days from now. Even if I love a genre of music, being force-fed it for three weeks suffices to turn me into a Grinch or a Scrooge or whatever term signifies "zeitgeist non-participant." I remarked to my beloved wife moments ago that I appreciate Christmas songs on the weekend-of Christmas. Then they make sense and I rather enjoy them. But by that time, all the radio stations are utterly burned out on the subject and can only play zombie-like the most shopworn of the standards.
My thought, unspoken, was "Why can't they wait until the weekend of?" And the answer came to mind with the wings of Mercury, shocking in its immediacy. All the Christmas shopping has been completed by that point. There's the rub.
Consider the Peanuts TV special with its "Christmas ought not be commercial" message, but it mere presence reminds us to go shopping. Anti-commercial "meaning of Christmas" message is all good and fine, but that should not get in the way of our shopping. If radio stations were serious about the "meaning of Christmas" message, they wouldn't run Christmas carols non-stop until everyone's sick of them and, coincidentally, all opportunities for shopping are exhausted.
My problem is that today's date is December 2nd. Christmas is 23 days from now. Even if I love a genre of music, being force-fed it for three weeks suffices to turn me into a Grinch or a Scrooge or whatever term signifies "zeitgeist non-participant." I remarked to my beloved wife moments ago that I appreciate Christmas songs on the weekend-of Christmas. Then they make sense and I rather enjoy them. But by that time, all the radio stations are utterly burned out on the subject and can only play zombie-like the most shopworn of the standards.
My thought, unspoken, was "Why can't they wait until the weekend of?" And the answer came to mind with the wings of Mercury, shocking in its immediacy. All the Christmas shopping has been completed by that point. There's the rub.
Consider the Peanuts TV special with its "Christmas ought not be commercial" message, but it mere presence reminds us to go shopping. Anti-commercial "meaning of Christmas" message is all good and fine, but that should not get in the way of our shopping. If radio stations were serious about the "meaning of Christmas" message, they wouldn't run Christmas carols non-stop until everyone's sick of them and, coincidentally, all opportunities for shopping are exhausted.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
End The War
Driving to XP West Michigan tonight I passed through the trendy parts of East Grand Rapids, where I saw these yard signs that say, "End The War." When I see the words, "End The War" I have often thought that that means "Give up and cut our losses."
Here's another way of looking at it. We ended World War II in 1945 and I have every confidence that Mr. Churchill and Mr. Stalin and Mr. Roosevelt each did their level best to end that war as quickly as possible.
From now on when someone says to me, "End The War," I intend to reply, "Yes, we should win it as quickly as possible."
Here's another way of looking at it. We ended World War II in 1945 and I have every confidence that Mr. Churchill and Mr. Stalin and Mr. Roosevelt each did their level best to end that war as quickly as possible.
From now on when someone says to me, "End The War," I intend to reply, "Yes, we should win it as quickly as possible."
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
The Hollywood Stupid Tax
I've said elsewhere that I believe the death of the Star Trek franchise was due to the Hollywood Stupid Tax, a fact I realized when I saw the Enterprise from the evil-parallel Spock-with-a-goatee universe and noted that those were the only episodes that didn't suck of the entire Enterprise series.
The Hollywood Stupid Tax came to mind again yesterday when I turned on the old-movie-channel and saw the last 5 minutes of "The Dirty Dozen." That movie rocks in a way that only someone who thinks "300" was homoerotic cannot understand. There's a writers' strike on in Hollywood. So, there's an EXCUSE for the plots of all the stories being tired, derivative and repetitive. And what could the American viewing public go to see over Veterans day weekend? Anti-war sermons consisting of 87 minutes of famous-name actors giving speeches to one another. How's the box-office on your latest flick, Mr. Redford?
There's more to it than just further alienating people who already think Hollywood types suck. There's "opportunity cost." Opportunity stands rapping on the door with huge boat-loads of cash in a valise saying, "open up and this money is yours."
Just imagine what a remake of "The Dirty Dozen" would bring in in terms of box-office. Set the thing in Afghanistan and select a dozen guys in federal prison for a suicide mission to someplace in the Afghan mountains. Make them heterosexual, white, male Christians who don't sort their recyclables. Use lots of CGI and roll out an accompanying videogame that plays a lot like Halo. It's a license to make tons of money.
Now, i don't own any stock in any of the big movie companies. But if I did, I'd seriously question the financial stewardship of current management.
The Hollywood Stupid Tax came to mind again yesterday when I turned on the old-movie-channel and saw the last 5 minutes of "The Dirty Dozen." That movie rocks in a way that only someone who thinks "300" was homoerotic cannot understand. There's a writers' strike on in Hollywood. So, there's an EXCUSE for the plots of all the stories being tired, derivative and repetitive. And what could the American viewing public go to see over Veterans day weekend? Anti-war sermons consisting of 87 minutes of famous-name actors giving speeches to one another. How's the box-office on your latest flick, Mr. Redford?
There's more to it than just further alienating people who already think Hollywood types suck. There's "opportunity cost." Opportunity stands rapping on the door with huge boat-loads of cash in a valise saying, "open up and this money is yours."
Just imagine what a remake of "The Dirty Dozen" would bring in in terms of box-office. Set the thing in Afghanistan and select a dozen guys in federal prison for a suicide mission to someplace in the Afghan mountains. Make them heterosexual, white, male Christians who don't sort their recyclables. Use lots of CGI and roll out an accompanying videogame that plays a lot like Halo. It's a license to make tons of money.
Now, i don't own any stock in any of the big movie companies. But if I did, I'd seriously question the financial stewardship of current management.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Solving Problems With Unsent Email Messages
I've found that an effective problem-solving strategy is to write an email message describing the problem. This happened in the last 48 hours to me.
First, I have a legacy program that does not have any formal unit tests. It was my first OO project and my inexperience really shows. Happily, I drank the Test-Driven Development (TDD) kool-aid a couple years back so my current code doesn't suck so bad. But living in a TDD mode makes maintenance of legacy code devilish. You get used to "TDD has your back" and when you approach your legacy code with that same fearlessness about refactoring its a high-wire act without a net. Ergo, I resolved to write unit tests for the new work that's required of it and also for any refactoring I choose to do.
More easily said than done. I have some experience with CPPUNIT and have applied it on some of my C++ work with some success. However, everything I have using CPPUNIT works in 32-bit Windows on the Microsoft C++ compiler. And this legacy system is a BORLAND 16-bit Windows application with a 3rd-party GUI library nobody uses anymore called zApp that I don't want to port to 32-bit Windows and the Microsoft compiler. How to add a unit testing framework to that? Pondering this question has kept me up some evenings. But the GLSEC conference this week thrust upon me the urgency to add unit tests and the guys at Atomic who use mock objects to abstract HARDWARE got me thinking.
I saw a way to start, but there were a lot of details that I didn't understand and I wanted some help. So, I started work on an email to a colleague describing what I was trying to do and what I had a hard time understanding.
The mere act of articulating a problem is a magical thing.
I jotted down the first steps I'd taken and where, exactly I was having difficulty. And then an idea occurred. I followed up on that idea to clarify my question and in so doing I found that the idea had solved that difficulty but had raised a couple others a little further along the path to solution. So, I edited my email restating the question as a backgrounder for the current difficulty nettling me. As you can probably guess, I was mid-description when another solution came to mind. And follow-up proved itself, and I edited the email to summarize the current state of my ignorance and so on iteratively until done.
I had a working program, but an email that was a mess of half-finished edits reflecting how much I didn't know at various points in the last few hours. I deleted the unfinished message, declared victory, and went to bed.
This pattern works with more than just emails. If you have a supportive wife, or cubicle-mate, or if you're pair-programming, just describing what you don't know suffices to organize your thinking enough to suggest a solution.
First, I have a legacy program that does not have any formal unit tests. It was my first OO project and my inexperience really shows. Happily, I drank the Test-Driven Development (TDD) kool-aid a couple years back so my current code doesn't suck so bad. But living in a TDD mode makes maintenance of legacy code devilish. You get used to "TDD has your back" and when you approach your legacy code with that same fearlessness about refactoring its a high-wire act without a net. Ergo, I resolved to write unit tests for the new work that's required of it and also for any refactoring I choose to do.
More easily said than done. I have some experience with CPPUNIT and have applied it on some of my C++ work with some success. However, everything I have using CPPUNIT works in 32-bit Windows on the Microsoft C++ compiler. And this legacy system is a BORLAND 16-bit Windows application with a 3rd-party GUI library nobody uses anymore called zApp that I don't want to port to 32-bit Windows and the Microsoft compiler. How to add a unit testing framework to that? Pondering this question has kept me up some evenings. But the GLSEC conference this week thrust upon me the urgency to add unit tests and the guys at Atomic who use mock objects to abstract HARDWARE got me thinking.
I saw a way to start, but there were a lot of details that I didn't understand and I wanted some help. So, I started work on an email to a colleague describing what I was trying to do and what I had a hard time understanding.
The mere act of articulating a problem is a magical thing.
I jotted down the first steps I'd taken and where, exactly I was having difficulty. And then an idea occurred. I followed up on that idea to clarify my question and in so doing I found that the idea had solved that difficulty but had raised a couple others a little further along the path to solution. So, I edited my email restating the question as a backgrounder for the current difficulty nettling me. As you can probably guess, I was mid-description when another solution came to mind. And follow-up proved itself, and I edited the email to summarize the current state of my ignorance and so on iteratively until done.
I had a working program, but an email that was a mess of half-finished edits reflecting how much I didn't know at various points in the last few hours. I deleted the unfinished message, declared victory, and went to bed.
This pattern works with more than just emails. If you have a supportive wife, or cubicle-mate, or if you're pair-programming, just describing what you don't know suffices to organize your thinking enough to suggest a solution.
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
How to Break Borland C/C++ 4.52
Now, you're probably wondering why I'm posting about a C++ compiler that was pretty cool 12 years ago, but is now painfully obsolete. Well, believe it or not, some companies make money on software that depends upon this compiler.
Here's the deal. Normal, sane people don't rename their printers to something incredibly verbose. But if you were normal and sane you wouldn't be using Borland C/C++ v4.52. Under Windows XP, click Start | Printers and Faxes and you'll see a list of the printers installed on your machine. Pick one you like, click on its properties, and rename the printer to something like this: "HP LaserJet 4 (but I've added a very verbose description of many long and boring details to blow out memory in a zApp buffer)" Now you're all set.
Suppose you make this oddly-named printer your default printer. Then launch the Borland 4.52 IDE. You should see the Borland copyright splash screen overshadowed by a dialog box that says this:
Fatal error in IDECRTL at 0001:4758 (addr = 0x143f4758)
Borland C++ will terminate
Save editors before exit?
It doesn't matter what you do, Borland will immediately exit. And all you'll have is the unenlightening error message above to guide you. That and a bunch of 8-year-old Usenet posts that will misdirect you to version mismatched DLLs, to reinstall. Reinstalling won't help. Rebooting won't help. You'll have to change the printer name and/or the default printer to something less verbose.
Hopefully, if you see the error message above, the Google godz will wisely steer you to this note. Good luck my friend.
Here's the deal. Normal, sane people don't rename their printers to something incredibly verbose. But if you were normal and sane you wouldn't be using Borland C/C++ v4.52. Under Windows XP, click Start | Printers and Faxes and you'll see a list of the printers installed on your machine. Pick one you like, click on its properties, and rename the printer to something like this: "HP LaserJet 4 (but I've added a very verbose description of many long and boring details to blow out memory in a zApp buffer)" Now you're all set.
Suppose you make this oddly-named printer your default printer. Then launch the Borland 4.52 IDE. You should see the Borland copyright splash screen overshadowed by a dialog box that says this:
Fatal error in IDECRTL at 0001:4758 (addr = 0x143f4758)
Borland C++ will terminate
Save editors before exit?
It doesn't matter what you do, Borland will immediately exit. And all you'll have is the unenlightening error message above to guide you. That and a bunch of 8-year-old Usenet posts that will misdirect you to version mismatched DLLs, to reinstall. Reinstalling won't help. Rebooting won't help. You'll have to change the printer name and/or the default printer to something less verbose.
Hopefully, if you see the error message above, the Google godz will wisely steer you to this note. Good luck my friend.
Saturday, October 06, 2007
OK, Maybe I Will Question Your Patriotism
I believe that once you say, "the world would be better off if the US lost a war" you can't call yourself a patriot and your statement to that effect is a valid and reasonable basis to question someone's patriotism.
There's a subtle point here. Consider the following conversation:
A says, "The US would be better off if we lost this war."
B replies, "Yeah, the world would be better off if the US lost this war."
A's statement provides no basis to question his patriotism. However, B's statement expresses no concern for the interests of the US, but of "the world." His silence about what would be good for the US provides the basis to question his patriotism.
We must be clear that though the US is a part of "the world" the interests of "the world" and the interests of the US do not necessarily coincide. If you put the interests of "the world" ahead of the interests of the US, you are no patriot. If you act accordingly, those actions are treasonous.
There's a subtle point here. Consider the following conversation:
A says, "The US would be better off if we lost this war."
B replies, "Yeah, the world would be better off if the US lost this war."
A's statement provides no basis to question his patriotism. However, B's statement expresses no concern for the interests of the US, but of "the world." His silence about what would be good for the US provides the basis to question his patriotism.
We must be clear that though the US is a part of "the world" the interests of "the world" and the interests of the US do not necessarily coincide. If you put the interests of "the world" ahead of the interests of the US, you are no patriot. If you act accordingly, those actions are treasonous.
Friday, October 05, 2007
That's How S/he Expresses Patriotism
I would like to apologize to those whose patriotism I've questioned. I merely failed to properly define patriotism. I had thought that patriotism consisted of things like support for our troops during time of war, saluting the flag, and supporting the democratic process and the foreign policies of duly elected legislators and executives.
However, the semantic scales have fallen from my eyes and I now understand patriotism much better. Henceforth, every time I note the treasonous words and actions of people, I'll say:
"Spitting on our troops is just how Code Pink expresses their patriotism."
"Taking up arms against the US military is just how John Lynd expresses his patriotism."
"Working to secure the defeat the US on the battlefield is just how Harry Reid expresses his patriotism."
"Dishonoring the memory of her son is just how Cindy Sheehan expresses her patriotism."
"Slandering his brothers in arms in fraudulent testimony before Congress is just how John Kerry expressed his patriotism."
"Lying about his military record and atrocities of our troops overseas is just how Jesse MacBeth expresses his patriotism."
"Defrauding the New Republic with admitted lies is just how Scott Thomas Beauchamp expresses his patriotism."
Here's a corollary: "The New Republic, by publishing the lies and saying nothing when they're proven false is just how they support our troops."
Yup, from now on, I shall no longer question anyone's patriotism.
However, the semantic scales have fallen from my eyes and I now understand patriotism much better. Henceforth, every time I note the treasonous words and actions of people, I'll say:
"Spitting on our troops is just how Code Pink expresses their patriotism."
"Taking up arms against the US military is just how John Lynd expresses his patriotism."
"Working to secure the defeat the US on the battlefield is just how Harry Reid expresses his patriotism."
"Dishonoring the memory of her son is just how Cindy Sheehan expresses her patriotism."
"Slandering his brothers in arms in fraudulent testimony before Congress is just how John Kerry expressed his patriotism."
"Lying about his military record and atrocities of our troops overseas is just how Jesse MacBeth expresses his patriotism."
"Defrauding the New Republic with admitted lies is just how Scott Thomas Beauchamp expresses his patriotism."
Here's a corollary: "The New Republic, by publishing the lies and saying nothing when they're proven false is just how they support our troops."
Yup, from now on, I shall no longer question anyone's patriotism.
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Truth and Certainty
Last night we had dinner with some college friends. He teaches at the local Christian college and his son and mine are roommates at our alma mater, Cedarville University, also a Christian college. Turns out that when I wasn't paying attention there was a bit of a flap at Cedarville and some profs were dismissed. These sorts of disputes are amusing only if you are far enough removed to see the irony.
I guess the dispute had something to do with "truth" and the university's position on truth. Truth is of particular interest to the Christian educator, since Christian Theistic interpretive frames are so radically different from secular interpretive frameworks. Adding to the irony, pursuant to a search through my class notes to review Advanced Calculus (in case my son asks me a poser I can't answer), I happened upon a blue book from the final exam in a course I took at Cedarville, "Man & Reliable Knowledge." Hmmm, I got an A on that exam, let's reread that essay, I thought. I hope Cedarville University hasn't forgotten what it taught me about truth in 1978.
If you are to dispute something, you must define your terms. I've used a two-fold definition of truth for several years: Ultimately, truth is what God knows. Proximately, truth is what corresponds to the state of the world. Simplistic I suppose, but it works for me.
Since I'm a Christian Theist, I tend to start with the ultimate: God. Truth is what God knows is a neat answer, but it is not immediately useful to someone who isn't God. Chirstian Theology teaches that God is transcendent and ineffable. No man will reach up into heaven and draw God down. Thus, if I am to have any idea what God knows, he'll have to reveal it to me. I believe there is a God and that this God has spoken. If you have a problem with that, OK, just don't call yourself a Christian. (You can't do Christianity without Christ.)
Not only do I believe God has spoken, but I agree with the consensus of Christian theology that teaches God has disclosed himself in General Revelation to all humanity, and Special Revelation to his people. More particularly, God reveals himself in Nature, Christ and the Bible. Again, if you have a problem with that, OK, just don't call yourself a Bible-believing Christian. Truth is transmitted from its ultimate source in God's mind to humanity through these three channels. If you aren't a Christian, you still have access to Truth (in spite of yourself) through Nature. And if you're not a Christian, you'll probably interpret Truth seen in Nature in a fashion consistent with your non-Christianity.
But if you are a Christian, and a Bible-believing Christian, you have two more channels through which you can tune into Truth: the Bible and Christ. Christians often engage in Bible-thumping, and Christians often claim to have a personal relationship with Christ. (And Christians often exhort non-Christians to establish a personal relationship with Christ, too.)
Now, IF, and I say IF, you buy into the paragraphs above, we can say some things about Truth through the contrapositive. Let's suppose you can't attain certainty. Narrowly speaking, that means you are uncertain of your relationship with Christ, or your understanding of the Bible, or your perception of Nature.
None of those things are bad in and of themselves. We should not take them for granted, and we should diligently question and distrust ourselves. We are fallen, finite beings and redemption is an incremental business.
(Healthy self-doubt is one thing, but denial is another thing. When the skeptic says, "there is no truth" or "noone can know anything for certain" there is little doubt in such a denial.)
There is another dimension of this matter: Exhaustive truth versus effective truth. God, being infinite understands exhaustively. I am not God and I am finite. In the last century Modernism suffered mortal wounds as it was proved that axiomatic systems (math) could not be consistent and complete (Goedel) and philosophy delved into various post-rational expressions. Modernism was naive in its expansive claims of truth and certainty. Post-modernism has rightly debunked this naivety.
However, many Post-moderns conflate debunking exhaustive knowledge with debunking ALL knowledge. A Post-modernist may be fully on board with his debunking of axiomatic systems, but he still uses arithmetic to balance his checkbook.
I like to say that Christian Theism is A-Modernist, neither Modernist nor Post-Modernist. We have to agree with the Post-modernist that we can't know everything, but disagree with him that we CAN KNOW SOMETHING. The Christian knows that the finite cannot encompass the infinite. If God reveals himself to mankind, he does so partially. The Bible says it "makes men wise unto salvation." Thus we should expect it to give us EFFECTIVE knowledge of God, but not EXHAUSTIVE knowledge.
Knowing that we won't have EXHAUSTIVE knowledge of God should motivate humility within us and an openness to those parts we don't yet know. But we can also rest in confident certainty of the bits of himself that God has EFFECTIVELY given us.
I guess the dispute had something to do with "truth" and the university's position on truth. Truth is of particular interest to the Christian educator, since Christian Theistic interpretive frames are so radically different from secular interpretive frameworks. Adding to the irony, pursuant to a search through my class notes to review Advanced Calculus (in case my son asks me a poser I can't answer), I happened upon a blue book from the final exam in a course I took at Cedarville, "Man & Reliable Knowledge." Hmmm, I got an A on that exam, let's reread that essay, I thought. I hope Cedarville University hasn't forgotten what it taught me about truth in 1978.
If you are to dispute something, you must define your terms. I've used a two-fold definition of truth for several years: Ultimately, truth is what God knows. Proximately, truth is what corresponds to the state of the world. Simplistic I suppose, but it works for me.
Since I'm a Christian Theist, I tend to start with the ultimate: God. Truth is what God knows is a neat answer, but it is not immediately useful to someone who isn't God. Chirstian Theology teaches that God is transcendent and ineffable. No man will reach up into heaven and draw God down. Thus, if I am to have any idea what God knows, he'll have to reveal it to me. I believe there is a God and that this God has spoken. If you have a problem with that, OK, just don't call yourself a Christian. (You can't do Christianity without Christ.)
Not only do I believe God has spoken, but I agree with the consensus of Christian theology that teaches God has disclosed himself in General Revelation to all humanity, and Special Revelation to his people. More particularly, God reveals himself in Nature, Christ and the Bible. Again, if you have a problem with that, OK, just don't call yourself a Bible-believing Christian. Truth is transmitted from its ultimate source in God's mind to humanity through these three channels. If you aren't a Christian, you still have access to Truth (in spite of yourself) through Nature. And if you're not a Christian, you'll probably interpret Truth seen in Nature in a fashion consistent with your non-Christianity.
But if you are a Christian, and a Bible-believing Christian, you have two more channels through which you can tune into Truth: the Bible and Christ. Christians often engage in Bible-thumping, and Christians often claim to have a personal relationship with Christ. (And Christians often exhort non-Christians to establish a personal relationship with Christ, too.)
Now, IF, and I say IF, you buy into the paragraphs above, we can say some things about Truth through the contrapositive. Let's suppose you can't attain certainty. Narrowly speaking, that means you are uncertain of your relationship with Christ, or your understanding of the Bible, or your perception of Nature.
None of those things are bad in and of themselves. We should not take them for granted, and we should diligently question and distrust ourselves. We are fallen, finite beings and redemption is an incremental business.
(Healthy self-doubt is one thing, but denial is another thing. When the skeptic says, "there is no truth" or "noone can know anything for certain" there is little doubt in such a denial.)
There is another dimension of this matter: Exhaustive truth versus effective truth. God, being infinite understands exhaustively. I am not God and I am finite. In the last century Modernism suffered mortal wounds as it was proved that axiomatic systems (math) could not be consistent and complete (Goedel) and philosophy delved into various post-rational expressions. Modernism was naive in its expansive claims of truth and certainty. Post-modernism has rightly debunked this naivety.
However, many Post-moderns conflate debunking exhaustive knowledge with debunking ALL knowledge. A Post-modernist may be fully on board with his debunking of axiomatic systems, but he still uses arithmetic to balance his checkbook.
I like to say that Christian Theism is A-Modernist, neither Modernist nor Post-Modernist. We have to agree with the Post-modernist that we can't know everything, but disagree with him that we CAN KNOW SOMETHING. The Christian knows that the finite cannot encompass the infinite. If God reveals himself to mankind, he does so partially. The Bible says it "makes men wise unto salvation." Thus we should expect it to give us EFFECTIVE knowledge of God, but not EXHAUSTIVE knowledge.
Knowing that we won't have EXHAUSTIVE knowledge of God should motivate humility within us and an openness to those parts we don't yet know. But we can also rest in confident certainty of the bits of himself that God has EFFECTIVELY given us.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
It is human nature to choose
Nihilism is a philosophy about nothing. Every philosophy has things to say about God, universals, truth, mankind and the purpose of life. For instance, a philosophy of Atheism has a definite opinion about the non-existence of God. But Nihilism neither affirms nor denies any deity.
When a nihilist contemplates life, the universe, and everything he can deny in turn every unifying principle. After a few hours of doing this, a nihilist will likely grow hungry.
"Everybody's got to believe something. I believe I'll have a cookie."
You thought that was just a humorous slogan on a tee-shirt. But it is more than that: a philosophical manifesto flying under the radar. One thesis that Evangelical Christian scholars advance is that everyone has a world-view and often a world-view is adopted unconsciously. I saw the tee-shirt in the Wireless catalog with that quote, but didn't think it anything deeper than the joke. Indeed, treating everything like a joke is a nihilistic reflex.
A second unexpected, nihilistic reflex is consumerism. If nothing is true or meaningful, except for one's appetites which cannot be denied, then satisfying those appetites becomes much more significant. There are different sorts of appetites that a person encounters: sex, power, and fame come to mind.
The existence of appetites says something to the Christian Theist about the nature of creaturely existence: creatures are not self-existent: we lack something and for that we hunger.
Appetites may be cultivated. Many enjoyable foodstuffs require a cultivated palate. Children are generally revolved by the bitterness of coffee, or the painfulness of peppers. But many of them grow into adults who pay top dollar for Starbucks® coffee and splash Tabasco® hot sauce on their meals. Rail-thin fashion super-models who haunt American culture may be far less appealing in cultures who favor a more Rubenesque form.
Appetites also serve to define someone's identity. A person whose sexual appetites are restricted to members of the same sex declares a "sexual identity" of homosexual. And the same goes for whose who identify themselves as heterosexual or bisexual.
The nihilist believes in nothing but himself and his appetites. And when he feels pangs of hunger for human companionship, community is just another consumer good. It objectifies the "other" in a relationship when he or she is a mere consumer good. Making another person an object is a form of murder.
Since appetites may be cultivated, everyone is vulnerable to advertising. Advertising stirs up appetites in us that we don't know we have. Advertising creates the impression that particular goods are more desirable than others. By linking one good to another in the mind, advertising can lead to perverse appetites. "Winston tastes good like a cigarette should." How exactly should a cigarette taste? Sweet and sort of like vanilla after the fashion of the candy cigarettes they sold when I was a child? They don't sell such candy any more.
When the ancient Greeks spoke of virtue, they recognized something and hoped to instill virtue in their children. Christian parents perceive the character of God in the Ten Commandments and hope to do the same. After-school specials depict disadvantaged kids overcoming adversity, conforming to teacher/coach expectations, then going from zeros to heroes, getting the girl and humiliating powerful antagonists.
But this doesn't change human nature. Instead, appetites are cultivated in the child for the desired behaviors and attitudes. And these appetites war with other appetites within the individual. It is human nature to choose between conflicting appetites. Those choices define whether we regard the resulting individual to be virtuous or not.
This demands of us a bit of consciousness and intentionality. We will be exposed to advertising in all its forms. That advertising may be overt in terms of pictures of fashion models with ad copy overlaid. Or less so in the rants on talk-radio. Or in a preacher's exhortations. We have to pick between them and ask whether the goods represented by each are consistent with what we think best and what we want to become.
So, that's why I really don't need to see your new big-screen plasma HDTV.
When a nihilist contemplates life, the universe, and everything he can deny in turn every unifying principle. After a few hours of doing this, a nihilist will likely grow hungry.
"Everybody's got to believe something. I believe I'll have a cookie."
You thought that was just a humorous slogan on a tee-shirt. But it is more than that: a philosophical manifesto flying under the radar. One thesis that Evangelical Christian scholars advance is that everyone has a world-view and often a world-view is adopted unconsciously. I saw the tee-shirt in the Wireless catalog with that quote, but didn't think it anything deeper than the joke. Indeed, treating everything like a joke is a nihilistic reflex.
A second unexpected, nihilistic reflex is consumerism. If nothing is true or meaningful, except for one's appetites which cannot be denied, then satisfying those appetites becomes much more significant. There are different sorts of appetites that a person encounters: sex, power, and fame come to mind.
The existence of appetites says something to the Christian Theist about the nature of creaturely existence: creatures are not self-existent: we lack something and for that we hunger.
Appetites may be cultivated. Many enjoyable foodstuffs require a cultivated palate. Children are generally revolved by the bitterness of coffee, or the painfulness of peppers. But many of them grow into adults who pay top dollar for Starbucks® coffee and splash Tabasco® hot sauce on their meals. Rail-thin fashion super-models who haunt American culture may be far less appealing in cultures who favor a more Rubenesque form.
Appetites also serve to define someone's identity. A person whose sexual appetites are restricted to members of the same sex declares a "sexual identity" of homosexual. And the same goes for whose who identify themselves as heterosexual or bisexual.
The nihilist believes in nothing but himself and his appetites. And when he feels pangs of hunger for human companionship, community is just another consumer good. It objectifies the "other" in a relationship when he or she is a mere consumer good. Making another person an object is a form of murder.
Since appetites may be cultivated, everyone is vulnerable to advertising. Advertising stirs up appetites in us that we don't know we have. Advertising creates the impression that particular goods are more desirable than others. By linking one good to another in the mind, advertising can lead to perverse appetites. "Winston tastes good like a cigarette should." How exactly should a cigarette taste? Sweet and sort of like vanilla after the fashion of the candy cigarettes they sold when I was a child? They don't sell such candy any more.
When the ancient Greeks spoke of virtue, they recognized something and hoped to instill virtue in their children. Christian parents perceive the character of God in the Ten Commandments and hope to do the same. After-school specials depict disadvantaged kids overcoming adversity, conforming to teacher/coach expectations, then going from zeros to heroes, getting the girl and humiliating powerful antagonists.
But this doesn't change human nature. Instead, appetites are cultivated in the child for the desired behaviors and attitudes. And these appetites war with other appetites within the individual. It is human nature to choose between conflicting appetites. Those choices define whether we regard the resulting individual to be virtuous or not.
This demands of us a bit of consciousness and intentionality. We will be exposed to advertising in all its forms. That advertising may be overt in terms of pictures of fashion models with ad copy overlaid. Or less so in the rants on talk-radio. Or in a preacher's exhortations. We have to pick between them and ask whether the goods represented by each are consistent with what we think best and what we want to become.
So, that's why I really don't need to see your new big-screen plasma HDTV.
Saturday, July 28, 2007
On A Snowman...
There's a minor flap about Republican participation in "the YouTube debate." And at least one Republican candidate has stated that he won't answer questions from a talking snowman. This is rather cute, but it reflects something I detest about American Politics of the last couple decades. You see, I felt George Bush Sr's pain during the 1992 presidential debate: the one where he looked at his watch and some pony-tail guy was asking the US Government to be his parents. That was a complete waste of time to WATCH, much less participate in. And it handed an advantage to the more touchy-feely Slick One.
Message to politicians: you don't win playing the game the other guys try to foist upon you.
Now it's wrong to just sulk and say, "I'm not going to play." Or "This is beneath MY dignity." (particularly when true.) But think back to earlier in the political season. Of how Fred Thompson became the "mirror of desire" to every Conservative. He did two things that are Right Moves:
1) Michael Moore challenged Fred Thompson to a debate. What did Mr. Thompson do? He produced a video and posted it on YouTube wherein he responded to the "humorist," asserting that Mr. Castro is a dictator wont to put people into insane asylums and that Mr. Moore should think about insane asylums.
2) Periodically during this campaign season, Mr. Thompson has written short essays describing the way things ought to be. They sound thoughtful and they clearly define the sorts of general-principles-of-conservatism that have gotten lost. While everyone is trying to claim the mantle of Reaganism, Mr. Thompson has used the non-sound-bite medium of the short essay (delivered on radio, or in blogs) to articulate what exactly he has in mind.
I have a friend who recently confessed to me that he doesn't think he's a conservative any more. I asked if he was wavering in his Conservatism or in his Bushism? Look at what Washington Republicans and even Lansing Republicans have been doing for the last few years. They've failed to express any principles that define why they're Republicans, and in the case of Washington, they've proven just as profligate at growing government and spending money as the Democrats ever were. Mr. DeVos lost the governor's race to a fairly inept Democrat because he uh ...why was he running? If the only difference between a Republican and a Democrat is that they'll cut the same pie differently and hand out goodies to different people, it makes little difference to me.
Republicans hereabouts did some finger-pointing about failing to "go negative" in local races after the Democrats handed us our butts in the last election. Yes, the other guy WAS a convicted criminal, but dammit boys, what were you FOR?
Mr. Reagan won elections by "going positive" on what SPECIFICALLY he believed government should do (or better, NOT DO). Where are the principles of Conservatism articulated by Republican politicians? Don't say that you can't get into the nettles of political philosophy in a "sound bite age." Mr. Thompson demonstrated the power of the short essay in drawing support to himself.
We need something better than the politicians we've been getting. Leadership is about ideas as much as it is about political fundraising. I think Republicans have done well when they've articulated Conservative ideas. And we have the means in hand to articulate our ideas on the Internet.
You can talk to your base in codewords like "preserve the sanctity of life" which denote nothing meaningful. (Doesn't sanctity have something to do with church?) Such talk does nothing to move the uncommitted middle and provides nada in terms of post-election mandate.
Incidentally, Mr. Thompson's recent trouble with pro-abortion agitprop stems from the fact that although he has a good voting record on abortion, his essay response was about the attorney-client relationship and not the state's obligation to secure the rights of the unborn.
Politicians have learned to be vague about the specifics of what they think. When the TV coverage allows only 30 second spots, it's impossible to delve into details or be nuanced. But now a lot of people read the Internet and get their news therefrom. The next generation of politicians will be able to communicate with the electorate in a much more detailed and nuanced way.
Last night I was sitting at my dinner table and I heard a knock on the door. Thinking a friend was visiting I waved for him to come in. He didn't. He was a politician going door-to-door seeking votes. I had his opponent's sign in my yard, but I asked him to make his case for my vote and he did a good job. I asked him some "why" questions and he did a better job of selling himself than his opponent had a few weeks ago.
You can't personally go door to door when you're running for a bigger office. BUT NOW, Fred Thompson has repeatedly come into my family room and given me (and everyone else who's read his essays) a thoughtful exposition of how he thinks. Since I've heard him on Law & Order, I can fill in the accent and tone of voice. That's powerful. If you are a politician, make your case, put it in words and blog those words for all to see.
OR you can task focus groups to devise snarky responses to talking snowmen.
Message to politicians: you don't win playing the game the other guys try to foist upon you.
Now it's wrong to just sulk and say, "I'm not going to play." Or "This is beneath MY dignity." (particularly when true.) But think back to earlier in the political season. Of how Fred Thompson became the "mirror of desire" to every Conservative. He did two things that are Right Moves:
1) Michael Moore challenged Fred Thompson to a debate. What did Mr. Thompson do? He produced a video and posted it on YouTube wherein he responded to the "humorist," asserting that Mr. Castro is a dictator wont to put people into insane asylums and that Mr. Moore should think about insane asylums.
2) Periodically during this campaign season, Mr. Thompson has written short essays describing the way things ought to be. They sound thoughtful and they clearly define the sorts of general-principles-of-conservatism that have gotten lost. While everyone is trying to claim the mantle of Reaganism, Mr. Thompson has used the non-sound-bite medium of the short essay (delivered on radio, or in blogs) to articulate what exactly he has in mind.
I have a friend who recently confessed to me that he doesn't think he's a conservative any more. I asked if he was wavering in his Conservatism or in his Bushism? Look at what Washington Republicans and even Lansing Republicans have been doing for the last few years. They've failed to express any principles that define why they're Republicans, and in the case of Washington, they've proven just as profligate at growing government and spending money as the Democrats ever were. Mr. DeVos lost the governor's race to a fairly inept Democrat because he uh ...why was he running? If the only difference between a Republican and a Democrat is that they'll cut the same pie differently and hand out goodies to different people, it makes little difference to me.
Republicans hereabouts did some finger-pointing about failing to "go negative" in local races after the Democrats handed us our butts in the last election. Yes, the other guy WAS a convicted criminal, but dammit boys, what were you FOR?
Mr. Reagan won elections by "going positive" on what SPECIFICALLY he believed government should do (or better, NOT DO). Where are the principles of Conservatism articulated by Republican politicians? Don't say that you can't get into the nettles of political philosophy in a "sound bite age." Mr. Thompson demonstrated the power of the short essay in drawing support to himself.
We need something better than the politicians we've been getting. Leadership is about ideas as much as it is about political fundraising. I think Republicans have done well when they've articulated Conservative ideas. And we have the means in hand to articulate our ideas on the Internet.
You can talk to your base in codewords like "preserve the sanctity of life" which denote nothing meaningful. (Doesn't sanctity have something to do with church?) Such talk does nothing to move the uncommitted middle and provides nada in terms of post-election mandate.
Incidentally, Mr. Thompson's recent trouble with pro-abortion agitprop stems from the fact that although he has a good voting record on abortion, his essay response was about the attorney-client relationship and not the state's obligation to secure the rights of the unborn.
Politicians have learned to be vague about the specifics of what they think. When the TV coverage allows only 30 second spots, it's impossible to delve into details or be nuanced. But now a lot of people read the Internet and get their news therefrom. The next generation of politicians will be able to communicate with the electorate in a much more detailed and nuanced way.
Last night I was sitting at my dinner table and I heard a knock on the door. Thinking a friend was visiting I waved for him to come in. He didn't. He was a politician going door-to-door seeking votes. I had his opponent's sign in my yard, but I asked him to make his case for my vote and he did a good job. I asked him some "why" questions and he did a better job of selling himself than his opponent had a few weeks ago.
You can't personally go door to door when you're running for a bigger office. BUT NOW, Fred Thompson has repeatedly come into my family room and given me (and everyone else who's read his essays) a thoughtful exposition of how he thinks. Since I've heard him on Law & Order, I can fill in the accent and tone of voice. That's powerful. If you are a politician, make your case, put it in words and blog those words for all to see.
OR you can task focus groups to devise snarky responses to talking snowmen.
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Kudos Google
Google sent a couple of their people to BarCamp2 in Grand Rapids, MI this weekend.
THANK YOU.
First, they raffled off a tee-shirt on Friday night. I put my name in and lo and behold, I got a cool Google tee-shirt with the coyote howling at the moon. I'm wearing it now. Google also brought other schwag: pens, notpads, blinkies. My wife already snagged the notepad. Should have scarfed up two of them. The blinkie was cool, LEDs in the letters of the google logo. I figure the nieces and nephews will be fighting over it.
Second, they also gave away a iPod, I didn't win it, but the fellow who did looked awful darned happy.
Third, one of the Google people gave a talk on Linux systems administration and handed out Ubuntu live CDs and talked about Ubuntu. I learned it was a Debian distro of Linux and thought, what the hey, and I booted it on my work laptop that runs Windows XP. It came up smoothly, detected all the networks and stuff and everything "just worked." I was impressed.
So, my daughter's laptop has been sorta sick all summer. It runs for a while, then flakes out. (I took it in but the fellow was completely useless in diagnosing the problem. Couldn't find anything. That was $40 very mis-spent.) After BarCamp I went to my favorite hardware store and bought a 60GB hard disk, brought it home, installed it in my daughter's laptop, then booted Ubuntu. It booted fine. I told it to install on her new hard disk and walla. Everything "just worked" and has been rock-solid all evening. I'm terribly impressed with the Ubuntu CD the Google guy handed out.
Thank you, Google. You've got some great people working for you!
THANK YOU.
First, they raffled off a tee-shirt on Friday night. I put my name in and lo and behold, I got a cool Google tee-shirt with the coyote howling at the moon. I'm wearing it now. Google also brought other schwag: pens, notpads, blinkies. My wife already snagged the notepad. Should have scarfed up two of them. The blinkie was cool, LEDs in the letters of the google logo. I figure the nieces and nephews will be fighting over it.
Second, they also gave away a iPod, I didn't win it, but the fellow who did looked awful darned happy.
Third, one of the Google people gave a talk on Linux systems administration and handed out Ubuntu live CDs and talked about Ubuntu. I learned it was a Debian distro of Linux and thought, what the hey, and I booted it on my work laptop that runs Windows XP. It came up smoothly, detected all the networks and stuff and everything "just worked." I was impressed.
So, my daughter's laptop has been sorta sick all summer. It runs for a while, then flakes out. (I took it in but the fellow was completely useless in diagnosing the problem. Couldn't find anything. That was $40 very mis-spent.) After BarCamp I went to my favorite hardware store and bought a 60GB hard disk, brought it home, installed it in my daughter's laptop, then booted Ubuntu. It booted fine. I told it to install on her new hard disk and walla. Everything "just worked" and has been rock-solid all evening. I'm terribly impressed with the Ubuntu CD the Google guy handed out.
Thank you, Google. You've got some great people working for you!
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Oddball Rites
A couple months ago I read a web page written by someone who was big-O Orthodox and describing what goes on in such a service. It seemed quite strange to me. I thought about how I was raised and thought, no way. But at the same time, I also thought, this is probably as close to whatever it was the apostles did on Sunday as anything I'm ever going to see in this lifetime. It is strange to take the forms and customs of two thousand years ago and look at them through the eyes of a 21st century American.
And I realized that we'd look just as strange with our powerpoint slide shows and our seven-eleven praise songs. But this morning after the first couple songs, they turned down the lights. I knew what was coming. When I was a kid we called them "skits" but in today's worship services they are called "dramas" and there's a drama team and one particular person in our church who is really into that.
My wife is a thespian and I think she sacrifices a lot being married to me. I happen to despise skits in church. I'm not saying they're evil, just that I don't like them. I suspect that if I was merely indifferent about skits in church, she'd really like to be involved. And it's not that there was anything I could pick apart as being unscriptural or untrue about the skits at church. They're just not what I like.
When I look at the "value equation" for church, the repetitive praise songs and the skits don't contribute any lift to the airframe. Same goes for "liturgical dance." What gets my blood pumping are those centuries-old anthems, and content-rich sermons that are sharp enough to cut spirit and soul. I'm OK with the powerpoint slides because they're handy. But it bugs me that the only way I know when the song is done is the copyright notice on the last slide.
This term, "value equation" is one I started using for church when I drank the Rick Warren, "Purpose Driven Church" kool aid. I like it because I am an evangelical. I think I've got the truth and I'd like to make sure everyone else gets a chance to hear it. And if you've got a church service that's chock full of stuff nobody understands, there's not much "worship with understanding" that Luther advocated.
What got me thinking about is that the Pope has decided it's OK to do the "Tridentine Mass" without permission from the local bishop. The first time I heard "tridentine" I thought about chewing gum. I've used the Latin Mass as an example of "what not to do" back when I taught Sunday School. I wasn't ragging on Catholics: I don't think Evangelicals should speak in code that only we understand. We have to translate what we say and do into terms others understand. This is the main reason why I was attracted to a church that does a lot of "dramas" and has "liturgical dance."
Blythefield do a good job of speaking in the language of the people who live nearby and saying things you don't have to be a lifetime Baptist to find important. I think this is more important than whether the church service has the same smells and bells of a 1st century Middle Eastern church service. And I don't think I should stay away because others want to do skits or have dancing girls in church.
I think church liturgy is very important today. Congregations are looking around for ways to use the service to communicate something transcendent to those in attendance. In a more modern era, we saw a greater focus on teaching and the sermon. I'm fine with that. But in these post-modern days, a lot of people are looking for something that communicates transcendence. I think that's why Orthodoxy and the Latin Mass are doing well right now. The trouble with going through motions prescribed a thousand years ago is that it doesn't engage the rational faculties. Yes, there's a feeling of transcendence, but is there any thoughts worthy of it?
And I realized that we'd look just as strange with our powerpoint slide shows and our seven-eleven praise songs. But this morning after the first couple songs, they turned down the lights. I knew what was coming. When I was a kid we called them "skits" but in today's worship services they are called "dramas" and there's a drama team and one particular person in our church who is really into that.
My wife is a thespian and I think she sacrifices a lot being married to me. I happen to despise skits in church. I'm not saying they're evil, just that I don't like them. I suspect that if I was merely indifferent about skits in church, she'd really like to be involved. And it's not that there was anything I could pick apart as being unscriptural or untrue about the skits at church. They're just not what I like.
When I look at the "value equation" for church, the repetitive praise songs and the skits don't contribute any lift to the airframe. Same goes for "liturgical dance." What gets my blood pumping are those centuries-old anthems, and content-rich sermons that are sharp enough to cut spirit and soul. I'm OK with the powerpoint slides because they're handy. But it bugs me that the only way I know when the song is done is the copyright notice on the last slide.
This term, "value equation" is one I started using for church when I drank the Rick Warren, "Purpose Driven Church" kool aid. I like it because I am an evangelical. I think I've got the truth and I'd like to make sure everyone else gets a chance to hear it. And if you've got a church service that's chock full of stuff nobody understands, there's not much "worship with understanding" that Luther advocated.
What got me thinking about is that the Pope has decided it's OK to do the "Tridentine Mass" without permission from the local bishop. The first time I heard "tridentine" I thought about chewing gum. I've used the Latin Mass as an example of "what not to do" back when I taught Sunday School. I wasn't ragging on Catholics: I don't think Evangelicals should speak in code that only we understand. We have to translate what we say and do into terms others understand. This is the main reason why I was attracted to a church that does a lot of "dramas" and has "liturgical dance."
Blythefield do a good job of speaking in the language of the people who live nearby and saying things you don't have to be a lifetime Baptist to find important. I think this is more important than whether the church service has the same smells and bells of a 1st century Middle Eastern church service. And I don't think I should stay away because others want to do skits or have dancing girls in church.
I think church liturgy is very important today. Congregations are looking around for ways to use the service to communicate something transcendent to those in attendance. In a more modern era, we saw a greater focus on teaching and the sermon. I'm fine with that. But in these post-modern days, a lot of people are looking for something that communicates transcendence. I think that's why Orthodoxy and the Latin Mass are doing well right now. The trouble with going through motions prescribed a thousand years ago is that it doesn't engage the rational faculties. Yes, there's a feeling of transcendence, but is there any thoughts worthy of it?
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
An Open Letter To Debbie Stabenow
Dear Senator Stabenow,
I note with gratitude that you voted against cloture in the recent immigration bill. Thank you. I have been a voter since I voted for Gerry Ford back in 1976 and have only on two occasions split my ticket to vote for a Democrat in the years since: the first was a conservative Democrat running against a RINO in Maryland (who subsequently switched parties), and the second was a state-level Representative who happened to be pro-life when his opponent was pro-choice.
I held my nose and voted against you when you took Spencer Abraham's seat in the Senate. Frankly, I thought Mr. Abraham's tone-deafness about immigration policy is the signal reason why you were able to unseat him. Now, I'm pleased that I was wrong and you were elected, because I'm sure Mr. Abraham would have been as much a corporate tool as Mr. Bush and the rest pushing the immigration bill.
Whereas I remain a Conservative, I cannot in good conscience call myself a Republican. Because of your vote on the immigration bill I intend to vote for you the next time you stand for election.
I note with gratitude that you voted against cloture in the recent immigration bill. Thank you. I have been a voter since I voted for Gerry Ford back in 1976 and have only on two occasions split my ticket to vote for a Democrat in the years since: the first was a conservative Democrat running against a RINO in Maryland (who subsequently switched parties), and the second was a state-level Representative who happened to be pro-life when his opponent was pro-choice.
I held my nose and voted against you when you took Spencer Abraham's seat in the Senate. Frankly, I thought Mr. Abraham's tone-deafness about immigration policy is the signal reason why you were able to unseat him. Now, I'm pleased that I was wrong and you were elected, because I'm sure Mr. Abraham would have been as much a corporate tool as Mr. Bush and the rest pushing the immigration bill.
Whereas I remain a Conservative, I cannot in good conscience call myself a Republican. Because of your vote on the immigration bill I intend to vote for you the next time you stand for election.
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Truth In Advertising
Many years ago I was in Baptist History class by one of my least favorite professors at Cedarville. Despite a well-earned reputation as Dr. Sominex, he said something that has stuck with me for thirty years. His words were to the effect that there is no Baptist “pope” to admit someone to or excommunicate someone from the faith. Rather that the term Baptist implies a set of beliefs and if you don’t believe those things you can’t honestly call yourself a Baptist and if you do believe them you can. He likened it to “truth in advertising.”
I recently heard of someone who criticized a Baptist church in the following story. He was asked if he’s a Baptist or not. He replied by asking, "What does it mean to be a Baptist?" I imagine that the answer was a faithful rehearsal of the Baptist distinctives: Believer’s baptism by immersion, Autonomy of the local church, Priesthood of the believer, Two ordinances of baptism and communion, Individual soul-liberty of the believer, Separation of church and state, and Two offices of pastor and deacon. In response to this, the critic said that he hadn’t heard any mention of love. And this is a valid criticism.
However, I believe that this was an unfair criticism. He was not asked if he was a Christian, but if he was a Baptist. You can be a Baptist without being a Christian, as (a century ago) the members of Fountain Street Baptist Church might testify. Moreover, Baptists, particularly Fundamentalists like me, have a reputation for being censorious. If you consider Christ’s summary of God’s law in the double-love command, this censorious attitude argues most articulately for the non-belief, the non-Christianity, of such Baptists.
The categories of “Christian” and “Baptist” are independent. But if you are a Christian, identifying yourself as a Baptist gives a picture of HOW you are a Christian. If I tell you I’m a Baptist, you’ll know my yard won’t have a half-buried bathtub holding a statue of the Blessed Virgin.
Trouble is that you may also draw some other inferences that are not accurate. I think this is why institutions like the Grand Rapids Baptist Bible College first “got rid of the Bible” and then became Cornerstone University. Instead of standing up and saying, “This is what Baptist means,” and living a positive example thereof, they ran from the word Baptist. I still think they erred.
A lot of Christians did likewise and a lot of Reformed, Presbyterian, Church of God, and other churches became “Community Worship Centers.” Each denomination can point to negatives in its reputation. Certainly an irenic spirit is a Good Thing within Christianity and the blurring of denominational partisan identities takes a step in that direction.
I can see why you might not want truth in advertising. If you’re trying to sell your religion to me, and you make some vague spiritual representation, I’ll be naturally inclined to probe what exactly you believe. The premise is that this will get the proselytizing off to a better start than if you identify denominational pigeon-holes up front. I don’t buy it.
First, you can be partisan without being a jerk about it. If you tell me you’re Catholic or Reformed and I tell you I’m a Baptist up front, we’ve got our theological cards on the table and I’ve got a conceptual framework with which I can lovingly relate to you. I’ll know where the sore points are and can handle them tactfully. I’ll know the things I cannot take for granted. The denominational categories are the result of millennia of careful thought about the theological issues in play and ought not be discarded because of some bozo’s bad example.
And then there are the intentional misrepresentations of the enemy. You know, the Father of Lies. Do we act as if the devil’s slanders are true by running? Think of the word “puritanical.” We commonly identify this adjective with a priggish, humorless sort that bears no resemblance to the Puritanism of Milton or Bunyan. I'm sorry, but the most humorless person I know is emphatically not a Puritan.
So, with this in mind let me remind everyone: I am a Christian. What sort of Christian am I? I am a Baptist. What sort of Baptist am I? I’m a Calvinist. What sort of Calvinist am I? I am a Puritan. What do I mean by this? You can find book definitions for all these things that'll give you a good starting point. After that you’ll have to watch me. If you think my life works and want to know its theoretical framework, those labels will tell you where to look.
I recently heard of someone who criticized a Baptist church in the following story. He was asked if he’s a Baptist or not. He replied by asking, "What does it mean to be a Baptist?" I imagine that the answer was a faithful rehearsal of the Baptist distinctives: Believer’s baptism by immersion, Autonomy of the local church, Priesthood of the believer, Two ordinances of baptism and communion, Individual soul-liberty of the believer, Separation of church and state, and Two offices of pastor and deacon. In response to this, the critic said that he hadn’t heard any mention of love. And this is a valid criticism.
However, I believe that this was an unfair criticism. He was not asked if he was a Christian, but if he was a Baptist. You can be a Baptist without being a Christian, as (a century ago) the members of Fountain Street Baptist Church might testify. Moreover, Baptists, particularly Fundamentalists like me, have a reputation for being censorious. If you consider Christ’s summary of God’s law in the double-love command, this censorious attitude argues most articulately for the non-belief, the non-Christianity, of such Baptists.
The categories of “Christian” and “Baptist” are independent. But if you are a Christian, identifying yourself as a Baptist gives a picture of HOW you are a Christian. If I tell you I’m a Baptist, you’ll know my yard won’t have a half-buried bathtub holding a statue of the Blessed Virgin.
Trouble is that you may also draw some other inferences that are not accurate. I think this is why institutions like the Grand Rapids Baptist Bible College first “got rid of the Bible” and then became Cornerstone University. Instead of standing up and saying, “This is what Baptist means,” and living a positive example thereof, they ran from the word Baptist. I still think they erred.
A lot of Christians did likewise and a lot of Reformed, Presbyterian, Church of God, and other churches became “Community Worship Centers.” Each denomination can point to negatives in its reputation. Certainly an irenic spirit is a Good Thing within Christianity and the blurring of denominational partisan identities takes a step in that direction.
I can see why you might not want truth in advertising. If you’re trying to sell your religion to me, and you make some vague spiritual representation, I’ll be naturally inclined to probe what exactly you believe. The premise is that this will get the proselytizing off to a better start than if you identify denominational pigeon-holes up front. I don’t buy it.
First, you can be partisan without being a jerk about it. If you tell me you’re Catholic or Reformed and I tell you I’m a Baptist up front, we’ve got our theological cards on the table and I’ve got a conceptual framework with which I can lovingly relate to you. I’ll know where the sore points are and can handle them tactfully. I’ll know the things I cannot take for granted. The denominational categories are the result of millennia of careful thought about the theological issues in play and ought not be discarded because of some bozo’s bad example.
And then there are the intentional misrepresentations of the enemy. You know, the Father of Lies. Do we act as if the devil’s slanders are true by running? Think of the word “puritanical.” We commonly identify this adjective with a priggish, humorless sort that bears no resemblance to the Puritanism of Milton or Bunyan. I'm sorry, but the most humorless person I know is emphatically not a Puritan.
So, with this in mind let me remind everyone: I am a Christian. What sort of Christian am I? I am a Baptist. What sort of Baptist am I? I’m a Calvinist. What sort of Calvinist am I? I am a Puritan. What do I mean by this? You can find book definitions for all these things that'll give you a good starting point. After that you’ll have to watch me. If you think my life works and want to know its theoretical framework, those labels will tell you where to look.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
I don't even like opera
This is funny. I ran across, I don't know how, a YouTube video clip of this British TV show. It's a British spin-off of American Idol. I've never watched American Idol. I respond politely when others say nice things about it and I have made snarky remarks about Sanjia (though I've never seen him). I figure anything on "reality" TV is going to be contrived and stupid. So, I clicked on the movie and started watching, wondering what was up. Is this some kind of joke? some ironic bit of trash where some bozo makes a fool of himself in front of a TV audience?
The video showed this rather dumpy looking fellow (and I figure that TV makes anyone who's not stunningly attractive look dumpy) in a cheap suit, bad hair, and unfortunate teeth that is too common in Britain. The judges looked bored and skeptical and asked him what he wants to do. He said he'd like to do opera. The judges did not visibly roll their eyes, but I got that vibe.
Then the fellow started singing. But first, I forgot to mention how much I absolutely despise opera. So, the guy starts singing and I'm waiting for a gag.
There's no gag. This guy is incredibly good. The first clue I got was watching the judges, particularly the female judge Amanda Holden. She's struggling to contain her emotions. I did recognize the Puccini tune and I realize this dumpy looking guy is singing this as well as I've ever heard it sung. The judges were utterly impressed. Somehow, and I don't know how, I was moved to tears by the fellow's singing. I don't understand that. I replayed the video a half-dozen times and a stack of soggy kleenexes piled up a dozen deep.
Then I want looking for more info about this guy. I found a half-dozen posts with the video embedded, usually with the introduction, "I don't even like opera, but..." Then it struck me, an utterly incredible degree of talent trumps distaste for reality-tv or opera. The fellow's name is Paul Potts, and I hope we'll be hearing more of him.
The video showed this rather dumpy looking fellow (and I figure that TV makes anyone who's not stunningly attractive look dumpy) in a cheap suit, bad hair, and unfortunate teeth that is too common in Britain. The judges looked bored and skeptical and asked him what he wants to do. He said he'd like to do opera. The judges did not visibly roll their eyes, but I got that vibe.
Then the fellow started singing. But first, I forgot to mention how much I absolutely despise opera. So, the guy starts singing and I'm waiting for a gag.
There's no gag. This guy is incredibly good. The first clue I got was watching the judges, particularly the female judge Amanda Holden. She's struggling to contain her emotions. I did recognize the Puccini tune and I realize this dumpy looking guy is singing this as well as I've ever heard it sung. The judges were utterly impressed. Somehow, and I don't know how, I was moved to tears by the fellow's singing. I don't understand that. I replayed the video a half-dozen times and a stack of soggy kleenexes piled up a dozen deep.
Then I want looking for more info about this guy. I found a half-dozen posts with the video embedded, usually with the introduction, "I don't even like opera, but..." Then it struck me, an utterly incredible degree of talent trumps distaste for reality-tv or opera. The fellow's name is Paul Potts, and I hope we'll be hearing more of him.
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
Men Without Chests
I just read a snippet of a story on one of the milblogs. Seems that some 65 year old former cop and a retired Marine had to get physical with a guy on an airplane and his brother. That a situation that you hear about and hope to God you've got what it takes to do the right thing if you're ever there. The contemporary term is "onions" or "balls," but I prefer C.S. Lewis' term in his essay, "Men Without Chests." There's something about the empty suit that says more about a man than mere gelding.
We read from various places people complaining of how boys are raised to be sissies and that men are no longer manly. Lewis sussed it. When man is the measure of all things, nothing is big enough to be worth risking your life over. This hollows a man out and he's pretty much worthless. I have nothing but scorn for the protester who engages in civil disobedience and then complains that he felt threatened by the authorities. Socrates was man enough to drink the hemlock. He was a man with a chest.
What's most discouraging about this story was when the cop said, "I had looked around the plane for help, and all the younger guys had averted their eyes." Maybe all the young guys with chests must be in Iraq & Afghanistan.
We read from various places people complaining of how boys are raised to be sissies and that men are no longer manly. Lewis sussed it. When man is the measure of all things, nothing is big enough to be worth risking your life over. This hollows a man out and he's pretty much worthless. I have nothing but scorn for the protester who engages in civil disobedience and then complains that he felt threatened by the authorities. Socrates was man enough to drink the hemlock. He was a man with a chest.
What's most discouraging about this story was when the cop said, "I had looked around the plane for help, and all the younger guys had averted their eyes." Maybe all the young guys with chests must be in Iraq & Afghanistan.
Saturday, June 02, 2007
"Homegrown" Terrorist Plots
I just read a news story about a plot by four individuals named, Russell Defreitas, a U.S. citizen native to Guyana, Abdul Kadir of Guyana, Kareem Ibrahim of Trinidad, and a fourth man, Abdel Nur. Mr. Nur is reported to be a former member of the Parliament of Guyana.
Strangely, WNBC in New York said, "The arrests mark the latest in a series of alleged homegrown terrorism plots targeting high-profile American landmarks."
Does this mean that that WNBC considers Guyana and/or Trinidad to be "home."
Strangely, WNBC in New York said, "The arrests mark the latest in a series of alleged homegrown terrorism plots targeting high-profile American landmarks."
Does this mean that that WNBC considers Guyana and/or Trinidad to be "home."
Monday, May 28, 2007
Good Riddance Attention Whore
Mrs. Cindy Sheehan has given the American serviceman a gift this Memorial Day. In a post on the Daily Kos, she has announced that she's not going to be using the corpse of her dead son as a publicity stunt any more.
It is ironic that she should now announce her departure from public life, because her 15 minutes of fame elapsed long ago. Sadly, I doubt she'll have the character to keep her promise. Perhaps, she's hoping enough folks like myself will notice her announcement to grant her another 15 minutes.
When Mrs. Sheehan made this announcement, she entitled her post on the Daily Kos, "Good Riddance Attention Whore." The ancient Greeks had an aphorism that came to mind when I read that she had put that title on her farewell essay, γνῶθι σαυτόν.
It is ironic that she should now announce her departure from public life, because her 15 minutes of fame elapsed long ago. Sadly, I doubt she'll have the character to keep her promise. Perhaps, she's hoping enough folks like myself will notice her announcement to grant her another 15 minutes.
When Mrs. Sheehan made this announcement, she entitled her post on the Daily Kos, "Good Riddance Attention Whore." The ancient Greeks had an aphorism that came to mind when I read that she had put that title on her farewell essay, γνῶθι σαυτόν.
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