Bill's Comments

This topic is one that The SoDakMonk has posted on several times and the Curt Jester has created a most serious and at the same time humorous post. Both are like me, traditionalists. Both have dislikes of some of the changes that have “modernized” the service in the Roman Catholic Church, and I often feel the same about the changes in the ELCA. Though I have definite opinions on what I consider the best liturgical practice, I can also see some of the reasons behind the changes that are occurring.

Liturgy is the formal process by which churches conduct their worship services. When properly done, it provides a congruence of the form and the substance of the service. Because of its direct connection to our emotions, music is an integral part of liturgy – a grounding for our emotional expressions

This is the purpose behind liturgy, to make the necessary emotional connections. Skinner had it wrong with his rat studies in thinking that beings such as humans could be controlled by operant conditioning. However, he did provide some insights into the emotional part of humans, inadvertently, because the emotional part of the human brain is analogous to the rat brain, only more elaborated. One of the important observations was that it requires a lot of repetition for training to occur. This is what liturgy is about, repeating an experience over and over, with subtle variations on the theme. One of the things I noticed in the situations where I was shopping for a church, was that the liturgy was every bit as important as the message, even more so. Liturgy varies among churches in the same denomination, and I always ended up in a church liturgically similar to what I had been in previously.

The emotions encouraged by liturgy are generally positive and their invocation is in itself rewarding. Sometimes there will be sudden unexpected emotional releases, and this is not necessarily bad, unless one is a control freak. As an example, since my son was killed, I will sob uncontrollably over the song “Eagles Wings”. In my case that is not bad, since I am too good at repressing emotions. In talking around this, I am trying to point out that our emotional natures need expression, and religion is a directed way to do this. That emotions are a part of religion is not to indicate irrationality in it. The emotional expression is to support what has intellectually been determined as desirable. [Randians seem to want to place emotion as irrational and having not place in decision-making. Yet “The Fountainhead and “Atlas Shrugged” have powerful emotions in them. It is more a matter of appropriateness.]

Some of the emotions that generally are encouraged are reverence, peacefulness, sometimes awe, and respect. This is the traditional approach to liturgy. The overall tone is quiet contemplation.

Historically, most liturgies were very stable, once established. I think there are a number of reasons for this. One, and maybe the most important, is that, other than bawdiness and simple folk music, for the commoners the church was the primary source of music and ritual. It was also the primary source of intellectual thought. Most people went to church and grew up with the church ritual as familiar and the standard. Thus, there was little pressure to change it. Second, there were far fewer denominations, with fairly strict ecclesiastical hierarchies to enforce standards. Third, people spent so much of their time simply surviving, that no thought was given to how or why they might want changes in their religious service.

Until the past few decades, almost all churches had similar liturgies, the form was almost identical, only the details of the content were changed. There was an introductory hymn, prayers, an Old Testament lesson, a psalm, a Second Lesson from the Epistles of the New Testament, and a Gospel Lesson. There was then a sermon or homily, usually taken from one or more of the lessons, with a hymn, followed by the offering, Holy Communion or Eucharist, if done that day, closing prayers, a benediction, a recessional hymn and the final dismissal.

The first changes that I was aware of were the reciting of the Mass in the vernacular and the change to modern English from King James English in the Episcopal church. Having grown up in the Episcopal Church, I underwent a major shock when I heard the Lord’s Prayer in modern English for the first time. I still hate it. I also have trouble saying the Apostle’s and Nicene Creeds in modern English. The next thing that I noticed were changes in the hymns. Apparently in the Lutheran Church there have been a number of changes over the years, a brown hymnal, a red hymnal and the current green hymnal. The red hymnal that I saw had a number of corrections applied to make it more gender neutral. I have been told the brown hymnal was very harsh and judgmental. Now the ELCA has a new additional book of modern adaptations of hymns from around the world. So we sing songs with all sorts of beats, rhythms, and lyrics. I’m not fond of it. Occasionally the novelty appeals, but it wears thin.

The biggest change I have seen is the so-called Celebration Service. Our former ELCA church had adopted this for one of the three services every Sunday. It was mainly oriented to kids and teen-agers, though it also drew a number of adults. It also drew a lot of hostility from the older congregation members. It was mainly simple, highly repetitive songs, a few prayers, a single gospel lesson for the day, a sermon, and continuous communion, which I dubbed cafeteria communion. Everybody lines up, they receive the bread, go to the cup, dip it in (intincture), and then partake. There is a prayer and dismissal. The goal is promoting upbeat emotional experiences – feel-good religion. There are other versions of this. They also project the words to the songs, but not the score itself (due to copyright reasons) on a screen. (Generally I would not qualify the songs as hymns.)

Why should churches adopt such changes? Mostly competition for younger parishioners. Churches that do not provide such programs loose their younger parishioners to churches that are providing such services. The reason that such services appeal, is the simple-mindedness, the shallow music that matches the crap they are listening to, the feel-good nature of the service as opposed to contemplative, the idea that church and belief is easy. The question is: do they ever get past this rather infantile approach to religion and prefer the more traditional approach? I suspect not, since we see constant efforts to make the same sorts of changes in the traditional services.

Some of this pressure for change may be related to what I see as a general dumbing-down of society by our educational system. People have not been exposed to good music in the schools, much less religious music as music. (Half the repertoire of my high school chorus was classical religious music, e.g., Mozart’s Gloria. They did the oratorio “The Seven Last Words of Christ, on Palm Sunday as a performance.) They have not been exposed to real literature anymore, so any real thought in a sermon is lost, and I suspect that they don’t really comprehend most of the meaning of the Scriptures beyond a superficial literalism.


Regardless of the reasons for the changes in the liturgy, we have to ask if they are valid and what will the outcome be? Quite a few people would most likely argue that it is a matter of taste, and what hymns are sung or even what the format is doesn’t make that much difference. My answer is, "Yes it does matter, it is more than taste." Religion is both intellectual and emotional. At its best the two are congruent. I remember a sermon several years ago in which a pastor stated that most people get their theology from the hymns not the Scriptures or the sermons. If this is so, then the form and substance of the service is of critical importance.

But, what about the younger people? How do we keep them in the church? First of all, parents will have to take a role in determining where their children go to church and what they believe. Basically, mine sent (note the verb here) me and my sister to the most convenient church. It happened that for ten years that was the Episcopal Church. When I was in college I went where either my girl friends went, or where I could sing in the choir. In the ELCA churches, we put the littlest ones in the Nursery, and from somewhere around preschool on up they have Sunday school and then attend the main service with the adults. On the surface this appears good, because the youth grow up with the liturgy being familiar.

However, in high school, there seems to be a revolt against this, most likely spawned by our MTV culture. When I was in high school the church had its own shortened service for the Sunday school, run by the high school students. By giving us responsibility in the service we came to own it. True there were fewer cultural conflicts then, but this may be part of the answer. I know Sunday School in our church is just the meetings in the class rooms. Actually such a shortened service might be the place for so-called alternatives to traditional worship. Something they could feel was special for them, but not a corruption of the traditional liturgy for everyone. At the same time, without making an issue of it, position the traditional service as the REAL service. Unfortunately in these days of political correctness and child-worship, such would not be acceptable.

Though I see where these changes have come from in the liturgy, I am not particularly sympathetic to them. They do change the theology that people are receiving, and as such fly counter to the faith as developed. They also give the overall lesson that religious service is a matter of taste, not meaning. Nothing can be further from the truth. Marshall McCluan’s famous quote that “the medium is the message” has applicability to liturgy. Much of the message is contained in the form and substance of the service and not just in the words of the lesson(s) and the sermon.

Our church is going to move to a new, less formal liturgy during Advent. I am not looking forward to it. It removes my role as Liturgist, something I felt was my personal contribution to the collective service. It is supposed to be less formal. I don’t look forward to that, either. I’m not looking for a “Good-Buddy” Jesus, or a familiar God. I don’t think such concepts create a deep and strongly held belief, one that can withstand adversity.

Those of us who are liturgical traditionalists need to do what we can to protect what we have. We need to find ways to accommodate the desires for change without corrupting the basic value of the liturgy. It is not an easy task, and may not be completely achievable without risking such corruption. It comes down to a question of how can we keep our membership without pandering to their lesser desires. There is no easy answer.

The AnalPhilosopher makes this resounding point:

"I fully expect that we will settle upon a president and come together as a people. There will be no takeover of government by the military. There will be no violence in the streets beyond the usual hooliganism that attends high-profile sporting events. There will be whining and complaining, to be sure, but that’s to be expected, even desired. It shows that we’re doing—or have done—something important."

Go read the rest of it.

This from Drudge:

Sat Oct 30 2004 16:31:19 ET

Former CBSNEWS anchorman Walter Cronkite believes Bush adviser Karl Rove is possibly behind the new Bin Laden tape.

Cronkite made the startling comments late Friday during an interview on CNN.

Somewhat smiling, Cronkite said he is "inclined to think that Karl Rove, the political manager at the White House, who is a very clever man, he probably set up bin Laden to this thing."

Interviewer Larry King did not ask Cronkite to elaborate on the provocative election eve observation.

Developing...

To think that when I was younger and watched the early years of the space program, Walter Cronkite was someone I admired. Sad.

Here is the latest from TCS on the findings of three-foot tall humanoids in Indonesia. The history of man from the first bipeds to today is a fascinating and always changing saga. This finding will have as much impact as the debunking of Piltdown Man, in a different direction. (I hate to juxtapose the two, since one was the revelation of a fraud and this is a genuinely new and legitimate find. It's just that the latest does not rank with the Leaky's first finds in importance.)

This latest opinion post on Fox News points out the extremely suspicious timing of the "missing" explosives announcement which originally came from the UN, and why it has a high probability of being an attempt to influence the election. One more reason to get out of the UN.

One more brick in the wall (except Pink Floyd didn't have a verse on the UN).

OK, I'll admit it -- I love fire. No, I don't like burning things down, I just like fire when it is under control. I loved to go to my Grandmother's and play with matches out in the trash pit. (they actually burned trash in those days). When I was an automechanic, I enrolled in a welding class at the local vocational school. It was a natural. The first night, we had to weld 1/8 inch steel plates six inches long in each of the three axes, flat, vertical, and horizontal.

I picked up the torch started my flame, adjusted it, and zoned. I was one with the flame, the rod, and the molten metal. I instinctively held the melted bead in place with pressure from the flame and left behind an even series of ripples in the weld. I went on to use arc, mig (metal inert gas, a production technique) and tig (tungsten inert gas, a special technique for reactive metals), but torch welding and brazing was always my strong suit.

I even like propane and MAPP (meth-acetylene) torches, though they are more limited by their cooler flames. Oxy-acetylene is where its really at. There is something almost sensuous in the two blue cones as they wrap around metal and heat it. Watching metal flow and puddle under my control is fascinating. Every metal acts differently. Steel puddles flat, bronze tends to puddle higher, and silver brazing must flow like solder into a small joint, hence the name silver solder, though it technically is brazing.

I find it fun to solder copper pipe. There is something intriguing when a clean, fluxed, and assembled copper joint is heated to the melting point of the solder. Touch the joint with the solder wire, and it suddenly melts and rushes into the joint filling it. It wants to coat the metals and bond them.

I love woodworking, but welding is more like a passion. One that I can't currently indulge. Related to welding is blacksmithing, something I plan to do when I retire to the country. (So the neighbors won't complain about the smoke and noise.) I have done blacksmithing on a micro scale, using torches to heat small pieces of metal. Shaping metal with a hammer is as much fun as welding it.

Other animals can use wooden objects to form homes, dams, and crude tools, but only humans are able to work metal. To work metal is one of the apices of our humanity.

Try The Messopotamian or Healing Iraq.

Take time to visit Iraq the Model. There are amazing things going on over there that we would have no clue about without Ali and his brothers.

I just visited the Egyptian blog, Hello From the land of the Pharaohs Egypt, after a hiatus for a month. It is really refreshing to read something other than punditry and all the rest. It is a welcome respite from the constant politics today. Gamal is still the direct person he was earlier. He still rants against Al Jazeera (here is a fun link he gave on that) and still wants the US to triumph in the Middle East. If you aren't already, give him a visit once in a while. I was glad I did.

Wicked Thoughts has a great list of insults for Arafat. All of them deserved, and most amazing, every one of them is family safe, and none-the-less effective for it.

Gerard Van der Leun (American Digest) has publically posted that he has voted early for President Bush after a lifetime of being a Democrat. With this declaration he has posted a gallery of 50 pictures that show why he did this. Please, go see it.

Smallholder has posted a reply to Ally Eskin's question on what men want in a marriage, and made this statement:
"Now, when I wrote that description at 18, I left out (for politically correct reasons) the idea of physical beauty. I have a type, but am not wedded to it. At the age of 33 I'm willing to admit openly that one ought to attracted to one's spouse physically.

I have known and know some wonderful women who are just great people and I enjoy their company tremendously, but, were I single, I would not date them because they aren't pretty. Call me shallow if you will, but if why should one move beyond friendship if there is not a physical spark?"

I would suggest to Smallholder that within very broad tolerances, physical beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and the perception of beauty is an emotional evaluation of the worthiness of one to be a mate.

Ally Eskin is on a good tear tonight. She has posted the reply's she received to her request for a man's input on what is important in relationships. She also voiced her frustration at the common attitude among women concerning men. Go read it. Ally brings a refreshing perspective to relationships.

Steve Headley (Texas Conservative) just posted this picture of an undecided voter voting.

It is a pleasure to link to a description of Titan, Saturn's moon. The Cassini fly-by has produced some wonderful pictures and given us some new things to think about.

Thanks to New Scientist.

This essay by Douglas Kern in TCS is an excellent review of why we have no real election reform. It is not pleasant to read but rings true. Just as P.J. O'Rourke showed in A Parliamnent of Whores that we all want to be on the dole, so Mr. Kern shows that we all have an interest in elections being the way they are. Here is the downside:

The fundamental problem is that the problems are fundamental. The red/blue divide demonstrates the profoundly different worldviews that Americans possess. No politician has found a way to bridge that gap. And when stark differences are irreconcilable and evenly split, elections get interesting.

The Republic didn't collapse after Bush vs. Gore and it won't collapse after the 2004 election. But while the Founding Fathers anticipated yeasty elections, they surely did not expect litigious attacks on the very legitimacy of the election process itself. American society has grown fond of resolving hard political problems through lawsuits and judicial fiats. But elections fought through lawsuits are ultimately a means of avoiding a genuinely political confrontation. And sometimes, there's no substitute for an ugly election brawl. Let's make it an honest fight. But let's fight.

Some reforms would help to defuse presidential elections, of course: the reduction of the federal government's scope and power; a revival of federalism; and the appointment of judges who reject judicial activism, to name a few. But none of these things will happen anytime soon. Thus, presidential elections will be ferociously contentious until the red states or the blue states decisively win the argument about what kind of nation America ought to be. Such a victory will engender a political realignment, and thus a (short) period of political goodwill and accomplishment.

But until that day arrives, bring your camcorder to the polls, and be sure to get the thugs and car vandals entirely within the viewfinder. And brew a strong pot of coffee or three for the night of November 2nd, as we sit up all night and watch the madness unfold. We've chosen this weirdness. We ought to enjoy it.

The Federalist Patriot
Founders' Quote Daily

"I will venture to assert that no combination of designing men under heaven will be capable of making a government unpopular which is in its principles a wise and good one, and vigorous in its operations." --Alexander Hamilton

I have also added Observations from an Empty Well to my blogroll. This site is run by a former Episcopal priest who is now Orthodox. I find it interesting and informative.

The Ten O'Clock Scholar has this story to relate that provides a lot of perspective on our current war in Iraq.

When the enemy thinks they are calling the plays, whether they really are or not, they are being aided and comforted. Here is another post in the story of Kerry's cooperation with North Vietnam. Rusty's (Jawa Report) analysis seems spot-on.

I have just added a new blog to my blogroll, The Gates of Vienna. This takes its name from the stopping of the Muslim onslaught in Europe at the Gates of Vienna. It is a thoughtful discussion of the larger scale implications of Islam and its impact on the rest of the world. The posts are irregular, but very full of information and thought. It is worth checking regularly.

From the first post:

The thesis of this blog is that, like it or not, we are in a religious war. We do not define the terms but we should take careful note of them. We are mistaken if we think the Enemy wants merely to kill us. Once again, Jihad offers two choices to the West: conversion or death. Jihad exists in order to annihilate unbelief. Christians, Jews, Hindus, atheists, or Wiccans, it is all the same to him.

Dennis Mangan (Mangan's Miscellany) has posted some interesting statistics concerning the replacement of native US citizens with immigrants, legal and otherwise, in their jobs. He shows an almost one to one relationship of native unemployed, immigrant employed. However, the cause and effect part of the relationship is not clear. Were the native US citizens fired in order to hire immigrants, or did they quit, and the immigrants were hired at a more economic wage? This is critical to the truth or falsity of Dennis' thesis. This definitely warrants more investigation.

There is a quiet jubilation occurring in some of the blogs I read concerning Yassir Arafat's apparent terminal illness. Of all the Nobel Peace Prize laureates he stands out as the most assinine selection (And that is saying something, since the only Peace Prize I think was warranted of the ones I know, was Dr. Martin Luther King.).

I will admit that I will be relieved to see him die a natural death as opposed to being assassinated, though if Israel had done so, I would have quietly approved. There is a great and justified concern over the resolution of the impending power vacuum. Yes it will get messy, but without the state sponsorship of terrorism that Arafat provided, most terrorists will spend their energy fighting each other for control rather than jihad against Israel. Maybe they will effectively kill each other off. We can only hope.

Realistically, the Palestinian people will be the victims. Without an organized government to provide even what little it did, they will be bereft and destitute. This would be a golden moment for an occupation similar to Afghanistan and Iraq that had as its goal the establishment of a stable Palestinian state, co-existant with Israel. Unfortunately I don't believe it will happen. We are too busy and the rest of the world would use it as an excuse to eliminate Israel.

In the insuing civil war, Israel's policy of eliminating terrorist leaders may pay off in a lack of strong leadership for any faction. It will be bloody and most likely ineffective. Eventually Israel will have to step in just to create some sort of stability. Watch the reaction when they do. This is where we will need a strongly stated foreign policy backed by intent. My approach is that any country that tries to attack Israel over their efforts to stabilize Palestine would be subject to the elimination of their entire political leadership via whatever precision weapons will do the job. The Middle Eastern despots are more than happy to sacrifice their people, but I doubt they really want to find out if there are 72 virgins in Heaven just for them.

Now that I think about it, this may be the better deterent to nuclear proliferation in the Middle East. Use the bomb and die yourself. I just can't hold with some who figure that glassifying a country that used a nuke is the right response. Since the leaders don't care about their people, it would play into everyone elses propaganda agendae. Israel has the right answer, hold the leaders responsible.

UPDATE: Wretchard at Belmont Club also writes on this topic.

I have posted on this topic in the past, but Lee McCracken (Verbum Ipsum) has provided a tremendous amount of material from various writers over the past month or so. Lee is a great resource on religious issues in our daily lives. I strongly recommend stopping by daily.

Lee McCracken (Verbum Ipsum) has posted the link to a quiz that shows your preferences for the eligible candidates in your state. Here are my results, the only surprise being how high Kerry scored. Of course there were no questions bearing on character.

1. Your ideal theoretical candidate. (100%)
2. Bush, President George W. - Republican (69%)
3. Badnarik, Michael - Libertarian (58%)
4. Kerry, Senator John, MA - Democrat (43%)
5. Peroutka, Michael - Constitution Party (39%)
6. Cobb, David - Green Party (17%)
7. Nader, Ralph - Independent (17%)
8. Brown, Walt - Socialist Party (10%)

Intellectuals have a reverence for deep thought, complex reasoning, and complicated exposition (often to the point of Derrida-esk obscurity). They sneer at anyone without such abilities. They also think it is absolutely necessary in anyone they have as a leader. From such we got President Jimmy Carter.

The Maverick Philosopher has this to say about it:

"Sometimes what is needed is a man of action rather than a thinker whose capacity for action is undermined by excessive reflection and subtle analysis.

After all, the job description includes Commander-in-chief, not Intellectual-in-chief."

The AnalPhilosopher's Cardinals lost the World Series in a sweep to the Boston Red Sox, and Keith very magnimously gave sincere congratulations. This is most impressive given the way he trashed Boston on the way.

Would that politicians were this civilized.

This essay in TCS very eloquently expresses what I have been aware of throughout the election campaign, unless terrorism is defeated, economic issues are meaningless. And with that I just imagined a new icon, a Kerry and an Edwards pair of ostriches with their heads in the sand and their butts in the air.

I wish I had the skills of Cox and Forkum.

The radical Muslims want John Kerry for President so they can win their war. Here is an explicit statement from one of them to that effect.

Thanks to Drudge for the link.

Of course it would start in Florida. The DNC and cohorts have not even waited until the election to start their campaign of winning in courts rather than the ballot box. Nine lawsuits have been filed to change the rules for voting. Go read the whole thing.

Thanks to Drudge for the link.

I have not posted much at all on the global warming controversy, partly because it is so thoroughly covered and partly because I am not a climate scientist by training. However, TCS has posted an essay that explains a very significant article in Science magazine. The article is important for three reasons:

1) It states that the so-called hockey stick curve of temperature history is "junk".

2) Science is the top general science primary journal in the US.

3) The hockey stick curve is the main support for all global warming policy.

I do not belong to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) the parent organization of Science, partly because it has a strong political bias, and partly because it is expensive. Given its dedication to government funding of research and the attendant political correctness that goes with it, for them to publish this article is extremely important. It signifies a major shift in the established science world towards the global warming controversy. It may actually be properly investigated in the future.

Tonight I am simply full up to here (just below chin) with constant polling, punditry, prognostication, dirty tricks, speeches, media bias, and all the rest of it, and we still have another week of it. I have a weak stomach for this stuff. I only know what I read at Fox News' website, TCS, Right Wing News, Weekly Standard, and blogs. I would have had a stroke long ago if I listened to nightly network news. I was banned from it years ago for constantly getting upset, more with the reporters than the events.

Something that crosses my mind about this election is that maybe part of the intensity and rabidity is that we are having to choose between two totally different things, similar to choosing between an apple and a potato. [It doesn't matter whom you compare to which, the analogy still holds.] We either have to choose a strong, militarily powerful approach to world affairs with a domestic policy that wants to remove the government from a lot of personal areas, or a pacifistic approach with a strong government intervention into personal areas.

There is no common ground between the two parties this year. People have to make a choice, and the choice is stark. I think many professional politicians that have lived off of spin and looking good are afraid this year. There are things that just cannot be spun. When survival is staring you in the face, there is no need for spin, just direct, unequivocal action. There are attempts to convince us that such is not the case, but I think we realize otherwise.

I avoid discussing politics anywhere but on my blog. I have friends that are rabid anti-Bush types, and I still want them to be my friends when it is over. That is a big concern to me and I have seen it stated elsewhere, what happens when it is over? How do we retreat from all the virulent invective that has been produced? Suppose President Bush is re-elected and has about the same Senate as now? Will any more business get done? Or will the Democrats go for revenge and block anything out of spite? The supermajority requirement to stop a filibuster effectively provides for minority rule. Yet we still have a war to wage and win.

Sometimes I hope that the hysteria from the left-liberal crowd is akin to the supposed hysteria driving the radical Muslims. They see the death of the old way and are desparately trying to forestall it. There are times when I really couldn't turn my hand for the difference between the two.

This election will be a Gutterdamerung. If President Bush wins it will spell a horrific blow to the left-liberals. If Kerry wins, I think it will spell the end of much of our way of life. Not from his domestic policy, we have had such before, but from his pansy ways in the face of determined destruction. We will have much more bloodshed in the US in such an event, and the resulting attempts to counter it will be far more devastating than what has occurred to now. Think standard big government response, draft, Patriot III, Patriot IV, effective martial law.

All I can hope for is that the US collectively has sense enough not to elect a traitor to the Presidency.

Norm Weatherby (Quantum Thought) has an amazing quote from Elizabeth Edwards. ..there will be no riots around the election -- if Kerry/Edwards wins!.. recorded on C-Span. Norm offers suggestions for getting her foot out of her mouth. I'm not sure but that he is describing the wrong appendage and the wrong orifice. In that she has company from her husband and the other couple.

Dennis Mangan posts on the Scots-Irish and their migration to the US. I found it very interesting because I am decended from the Scots-Irish that settled Appalachia. This line particularly hit home:

"The Scots who headed into the feuds of 17th-century Ulster, and then into the backlands of the American frontier, hardened further into a radicalism that proclaimed that no man had a duty to obey a government if its edicts violated his moral conscience."

I understand that.

If you haven't figured it out by now, I am a sucker for tests. I love finding out what catagory someone thinks I fit, whether I do or not. Today's test is "What Kind of Christian Are You?" Here is my result:

Progressive Christian
Progressive Christians are gifted with powers of critical thought, a passion for social justice, and a respect for people who hold views that differ from their own. They tend to favor the separation of church and state, support a woman's right to choose an abortion, and are eager to learn from people of other world religions. Progressive Christians tend to emphasize what people of different religious traditions can do in cooperation with each other to create a better world. Rather than seeing contemporary culture as being hopelessly depraved, progressive Christians seek to reform it on the basic of ethical norms derived from Old Testament prophets and the teachings of Jesus.

Within the constraints of the test and its results that's pretty accurate. Here is the link, and thanks to Lee McCracken (Verbum Ipsum) for it.

Steve Headley, the Texas Conservative, has been on the road a lot and not posting. He sure made up for lost time today, seven great posts. Go read all of them.

Ally Eskin (Who Moved My Truth?) had two very fine posts today. The first concerned the tar brush Kerry used on all Vietnam vets. In this case Ally did an excellent job of showing that it effects real individuals. The second post was a good put down of Teresa Heinz-Kerry or is it Kerry-Heinz. Hiney would be more appropriate. The value of Ally doing this job is that as a woman she can say things that men think but would be pilloried for saying.

Dennis Mangan (Mangan's Miscellany) has noted an interesting relationship between curiosity and intelligence. To summarize, he sees intelligence with and without curiosity yet never sees curiosity without intelligence.

I have seen the same thing. Intelligence without curiosity leads to whizzes at the trivial. People who have a great capacity to deal with detail, under someone else's direction. With curiosity, intelligence discovers the new, the exciting, and draws new connections.

Another attribute that can occur or not with intelligence is self-discipline. I have seen brilliant failures, because they have no self-discipline. I have seen average people achieve well above the norm because of tremendous self-discipline. Couple intelligence and self-discipline, and you create a power-house of accomplishment. Their intelligence allows them to see new and better connections, and their self-discipline carries them through the drudgery required to make them real.

This is a must read. Thanks to Texas Conservative for the link.

The AnalPhilosopher has repeated his main statement on belief or non-belief in God in the hopes that better understanding of what he actually said will occur. Here is the guts of the post, with which I completely agree:

"while religious belief and disbelief have sources (i.e., causal explanations), they’re ungrounded. The grounds are added later, as rationalizations or reconstructions of what is already believed or disbelieved."

Belief or disbelief in God is the fundamental premise. It cannot be proven or disproven. Keith's post from Friday which gave an excellent summary of the various attempts to prove the existence of God points out that it is not subject to valid proof. I long ago established that for myself.

Our choice to believe or not believe is a fundamental expression of our free will in the religious sense. Every person has their own internal summation on the issue and at least some of the data going into the decision is not public data subject to external validation. Any validation is totally internal and subjective. That is not to make it personally invalid, but it does mean it cannot be made publically valid. It is possible over time that the internal summation will change. Mine did from agnosticism to theism. I know of a person that has had so much tragedy in her life that belief in God, at least in the God she was raised on is impossible to her.

Having made that decision and then following it does not entitle anyone to be THE AUTHORITY on the subject, and to proceed to accost others, with ones personal belief as the only right and true way, is to fall deeply into the sin of Pride. The world is full of people that, when they see someone profess a belief other than theirs, either automatically condemn the other to Hell or think that, by insisting on their beliefs as the only correct way, they will somehow convince the other into "correct" belief. Ally posted on the correct way to evangelize [that was not the purpose of the post]. She has an aquaintance that lives her religion, and it is apparent that is what she is doing. Ally has great respect for this person and the reverse is true though each is fully aware that they don't share the same religious beliefs.

The other lesson that self-righteous Christians don't seem to ever learn is that people come to religion not by being convinced they need to, but from an inner sense of lacking, and finding that lack supplied by religious belief. People do nothing without a perceived need, and that includes a perceived need for God. For those who need it spelled out, perceiving internally is NOT the same as being told externally that one has a need. The latter will lead only to denial, unless the former is already in effect.

The Shape of Days blog has a note on the comparisons of the Wolf Ad to the Reagan Bear Ad. The comments are really good, especially the last one, giving a truly scary revision of the ad.

Thanks to Amy Ridenour for the link.

The Ten O'Clock Scholar has posted a note, which if true, indicates that Kerry could be considered as failing to sound an alarm that might have changed the course of events on 9/11. You should read it for yourself.

Wicked Thoughts has posted a link to what he calls a French bullfighter. It fits my idea of a French bullfighter. BTW this picture could even be considered PETA-friendly.

The Guardian, the paper that wanted to send letters to citizens of Clarke County, Ohio, to tell them to vote for Kerry now is wishing for the assassination of President Bush. American Digest has the article and links to both the columnist and the Guardian. I wrote a note to both of them (text below) and I urge everyone to do the same. Let them know that words have meaning and consequences. If nothing else it will provide them with an overloaded server.

My note:

First you think you can stick your nose in our business by telling people in Clarke County, Ohio, how to vote. Now you think you are small gods that have the right to call for the assassination of someone you don't like. Hate begets hate, intolerance intolerance, and finally indifference. I think it would quite appropriate if the offices of the Guardian became a terrorist target. It might confront you finally with the reality of the world. But then again, you have your heads so far up your recti that it would probably protect you, and all you would get is a sore ass. But wait, you won' t be a terrorist target, because we will get rid of them for you so you will never have to admit their existence.

Bill
A US citizen, who does think we have the right to protect ourselves regardless of someone else's opinion, and at present, is sorry that Europe, other than our allies will benefit.

UPDATE: Amy Ridenour's National Center Blog also mentions this and states that it had appeared in InstaPundit and Drudge as well.

Gerard Van der Leun has posted this chilling first part of a series. It is all too probable.

This is required reading -- now.

Thanks to the Maverick Philosopher for the link.

The following email was sent to the AnalPhilosopher and he posted it on his blog. I quote it here in its entirety as an example of what I am NOT trying to promote -- a blind, totally unreasoned belief in a literal interpretation of biblical tradition. As a warning, I was very uncomfortable reading this simply because of its fundamental irrationality.

Dear Keith:

It seems that you need a good education; certainly not the one you now live on today. With the overwhelming evidence presently available, just from Archeologists for the past one hundred years, there are incredible facts that the Bible is the verifiable truth.

The odds of the DNA chain forming is in the trillions to one.

The Tells in Israel offer much to provide true history.

Your statements [see here] are so ridiculous yet they cause little trouble. I feel sorry for you and really my only wish is that your blind mind is the same as the Israelis who will die because of unbelief, with no future life. During the Tribulation however, they will have one last chance to gain God's favor. Perhaps you will have that opportunity too. You are simply one of those atheists who become so endeavored in books that the real truth seems like a lie. You can educate yourself right into Hell.

Everyone knows that Jesus Christ was on this earth two thousand years ago and was crucified. But historians here on earth at that time herald that He healed and cured all, because He loved His children. And He raised many from the dead which may cause your hair to rise. Yet you must remember that God made Adam and Eve with His hands. God and Jesus are one and the same by the way.

The Ark of Noah is in the Ararat mountains because I have walked upon that four thousand year old remnant, that is about seven miles from Mt. Ararat itself. Take a trip there and see for yourself and the new convention center also. Might change your mind; I pray it does.

Bill Craig

Whoever Bill Craig is, he definitely does not have the virtue of epistemic humility. He believes he has the only and true answer.

The AnalPhilosopher has posted a truly superb and compact discussion of the philosophical issues concerning belief in God. This is a most useful and excellent post. Here are a couple of quotes I think particularly important:

I’ve never known anyone who came to believe in God on the basis of the classical arguments, ... [n]or, quite frankly, have I known anyone who became an atheist as a result of the argument from evil, which says that the amount or kinds of evil in the world either preclude God’s existence or make it unlikely.

Philosophers love to say that theory is underdetermined by data. That is to say, more than one theory is compatible with (explains) what is known. I believe religious belief falls in this category. The world as we experience it neither requires religious belief nor precludes it. The world is compatible both with God and without God. From the fact that God either exists or doesn’t (which is an instance of the law of excluded middle), it doesn’t follow that only one of these propositions is rationally supportable. In fact, both are supportable. There is reason to believe in God and there is reason to disbelieve in God.

Some people, for whatever personal reason, incline toward the former; others incline toward the latter. Those who incline toward the former tend to dress up their belief with arguments for the existence of God. Those who incline toward the latter tend to dress up their belief with arguments against the existence of God. The belief or disbelief comes first; the rationale comes later. If there’s anything wrong with this, I don’t know what it is.

Well said, Keith. I obviously incline, as you put it, toward a belief in God. Having for 30+ years inclined the other way, I can accept and respect your lack of belief. As you and I have both said, belief either way does not come from the outside but from the inside. The rest is supporting material.

I cannot be considered a true baseball fan, but in my years from 8-12, I lived in St. Louis Cardinal country. I had an Enos Slaughter baseball mitt. So it is nice to see the Cards in the World Series.

Fox News has published an article on a mother of three who is a municipal judge that tracks down terrorists in her spare time. She has already caught one in the US military, and he has been sentenced to life imprisonment.

Eat your heart out Teresa. This woman works three REAL jobs.

The culmination of years of pragmatism as the ruling doctrine, and winning at any cost including that of destroying principles may come to fruition on election day. This essay in the WSJ Opinion Journal is a very realistic assessment of the kinds of demagogary and legal maneuvering that is already occurring and will get worse. The Democrats claim the Republicans stole the election in 2000. That is exactly what they will attempt in 2004.

This term has occurred in my reading lately almost as frequently as undecided voters. The difference is that undecided voters are to be wooed and uninformed voters are to be discouraged. I have seen statements that the uniformed voter should stay at home so as to not dilute or negate my informed vote.

Purely and simply this is elitist bullshit. It doesn’t matter which part of the political spectrum a person is from, mouthing or writing this crap is wrong. First of all, in all the contexts I have seen and in some of them specifically stated, uniformed is taken as equivalent to spending hours a day reading news and reports from all sides of the political spectrum. Few people have that kind of time in their lives, and not many have sufficient reading skills or the temperament to do it. It is a pure, academic, intelligence-is-all put down of the rest of the world.

Second, there are relative degrees of being “uninformed”. Compared to the policy wonk that reads incessantly almost everyone else is uninformed. There are those who read one or more newspapers everyday, watch the news on TV, or read it on a website. There are those who only watch TV or listen to radio. There are those who only talk to their neighbors. Yet in all of this there is some information being exchanged.

Third, those who raise the concern about the uniformed, simply do not understand republican democracy, or don’t like it. Parties have platforms that are designed to appeal to many people. They are often a conglomeration of inconsistent but somewhat coherent ideas and goals. People vote one, two, or more issues. They don’t read all the positions and compare them to their life stance and then carefully determine the closest fit. They know what is important to them and vote accordingly. They do not need to be fully informed on everything.

There are those who have a fully thought out set of values and know what they want to see in politicians promises, and pick and choose from the offerings. They don’t need to be fully informed, because again they see the package deals offered them and choose the closest fit or else the most important fit. They don’t have to spend hours perusing news and reports to determine what they need to know.

The false specter of the uniformed scares the elitist. What if they make a disastrous decision? Well, sorry to tell you, but just because they are uninformed by elitist standards does not mean they will vote in their own disinterest. It may or may not be in agreement with the elitist position, but that is indeed the fear. I think there is an intellectual hubris that thinks that once everyone knows what an elitist knows they will agree with him/her, and if they don’t know they will make a mistake.. Baloney. The less informed voter crosses all opinion lines just as do the well-informed and widely read.

Today I saw the archetype of the uniformed voter. A 62-years old man, illiterate, that had never voted before in his life. He was with a friend, who brought him to vote absentee. I will say to you that this man was indeed informed. Not in depth, but informed enough that 62 years of habitual not-voting were overcome to the point that he registered to vote and then came into the county seat to vote. There was a burning issue for this man and in that regard he was informed.

I might be sympathetic to the idea that only persons that are working and pay taxes get to vote, after all they provide the revenue, and those that do not pay taxes get to have a say anyway in how it gets spent, but so-called being informed is a return to the mind-set of the literacy tests in the South. Ironic that some of the loudest comments on uninformed voting come from the liberals that make an issue of civil rights.

Regardless of how well-informed or how uninformed one is, the government comes down in one way or another equally hard. Being well-read does not guarantee moral or political excellence nor does ignorance guarantee decadence or political turpitude. Everyone who is qualified to vote deserves to vote.

Kevin, the Big Hominid, has a very good wrap-up on the discussion of a politician and his religion.

Gerard Van der Leun at American Digest has posted this very acute and perceptive essay on the nature of the Kerry-Heinz duo. It is a must read.

Dennis Mangan has another of his spot-on politically incorrect posts on illegal immigration. It has the outlines of a genuine solution for California. The title of this post is the answer to Dennis's question at the end.

Due to problems posting last night, I did not include a link to this post by the SoDakMonk which relates to the issue of a politician and his religion. It provides still another view of the issue.

From Lee at Verbum Ipsum this quote from the Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia.

When the church becomes simply another way of doing politics, then people rightly perceive that politics is what really matters. So to the extent that a church becomes identified with a political cause, it loses its ability to communicate its spiritual message of salvation in Christ.

Jim Glassman in his Tech Support Central has an excellent essay on our fundamental freedoms and their origin. He uses the third debate as his starting point, and what is a major gaffe that Sen Kerry made twice during the debate. To some it may be hair-splitting, but it really is of great significance.

Lee at Verbum Ipsum has some excellent remarks in response to my post of yesterday on A politician and his religion. His last paragraph is especially good.

Mike Gilleland, Laudator Temporis Acti, rarely posts a direct comment or link on current events. When he does it is important. This link to a description of what Limeys think of Americans and Jews is certainly cause for some consideration of just how good friends any of Europe is.

After reading this story, I concur with Amy Ridenour, we should leave the UN and take Russia with us.

The last couple of days there has been a three-and now four-way discussion on a politician’s religious beliefs and his positions on issues. Lee at Verbum Ipsum has posted here and here, the Big Hominid, here and here, Smallholder here and here, and I have made this small post. One of the most important ideas to come out of this was Lee’s distinction between sectarian and moral positions. From that I would like to comment further in relation to the election of representatives and Establishment Clause law.

When the country was founded, almost everyone had some religious belief, mostly Christian. This formed a common moral belief structure that everyone assumed. Politicians were elected on the basis of character, political party, and position on issues. Politicians in those days were pretty much WYSIWYG. If they tried to misrepresent their positions, the areas they came from were small enough someone could call them on it. They represented the people because their ideas or character were more appealing to the people than their opponent’s. That they had religious beliefs and were expected to legislate on that basis was understood.

The Establishment Clause is very specific in that is states that Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion. [Emphasis mine] This was in response to the Anglican Church being the established state religion and its attendant intolerance and persecution. The Founding Fathers did not mean that religion was to be taken out of government and public places. In fact they expected religious expression in public. The point was that no particular expression could be favored UNDER LAW, not that no expression was permitted.

So how does this apply to today? The key is Lee’s statement about moral vs. sectarian positions. A legislator should express his moral beliefs in his work. Keeping in mind the distinction, he could work to outlaw abortion, but not outlaw the teaching of evolution or demand the teaching of creationism. The first is a moral issue both inside and outside of religion though his basis may be religious. The second is sectarian in its origins. If a legislator has a set of moral beliefs but does not legislate based on them, he has become a hypocrite.

In today’s climate of campaigning for office where the goal is to be elected and continue to be re-elected in order to obtain and hold power, candidates may pander to the electorate, telling them what they want to hear, rather than what the candidate believes. Then when they legislate against their own moral positions they not only are hypocrites they are elitists and liars. They are elitists for not expecting others to adhere to their moral standards, and they are liars in that they have misrepresented themselves.

But what about the reaction of the Roman Catholic Church (or any church for that matter) to some politicians that claim to be RC but vote against RC doctrine? These people (regardless of party or political persuasion) were RC before they were elected. They either had to run on their beliefs or deny them. At the point at which they denied them they should have left the church, otherwise they are hypocrites and liars. As I pointed out above, there is no real issue if they want to legislate their morality. Those things that have a common moral basis will be converted into law. But if they legislate contrary to their churches’ teachings yet try to remain members of their churches, then they have placed the desire for secular power above religious belief, and deserve whatever the church determines should happen to them. They knew the rules going in. The church is not interfering in the state but simply enforcing doctrinal requirements for membership. It is not dictating law, but simply saying that RC (or other denominations) members must follow the rules to belong to the church. If they support law contrary to doctrine they are apostate. [I do think such criticism should have been much louder, much sooner, however.]

In keeping with my post on Monday, here is an example of what is occurring in Ohio. Remove the political spin and it still is troubling.

Thanks to Drudge for the link.

Drudge had a wonderful picture of John Kerry with a soccer ball coming at his head. The expression on his face was appropriate for someone about to get hit, and the girls in the background certainly seemed happy about it. When I went back, it was gone. I hope someone picked it up and posted it. (It was with the poll wrap-up segment, comment?)

The AnalPhilosopher, Keith Burgess-Jackson, posted this item a few days ago.

Atheism

Someone wrote to me to say that, since I’ve been all over the map politically, I’m ready for Christianity. What? I’ve been an atheist since I was ten. I’ve never been close to being a theist. The thought that there is a disembodied person, much less a disembodied person who’s omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, and omnipresent, is omnipreposterous. Even if I wanted to believe in such a being, which I most emphatically do not, I couldn’t bring myself to. I can’t make myself believe in Santa Claus or the Easter bunny. How could I make myself believe in God, which is a million times more fanciful? Somehow my atheism infuriates people. Let it go. I’m content to let you believe what you want. Let me disbelieve what I want.

Preface: This comment is not an attempt to argue with Keith on his belief. I am perfectly happy to let him believe or disbelieve what he wishes.

Like his post a little over a week ago, it has a sound-bite character to it, and I think there is a potential for building a strawman against which it is easy to argue.

The thought that there is a disembodied person, much less a disembodied person who’s omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, and omnipresent, is omnipreposterous.

This characterization of God may be the way it appears to Keith, but it overstates the issue. Though disembodied person might be a way to describe God, it is certainly not the idea I had, once I left childhood. In my current thinking God is not a "person" with all the baggage that implies. God simply is. Pressed to make some sort of description, I would consider Him to be the aggregate of all the souls that have not been condemned, but not in some grand, amoebic mass. Descriptions are not within our ken.

I have discussed the issue of omnipotence at length before. To state that God does not violate the laws of nature immediately makes him less than omnipotent. Omniscience is relative. Literally it means having all knowledge. In the case of God I think that He knows far more than what we know, but that of itself is not a case for omniscience. More important than the quantity of knowledge that God has is the quality of the wisdom in its use. There we can get on contentious ground, depending on what one does or does not ascribe to God's actions. However, much of what is done in the name of God, is not God's work, but human misappropriation of the sanction, the most obvious case in point being Radical Muslims.

I am not sure what Keith means by omnibenevolent, but if he is referring to concepts of Grace and Forgiveness, these are not infinite. God punishes sin, and Grace is a two-way street, as is Forgiveness. If it refers to dispensation of favors in a material sense, I think a strong case can be made that such does not occur. God may quietly provide encouragement or even help our thinking in positive ways, if we choose to let Him, but He does not decide that John Doe should get a million dollars and make it happen. (Back to the laws of nature thing. Unless John Doe can earn it himself or it is gifted with reason, it violates the laws.)

Though I have not specifically posted on this before, I consider the power of prayer to be evidence that God is not omnipresent. If he were omnipresent, he would know what we need and provide it without the intercession of prayer. Prayer provides two things, energy for its accomplishment and the focus for the energy.

Keith is right in that his description of God is preposterous. But not in the sense he probably meant. I think Keith was attempting to render the concept of God meaningless. If God were truly omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, and omnipresent, there would be no meaning to our having free will other than a cruel joke. He would be pulling all the strings all the time to our best advantage, and yet we see that the world does not appear that way. Hence we have the theodycic issues.

Having been an atheist/agnostic for over thirty years, I can understand the irritation of well-meaning people thinking that somehow they can be the one to convert an atheist. Self-proclaimed atheists are too tempting a target for them. Usually it is the more fundamentalistic believers that try this. Unlike the paragraph that Lee posted this week mentioning Christian humility, they do not have epistemic humility, and think that their truth is the only one. Though I do not consider atheism to be correct, I do not think that it can be argued with, just as one cannot argue with the fundamental belief of any religion. Belief comes from an adding up within, not a persuasion from without. External things only serve to confirm or dispute the internal belief.

Keith's comparison to Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny may to him provide an appropriate placement of theistic belief, but it amounts to a blatant disregard for the source of the beliefs and their motivations and a trivializing of an important concept. I would have expected better from a philosopher.

This link that was in John Ray's Greenie Watch, explicitly discusses the impact of scientific orthodoxy when coupled with government money.

"Giving support only to projects within the big bang framework undermines a fundamental element of the scientific method -- the constant testing of theory against observation. Such a restriction makes unbiased discussion and research impossible..." (Source: http://www.rense.com/general53/bbng.htm)

Members of the general public need to fully understand the enormity of the stakes here. This is not just an issue for academicians fascinated by cosmology. The issue will affect the direction and quality of education for decades. It will also affect the ability of teachers to attract and inspire new students. And it will affect the path of space age exploration, involving BILLIONS of dollars in public expenditure. How would John Q. Public feel if he knew that his tax dollars are being spent to perpetuate a discredited picture of the universe?

It must also be noted that major universities, laboratories, and research institutions are currently in rapid transition to something called "Internet II." The stated purpose of this project is to "facilitate the research and education missions of universities" and their affiliated institutions. That sounds benevolent enough, but as Servado Gonzalez writes in his article "Kiss Your Internet Goodbye": "Internet 2 will be fully controlled by the state. In order to access it, or to have e-mail access, you must be a member of, or be affiliated to, any of the government-authorized organizations and have a sort of security clearance. Internet 2 will be out of the reach of the general public..." (Source: http://www.rense.com/general36/inter.htm).

It is now clear that the Establishment is taking deliberate measures to insulate itself from criticism by "outsiders." If you are a member of the general public who wants to stay abreast of scientific research and discoveries - including new images from space - you will be increasingly denied the ORIGINAL DATA. What you will get is information filtered through politically and financially motivated organizations. What will happen to the TRUTH in this scenario?

Science may have lifted mankind from the abyss of the "dark age," but it also has the power to pull us back in.

Dick McDonald calls it slurping at the trough. I call it bathing in it.

On the premise that actions speak louder than words, I post a link to Norm Weatherby's Quantum Thought where the Senate voting record of John Kerry is listed. It makes for disturbing reading.

Lee at Verbum Ipsum has a post that Christianity does not equal Conservatism. I would agree for different reasons.

Actually, I do not think that, with the exception of Islam, which explicitely makes politics and religion bed-fellows, any religion creates a political equivalence. It has to do with the very natures of religion and politics. Religion deals in absolutes and ideals. Politics deals in compromises and what it possible. Religion tells us what we want to accomplish; politics finds the means to accomplish it or not.

As an example, the desire to help the less fortunate can be implemented many different ways, from a dole to training in new skills that earn money. Per se, neither method is preferred in any religious teachings I have seen. One may infer support for either method, both or some combination, depending on what scriptures one chooses. Thus Christianity can be either liberal, conservative, or both.

Generally, in the context of its beginnings, Christianity would be more collectivist than individualist. It requires considerable effort to make it applicable to those who have without condemning them catagorically. But that is not to automatically make Christianity the ideology of the left. Jesus said render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and render unto God that which is God's. In other words do politics and be religious, but do not put God into politics or the reverse.

Simply put, Religion says what to do, but it does not say how to do it. That is the province of science and politics.

My friend Peggy Kaplan at What If? posted the link to a news item on possible voter intimidation. The overall gist seemed unclear whether it was a belated attempt to prevent vote fraud and voter intimidation or an attempt to accomplish same.

As I read the news on various possible dirty tricks, campaigns to decide issues in court after the fact, already malfunctioning equipment, and the general "win at all costs" attitude that is permeating this election, I get very discouraged. At the risk of romanticizing the past, I believe that at one time, both parties would campaign hard, calling each other all sorts of names, and making horrendous accusations, but in general (with notable exceptions) the ballot box and the resulting talleys were treated with respect and fairness. It was in the interests of both parties to have as accurate and fair accounting of the vote as possible. There was at least an agreement on the principles of what elections were for.

Notably, there were also no opinion polls that counted for much, if they existed at all. The only way to determine who won or was winning was to vote and count the votes. Today, people hang on a tenth of a percent shift in one direction or another in polls based on, at best, a few thousand people, supposedly stratified to represent the voting public. The extrapolation is on the order of 1000 to 1 or even 10,000 to one. Based on these polls, newspapers churn articles for their particular view of the world, political operatives change tactics back and forth, pundits pontificate, and the rest of the world is caught in the deluge of political noise. Nowhere is there any concern for the ideal of the election expressing the will of the people.

From a quiet understanding that politics is about power under the control of the people, we now have a raw, naked quest for power for its own sake and to hell with the people. I started to ask myself how this could happen, then remembered Alan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind. His analysis was spot-on, though I am not sure about his prescriptions to fix it. The biggest lesson that came from reading it was, PHILOSOPHY COUNTS. It is the philosophical traditions that entered this country at the turn of the century that have lead to where we are today.

People have been told to consider themselves incompetent to sort out issues, and then are handed a pile of crap as answers to problems. The only reason it can occur is their minds and common sense have been strangled by public negeducation. (Students graduate with less knowledge about how the world works than when they came in.)

I saw a car yesterday with the windows painted "Take back America, Kerry-Edwards". No, they already have it. People who love freedom need to take back America. Electing President Bush is not really a start but simply a momentary stop in the progress to a socialist/facist dark ages. It will take much more than the election of a President to get us back on track.

We are not only in a war against terrorism, we are in a war against our own enslavement. Of course liberals want terrorism to be treated as a nuisance. It is not from ignorance; they are aware of the risks at some level. It is the solutions to terrorist attacks they want, more state control, more programs, more fear, more people wanting the problem solved for them. If we think Patriot II was bad, just imagine a liberal version of Patriot III.

Marx was wrong, religion is not the opiate of the masses, entitlements are. And it is entitlements that blind us and numb us as the chains are slowly tightened around us.

According to this oped piece in the WSJ Opinion Journal, the Civil Rights Commission has done its best to oppose President Bush's re-election. The author, a Republican member of the commission thinks that, if President Bush is re-elected, in 2005, when the chairwoman's and another commissioner's terms expire, the commission can be brought back to usefulness.

I strongly disagree. As a commissioner, she would believe in the mission of the commission (alliteration unintentional), but I think it is the nature of commissions to be ineffectual and subject to abuse. The best thing would be for Congress to kill it.

The public email contact in the upper right corner is still awaiting a new monitor. In the meantime, you can mail me at bill dot keezer at sas dot com.

In a news item from New Scientist, we learn that newly planted trees over the last 20 years or so have increased the amount of volatile organic pollutants in the air by three times the amount removed by emission controls on industry and automobiles.

I just love the Law of Unintended Consequences.

Today the First Lesson was from Genesis 32:22-31, part of the story of Jacob. The story is of Jacob’s wrestling with God and having received a dislocated hip from it. But in the process, his name is changed from Jacob to Israel. The pastor went on to note in the sermon that Abraham wrestled and argued with God throughout the Old Testament until he unquestioningly tried to sacrifice his son Isaac, and had to be stopped. The point being made here is that God will accept and even welcome discussion and argument.

For those of you like me that have great numbers of questions and doubts about what we are told in church in either our childhoods or now, this is an important concept. Unquestioning acceptance will get you to heaven, maybe, but it won’t necessarily get the answers you need. We have minds that desire to be used and resent being told that some areas are not to be questioned. My ruling dictum has been, for as long as I can remember, that everything, and that literally means everything, in my life is open to being examined and questioned.

If the exegesis of this passage of Genesis and the story of the life of Abraham is correct, God welcomes and approves of such questioning. A belief and faith built by examination, doubt, questions and resolution can withstand all sorts of challenges. It will not be swayed by external comments or doubts. It gives strength to one’s efforts. Just as one can put fake suntan lotion on or apply fake beauty marks (moles), so can one intellectually paste on religious doctrine. But without the questioning, probing and careful acceptance of what makes sense vs. doesn’t make sense, the first challenge to the belief will cause it to be lost, just as a shower and cold cream will remove makeup.

It has taken me over five years to arrive where I am today from the hard-core agnostic I was. Every step has been a careful and long struggle. I cannot be said to be a traditional Christian. First of all, I do not accept the doctrine of the divinity of Jesus. I also do not ascribe to the standard doctrine of the Trinity. I also do not believe that miracles are truly miraculous in the sense of violating laws of nature. But I have come to believe in God, an afterlife (again unlike any traditional version of same), the power of prayer, and the value of the teachings of Jesus. He also shows us what it may take to live life as a true human.

My answers are not necessarily the answers for anyone else. For those who question as I do, only answers that one has derived for oneself, whether unique or not, count. However, I have offered and continue to offer my arguments and thought or (to continue today’s theme) wrestling matches, as examples that may trigger useful thoughts in others.

Mike Gilleland, Laudator Temporis Acti, has posted a most interesting note on the identification of trousers with barbarism in Greece and Rome. In Rome and Greece the men did not wear the pants in the family. (Neither did the women).

Ally Eskin's site counter (Who Moved My Truth?) is at 10,616 when I checked tonight. Congratulations! Ten thousand is a great milestone.

In an earlier post on Free Will and Determinism, I used four different arguments to establish free will vs. determinism in the universe. There were quite a number of errors in the discussion, the most egregious being the equating of free-will to non-determinism. The second was the assumption that if determinism worked at one level, it worked at all levels, and its converse if there were non-determinism at one level then it was present at all levels in a sort of cascade effect. Tied in with this is a metaphysical issue, does the future exist before we reach it? I asked this question in a post on time-travel. The future is tied in because of the concepts of predictability and consequences.

Questions of determinism also directly effect ethics. If all behavior is ultimately determined, then there are no moral issues. All discussions of morality depend on the underlying concept of choice. The person could have chosen otherwise. It is only with the existence of choice that responsibility can be assigned.

What I first would like to do is establish the idea that determinism and non-determinism are not mutually exclusive when compared across environments. Let us start with our universe. There are some things that appear to be immutable to our observation, the gravitational constant, the speed of light in a vacuum, the values of certain other basic physical constants. These things appear to be fixed and have been from the beginning of the universe. [Yes, I am aware of findings that indicate that the gravitational constant is either not constant or there is a force causing the universal expansion to increase in rate. However, even that effect would also fall under our immutable measures, once understood.] What this means is that the basic physics of the universe was determined at the beginning of time. Whatever else we find as we progress in this essay, determinism is established as a fact, or as close to one as can be found in science. It is in the physical sciences, until the time of quantum mechanics, that concepts of determinism had their strongest support.

Another less obvious form of determinism is chaotic processes. The very name indicates falsely that these are non-deterministic processes. However, the nature of chaotic processes is that the they have very definite deterministic rules of operation, we just cannot measure the results to a sufficiently fine degree to make accurate predictions over long spans of time. From my view of quantum mechanics, it falls into this class of deterministic phenomena. Quantum mechanics, as generally stated, is ruled by the epistemologic problem of Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. However, the original formulation was Schrödinger’s time dependent wave equation, which is continuous and deterministic. However, explicit solutions are nigh impossible, so it was “squared” [in a wave mechanics sense] to provide a probability distribution rather than explicit solution. Since probabilities are generally seen as non-deterministic, we enhance the image.

Radioactivity is non-deterministic at the individual atom level. It is not possible to state when any individual atom in a collection of atoms of a radioactive isotope will disintegrate. At an aggregate large enough to be macroscopically observable, radioactivity is described by a deterministic law called the half-life. Every radioactive isotope has a distinct period of time in which the radioactive disintegration rate will decrease by half. For example, if the half-life is 1 day, the first day the radioactivity will diminish to ½ the original, the second day ¼, the third 1/8, and so forth.

It is in trying to bring the observations of physical science into the world of the mind that I made errors in my earlier essay. Roger Penrose, the British mathematical physicist, has made the same attempt. The greatest error in Penrose’s and my attempts is that the workings of the brain are far too coarse-grained to be subject to individual quantum mechanical uncertainty, if there is such a thing. [Remember, quantum mechanics is an epistemological theory, not a metaphysical one.] So let us look at how the brain works a bit.

Nerve cells fire based on multiple inputs, and not just a single input. Under a microscope, a properly prepared specimen of nervous tissue will show many nerve endings from many nerve cells congregating on the axon of a nerve. No one of these can be sufficient to fire the nerve cell, It requires a minimum number. But once that number is reached, the magnitude of the firing of the cell is fixed. More concurrent nerve firings will not make the nerve impulse stronger. As an example, if a nerve has 200 other nerves connected to it, and a minimum of 50 will make it fire, then the impulse is produced for anything from 50 to 200 incoming impulses, and it is the same size every time.

Strictly speaking this could be called deterministic, if one could know all the inputs ahead of time, and the rules for the importance of each neuron that converged on the firing neuron. However, the rub is in knowing all the inputs ahead of time. Since each input is produced in a manner similar to the nerve we are discussing, fanning out backwards to predict the outputs from the input becomes practically impossible, and subject to other influences, such as inhibitory neurons.

Ideas and thoughts appear to be the convergence of sub-ideas and thoughts, and are constantly in the process of being produced. [Thanks to Daniel Dennett’s “Consciousness Explained” for this formulation.] Thus any intrusion from the exterior during the formation of a thought can alter its progress in an undefined manner. So in a sense we can say at the neuronal level the brain works in both deterministic and non-deterministic ways. But we are not constantly dissuaded from our thoughts by every random input. There are damping mechanisms, as well as amplifying mechanisms, in the brain that keep us on track. In the case of the brain at the physiological level, we have deterministic mechanisms that in the aggregate are not deterministic. It is in this lack of large-scale, absolute determinism in the brain that we have a hope of free-will.

However, in the mind we have to consider the there is actually a mixture of deterministic and non-deterministic effects. For the most part, these can be looked upon as constraints and not hard, deterministic requirements. An example is the mechanisms by which we breathe. In the brain-stem there is a collection of cells that sense the level of carbon dioxide in our blood. When it is high, they send out signals that encourage us to breathe faster, thus clearing the blood of carbon dioxide. When it is low, we breathe slower. However, we can also hold our breath, a higher-level override of this function. With this ability to override a function such as breathing, we are provided a means to accomplish some things that we otherwise could not, such as underwater swimming, not inhaling smoke or fumes, etc.

If we take this phenomenon and generalize it to a higher level, we can apply it to abstract thought. In this case we have many thoughts and ideas that are habitual. They have come about by repeated use and from learning. We have the ability to sort of step aside sometimes and see them as they are exercised, and in the process, sometimes override them and, as a result, have a different behavior. I am aware that I have made what some would consider a major jump without the intervening details. As suggested way of approaching this, one might consider that physiological control is overlaid with emotions that are overlaid with rationality. The demonstration of all this is way outside the scope of this discussion, and requires major forays into the world of neuroanatomy and neurophysiology.

It is this ability to step aside and look at what we are thinking that constitutes the basis for individual free will. As we watch our thinking, when we do, we will become aware of changes over time or make comparisons to other thoughts from ourselves or others. Other parts of our mind will be comparing differences for benefit or harm to ourselves. Awareness of differences is a precondition for making choices. At some point we may chose to change the thought pattern, or to try a different option as a consequence of it. This is free will, the opportunity to make a different choice. Once the choice is made, or not made as the case may be, then the consequences follow.

At some point, a choice is irreversible. The consequences become assured, whether good or bad. Sometimes the consequences are immediate and sometimes they are to varying degrees in the future. Combined with the deterministic portions of the universe, the consequences of our choices become constraints on what we can further do. In effect this can mean that when we reach it, every instant in time is determined, just prior to its being reached. One can consider it as like a funnel, where each instant of time becomes more and more constrained the closer it comes to being made real, until when it is finally reached, it can be considered determined.

What this means is that there is free will in a deterministic universe, and that free will and non-determinism are not equivalent. Non-determinism is a property of nature, free will is the opportunity for conscious beings to make choices that have consequences.
I welcome comments and discussion. Practicing philosophy without a license is not a crime in the legal sense, but if not done correctly, can be in the intellectual sense. It is not a crime I wish to commit.

I have stated before that I enjoy cooking. The pleasure is more general than that, however; I enjoy the preparation of food. The distinction is that cooking is the preparation from ingredients of a meal or edible item, and the preparation of food can include simply the serving of something already made by someone else or oneself. The key to preparing ready made food is in serving it in an attractive manner -- the presentation. This requires little or no additional effort compared to just slopping it on a plate.

Tonight I served two ready-made slices of cheesecake with commercial blueberry pie filling. Both ingredients were of reasonable quality. With a bit of care, I centered the slices on the plate, and then placed the blueberries on in such a way as to drape over the sides but leave the point of the slices exposed. The excess draped more over one side than the other, and both pieces looked the same. The servings were placed on a tray with matching cups of coffee and forks.

So what is the big deal here? The appearance of food is integral to its satisfaction. Have you ever wondered why you eat more at a buffet than if served, or why often when served the food fills you up more than at a buffet? A buffet is the least aesthetic way to present food. Everything is in large mounds and clumps. When you serve yourself you get a glob of something, or if it is pieces, it is heaped on the plate with everything else. Serving yourself from a buffet gives a false sense of smallness of the portion since it is taken from such a large mass. Once it is on the plate or dish, it becomes much larger psychologically.

Last night when my wife and I ate out, I had a very nicely served piece of fish. It was garnished with a sauce, it had garnishes of roasted tomato and green beans that added eye appeal as well as taste appeal. In a relatively small portion, I was quite satisfied, and even ate it quite slowly to savor it. (This is important, because while growing up I learned to eat at a horribly fast rate.)

This discussion leads me to consider a new approach to buffets. When serving myself, work at preparing a nice-looking plate rather than one heaped with as much as I can put on it. This will necessitate smaller portions. Since I was trained to leave a clean plate, it will also lead to my eating less. (Another trap of a buffet is the implicit, or in some cases explicit, understanding that you eat what you take.)

The same logic holds true for salad bars. These are deadly to dieters. There are a lot of low calorie options on a salad bar, but there are also a lot of high calorie ones as well, and it is extremely tempting to add substantial quantities of these to the plate -- and the low cal salad dressing won't compensate. It will just keep it from being worse.

Give it a try. Whether prepared from scratch or from convenience foods, taking the time to present the food in a pleasing way will add satisfaction to the meal.

Team America: World Police is the most common mention on the blogs I'm reading today. All the mentions indicate it has the most realistic approach to foreign policy. The Big Hominid has the money quote here. (Warning not family safe language and in some workplaces not worksafe either.)