Earth Day Thoughts: Global Climate and Malthusian Scare

Global Warming.  It’s happening, right?  Ever since Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, everyone has just assumed that global warming is a real thing, and based on many scientists’ stances toward climate change, we need to reduce carbon emissions and try to save the world from some kind of The Day After Tomorrow scenario.

Well, perhaps not.  Here’s a post by a fellow blogger which is entitled “Earth gives us an Earth Day present:  Arctic sea ice is highest for this date in 8 years.” In summary, the author points to recent studies that indicate that the ice in the arctic sea has actually returned to a near-normal level.  So…how does this fit in with global warming?  “Well…it’s global cooling, which is caused by global warming, which is caused by people.”  Does anyone else detect something amiss in this?  Because this is really what some scientists are saying:  that global cooling is the natural result of global warming.  So wait a minute…that sounds oddly like a cycle:  a global warming trend causes ice cap melting, which causes in influx of cooler air into the world’s oceans, which brings about a trend of global cooling, which causes the ice caps to refreeze.

Now personally, I at this point have decided that human activity has little to do with this global climate.  I am not saying that human activity doesn’t affect the climate; for certain, pollution, urban sprawl, and other such human issues cause environmental damage.  What I am saying is that, based on the data we have, the climate really is cyclic, not just in that it’s a cycle itself, but it’s built with cycles on top of cycles on top of cycles, and I highly doubt that after 100 years of our current technologically advanced culture, we will have all of that figured out.

Let us suppose, however, for the sake of argument, that human activity does affect global climate.  So the world gets a little warmer…which means that it gets a little cooler next time around in the cycle, which the next warm cycle counterbalances, and so on until we’re approximately where we’ve started.  Now, legitimately, if enough of a global warming trend occurs that all the ice caps melt and the world is drowned, that would be an…apocalyptic problem.  However, that is not what the data we have is forecasting.

Now, if there’s been two alarmist trends over the last 50 years, it has been the fears of the changing global climate (cooling during the 60′s, warming during the 90′s) and the Malthusian scare:  “The world is overpopulated! There aren’t enough resources for everyone!”  As a result, many modern philosophers have proposed euthanasia, abortion, and other such measures to help control the world’s overwhelming population.

Well, it appears that the Malthusian scare might be a total farce as well.  A recent article called “Sleepless in Shanghai” has stated that the very opposite of a Malthusian scare may soon occur.  Instead of world overpopulation, we may soon be experiencing world underpopulation.  Let me explain: in most developed countries on Earth, the birth rates are falling.  I remember when I was younger, the average children per family in the United States was 2.3.  Recently, I’ve heard that it’s dropped to 2.1.  Now, the Malthusian alarmists will say, “That’s good!  We need fewer people to feed!”  But wait a minute, let’s think about the effects that this is having and is going to have.

First of all, overpopulation is a localized problem.  There’s cities in the United States that have hundreds of people per square mile, and there’s places in the United States that have become wilderness because there’s less than one person per square mile, and that’s just in the United States.  The majority of the world’s population is concentrated in Asia: China and India alone have 3 billion people – over half of the human population on Earth is concentrated in two countries that are no larger than the United States and Canada.

Now, the real concern with the overpopulation debate is the need for resources:  The more people there are, the more resources need to be produced for them to consume.  Well, if people are really concerned with this overpopulation thing, then why aren’t people simply suggesting that we stop sending so much food to the United States and send more of it to Asia?  After all, we’re only 300,000,000 people, while China and India come together to possess about 10 times that number of people, yet the United States alone controls and consumes over half of the resources produced on the planet – in fact, one figure I’ve heard says that’s actually closer to 2 out of 3 global resources are consumed in the United States.  But most people don’t want fewer, scarcer resources in the United States.  They see a problem, but they aren’t willing to change their lifestyle in order to help fix the problem.

So, what about underpopulation? To be honest, I think underpopulation may become a far more real problem than the Malthusian scare.  For example, Social Security in the United States is under a constant threat now from the Baby Boomers.  Why?  Because not enough young people are working to support the older, more numerous generation.  (Interestingly, recent statistics have shown that approximately 50 million people have died in the last 50 years in the United States from abortions.  Now, I don’t care whether you think it’s right or wrong; that’s still 50 million fewer people that are working to support our faltering economy).  That’s just scratching the surface too; imagine how bad the housing market will be when we have too many houses and not enough people to live in them.  Yes, this is a financial disaster in the making.

Oh, and this article also points out that China, infamous for it’s famed one-child policy, is now encouraging their couples to have 2 instead of 1.  Why?  Because they’re having the same problems we are.  Their economic system is threatened.  Perhaps we should take some clues from them.

Now, inevitably, some people would say, “Well, these are all problems for the future.  Why should I care?  I like how things are right now.”  Ah…I hear these words, and the word “selfish” sneaks to the front of my mind.  So, I would say that if you don’t care enough for your children to try to give them the best kind of culture and future they can have, then I would say go ahead and don’t have any children.  Live on your thrones of materialism…and don’t expect me to be very sympathetic when you’re freaking out because the world is falling apart.

Okay, rant complete.

SfC

Light at the End of the Tunnel (?)

After a rather rough week – both in my studies and in my personal life, there appears to be hope in sight.  I have a medieval philosophy test tomorrow morning, after which I have no major assignments for the rest of the week (hurrah!).  Thursday of next week, I have a paper due, and the Wednesday of the next week is the last day of class; I will have a project and two papers due on that day and a major paper due the next day.  After that, all I have left are finals…and then after that, I believe that I have a couple of weeks off before summer school starts.

One of these assignments will be a paper for the aforementioned Medieval Philosophy class; just today, I elected to do my paper (10 pages long) on St. Anselm’s Ontological argument for the existence of God.  As part of this, my professor gave me some references to books where the authors discuss the ontological argument and argue for it or against it.  Hopefully, I will find plenty of time in the next couple of manic weeks to really think on and distill all of these thoughts.

Well, back to studying.

SfC

Free Will

In a recent blog post on one of the blogs that I commonly visit (http://www.challies.com/), the question of Free Will was addressed, and I thought that the question of free will could be brought up here.

The author starts by bringing forth the words of C.S. Lewis from Mere Christianity where he says, in reference to free will, “though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having.”  Lewis goes on to state that, if it were not for Free will, our devotion to God would be limited to a robotic, automated love; there would be no choice involved, and it would thus be diminished.  Everyone knows that someone doesn’t love you when you threaten to harm them if they don’t; love has to be a choice.

I have always accepted this doctrine, mostly because it checks out with what I perceive to be true.  I could deliberately stop typing this post right now and pick it up in a couple of hours (or never again), and it would be completely me under control of my body and mind.  Besides this, there are other implications of free will:  ethically, men who have commited crimes cannot be tried for them if they did not act on their own volition; scientifically, if free will exists, then we must conclude that the human being is more than just a collection of biological machines operating in a way that nature has designated them to operate; there must be something beyond the body (a soul) to make sentience and self-awareness possible.

Now, before I launch into this post, I want to say that I do believe that humans are more than the sum of their parts, and I also believe that humans are punishable for the crimes that we commit.  These ideas are not in dispute here.  However, I think that it is necessary to revise my own understanding of free will in an attempt to be completely consistent with the Bible.  I know that I probably won’t get it all right, but I’m also hoping that this starts a conversation where these thoughts could be further perfected.

You see, over the last semester, I have had some contact with other Christians who hold that there is no free will.  This is based on the scriptures where God speaks of hardening the hearts of men (Exodus 10:1, Isaiah 63:17, and more).  This tells me that God does have some control over the minds and bodies of men.  This is obviously in conflict of the doctrine of free will.  However, by the same token, the Bible also talks often of men hardening their own hearts (Hebrew 3:8, 3:15, and elsewhere.)  This is obviously in support to the doctrine of free will, in addition to the many scriptures where God is calling on His people to turn from their evil, where God is implicitly appealing to the free will of his people.

So, biblically, we are neither entirely free in our desires, nor are we entirely restricted in our desires.  You see, there are some pretty major theologically and spiritual implications that depend on whether you accept or reject free will.

Some of the implications of accepting free will is that God can no longer be relied on to have any power of men.  The example of this is to fail to give God the glory when a new Christian is reborn; our tendency is to look at the preacher’s teaching, or the music that was sung, or the environment that was set in order to draw people to God.  This is not a denial that these things are important, or that God doesn’t use them, but the key element to notice is this:  If God is not moving in a congregation or in a setting, then no one will come to Him.  We might be the visible draw to God, but God also has to be working behind the scenes within a person’s heart and mind to draw them to Him.  By embracing the doctrine of Free Will completely and without reservation, we are placing the responsibility of being saved completely in the hands of the individual, which is not consistent with the Bible where it says, “…and God added to their number daily (Acts 2: 47b).”

However, it is equally problematic to assume that God has complete control over the hearts of man.  If that were the case, the obvious question is, “Why then doesn’t God simply will everyone’s heart into a place of worship to Him?”  As C.S. Lewis said, true love would cease.  However, this is not the only problem: it would also mean that God simply doesn’t wish for some people to enter heaven, which is completely inconsistent with the Bible’s teachings.  This would also invalidate the scriptures where God is addressing people as beings with the ability to choose or reject Him.

So, the proposition I have made is that humans are neither completely free in our will, but we are also not completely lacking in free will.  Essentially, I am placing “Free will” and “Lack of free will” at ends of a line and stating that we find ourselves somewhere in-between these two extremes.

Let me try to elaborate the situation that we find ourselves in by borrowing one of Jesus’ illustrations:  Our mind is like a field of farmland, ready to receive whatever seeds we place within it.  Obviously, as we go about our lives, different thoughts and ideas of different varieties and sizes grow within our mind.  Some of them are good, and some are not.  Keeping in mind that every good and perfect thing is from above (from God; James 1:17), this means that it is God who sows the seeds of good within us.  Our responsibility is to cultivate the good plants and try our best to remove the bad plants (the weeds, the vines, the useless trees, etc.).  Obviously, however, there is only so much that we can do with our minds.  We cannot provide good seed that is independent from God, and there are some weeds and vines that have such control and reign in our minds that we cannot, by our own power, remove them; God has to do it, or to help us to do it.  In this manner, we humans operate as a gardener, trying our best to produce good fruit in what we have been given.  In this manner, we have free will.  However, if we try to plant good seed without God, then we will be disappointed to find that good things must always come from God and no where else.  In this manner, God controls our destiny by controlling how much to give us, and it is our job to take what he has given us and make it more.

Obviously, this illustration isn’t perfect, but I think that it gets the point across:  we humans are not capable of good beyond what God has given us.  I believe that this is the heart of Jesus’ parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30).  I believe that this is also why Jesus articulated at the end of the parable, Jesus says, “For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him (v. 29).”  In other words, don’t simply live your life wishing for a better job, a better mission field, or a better family: invest what you have in them, and more will be given to you.  Invest in your bad job, and it will get better; invest in your mediocre family, and it will become better for it; however, if you fail to invest, then what good you have will be given to those who will be better stewards of it.  You’ll also notice that God isn’t pleased with simply receiving what He has given us; He wants us to make more of it than we originally had.

Those last couple of paragraphs were a bit of a tangent, but the point is this:  I believe that we, as humans, find ourselves with a limited free will.  I cannot articulate very much on this because this is a new concept, and I will need time to process it.  However, I am postulating that the idea of limited free will is consistent with what we know about God through the Bible.

Please post your thoughts!

SfC

Theology in Life: What I Have Learned This Semester

As of Monday, I’m back at college from the break.  I’ll confess that I didn’t do everything I should have done over break, but I did take home several books from my classes because I don’t really consider reading work, so I was able to get far ahead in reading for my History class, and that has given me a great deal of opportunity to catch up and get ahead in the rest of my classes.

Right now, I have only one chapter in one book left to read for my history class, and after our second paper and our final exam, I’m done with that class.  For British literature, we have some reading left to do, a quiz or two left, a paper, and our final exam.  Religious Studies, as usual, is my most relaxed class; I can’t see myself getting anything less than an A in that class.  Music Theory, also as usual, is going to be the class that I cram for in the end; I have at least two assignments left (probably three, to be truthful), a music project (I must compose 16 measures of music using proper partwriting rules, cadences, etc.), and our final exam, which is going to be a rough one, and my last exam wasn’t such a good grade, so my grade (and my decent GPA to keep my scholarships) might hinge on this class.  Other than that, my band sessions are over, and beyond my French Horn jury, I’m really done.

However, prompted by the proximity of the end of the semester, I have begun taking a retrospective look at my first four months of college.  To be quite honest, it has gone by quite quickly, and that frightens me a little when I consider that next semester, I will be taking some pretty advanced classes.  However, I have also learned a great deal, not only about my classes and areas of interest, but also about life in general.  Of course, being a man of faith and trust in God, my spiritual growth has often coincided with some major points of thought that I have had in learning about God and myself.  Here, I will relate some of them and some explanations and how these points have changed my thinking and lifestyle:

1)  God is Order: I am actually quite fascinated to discover and consider that the foundation of modern science is based on the premise that God has created reality with calculable, mathematical constants that we, as humans with minds and souls, have the capacity to discover and understand.  Even today, there is a number of scientists who look at Earth’s position in the galaxy and notice how ours is the perfect position in the universe not only to support and sustain life, but also to explore and understand life, both on this world and beyond.  This isn’t always the case, but many of the scientists who recognize this attribute it to a Creator who had us in mind when He made everything.

The practicality of this discovery was immediate as soon as I came to college: if God is a God of order and He created the universe to have and maintain a sense of order, then it follows that I should endeavor to have a sense of order in my life as well.  This has caused me to change the way I organize my living space — well, I guess I should clarify that statement because I didn’t have a sense of order for my living space to begin with before I came to college.  In addition, I now keep a to-do list of things that I want or need to do in a day and, by doing this, I am able to keep myself on task with my schoolwork and recreation, including the writing of my book.

Since I have mentioned, I will say that I achieved little if any progress on my book during the Break.  However, I will be doing some revisions on the book itself, and I hope to further immerse myself in it in the next couple of weeks, especially after the semester’s end.

2) God is Truth and Love:  John 14:6 says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” and I have been doing some thinking about that statement these last few months, and the simple statements like, “God is love” and other cliches have also been on my mind.  That is, if Jesus is Truth itself, then as a Christian, it is my job to introduce people to Truth, not simply talk about them abstractly.  It also means that God does not lie, nor does He ever twist language to say one thing and mean another, because that is also a form of dishonestly that goes against who He is.

The practical implications of this are major.  If Christ is Truth and I am trying to be Christ-like, that means that I have a very high standard of honestly.  I’m not just talking about lying or even the occasional “White lie” (which is still wrong, in my opinion) that I ackoowledge as evil; I’m talking about when someone asks me to do something and I say, “Okay,” or “Whatever” without any actual intention of going through with what I’m agreeing to.  I must also be completely honest with myself, having the strength of character to tell myself when I have a problem, when I’ve overtaxed myself, when I’ve slacked off too much, etc.  By being Truth and Love to other people instead of simply telling them about it, I am opening the door for God to live not only within me but through me.  By being more like God, I make God’s image and his reflection through me clearer and more attractive.  Also, by becoming Truth, I am allowing God to transform my soul from the inside out, and by becoming Love, I am declaring my allegiance to the one whom I believe in.  This also means that it is our privilege to love others, to give to the poor, and to worship God.  That is, God has never demanded me to worship Him or do anything else for Him; for me, I do what I do as a privilege that God has given me by introducing me to Himself and informing me of Himself.

3) God is Community: The doctrine of God being a Holy Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit confirms this idea, not to mention that the reason that God created the universe to begin with was community.  Also, if we humans are made in God’s image, then it is not surprising to me to see why much of Western society today is dysfunctional: we lack real community.  I’m not just talking about co-workers that you whisk by on your way to you cubicle, desk, or work site every morning, and I’m not even talking about the people that you talk with from time to time about last night’s game, the weather, the recent elections, or your schoolwork.  I’m talking about people you confide in, that you trust with your secrets, that you think about during the day and discover that you love that person, not in a sexual way, but in a communal, trusting, supporting relationship.  When the creation made in God’s likeness is not behaving in the way they were created to behave, dysfunction, disorders, and destruction always results.

Perhaps the most powerful example of how this has changed my perspective this semester has been through a simple prayer group that I meet with every Wednesday before our midweek services.  We just go to a sort of living room in one of the halls on campus and hang out for half an hour.  We spend the first of our time writing private prayer requests on note cards and then pass them around and exchange them.  We make sure that its random to make sure that sub-cliques don’t form in the group, and then we relate some public prayer requests.  After that, we split up into groups of 3-5 and just pray together.  It’s enormously simply, but it’s also one of the most powerful ways that I have found to become better acquainted with people I didn’t know three months ago, not to mention the relational satisfaction that it gives me when I can’t go home to visit with my best friends for weeks at a time.

4) God is a God of both Work and Rest: another very powerful and motivating discovery for me to make was that God did create us humans to be productive.  I mean, in the book of Proverbs alone, there is a great deal of condemnation for laziness and a great deal of commendation for hard and reliable work.  Also, the Creation narrative specifies that God created six days of the week for work and the seventh day for rest.  This means that God wants us to be productive and successful members of society insofar as we can be.  Of course, there are some things that we cannot take care of on our own: for many people right now, unemployment is a growing problem around the world because of economic problems across the globe, and many people are legitimately trying to get a job to now avail.  For anyone who might be reading this who fits into that category, I’m praying for you and I hope that God gives you a source of income soon.  On the flip side, however, God did commission us as humans to work, and I believe that doing our work well can be an act of worship to God if we really allow ourselves to do as the Bible says and work as though we are working for God himself.

For me, this means that I should apply myself with all of the attention and focus that I can manage to my classes.  This is also a matter of honoring my parents; as of right now, my parents are putting me through college, and one of my goals in high school was to obtain scholarships to help ease the load from my parents and honor them for what they are doing for me.  Now that I have these scholarships, it is my desire to honor my parents’ sacrifices to me, both now and for raising me, by keeping my scholarships and applying myself in school.  I am also currently considering becoming a French Horn tutor at a local high school next semester; right now, my sister gives lessons at a local high school, and she has been doing this for a diverse number of people since she was in college (several years ago).  I’ve mentioned it to her, and she said that, if that is my choice, she will suggest me to some of her former students and I can tutor them and thereby have a source of income to prepare for my future.

However, God did also provide us with a day of rest, and I have to extrapolate from that that God recognizes that humans are prone to burn-outs and need a break every now and then.  Of course, this isn’t to excuse people who went on Thanksgiving Break last year and still haven’t returned to productivity; this is to prevent what we call workahalism and to prevent people from being so consumed by their jobs that they forget that the most important thing in our lives is relationships, both with God and with other people.

5) My place as a Steward of God’s Gifts: Finally, God has been teaching me of my position as a steward over all that He has given me.  The reason I use the term steward is this, and maybe this context will help clarify what I’m talking about:

There are plenty of people who go about this life and say, “Oh, the good Lord has been good to me.”  They might be speaking about their relationships, their financial situation, their house, their children, etc.  However, when it comes right down to it, I think that for many people, saying that is just another form of bragging and saying, “Wow, look how good I have it,” or even, “Look how good I have it in comparison with yourself.”  I have truly come to believe that, when God gives us something – money, a car, a family, a friend, an acquaintance, a job, even our body – then he is appointing us as a steward over it, with the expectation that God may ask for it back, and it would be a slap in the face to God to accept something from Him and then give it back to him in the same state that we found it, or even in a diminished state.

So, what does this mean practically?  If I am a steward of my body, that means that God has given it to me for the purpose of using it, but He also expects me to take care of it.  Supporting this proposition is the idea of doing with my body what Jesus would, and I’d have to say that I have a hard time picturing Jesus gaining weight or eating fast food all the time simply because he would want to take care of his body.

Also, stewardship with money is a concept that I think would benefit society greatly.  If people looked upon money not as their own but as a gift from God that He gave us for His Earthly purposes instead of something for them to spend on their own worldly pleasure, then I’d be willing to bet that the following things could and would happen:

• Credit card debt would cease to be a problem,
• The national debt would stop growing and would start to be paid off,
• More donations would go to starving men, women and children who can’t expect even one square meal a week,
• More hospitals would be built,
• The housing crisis would dissolve because everyone would suddenly realize that God does not approve of debt (again, in Proverbs),
• Schools wouldn’t have to teach high school students personal finances because the students would already have the one concept that they need for financial management and security,
• World hunger would eventually cease to be a problem,
• Homeless shelters would be built,
• Churches would be sending out missionaries by the tens and hundreds of thousands, and
• People would know that, no matter how much money they have, it is all from God’s hand for God’s purposes, and I’d be willing to bet that Christmas would still be the biggest shopping season of the year because everyone would be so excited to give to those they love…within reason, of course.

Stewardship also applies to how I spend my time.

These are the sorts of things that I have been thinking about and learning about this semester.  I guess it’s all a part of becoming an adult.

God Bless!

SfC

Thoughts For the Weekend

To begin with, I haven’t spent much time in the last few days writing on Kenushi Ryu.  What little spare time I have had this week has involved finishing and perfecting my paper on John Donne’s Holy Sonnet XIV.  I feel satisfied, however, that the final product I turned in was the best that I could do, given the amount of time I had.  Of course, had I invested more time in it to begin with, it would have been even better, but I won’t beat myself up about that; I did what I could.

Anyway, we have moved on from the Romantic poets to Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” for my English class.  I can’t say that I have read too much (it’s on my weekend to-do list), but from my initial impressions, Mr. Bennet is shaping up to be one of my more favorite characters.  He’s witty, but he also doesn’t show it off or flaunt it; he always knows more than he is letting on.  His is a sort of character that I would love to accurately portray in my book (in my own literary style, of course).

On this subject, in one of my history lectures a couple of weeks ago, the professor mentioned a book to the class whose name now eludes me.  It was a story of Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency through the eyes of his advisers, secretaries, etc.  When asked why the writer of this book didn’t tell it from Roosevelt’s perspective, he stated that he felt that Roosevelt’s was a mind that he felt was too difficult to penetrate and understand, which is quite something for this particularly accomplished writer to say.  Of course, it is an historical fact that Roosevelt kept most of his thoughts to himself, meaning that he could make sudden decisions without foreshadowing it to anyone, not even Eleanor, his friends, advisers, or anyone else.  Again, this makes me say that such a mind is the sort of character I would love to write into my book properly.  Of course, as the writer that I have already mentioned, if I feel that I can’t do it well, then I feel that I ought not to try, but it would be something fun to attempt.

On the subject of my history class, we are in the finishing chapters of Bradley’s Flags of Our Fathers.  The thing that I found most striking about the novel was the way the Battle of Iwo Jima was described in such powerfully honest details, talking about the wounds that people sustained and the Japanese tortures on a captured American and all of that sort of thing.  Of course, I already made a post back in September (World War II and Counting the Cost) where I discuss the reality of all of this, but reading through the middle part of Bradley’s book definitely reinforced that newly-percieved reality.  Anyway, that’s something else that I have on my to-do list.

I had a concert with the college band that I am in Tuesday night and my mother, father, and sister all came up to watch it, which was a cause for joy.  Thinking about it right now just reminds me that in a week, I will be going home for a whole week for Thanksgiving, and the history instructor informed us today that he is canceling Friday afternoon classes so that we can go home sooner, which also makes me very happy.  Since the last couple of days have been taxing on my time, I also have a great deal of French Horn practicing to do this weekend.

Also, I have a Music Theory exam on Tuesday, which will require preparation, though I do feel more prepared for this one than I do the previous two.  Don’t mistake me, I will still be certain to study and prepare for it.  However, I am much more relaxed about this exam.

Religious Studies continues to be the class that I do the best in.  I just find myself asking how much of the extra time and energy I spent in high school learning about religious issues and theological understanding accounts for the amount of (unusual) proficiency I have found in that class.  Our guest speaker on Wednesday was a Muslim woman talking with us about Isalmic teachings focusing on modesty and our guest speaker on Monday was a Jewish Rabbi who mainly focused (per the regular professor’s request) on discussing why modern Judaism rejects Jesus as their Messiah.  First, though, he explained that Judaism is not a homogenenous religion, that it has many opinions about scripture and God.  Perhaps the most striking thing he stated was that modern Jews do not see their religion as the only way to God, that you don’t have to be Jewish to know Yahweh.  In fact, perhaps the most shocking statement he made (most shocking to me) was blatantly, “Jews are pluralist.”  He then went on to explain the following reasons why Judaism rejects Jesus as their Savior, as I have copied in my notes:

• Jews have a concept of God as being One (in contrast to the Christian doctrine of the Trinity), and Jesus being God violates their understanding of Yahweh.
• Jesus did not fulfill the full qualifications for being the Jewish Messiah as set forth by the Old Testament prophets (he did not become an earthly king, did not usher in Messianic Age, etc.)
• Jesus said that he had not come to “remove one stroke of ink from the law or the prophets,” yet Paul allowed Gentiles to become Christians without requiring circumcision, Sabbath rest, keeping of the Jewish Law, etc.
• Jews also believe that forgiveness is attained not through Jesus Christ, but by a change of behavior through following the law.

Anyhow, I found the lecture quite interesting and informative.  They have definitely given my mind something to munch on.

SfC

Reawakening to Education & Curiousity; Continued Sythesis of Thought and Faith

Forging on ahead in Bloom’s Closing of the American Mind, I have finally finished his extensive chapter on Relationships.

First, I believe that I have started to grasp the observation on feminism that Bloom has made. Bloom observes that, because sex is easy to obtain, feminism has begun to attain greater lengths of power in the intellectual community. However, Bloom goes on to point out that, though women claim the same rights as men, they are wired differently in that they have the desire to bear children (though I do recognize that not all women have this desire) and have associated struggles that deal with this. Of course, Bloom brings the discussion back to the university by observing that more and more of today’s students suffer under the influence of broken homes from divorce as a result of the desires of women to not have to deal with having children and instead cling to their “rights” to have the same job opportunities as men, which taken from their perspective means that men must drop their responsibilities to the family and try to be mothers while women try to successfully be the men of the house, both in having authority, in supporting the family, and everything else. This causes psychological problems to the families that go through these divorces, and these problems are (Bloom generalizes, but I say that the problems can be) aggravated by the use of psychologists who try to comfort the parents into thinking their children will be alright while both parents pursue their own individualized goals (I insert the term “selfish” where Bloom says “individualized,” though I must also realize in saying this that it can hardly be called selfish when some people are never exposed to the thought that there is fulfillment in serving and seeking Truth rather than the Self)

Bloom does say that he doesn’t say that the old system (the system of the nuclear family) was good or that we should go back to it. I must insert a disagreement here; I do believe that the system as it was was good; that is, it was functional and effective in providing people with a template for a functional system by which to raise their children successfully (then again, I can speak only lightly on this subject; the old system did have its own imperfections and I haven’t seen it implemented on as large a scale as the way it is being decommissioned today and therefore don’t have the personal experience to say for certain if things today are better or worse). Should we go back to the original system? Honestly, I do believe so, though I doubt that such is possible in today’s relativistic circumstances. Then again, if we aren’t going to go back to the old system, then what new system has been proposed or enacted to replace it? None, so far as I know.

Bloom points out that, the way the old system was set up, virtues were acquired by way of appealing to the nature of people. Men, who were (and, to an extent, are) possessive and protective of self, and thus this possessiveness was expanded to encompass his family (and, in my personal experience, I see that this possessiveness was encompassed further to include the best and closest of my friends). Instead, today, the possessiveness is condemned as evil, replaced with a fake nature that men will never truly possess, and then the men are condemned when both the fake nature and the desired virtues are unsuccessful.

From this, I see some wisdom. As a Christian, I see that you do not manufacture feelings of kindness to people that you naturally have a disliking for (though, as far as trying to become like a Son of God, as C.S. Lewis points out, there is a legitimacy in trying to behave as a Son of God with the goal of actually becoming more like a Son of God). Instead, you refrain from expressing your feelings of dislike to people (letting it die) and “fertilize” your natural feelings of kindness that they may grow. Of course, Lewis also points out in this that there are some who are possessed wholly of rottenness and unkindness, which means that the person is blessed with an automatic dependence on God for change in the raw materials of their souls, that they might be better Christians.

Finally, in the last section of Bloom’s chapter on relationships, he discusses how the commonness of sex has disabled it as a path that some people in past cultural circumstances might have sought enlightenment. This I understand personally: having no true romantic experience of mine own, so I find myself drawn into the romantic experiences of others (fiction or nonfiction) that I might better understand my own circumstances (though I am cautious with this, for I also recognize that excessively focusing on this incomplete part of my distracts me from today’s opportunities to serve God and explore the world as well as focuses me on myself, which is a side-track into selfish sins).

This last section of Bloom’s “Relationships” reminds me of curiosity and the need to have it in my search for knowledge and wisdom and it has reawakened my innate curiosity. It is as though some thoughts that I have had in the past have resurfaced: the recognition that the path to wisdom and ignorance must first go through ignorance, child-like ignorance of everything and to never stop asking questions. It was Christ, was it not, who said, “Unless you change and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of God?” while one of Socrates’ last statements was an acknowledgment that he was the only one who realized his complete ignorance. Didn’t Socrates teach that the truly wise do not desire great power (politically) and avoid it while Christ spent his whole ministry running from the crowds when they tried to crown Him and make Him their ruler?

Bloom also reminds me that, in seeking fulfillment in studying history, I must also visualize the lives of heroes and villains long gone, to be able to walk into a monastery older than all my known relatives and imagine the many days and nights spent by the monks residing there, imagine their prayers, their studies, their hunger for righteousness, to be able to walk the streets of Washington, D.C. and imagine the British invasion in the War of 1812 or the inauguration day of Lincoln or the assassination day of Kennedy…

Finally, I’m reminded that the true goal of education is not to get a job but to know oneself through the lens of the greater thinkers past and present. This is achieved through curiosity, imagination, and (as a Christian) the desire to know God that transcends all self-seeking drives, instead overriding them and making me more aware of how awesome a creation I (as a human being) am and how God is working in my life.

I thought that such reawakening would be worth posting. Take care!

SfC

The American Cornerstone and More Reading of Bloom’s American Mind

In a conversation with another writer and thinker that I am acquainted with, this thought came to me about America’s origins:

Psalms 118:22 is a well-known verse to studied Christians. It states, “The Stone that the Builders rejected has become the cornerstone (or capstone in some translations).” It is referenced several times in the New Testament, pointing to how Christ, though He declared himself to the Jewish people as the Messiah that had been prophecied of since the days of Moses and the 40 years in the wilderness, was condemned by the religious leaders of the time and was crucified. However, because Christ lived the perfect life and bore the sins of the world, He rose to new life and spawned a movement within Judaism.

However, even though the movement was peaceful, the leaders of the time (and for the next 300 years) continued to reject the teachings of Jesus. However, from the perspective of history, the stone that the builders the builders rejected truly did become the cornerstone for today’s largest sect of faith on Earth’s surface as well as one of the dynamic elements within the dialectic that is Western culture.

Similarly, the values that Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Thomas Paine, and many of their co-conspirators (I use the term loosely to refer to America’s Found Fathers) held to political (and in some cases, religious in the form of Protestantism) ideals that had faced persecution in Europe. However, in America, these same ideas held strong and eventually became the cornerstone of the U.S.’s government, ideas about “all men being created equal” and having freedom to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Again, the rejected stone became the cornerstone.

Of course, this might be why the United States and Christianity have seemingly walked hand-in-hand for the last couple of centuries; both share similar histories and, regardless of what people say, freedom to practice religion are one of the central reasons as to why people came to (and still come to) the United States since its birth.

Of course, from my perspective, I see that both are facing (and losing to) the same enemy. The United States and the American Christian Church faces many struggles ahead, not the least of which is the death of the American culture, consumerism, egalitarian ideals towards both people and ideas, and lack of concern over these problems, which multiplies the potential damage they could inflict on our nation exponentially.

When I speak of Egalitarianism as a danger to our democracy, I do not contest the belief that the Declaration of Independence is true in that “All men are created equal” insofar as men all have the right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” as well as the many other rights that the Constitution grants. The egalitarianism that endangers us all is to take the phrase, “All men are created equal” and not continue on. The purpose of the statement was to assert that men are all, in the eyes of the government, the same (which in today’s society is not true in total practice; I know people who are given leniency from speeding tickets because their relatives are police or city government officials). The assertion was not that all men were created completely equal in mental capacity and capability, which is an idea that has broken our education system.

To illustrate this point, I will reference something that my director at church camp told me and the rest of the counselors in relation to caring for the students. The gist of her thought is, “Equal is not fair.” From there, she elaborates that some of the campers coming to camp will have lived perfect (or at least passably normal) lives and will need no extra attention. On the other hand, there will be other campers who struggle with obesity or who have abusive parents or who have had no exposure to God or Godly people in their lives. These campers will need more attention, more care, and more love than some others.

I believe this to be a very meaningful phrase to consider in a world that is constantly pushing for fairness through equality. With first-hand experience of passing through the public school system, I can safely say that equal is never fair. I have seen it; students who are ultra-high achievers who are capable of being the next Abraham Lincoln, Frederich Nietzsche, Rene Descartes, or J.R.R. Tolkien are put in the same institutionalized holding pen as kids who won’t learn to read or write until they are ten or twelve and are expected to receive the same training and exposures (in the public school) as everyone else. This not only can’t be achieved; it shouldn’t’ be. The end result would be taking the standard Bell curve that illustrates a class and manipulating the whole thing until all you have is a straight line: no incredible geniuses, no mentally challenged students either. So, here’s my question to this philosophy of education: is the squandering and suffocation of our greatest minds worth the effort of trying to hoist everyone onto the same level? Remember, “Equal is not fair.”

I have also continued reading Allan Bloom’s Closing of the American Mind. His chapter on relationships is highly interesting to me who, as a Christian, am taught that our relationships with other people are the most important part of our life on Earth. I also think that the “Relationships” chapter is one of the longest ones in the book.

First, Bloom discusses the “niceness” of his students and how they, living in a society where they have no great need, are neither greatly good or evil, though they do seem without ambition. Next, Bloom notices how Equality seems to have shattered all racial barriers save for the one between Caucasians and African-Americans, where a new barrier called affirmative action has reinforced some of the barriers that were nearly completely destroyed and might become a catalyst for greater racial unrest in the future. Also (and this is as far as I have read thus far), Bloom talks of how the new modes of sexual relations (brought on by music and media that promoted release from sexual inhibitions during the sixties) have given rise to feminism. Unfortunately, even now, I do not fully understand the full extent of what Bloom is trying to say here, though I do recognize that, at the point I am in the book, he is only making observations of his students, not stating opinions. From what I could understand, his observation is that sex is so easy (by easy, I mean to mean simple or common to obtain) as to be common knowledge and thought for today’s youth (especially young girls, who were expected to be the “proper” ones in cultural periods past).

Because of this, we have the rise of feminism, which to my mind’s eye seems like affirmative action and the rising “tyranny of the minority” that I observe: for a long time, blacks and females seemed to have fewer cultural (not political, mind you) rights than Caucasian men and, in government, political minorities were respected though not calling the shots. Now, this is not to say that the principles behind affirmative action are wrong; I would hazard a guess that there are good intentions in those who do this. However, the end result is that, instead of a stabilization of equality between Caucasian and Blacks, men and women, we know see that the ball is rolling further into their court; instead, Blacks, women, and even political minorities are receiving special treatment, which goes against the principles of equality that were the basis for the push towards abolition of slavery and Woman’s voting rights as well as the Constitutional assertions that the majority vote rules.

However, that leap-frogs into an entirely other political ballgame that I don’t have enough time to cover. I’ll likely comment further on Bloom’s observations of feminism when I better understand them. Thanks for reading!

SfC

The Nature of Music and the Corruption of the West

Music is something that I thoroughly enjoy. Even as I am typing, I am listening to Chris Sligh’s “Empty Me,” a major hit on Christian radio. I also respect music, acknowledging its impressive power. After all, music is one of the most powerful forces in the world, and in my mind arguably the most powerful force ever conceived by man: guns, missiles, and nuclear bombs have the power to take life on an enormous scale, true enough, but music has the ability to affect the state of one’s soul in a more profound way than anything else. I look at it this way: a gun can take someone’s life; music can convince that same person to give their life for you.

The youth group that I have attended for three years has covered a unit of music a couple of times and our teacher puts it this way: music is a combination of two of the most powerful forces in the world. One is sound with a beat, rhythm, a sense of organization, etc. With music, we are taught our ABC’s when we are five years old and we never forget them. I learned the books of the Bible through song, and I remember them to this day in perfect order. The other force is words, which are one of the most powerful forces in the world. With words alone, the President can cause the deaths (or continued existence) of thousands or millions of people; with words, a husband can either reinforce or end his relationship with his wife. Put words and rhythm together, and what do you have? Music, a synthesis of two ultra-power elements.

So, the question becomes, how does this relate to the “Corruption of the West” spoken of in the title? Think of it this way: a great man once said that you can gauge the health of a society by hearing its music. Okay, fair enough, right? I don’t know about you, but when last I was listening to the mainstream radio, I was hearing a song entitled, “The Seven Things I Hate About You,” written from the perspective of a girlfriend who is vocally (and vehemently) expressing her anger at her boyfriend for the many things that frustrate her. If I was to gauge the values of the entire society on that one song, I should think that our society values hatred and intolerance. Of course, I believe that in reality, that would be an accurate though incomplete evaluation of Western society.

As a Christian, I believe that such music corrupts our society because of the exact nature of music. I know that when I listen to a song that talks of anger and rebellion, if I hear the song enough times, I start to find myself reciprocating the emotions expressed in the song. This is because of the way our brains are hard-wired: the same part of our brain interprets speech and maintains the beat and rhythm when performing music.

Music is by its nature emotional, and this is not a bad thing. Aldous Huxley is quoted saying, “After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music,” and I concur with this: music seems to awaken within us an otherwise-unresponsive longing, which is best expressed through music. The danger is to deactivate the rational aspects of our minds and completely switch on the emotional side.

This also hits on a major part of my personality, the closely-contested dialectic tension between the rational and emotional aspects of my soul. I understand that I require my mind to guide my emotions; I need my emotions to give life and joy to my mind. To lean to much in either direction is to lose life either in the form of lost joy or direction-less emotion. I also believe that this makes me a stronger, more complete person, much in the same way that Jeffrey Hart acclaims that the Science-Religion dialectic of the West has granted it greater vitality than any other civilization in Smiling Through the Cultural Catastrophe.

The reason I speak of this at length now, however, is because I have just this afternoon read more from Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind. In it, he has already posed that the “openness” that American society preaches as actually an openness to closeness: to the lack of Absolute Truth, which results in the inability to discern Good and Bad (with no truth, there is only endless interpretation, whereas the belief in a good requires that there be a Truth), the inability to seek the Greater Good (other than societal and personal good insofar as what we enjoy and what keeps society going), and so on.

In Bloom’s chapter on music, he takes on a position that brings new light to my evaluation of pop culture music. He talks of how, using music, the “love and sex” ideas infiltrated our culture in the sixties and have become commonly accepted in our culture today (which might be our downfall). Of course, it is nearly impossible to change what the music industry is churning out after allowing it free reign for forty years; it has become part of the culture.

Bloom pointed out, in addition to the immorality of it all, as far as education is concerned, today’s pop music cuts students off from their own souls; in combination with the many other cultural problems America faces, the students are taught through modern music that sex, hatred, and self are all there is. It isn’t necessarily that youth refuse the freshness of the writers of the past in their quest for the fountain of truth (though it is likely some do); for many of today’s youth, the existence of that fountain and the relative ease of seeking it are masked from them. It isn’t that they don’t want what Truth is selling; they are ignorant that Truth is on the market. They are indoctrinated from birth that the only fulfillment on the market is available for small periods of time in the form of the new and catchy, the newest gadgets, clothes, and accessories for their iPod: the triumph of Capitalist marketing.

Bloom also points out that those who do unplug themselves from the music machine of modern culture are left on a permanent low, like someone who has been off of drugs for the first time in years. Suddenly, that person realizes that they will never have another high quite like the first one they had; all they can hope for is something that helps them vaguely remember what their first high was like or the infinite dullness of daily living. Of course, Bloom states, liberal education is meant to show these people that this is not the way things have to be, regardless of what they are told on television and by modern culture.

Bloom also points to another strange and, when examined, alarming trend among modern youth: many have no heroes to look up to, no one who embodies what they want to be. Of course, when you get do to it, many modern youth point to people who have “made it” according to cultural standards as people worthy of emulation. Few people try to emulate Christ (after all, he had no multi-million dollar mansion, no awesome car, not even a family; he just taught us to live right and something about “storing up riches in heaven,” whatever that means, and “the last will be first,” whatever that means, and “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” whatever that means), I’d bet that no one tries to emulate Hercules, Odysseus, Moses, Achilles or any other hero of the past. If students are honest, many would likely say that Bill Gates, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Donald Trump have lives they wished to have; others might say the name of some movie actor or Olympic athlete that is all the rage today and unheard of tomorrow. After all, if most of today’s youth accept the propaganda that there is no Absolute, then Jesus was just another preacher or even a heretic, Achilles was just foolishly clinging to foolish traditions when he allowed Priam to bury Hector honorably, and Bill Gates is the greatest man in the world because he, having the most money, is able to watch out for himself the best.

Music as it is will probably continue as it has been for the last forty years, which I’m almost certain will be one of the final elements that bring our society to its knees. Something else that Bloom points out is when he tells students of Socrates’ desire to censor music in his perfect society in The Republic, many of them feel as though Socrates is assaulting something precious to them. However, it is in light of our current situation that I see that Socrates may have had a more valid idea than is readily apparent at first examination. I do not think I am quite ready to advocate the censorship of music, but I do now see that such censorship might be necessary if we are to turn back the tide of relativism and remind people that there is something else besides sex, hatred, and selfishness. Of course, some would be turned away by the fact that, in all these years, none (outside the field of religion, anyhow) have claimed to discover the Absolute face-to-face…yet we must also see that men of the past have found more fulfillment in the search for Truth than we have in the abandonment of this search. Perhaps that is what we were built to do…

As a writer, I also feel I must mention that, as a creative writer, I find today’s music destructive in that, instead of conveying otherwise-inexpressible longing and thought, today’s pop music is used to convey our baser instincts: sexual love, hatred, and despair. Such music doesn’t promote creativity; it destroys it, incapacitates it, limits it. From this perspective, it is no wonder that America hasn’t produced any recognizably great thinkers or politicians or artists for the last century or so.

SfC

A Provoked Longing: A Reading Log

Starting yesterday afternoon, I have opened some discussion in another blog. The post title is “Strobel’s The Case for Christ – religious propaganda,” where the writer discusses how, when Lee Strobel wrote his investigative novel, in his interviews, he seemed to omit some of the counter-arguments against the Gospel he was investigating, which is what the writer of the blog was pointing out. I’ll admit, I do agree that Strobel, in his novel, didn’t always follow through with every question possible. However, it seemed that the writer of the post was discounting the rest of the arguments in the novel. Also, I am reminded that Strobel was doing his own research as he wrote the novel; he might have been able to confirm some of the statements that were otherwise left unchallenged in interview.

Anyhow, the conversation has now evolved into a discussion about all of the various issues in the overarching Religion vs. Science debate. I find myself referencing ideas and concepts proposed by C.S. Lewis, especially in his theological book Mere Christianity, and the more I think of it, the more I realize that I am out-of-touch with the novel and most of the works of Lewis. I first read Mere Christianity as a freshman in high school, and the book was quite impressive to me in the way Lewis was able to lay out a logical argument for the existence of God (it was actually one of the first of its kind that I was exposed to) and I find myself drawn back to it from time to time. I believe that my current desire to read it is fueled by my debate online, but regardless, I will soon immerse myself in it again. I am also hoping to read some of his other works, Miracles especially, soon after.

However, I will need to be careful; I am just starting to read The Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom as well as trying to read the daily devotional book My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers and the Bible, itself. Now that I think about it, I also need to finish Smiling Through the Cultural Catastrophe by Jeffrey Hart, which is a novel we used as a textbook in the Great Books class my Senior year. Beyond these, I also am hoping to read A House United by Francis Frangipane and a book my sister gave me about the Restoration Movement in America…

…and I’m hoping to do all of this before the summer’s end? I leave for church camp to counsel 3rd and 4th graders and, when I get back, my brother is having a wedding and, after that, I will be going off to college before long. I doubt that I will get all of this reading done, especially when I am trying to write my own novel at the same time. Still, I will try and we’ll just have to see where things go.

SfC