The Tree

Styling optgroups

2011-07-19T08:07:00.001-07:00

An earlier post noted that I had managed to go a long time without learning about the optgroup feature that allows items in a drop down list to be grouped under sub-headings. Yesterday, I wanted to change the default look, so I did a quick google search to see if anyone had any nice styling examples that I could adapt - this is my normal design policy as I am a poor original designer.

Basically, there were none (this makes me feel better - apparently I am not the only web developer who has overlooked this feature). So I set out to develop my own. My first style rule was a simple selector on optgroup:

optgroup {
    background-color: #023373;
    color: #ffffff;
}

I was hoping just the group title would be in dark blue with white text, but instead the entire group was—which meant that then entire list was so colored. So I added a second rule:

optgroup option {
    background-color: white;
    color: black;
}

This got it. Now my headers were blue bars with white text, but the rest of the list was back to normal. All that remained was to give the group titles a bit better look: I wanted them centered with a little spacing. My final rules:

optgroup {
    background-color: #023373;
    color: #ffffff;
    font-weight: bold;
    font-style: normal;
    padding: 3px 0 0 0;
    text-align: center;
}
        
optgroup option {
    background-color: #ffffff;
    color: #000000;
    padding: 0 0 0 1em;
    text-align: left;
}

Note that I had to reset the styling for the option. I initially had left off the padding rule for the option elements, and the actual list items were flush left.

Here's an example of the final look:

Design by accident

2011-07-15T13:27:00.000-07:00

Wow! 3 in one day...

I am a poor original designer. That is, if you give me a blank page, my designs will be at best passable. I'm not too bad at improving a design, so I can be a useful member of a design team, as long as someone else has the original ideas.

One consequence of this is that my best designs are accidental. Case in point: today, I decided that I did not like the graphical buttons that I was using throughout mypeoplematter. I went to the css button generator site to try out a button using the overall color scheme for the site. I ended up with something that I liked, so I updated my style sheets and voila! New buttons. I liked them a lot better, but because I had used a very small padding value in the style sheets, some were exceptionally small. So, I added a min-width attribute to the style. This was the design accident.

When I went to look at the buttons, they were left-justified. And I loved it! I have not seen left-justified buttons on a web site before, so I had no idea how cool they could look.

Example

An example above. I have to admit, I like this significantly better than centered buttons. I wonder, has anyone else an opinion?

UpdatePanel animations and focus

2011-07-15T12:44:00.001-07:00

My site at mypeoplematter makes extensive use of UpdatePanels to provide a more pleasant user experience. For pages that submit data to the database (and might therefore take some time to return), I use UpdatePanelAnimationExtenders to give a visual indication that something is happening. So far, so good. My pages don't flash, and the user knows when they have to wait.

I have a page for entering weekly donations. Most churches do this in a large batch, so the page is designed to be very easy to use: the tab order is very predictable, you can press the Enter key when you have entered all the necessary information, etc. Unfortunately, when I add an UpdatePanel and the AnimationExtender to this page, I lost a critical usability feature: the page did not set the focus to the proper control.

This is one of those problems that is well documented on the web, but not well solved. I found my answer here, in the midst of a lot of incorrect suggestions. Whet I have done is added an AnimationExtender to the TextBox that I want to have control. That AnimationExtender uses the OnLoad animation to set the focus. It's a little kludgy, it would be nice if the UpdatePanelAnimationExtender did it correctly in the first place.

But what's really nice is that I was able to hide the code in a custom control I had already written. The UpdatePanelAnimationExtender is complex to specify, and requires some javascript to make it all work. I had already encapsulated all of that into a composite control that I could just drop onto my page thus:

<mypeople:UpdateAnimation ID="updateAnimation" runat="server" AnimationTargetID="wholePage" UpdatePanelID="upnlContent" FocusControlID="donorLookup" />

I added the FocusControlID attribute, and added some code to generate the necessary controls and javascript:

protected override void CreateChildControls() {
 ... other code for the update panel

 // If there is a FocusControlID, add an extender to set the focus
 focusAE = null;
 if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(FocusControlID)) {
  UpdatePanel upnl = Page.MuchBetterFindControl(UpdatePanelID);
  focusAE = new AjaxControlToolkit.AnimationExtender {
   TargetControlID = FocusControlID, 
   Animations = "",
  };
  upnl.Controls[0].Controls.Add(focusAE);
 } // if

 ... code to build the page
} // CreateChildControls

protected override void OnPreRender(EventArgs e) {
 if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(FocusControlID)) {
  Control theControl = NamingContainer.FindControl(FocusControlID);
  String controlID = FocusControlID;
  if (theControl != null) {
   if (theControl is PartyLookup) {
    controlID = ((PartyLookup)theControl).TextBoxClientID;
   } else {
    controlID = theControl.ClientID;
   } // if
  } // if
  js += "\nfunction OnLoad_FocusField() { UpdateExtenderFocusField('" + 
        controlID + "'); }";
 } // if
} // OnPreRender

The method MuchBetterFindControl is from here. It searches the hierarchy of control for the control with the indicated ID.

An interesting note: I cannot create the UpdatePanelAnimationExtender inside the UpdatePanel, but I have to create the focus control's AnimationExtender inside the UpdatePanel. So, in the code for CreateChildControls, I make sure to add the extender to the UpdatePanel's controls, not to those of the composite control.

All in all, this turned out to be a nifty, relatively clean solution to a problem that remains unsolved in most of the places I saw it on the Internet. If you would like the code, email me and I will bundle up the pieces for you.

Worship word: presents

2011-07-15T12:25:00.000-07:00

Theologians (and I'm sure some who might read this post will be irritated) speak of the attributes of God. This is a useful way to try to understand what He has told us about Himself in the Bible, but it can sometimes get so theoretical and dry that it threatens to suck the life out of the Living God Himself.

Consider God's attribute of immutability. That this attribute is His is undeniable. 1 Samuel 15:29 and Malachi 3:6 say so explicitly. But note that these passages say that God's mind does not change, i.e., His plans and purposes for today are the same as they were yesterday and as they will be for all eternity.

What does this have to do with worship? You see, theologians get snagged on this concept. They extend it beyond this idea of immutable purpose to mean that things that happen have no impact on Him. But the Bible tells us that God takes pleasure in our worship, it tells us that He seeks worshipers. When we worship, we bring presents to the God of the universe, and He is affected by them. He created us for relationship, and our worship is an expression of that relationship. Think of it - the creator God is moved by my efforts to have relationship with Him.

I am always amazed that so wonderful a woman as Bethany chooses to love me - how much more amazing is the love of the God of Gods.

Learning

2011-07-11T08:25:00.003-07:00

I have been writing web pages for a long time now. I started teaching HTML in 1999, and have worked for most of the last decade on projects that revolved around web pages. One would think that I probably knew most of the details of HTML - it is not a particularly complex language. Even if I didn't know all of the esoterica, surely I had all of the broad strokes, right? Well...

I was working on the accounting application within mypeoplematter. When the user needs to enter a transaction, they select an account from their chart of accounts. I am using a standard select list, which translates into a drop-down list in the web browser:

The list was too long (the basic chart of accounts has over 50 accounts in it), and there was no indication of the type of account (income / expense / bank / liability) in the list. I wanted to layout the list so that the account type was on the far-right, with the account name left-justified, but this is not supported by the HTML spec, so I was looking around the web for other ideas.

I found someone's code that had provided something like this, and was looking through it to try and understand what they did. In the midst of the code, there was something about optgroups. I didn't know what that was, so I googled it. Turns out, you can group items in select lists using optgroup. Over a decade of experience, and here was something new. Not only that, but it solves my problem perfectly. By the way, for programmers who find this, I will post at the end a small class that extends the standard .NET DropDownList to support retrieving the optgroup from the data source.

But my real point here is not about optgroups. My point is about knowledge. It seemed entirely reasonable to me to assume that I knew most of the features of HTML 4 - it is, after all, pretty simple. But here was something I had simply never encountered. It was a humbling moment. And of course, it made me realize that this experience is probably much more common than I realize. It is probably so for all of us. I know this is true: it just pays to be reminded:

It is not the things we know that give us the most trouble; it's not even the things we know we don't know; it's the things we don't know we don't know that are the biggest issue.

Humility doesn't always come easy for me. It's helpful to be reminded.

Programmers - here, in its entirety, is my DropDownList extension - it doesn't format well on my blog site, but if you select it and paste it into a text editor, it's all there:

using System;
using System.Collections;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.UI;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls;
using MyPeople.Extensions;

/// 

/// This class extends the built-in DropDownList to provide support for retriving the name of an optgroup from the database.
/// 

namespace MyPeople.WebControls {
    public class OptGroupDropDownList : DropDownList {
        public OptGroupDropDownList() { }

        /// 
        /// The field in the datasource that provides the value for the optgroup. IF not set, then the list behaves as the built-in dropdownlist.
        /// 

        public string OptGroupField {
            get {
                object o = ViewState["OptGroupField"];
                return (o == null) ? "" : (string)o;
            } // get
            set {
                ViewState["OptGroupField"] = value;
            } // set
        } // OptGroupField

        protected override void RenderContents(HtmlTextWriter writer) {
            if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(OptGroupField)) {
                base.RenderContents(writer);
            } else {
                bool useOptGroup = !String.IsNullOrEmpty(OptGroupField);
                String lastOptGroup = null;
                ObjectDataSource ds = Page.MuchBetterFindControl(DataSourceID);
                IEnumerable objs = ds.Select();
                foreach (object item in objs) {
                    String text = DataBinder.Eval(item, DataTextField, DataTextFormatString);
                    String val = "";
                    if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(DataValueField)) {
                        val = DataBinder.Eval(item, DataValueField, "{0}");
                    } // if
                    bool sel = false;
                    if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(SelectedValue)) {
                        sel = val == SelectedValue;
                    } // if

                    if (useOptGroup) {
                        string thisGroup = DataBinder.Eval(item, OptGroupField, "{0}");
                        if (thisGroup != lastOptGroup) {
                            if (lastOptGroup != null) writer.WriteLine("");
                            writer.WriteLine("", thisGroup);
                            lastOptGroup = thisGroup;
                        } // if
                    } // if
                    writer.WriteLine("", System.Web.HttpUtility.HtmlEncode(text), System.Web.HttpUtility.HtmlEncode(val), sel ? " selected='selected'" : "");
                } // foreach

                if (useOptGroup) {
                    writer.WriteLine("");
                } // if
            } // if
        } // RenderContents
    } // class OptGroupDropDownList
} // namespace

Naming

2011-07-04T15:05:00.000-07:00

Happy 4th of July. It is a good thing to celebrate the birthday of the greatest nation in all of history. Not perfect, but the best we humans have done thus far.

I am working a bit today, mostly because we are going to be going away for a few days later this week and wanted to finish a particularly useful piece of code for the accounting report system. Along the way, I discovered a flaw in my design. These are always frustrating; especially when, as in this case, the design flaw touches on several aspects of the software and thus testing the fix is more time-consuming and tedious. But this design flaw was particularly frustrating, because there were signs of the problem that I overlooked. The most significant sign that I had a problem in my design was to be found in the names that I was using.

Briefly, the flaw was that I was only requiring that a single item be configured where I in fact needed two related items. As I went through my code making the change, I found that I had been confused all along, as I sometimes used one name when describing the configured item, while at other times I use another name. The two names accurately described the two items I needed, but I missed the hint until just today.

I mention this because this is one of those principles of programming that I have developed over my career: if I don't know what to name something, then I don't understand it. And if I don't understand it, I haven't fully investigated it. Normally, if I have trouble with a name, I back away from the code and attempt to clarify my understanding before I move forward. In this particular case, I let my (mistaken) belief that I knew what I needed obscure the hint that the naming issue was giving me.

I love this for another reason. The issue of naming is one of those things that touches on multiple disciplines. The centrality of naming is one of the reasons that I have confidence in the Genesis story - the God who made us understands that if we cannot name something, we don't understand it. So, one of His first tasks for man was to name the animals. It matters not to me whether you believe in the historicity of the Genesis account; it is difficult to deny the insight of the second chapter of Genesis in this matter.

This issue of naming touches in the political realm as well. One of the great powers of the media is that it often gets to name the forces within our society. The power of naming allows the namer to define the item named. It is why politicians look to name bills. The name of the bill becomes its meaning, even if they are not in fact the same thing. To name is to define and to control understanding.

Finally, I have found this principle true in my own life. Early in my adult life, I was struggling with some personal issues. I flailed away, trying to get a handle on what I was doing, until a friend gave me a name. In retrospect, the name was only partly accurate. But at the time, the name gave me something to address. In addressing the name, I found the ability to overcome the underlying issue and to move past a continuing area of struggle.

I recommend it as a life principle. If you do not understand what is happening in life, try to name it. The process of naming can often bring the understanding that has heretofore eluded you.

It also works if you write software...

Being left handed

2011-06-28T17:22:00.000-07:00

I am, in case you didn't know, left-handed. I love being left-handed, the greatest men in history were predominantly left-handed (so were some of the worst). Even God is left-handed. Don't believe me? He must be, since the Bible says that Jesus is sitting on His right hand.

Anyways, there are many, many places in which being left-handed puts me at a disadvantage. Some are trivial - did you know that the printing on pens and pencils is upside-down if you hold them in your left hand? Some are minor - scissors are built so that when held in your right hand, the top blade does not obscure your view of the cut line - when held in the left hand, you must look over the blade to see your cut line. Some can be dangerous - in fact left-handers may actually live shorter lives.

Here's one I'll bet no one has noticed before. The shortcut keys for the common editing commands undo, cut, copy, and paste use the shortcuts Z, X, C, and V respectively. All of those keys are on the left side of the keyboard. So, when I am using my mouse and I want to use one of those common shortcuts, I must take my hand off of the mouse, press the desired key chord, then return to the mouse. If I have a difficult series of edits to make (this is common when I am programming) this can be very inefficient. Sometimes I even move the mouse to the right side of the keyboard for a few minutes (another advantage to being left-handed is that most of us can use out right hands fairly well for common tasks).

Probably not the biggest issue in my life, but it sure can be irritating. I can only hope that all that movement reduces the risk of repetitive motion injuries.

Model-View-Controller

2011-06-28T17:10:00.000-07:00

I have read all about this pattern for doing UI work, but I have never seen a great need to adopt the pattern. Both Builder and Visual Studio invite you to place all of your response code directly into the UI element class, and I have gladly taken the invitation. To be honest, I had never seen a good reason to do any differently. Oh, I would wrap some concepts into external (or even internal) classes, but the basic approach has worked fine for me.

The last couple of days I have been working on the configuration assistant for the accounting system at mypeoplematter. This is an ASP Wizard control with (as of now) 11 pages, some of which feature expanding windows that allow the user to configure things like bank accounts. Very quickly the number of buttons and their callbacks became unmanageable. So I built a controller class that provided a framework for each page. Then each "page" in the wizard got its own Controller-derived class to actually handle the work. My form class was left with just a little code to abstract out navigation events, and 4 general-purpose button events that it forwards to the controllers.

The Controller class has an interface with 7 methods:
virtual public void OnEnter(secure_accounting_ConfigAssistant page);
virtual public void OnExit(secure_accounting_ConfigAssistant page);
virtual public bool SkipMe(secure_accounting_ConfigAssistant page);
virtual public void OnSelect(secure_accounting_ConfigAssistant page, object sender);
virtual public void OnShowEditor(secure_accounting_ConfigAssistant page);
virtual public void OnSaveEditor(secure_accounting_ConfigAssistant page);
virtual public void OnCancelEditor(secure_accounting_ConfigAssistant page);

It provides (empty) default implementations so that derived classes need only override the methods they need. I built a small caching mechanism to keep track of controllers throughout postbacks.

The resulting code is so clean that I will use it in every Wizard I build from here one, and probably for multi-tab pages as well. I can find the implementation of a given event handler by going to the appropriate controller and looking through at most 7 methods, rather than the over 60 that I would have needed without the controller abstraction.

Having said all that, I still do not see how MVC (or MVVC) would simplify my pages that perform a single function. Now, I have done some abstracting - most of my data entry pages have FillPage() and Gather() methods that handle the populating and retrieval from these pages. But since the pages themselves perform only a single function, I do not see the benefit to be gained from adding a controller class.

Any thoughts?

Demonstration

2011-06-23T20:11:00.001-07:00

--- From my "Worship Words" series ---

Last week was Vacation Bible School. One of the things I love about VBS is all the songs with lots of hand motions and dancing. The reason we do it this way is because adding the actions helps the kids to stay interested and to learn. When we make big hand motions and sing about how big or powerful God is, the motions reinforce the message.

Our word today is “demonstration.” One aspect of our role as worship leaders is that of demonstrating what we are saying to the congregation. When we raise our hands in surrender, when we clap with joy, when we dance (or bounce) to a song of celebration, our actions reinforce the message we are singing. The principle we use when teaching children applies to adults as well – many people in our congregation are learning about God and how to worship Him by watching us. Let us demonstrate our words with our actions, just like we did last week at VBS.

UpdatePanels and Wizards

2011-06-20T12:54:00.000-07:00

At the heart of my new website is a little control that does a dynamic lookup of a name as you type in a text box. Internally, I call it a PartyLookup (as the core table it searches is the Party table). Today, I am trying to add one of these controls to a rather nasty page: it has a wizard inside an update panel all in a modal popup extender. This all worked when the popup window did not have a wizard, but the page is complex enough that I decided I needed to break it up into 2 steps, hence the wizard. But my lookup control stopped working, as the dynamic javascript I generate to handle the AJAX calls was not getting emitted via the partial postback when I changed wizard steps (the lookup control is on the second page).

I searched Google for an hour, trying everything I could find. Finally, the following 2 changes worked:

For javascript I generate in the server-side code, I needed to use
ClientScript.RegisterClientScriptBlock, rather than Page.ClientScript.RegisterClientScriptBlock. This is a mysterious fix, but it works.

Second, for script that I want to include from an external source, I needed to add:
if (typeof (Sys) !== 'undefined') Sys.Application.notifyScriptLoaded();

Together, these two calls seem to have gotten my control working in this new environment. We will see...

Tax increases and subsidies

2011-06-18T08:36:00.000-07:00

As anyone who knows me can attest. I am a fiscal conservative politically. My first presidential vote was for Ronald Reagan, and I considered it the best gift a young voter could have been given. I am against tax increases, period.

But I don't understand Grover Nordquist's position on the ethanol subsidies and other similar issues. I want the government to simplify the tax code, and I want the government to stop picking winners and losers. Subsidies go against both. Technically, ending a subsidy has the same effect as raising taxes, but when you have such a narrowly defined subsidy, the elimination of it feels more like a reform to me.

And these are the sorts of reforms we need. Eliminate preferences for one style of business over another. Eliminate preferences for one behavior over another. Let Americans decide what they want to buy without a parental government telling them what is best for them.

Besides, the ethanol subsidy is immoral...

Worship word: approach

2011-06-10T17:55:00.000-07:00

My wife and I head the worship team at our church. We get to be on stage occasionally, but mostly this involves us training our young team. It's a lot of fun, and I always tell my pastor that I hadn't meant to sign up for youth ministry.

One of the things I do is what I call a "worship word." Every week at practice, I take a couple of minutes and do a short teaching around a single word and its application to worship. I'm going to start posting them here every Thursday or Friday. This week's word was "approach."

-----
The Bible tells us that we are to "boldly approach the throne of grace." It is here that we meet the God who gives grace and mercy and help. As worshipers, we do this in part when we worship. Through our singing and playing, we approach the throne of the God who meets with us. I am coming to a new understanding of the remarkable nature of our relationship with this God. He is the one who dwells in inapproachable light, whom if we were to look upon him we would die; and yet we can approach him because he invites us. Just as the shed blood of Christ opens the way for us to share in his table, so it has purchased for us an invitation to approach the inapproachable God.

As a worship team, we have an additional gift. Not only do we approach God, but we are given the task of leading others as they approach him to. Our leadership in worship is intended to open the door for the congregation to follow us into the presence of the God of the Universe. What a wonderful, inexpressible opportunity!

Javascript and .NET PostBacks

2011-06-10T17:45:00.000-07:00

I always find it interesting when I suddenly find a use for a feature of a toolkit that I never needed before. This is the story of one such event, which just happened today.

Some background: I'm working on the accounting portion of my new company's product. It is almost ready to unveil; I just have to finish a couple of data entry screens and generate the core reports. Currently, I'm working on the bank account reconciliation page.

I want it to be nicely interactive - when you check an item off, I want to immediately update the item counts and totals so that the user can see their progress toward balanced. The most effective way to do this is to use javascript, and so that is what I did.

It worked great. But I have a handful of things that require a server round-trip, or a post back. When these happened, my totals were reset. This makes sense, the server-side couldn't possibly know what all had happened since it last sent the pages. This means that I have to figure out what the user had been doing, and have my server-side code reproduce the calculations the client-side was doing (I know I could have stored the values in hidden fields, I chose not to and I'm glad, because then this story wouldn't have happened).

Where to do these calculations? The answer is to handle them in Page_Load. I've done lots of coding in Page_Load, but never in response to a post-back. My pages mostly look a lot like this:

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) {
    if (IsPostBack) {
    } else {
        // Lots of code here to load the page from 
        // query strings and other stuff.
    }
}

I almost never had any code in the side of the if statement when IsPostBack was true. I had about decided I never would. But here was a case where I needed to fill my page only on a post-back.

Nothing really profound, but I just think it is interesting when something new comes up for me.

Back again

2011-06-09T05:28:00.000-07:00

I have been trying to figure out how the blog fits in my life. Basically, it hasn't for a couple of years now.

But I love to write, and writing helps me to organize my thoughts. So I have a new plan. I'm going to try and post at least 3 times a week. The posts will be as varied as my interests - one may be something new that I discovered about programming while working; another may come from politics or religion; others may just be from everyday life. I will try to make it all interesting, and hopefully the blog will be discovered again. But even if not, this will be the place where I can look back an remember what has happened.

But this post has another, more sinister purpose (cue music) - I want to get a link back to my new company's web site in place. So, here is a shameless plug/postback to the site in an effort to get Google to notice it. You can find my company at: www.mypeoplematter.com. The company makes church management software that runs in a browser. It is designed primarily for smaller churches - it doesn't have all of the bells and whistles of the well-established packages. But it is my experience that most churches don't want all of those things. They just need a few features: contact management, donation tracking, directories and communications, and accounting. When I finish the accounting piece in the next few weeks, I will have all of these features. And my pricing is designed for smaller churches, just a minimal monthly subscription fee, tiered based on church size. A church of under 120 will pay just $25/month for the entire package, only $15/month if they don't need accounting.

Anyways, that's what's up. If you're still out there, it's nice to be speaking again.

Religion and the brain

2009-04-16T23:26:00.002-07:00

Michael Gerson reviews research on the interaction of religion and the brain here.

This study is the most balanced I have yet seen. The author of the study is himself a skeptic, but admits that his research does not disprove the reality of religious experience. Neither does it prove it. How you interpret the findings will undoubtedly be influenced greatly by whether or not you are already religious.

I am just always happy when a skeptical scientist if honest enough to admit that science isn't the end-all of truth. I'll admit it about religious truth, glad to have a reciprocation.

Religion in the public square

2009-04-08T09:10:00.003-07:00

There is an interesting point in this article. The authors argue that one of the primary reasons that religion flourished in the United States is that the first amendment introduced competition into the religious community. By removing from the church the explicit support of the state, the constitution force the church to compete amongst itself for people.

This puts a very different spin on the classic complaint about American Christianity: that the variety of denominations is a bad thing by definition. I would contend, in light of Micklethwait and Wooldridge's argument, that this very competition has been the lifeblood of Christianity in America.

Not to say that it is all good. It is one thing to compete as compatriots; it is another to undermine other churches in the pursuit of growth. But to the extent that churches have simply sought for the best way to reach people (both believers and non-believers) then I say - compete on. Just remember, in the end, we're all on the same side.

Inauguration

2009-01-19T20:51:00.003-07:00

Tomorrow is the inauguration of our new President, Barack Obama. I am honored and overwhelmed that I live in a country where a transition in power is invariably accomplished without violence. Even though I did not vote for him, beginning tomorrow he is my president, and I will pray for him with the same fervor that I have for those I supported. And it is my supreme desire that he be remembered through history as a great president, for his successes and failure will impact my lives, and the lives of nearly every person on the planet.

Good luck, President Obama.

Earth Hour

2009-01-02T20:29:00.002-07:00

Apparently, this March 29 has been set aside by the global warming (or is it "climate change") alarmists for the "Earth Hour". The plan, as I understand it, is for everyone to turn off their lights for one hour (from 8-9 pm) to symbolize that we all can make a difference (if you want to read more, you can read it here).

Of course, turning off our lights for an hour does nothing of the sort. Moving out of the city, and choosing to live without electricity, farming instead of purchasing; these might make a difference. But probably not, as China, India, and some day Africa will more than happily use the resources you give up.

Besides, I am convinced that this is all alarmist hoo-hah. So I propose a different action during Earth Hour. I am going to turn on all the lights at my house, run whatever climate control system is appropriate at maximum comfort levels, and generally use as many resources as I can. My point is to show that one hour of behavior modification is meaningless. No one will notice my action, just like the actions of all the Earth Hour sillies will go unnoticed.

Anyone want to join me?

The benefits? of losing the presidency

2008-12-01T21:48:00.003-07:00

By the time Mr. Obama is finished, every major Democratic politician will be in his cabinet. Already there are 2 openings in the Senate, 2 governorships, and a House seat. In Arizona, where hour Democratic governor will be leaving to serve in the Obama administration, her replacement will be a Republican.

I think the impact is greater because President Bush has served for so long. It means there is a backlog of good people to serve, since all the stars in waiting have been in holding patterns. I think Mr. Obama may very well suck all the Democratic talent into his administration. It isn't much, but it is something.

I wonder how much of an impact it has on the national picture over the next few years when this happens.

Thanksgiving in Alaska

2008-11-21T21:17:00.002-07:00

Have you seen this yet?

More wonderful is the hysterical commentary on the video, brilliantly summarized here.

I wouldn't expect the editorial board of the NY Times, or LA Times, which have yet to realize that no one reads paper any more, to understand that this image is not so horrible. And MSNBC still can't figure out why no one watches.

I just want to say that I am thankful that the turkey I will eat this Thanksgiving was once alive (actually, we are having Turducken). You may choose to put your head in the sand if you wish (but I would avoid the little funnel behind Governor Palin if I were you), but this is the reality behind most of our protein in the world. I love it that the Governor (oh that she were VP-elect) does not find this disturbing - she's clearly more of a man than anyone at The Times or MSNBC.

Dow plummets 500 on news of Obama win

2008-11-05T18:37:00.003-07:00

The Dow was down 500 points today, giving back all of its gains from yesterday.

This surprised me. Normally the markets have expected news built into them; and while I was hoping McCain would win, I figured there was a better-than-average chance that Obama would. I expected the market to drop a little at the start of the day, then move up again as the uncertainty of an election went away.

What this tells me is that the market expects Obama to be very, very bad for business over the next 4 years, and so yesterday's rally was little more than wishful thinking. If Obama is indeed a socialist at heart (and Europe sure seems to think so), then the market is right. An Obama administration is going to take money away from anyone who produces it, and give it to every slacker that they think will vote for them in 4 years. This could be a very, very difficult time to make money.

The good news here is that it appears that the Republicans will have enough votes to filibuster the worst atrocities, assuming they have the strength of character (I am thinking a much more colorful term) to do the right thing in the face of a hysterial lefist media. Given that congressional republican gave us this mess by acting like democrats in the first place, I am not too hopeful in the long term.

There's always the 2010 mid-terms.

The Arizona propositions

2008-11-05T05:47:00.000-07:00

Hey, I was 8-for-8.

President Obama

2008-11-05T05:43:00.002-07:00

Congratulations.

I did not vote for you, but in January you will be my president. I will pray daily for you, not that you do what I want, but that what you do succeeds. Because, although you do not have the same letter (R or D) after your name as I, you are the president of my country, which remains a shining light for all the world.

A civic duty

2008-10-29T19:30:00.002-07:00

John Stossel, my oldest child's hero, has a new article arguing that it is some people's civic duty not to vote; because they haven't a clue what is actually going on. As you can guess, he took a lot of flack for taking such a position.

Of course, what people really have is a civic duty to inform themselves. It's not hard these days. But if you haven't bothered, then I guess I would have to agree with Mr. Stossel: stay home next Tuesday, don't send in your early ballot. You can try again in 2 years.

Voting for judges

2008-10-27T23:29:00.002-07:00

This article proposes willful sabotage of the current system of voting for judges, not by doing anything illegal or unethical, but by intentionally underming it. Do not read on if such an approach does not appeal to you.

In Arizona, we vote every 2 years on the sitting judges in the District and county courts. The vote is a straight up-or-down vote. They run unopposed, and presumably are replaced when voted out. I do not remember having such an opportunity in the 12 or so years I have lived here, but there may have been one or two.

On my ballot (which I just filled out today) there were at least 60 judges. Now, I consider myself a conscientious citizen, so I went to the trouble to find the performance reviews on the state site (you can find them here). For each judge, we given a review by a panel of 30, along with comments on the jurist by the lawyers and jurors who have worked with them.

All of this gives the impression of a lot of information, but is it? Let's examine the three sources. First, we know nothing of the biases, motivations (and in the case of the 18 citizens, qualifications) of the 30 members of the review panel. If they vote against a particular judge, was it because they were really incapable, or was it because they did not like how the judge ruled in some particular case. John Grisham has made me paranoid of the hidden workings of our judicial process. Second, how many of us really trust the opinions of the lawyers who appeared before these judges? Lawyers do their thing to win, and their judgment of a judge is likely to be colored more by past and pending cases than by any objective sense of the judge's qualifications. Finally, we are given the opinions of those who sat on juries in cases where the judge presided. Not to be too cynical, but you know the only people who serve on juries are those people who are not smart enough to get out of jury duty. I know it's not exactly that, and I myself would love to serve some day, but the stress that this would place on my life means that my goal, at least for now, is to not serve. Further, what basis do we have for expecting that the jurors' opinion is anything more sophisticated than a personal like or dislike?

In the end, there may be a great deal of data, but very little information in these judicial review packets.

Is there a better way to select judges? I don't know. None comes to mind. But in the meantime, I am devoted to sabotaging the current system by voting NO on every judge on the ballot. I have done so in the last 3 elections, and will continune doing so into the forseeable future. I invite you to join me. Let's get rid of the current system, and make them devise another. It may not be better, but I doubt it will be worse.

Term limits do come to mind...

Arizona Proposition 300 - NO

2008-10-27T23:25:00.002-07:00

Prop 300 is a pay raise for Arizona legislators.

I am not always against such pay raises. In general, I believe that not paying a legislature guarantees that only the wealthy can serve, because of the time involved. But as several of the comments in the Secretary of State booklet point out, the only real job given to the Arizona legislature by the constitution is the passing of a budget. This is technically true, and if you have read my initial comment on this subject, you know that I am not a big fan of the way that they have used the initiative process to avoid making politically difficult decisions.

Of course, we do get what we pay for, but it has been a long time since I felt we even got that from this group.

I recommend voting NO on 300.

Arizona Proposition 202 - NO

2008-10-27T23:14:00.004-07:00

Prop 202 is a promoted as an initiative for further cracking down on the hiring of illegals by increasing penalties for identify theft (the means many illegals use to obtain jobs) and by revoking the licenses of business that knowingly or intentionally hire illegals. These are laudable goals, but the initiative is so convoluted, and makes so many changes, that at a minimum the law of unintended consequences should warn us about voting for it.

But there are more serious issues with prop 202 than that. First, it overturns Arizona's E-Verify program, which by all reports has been very effective in reducing the number of illegals even looking for a job. Why would the writers of this proposition seek to eliminate such an effective program. Second, the new penalties proposed only apply to businesses which are licensed by the state. My fear is that, in an effort to increase the reach of this law, the state would expand the definition of "licensed" further eroding our liberties. Finally, the law requires that the state wait to act until the Federal government has itself acted. But isn't that what we are complaining about - that the Federal government is not acting?

Taken together, these issues cause me to have no problem at all recommending that you vote NO on 202.

Arizona Proposition 201 - NO

2008-10-23T18:12:00.002-07:00

Prop 201 calls itself the "Homeowner's Bill of Rights."

Rather than include an outline of its content, I will make my recommendation right up front. Vote AGAINST 201. The proposition forbids home builders from recovering attorney's fees from buyers who sue them. This removes all incentive to mediate or find a mutually acceptable resolution to a dispute over flaws in a new home. If this proposition passes, lawyers will troll new neighborhoods looking for clients to sue the home builder over the smallest of flaws. No risk to the purchaser, but a massive risk (read cost increase) for the builder.

I am for massive lawsuit reform, including loser-pays. This is the very opposite.

I recommend voting NO on 201.

Arizona Proposition 200 - NO

2008-10-23T17:49:00.005-07:00

Prop 200 is a massive re-write of the laws that regulate the deferred-presentment industry, also known as "payday loans."

The proposition actually does 2 things: first, it extends the law that permits payday loan businesses in Arizona. Currently, the law that regulates this industry is set to expire in 2010, at which time it would be illegal to operate a payday loan business. Secondly, the proposition adds significant new regulations to the system.

The gist of the regulations is to make these businesses less profitable and to make the loans more difficult to obtain. Such a policy has great appeal - the people who generally need these loans tend to be at the margins of society, and the costs of these loans can appear excessive (at much as a 400% interest rate, depending on how you calculate it).

However, I am passionately against this proposition, not because I would like to see the end of payday loan businesses, but because I believe that this law would reduce the options for the many people who already have few options. Let me give one example. The law would reduce the fees that these stores can charge to a level below what banks can charge for returned checks. This seems compassionate. But fees reflect the risk that a business assumes in a transaction. If you reduce the fee, then it becomes riskier to provide the service, and there will be fewer options. I despise predatory lending, and want the best for those people who do not have access to the funds they need to meet their obligations; but reducing the number of options they have does not help them. If there is a market for lower-cost payday loans, then eventually someone will come in and fill that need. I assume, absent evidence to the contrary, that the fees charged by this industry reflect actual risks.

The state legislature should simply extend the authorization for these businesses, then have hearings to understand specific issues surrounding them, adding reforms as needed. A massive re-structuring like 200 is likely to do more harm than good.

I recommend voting NO on 200.

Arizona Proposition 105 - NO

2008-10-23T17:42:00.005-07:00

Prop 105 would require that any tax or spending-increase ballot proposition be passed, not by a majority of the votes cast, but by receiving a number of votes exceeding 1/2 the number of registered voters.

The libertarian in me loves the thought of this. All the arguments against note that this would make it effectively impossible for such an initiative to pass. I cannot imagine a tax proposition that I would want to pass, and this prop would reduce the number of propositions on the ballot.

However, to be consistent, I need to note that I am in general against ballot propositions because of the law of unintended consequences. While voting for this might reduce the number of overall propositions, I cannot in good conscience recommend voting for this proposition. I am against real, current propositions, not potential future propositions.

I recommend voting NO on 105.

Arizona Proposition 102 - YES

2008-10-23T17:31:00.005-07:00

Prop 102 would amend the Arizona constitution to define marriage solely as the union between one man and one woman.

A similar proposition was on the ballot 2 years ago, prop 107, and was voted down. At that time, I went back-and-forth on the issue, ultimately voting against it (in spite of what I indicated in my blog). My reason for this was described in this post.

I am going to vote for this amendment. My primary concern with 107 was the exclusion of benefits for homosexual partners. I believed then, and believe now, that it is wrong to write that language into law. With that gone, I believe that it is reasonable to offer the population the option of specifying the "sense of the people" on what marriage means.

This amendment will not limit the rights of homosexuals in this state. They can still be in relationship, find companies that will allow them to share benefits, and press for clarification of how assets can be shared.

I still believe that the best, ultimate solution to the issue of gay rights is for the government to simplify the tax code, allowing individuals more say in what they do with their money. Such a change would eliminate nearly all of the issues that are supposedly at the core of this question. But I do not expect that to happen any time soon.

I recommend voting YES on 102.

Arizona Proposition 101 - NO

2008-10-23T17:15:00.005-07:00

Prop 101 prohibits any government in Arizona from passing laws that criminalize health insurance decisions. Like nearly everything having to do with health insurance, the comments about the initiative confuse health insurance and health care. Be aware, this proposition speaks only about health insurance, it says nothing about obtaining health care.

The arguments against Prop 101 are all focused on the fact that this proposition would prevent the state from creating a mandatory state-wide health care plan. There is also an argument that future government decisions shouldn't be restricted in this way.

Let's take the second issue first. It is the nature of constitutional amendments to restrict the governments actions. You may disagree with any particular amendment, but no one who believes in the governmental approach of the United States can be against the concept of amending the constitution, although obvious care must be taken in this process (which is why I am against using the initiative process to amend the constitution in general).

Which leads to the first issue. I am against, as a matter of principal, the very notion of government-mandated health insurance program. Such programs are failing around the world, and I do not believe that the government has the solution. I believe that some regulation, along with an increase in the options people have, and a decrease in the tax regulations around health insurance, has a great chance of making real in-roads in increasing the availability of affordable health care for most people.

All that being said, I do not know if this proposition is a good idea. Again, I am hesitant to make changes to the constitution in the absence of a crisis. Since I do not see a crisis, I am inclined to vote NO on 101, although I can understand why someone else may vote for it.

Arizona Proposition 100 - YES

2008-10-23T17:09:00.006-07:00

Prop 100 prohibits any state or local government from enacting a tax on the sale or transfer of real estate.

The principal argument against the proposition is that it would be irresponsible to exclude any form of potential income when the economy may be slowing down.

I reject any such argument. The truth is, we the people should put as many restrictions on the sources of income our beloved government has access to. The money belongs to those who have it, that is one of the truths that has made America great.

I recommend voting YES on 100.

The Arizona Ballot Initiatives

2008-10-23T17:04:00.003-07:00

I am in the process of reviewing the various ballot propositions, and decided I should use my blog (which I neglect far too often) to spell out my thoughts. I will be posting over the next day or so my thoughts on the various initiatives.

But I gotta say that I find the whole thing so indicative of the failure of leadership in our country. We have so many ballot initiatives in part because our legislature refuses to make hard decisions. They leave it to the initiative process, where good information is nearly impossible to find. See my post from 2 years ago

If you are an Arizona voter and want more information, here are 2 very good resources:

Center for Arizona Policy
Arizona Secretary of State

Stem Cells - An analogy

2008-09-09T18:55:00.002-07:00

With the discovery that Governor Palin is against embryonic stem cell research, the hysterical left is clouding the issue by misrepresenting the stand of those of us who are against such research. For example, I just saw Joy Behar on Larry King (talk about an echo chamber) complaining - what are we, in the 1800s? Come on, let's do what we can to help people! A correspondent from CNN complained likewise that people like Governor Palin are trying to prevent everyone else from getting better just because she doesn't support embryonic stem cell research. The problem is that both of those complaints miss the point. Perhaps an analogy will be useful:

Suppose that tomorrow we awoke to hear that researchers at the Mayo Clinic have discovered that certain cells in the body of women nearing menopause can be harvested and used to treat any cancer that results from a degradation of DNA. In this press release, the researchers note that to be most effective, the cells must be gathered from a living woman. However, here's the kicker. While the cells in one woman's body can provide a cure for as many as 20 different cancer victims, the process of harvesting the cells, even to treat one person, will result in the death of the donor. So, should we begin rounding up pre-menopausal women and killing them, given that one woman's life can save 20? I cannot believe any sane human being would agree to such a plan.

Here's the rub - I believe (as do millions of my fellow Americans) that the life of a viable embryo is of equal worth to a pre-menopausal woman. It is therefore to me as unthinkable and immoral to destroy the embryo as it would be to kill pre-meopausal women.

You may disagree with my value system - so be it. But let's not pretend that the disagreement is about anything other than the relative value of a human embryo. And if I am right, and the life of the embryo is in fact as worthy of protection as that of any other human, then it is immoral to destroy it, no matter how many people would potentially be helped.

The "Montauk Monster"

2008-07-31T11:19:00.005-07:00

If you haven't seen the story, there is a photo of a supposed monster that washed up on a beach somewhere. The really weird thing a bout this is that it is unbelievably easy to demonstrate that this is a fake. If you take the original image from Gawker, zoom in on it using something like Photoshop, you can see any number of places where the image is clearly constructed. Here are two examples:

Here is a zoomed in image of the area around the monster's neck. There is a hard edge at the left of the neck. Such edges are almost never present in real photographs, especially in situations like this where there is a smooth transition from one surface to another.

The second shows two areas of the monster. The section on the left is from the body, the one on the right is from the head. Notice that the image from the head looks blurrier than the one on the body. That's because the image of the body was taken with a higher resolution camera than was the one from the head. No camera can do that.

Finally, I think the author of this picture left us a message. Take a look at this zoomed in image of the "hand" of the monster:

I think it's flipping us off!

Amazing adult stem cells

2008-06-03T13:51:00.002-07:00

There is a story today that a boy born with a rare genetic disorder that renders him extremely susceptible to infection has been cured using the combination of chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant to create for him a new immune system. You can read the story here.

In case you didn't know, a bone marrow transplant is a transplant of adult stem cells. I am a huge fan of stem cell research. Adult stem cell research. Because it saves lives without sacrificing them.

A good predictive theory

2008-06-02T21:52:00.002-07:00

It is my observation, nothing more, that Darwinian evolution has proven a poor source of predictions about the actual world. The obvious predictions: that we would in time find a wide range of transitional fossils, that the processes of life could be developed in iterative steps, these need not be addressed. I have a more interesting case of the theory's poor predictive behavior, in two different examples.

I have a friend who suffers from horrible back problems. She has been subjected to innumerable surgeries (I'm sure she knows how many, but it's a lot). Many of her early surgeries were intended to remove some of the curvature from her back; as it was reasoned 3 decades ago that the amount of curvature in our spine is an evolutionary holdover, and in her case, reducing it would be advantageous. Of course, we now understand that the curvature of our spines is not a "holdover," but the very way they need to be shaped to support our bodies during upright locomotion, and her most recent surgeries have been to re-introduce the curvature. Oops.

Second, there is an article in National Geographic from several months ago (I am way behind) about the push to develop man-made analogues to some of the more remarkable naturally-occurring materials like spider silk. The article observes that scientists work from the assumption that the systems that produce these remarkable materials are constructed "accidentally," or piece-wise, and so try to find those parts that are "essential" for manufacturing. The problem is this is not working out so well. They are having little luck in simplifying the manufacturing processes, for the natural processes themselves exceed in every way our modern design capabilities. The article even admits that it appears that many of these processes may in fact be entirely essential, a counter-intuitive result when step-wise evolution is assumed to be the design force (their point, not mine).

I would like to see what would happen if a group of scientists and engineers started with the assumption that these systems were designed - would they have any greater luck in understanding and reproducing them? Maybe not, but we couldn't do any worse that the evolutionists have done so far.

A Pet Peeve

2008-05-27T18:53:00.002-07:00

I cringe every time I hear something like: "Savings of up to 50%, or more!"

This sort of redundancy is becoming more prevalent. The phrase is used even in promos done by talk radio hosts who ought to know better.

If it can be more than 50%, then it is not accurate to say "up to 50%." Either the "up to" is redundant, or the ceiling ought to be raised. That is, it is either:

"Savings of 50% or more"

or

"Savings of up to 75%."

Just a pet peeve.

One nation

2008-05-26T21:18:00.003-07:00

Today is Memorial Day. Before I do anything else, I want here to express my gratitude to those men and women who have given their lives for my freedom. I never served in the military, though for no nobler or baser reason than that it never came up. I had an invitation to West Point, but chose another path. It is a decision I sometimes wish I had made differently, if for no other reason than to have given myself to this great country.

But my post is not about today. I was reading the Gettysburg Address today, and noticed that Lincoln ended with "that this nation, under God..." And I wondered if this is the origin of the phrase, and if the addition of "under God" to the pledge was motivated simply by a desire to commemorate that brilliant turn of a phrase by Lincoln. I don't know, and unfortunately, no one reads my blog who could likely confirm or deny.

Maybe I'll call Dennis Prager on Friday.

Life is hard

2008-05-24T08:56:00.002-07:00

It is a shame that we live in a country where people can enjoy such abundance and still complain about what they don't have.

The following comic really says it all. When I went to Tibet several years ago, I found myself appreciating the simple fact of toilet paper as well. Every now and agan, it's good to remind myself of that.

They missed the obvious solution

2008-04-15T19:06:00.002-07:00

My boys and I were watching a show on National Geographic Channel called Naked Science (not sure why it is called that). This episode covered the entire lifespan of the sun. After tracking the past 5+ billion years since it was formed, the show goes on to discuss what happens in the next billion as the sun continues to warm and expand.

The show observes that conditions on the earth will change dramatically as the temperature rises some 60 degrees in this time. The voice concludes that only a handful of humans, possibly living underground, will survive this long. My oldest boy looks over at me and asks the question that had just popped into my mind: "Don't you think, if they really believed in evolution, that they would just assume that life would evolve? One billion years is a long time."

He's right, you know.

100!!!

2008-04-13T22:11:00.001-07:00

This is my 100th post.

The Masters

2008-04-13T22:00:00.002-07:00

Golf fascinates me, because I cannot play the game consistently. However, I also cannot watch it on television for very long. Except for the Masters. I look forward to the tournament every year, and watch every minute of it that I can. I think it is because there is, on this course, the potential for so much drama. The layout is stunningly beautiful, the holes so unforgiving of mistakes, and the greens so treacherous, that you never know what is going to happen. Yet, if you play well, you can conquer the cource. I remember watching Greg Norman futilely attempting to keep his ball in the green on 15 (I think), watching two straight pitches spin back off the green, along with his chances of winning this tournament. I remember watching Tiger Woods so dominate the course that they had to redesign it before the next year.

This year, it was a pleasure watching Trevor Immelman hold up under the pressure of knowing that Tiger Woods, while not playing very well, was still managing not to give up strokes like everyone else. Now I love watching Tiger win, don't get me wrong; but watching Immelman make the shot, even after dropping one in the water on 16, not caving when you could see the tension in his shoulders; that was great drama. And it proved that Augusta National is not impossible - he won, not because he got lucky, but because he played solidly. He lead the field in driving accuracy and putting. If you don't make mistakes, Augusta doesn't punish you. That's a better deal than you get in life.

Even if you never watch golf, you should watch the Masters. If you don't know the game, watch with someone who does. Then, after watching Saturday, go to a driving range and hit a few balls, then putt on the practice surface so that you understand just how difficult the game really is. Then sit back on Sunday and watch as everyone struggle not to make a mistake under the pressure of knowing that every mistake will be magnified as you strive for the dream of everyone who has ever picked up a golf club - the green jacket of a Master's winner.

Not that he'll ever see it, but congratulation Trevor. You deserve it, and you were a pleasure to watch.

From whence cometh it?

2008-04-13T21:33:00.003-07:00

After two days, I remain satisfied that my moral framework provides adequate coverage; that is, it outlines the broad strokes of what I believe to be a moral standard that men and women can live their lives by. I hope to track down some of the finer details as I go along, but today I just want to investigate the possible origin of this code.

Obviously, at one level it comes from Porter Stansberry. But Stansberry's original point is that he sees his version of the moral code as self-evident. I even think, given the caveats in my second post, that he would believe this of my extended version as well. But is it self-evident? Is it, in his words, truly "objective?"

There is at least one way in which this standard is undeniably objective, and I believe it is probably the reason Porter felt confident in his original assertion. It is clear to me that every human being on the planet would want this standard of behavior to apply to those with whom they have a business relationship. They might not expect it to actually happen, but if they did expect" fair play," they would expect this very behavior. Things get more complicated in other relationships; but in business dealings, we all certainly desire, even if we don't anticipate, this sort of fair dealing.

Now, why would business relationships have this interesting characteristic of serving to clarify moral dealings between humans? I contend that it is because there is the expectation that a business deal is supposed to be entered into by two parties that want to maximize the benefit each receives from the transaction. That is, when I enter into a business deal, my goal should be to maximize my benefit; and I expect the same from my partner. Business works best when both parties believe that they have received maximum value from the transaction. If it turns out that each party feels this way, then there is an incentive to repeat the deal again in the future. Thus, a fair business deal maximizes long-term benefit by reducing the work of finding a good deal in the future. Once you have found a good partner, you no longer need to search for one.

Thus, it is the case that business relationships have the clearest incentive for mutual benefit.

Please note that I am not saying that every business deal redounds to the shared mutual benefit of both parties. Nor am I saying that no one tries to take advantage of the other party in business. What I am saying is that there is a powerful incentive in business dealings to find a place of mutual benefit and fair play consistent with the morality I outlined. And so it is in this arena that we can most clearly believe that such a moral code is in some real way "objective."

But that's not really true, is it? Let's be honest, what we really want in a business relationship is one in which the benefit clearly accrues to our side, with a partner that simply doesn't recognize that they are at a disadvantage. Then, we get our share, and part of theirs as well. If you don't believe me, think of some area where you have great passion. Then imagine having to enter into a partnership with someone who stands in opposition to you passionately-held belief. If you must be in this partnership, you are going to want to have the maximum benefit to your side, and you do not care whether the other side gains anything at all, as long as they believe they are gaining benefit, so that you can continue to take advantage of them for as long as possible. See?

So even here, where the advantages of a mutually beneficial pact are clear, most, if not all people will choose an unequal relationship if one presents itself. Nonetheless, we all know that we desire such behavior be exhibited towards us. Where does such an expectation and desire come from? Does it arise from an evolutionary advantage, or does it come from somewhere else?

I just wish enough people read my blog to generate comments. Oh, well.

Micro and Macro

2008-04-12T21:58:00.002-07:00

Dennis Prager, one of my heroes, speaks of the distinction between micro and macro in issues of ethics and morality. What this means is that there must be a difference in our behavior with regard to individuals versus larger groups. To quote the greatest movie of all time: "You use different moves against groups than you do against just one person." Similarly, the correct, or moral behavior of an organization is necessarily different in many cases than the expected, appropriate behavior of an individual.

The example Prager gives is pacifism. It is popular for people to quote Jesus' call for his followers to turn the other cheek in support of the notion that war is anti-Christian - that Jesus would have been against whatever war the speaker is also against. But this confuses two very different types of ethics - what Dennis refers to as the micro and the macro. In the micro level, that is, in interpersonal relationships, Jesus' demand provides a model for a more civil society. It is inaccurate, however, to try and apply this statement to nation-states. While we may differ on whether any particular violent action by a nation is moral, very few believe that all violence is inappropriate at all times.

As I have thought more about the 3-part morality that I developed in my last article, I am beginning to see that some of this very confusion crept into my own thinking. In the macro level, when dealing with organizations, Stansberry's original 2-part morality is probably adequate. It is only in interpersonal relationships that we should require positive action, or kind behavior. There are, I believe, several reasons for this.

Organizations exist for a specific purpose. If they are businesses, they exist to provide a product or service and make a profit. If they are governments, they exist for the purposes outlined in their founding documents.
Organizations which do not focus on fulfilling their purpose are inefficient. Inefficient organizations eventually fail. Admittedly, this is a very capitalist interpretation, but I'm a capitalist. In the last several years, there have been countless books devoted to the notion of focusing an organization on fulfilling their "Primary Purpose." Likely, this is because of the constant pull within our culture for organizations to be more "socially aware." The only reason for an organization to be socially-aware is if not doing so would affect their bottom line.
There is a class of exceptions, if you will, to this rule: charitable and public-service organizations. Except that they aren't really an exception, as their purpose is to provide positive service to society. So they are doing the right thing when they are "kind," that is why they exist.

Two conclusions fall naturally from these observations. First, the great distinction between the morality of a person and that of an organization is that individuals should be pro actively kind. More on that on later (as in another post). Second, organizations that attempt to be "kind" run the risk of failing at both their organizational purpose and at being kind, leaving nothing behind.

One great place to see that this is true is in the pages of Reader's Digest. They have a frequent section on "Everyday Heroes" in which they laud the kindness of some individual or another. They also run stories on organizations which have a positive reputation. If you look closely at the stories of the organizations, you will find that there is always a single person, or at most a very small group of people, who's individual actions are the source of the positive organizational action. And you never find that the everyday heroism of the individuals is ever motivated, and rarely even facilitated, by an organization. For it is people who are kind, not companies.

I stand corrected.

Final note: The quote in the first paragraph is, of course, from The Princess Bride.

Liberty and Morality

2008-04-12T00:01:00.003-07:00

I subscribe to an investment research service from a group called Stansberry and Associates. I have received many of their newsletters for the last year, a small investment to see if their advice is worth following. I think it is, and beginning very soon I will be investing my money in part based on their recommendations. But that is not my point today.

The founder of the company, Porter Stansberry, is a die-hard practical libertarian (I don't know how he votes, I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't vote at all). Today, in his Digest, he makes the following statement:

[T]here is an objective standard of morality in the world: First, do not aggress against another person or their property; and secondly, do all that you have contracted to do.

Is it really that simple? It may be. To look at a couple of other examples. the Ten Commandments outline the rules of human relationships in commandments 6-10 on the same 2 principles. Jesus summarized personal morality in the famous Golden Rule: Do to others exactly what you would want them to do to you. Stansberry is simply applying this principle to the realm of personal property and liberty. For his purposes in his newsletter, this is a very effective summary.

But when I read it, I find it feels somewhat lacking. I think the problem is this: Stansberry's formulation is entirely negative - it only defines what we cannot do, but makes no statement about what we ought to do. If there is an objective standard of morality, does it only limit my behavior? Does it not also compel me to actions of a positive sort? Is this not at least implied in Jesus' formulation of the Golden Rule, one which seems to require some sort of positive action on our part towards those with whom we come in contact?

This is a reasonable question, and reasonable people may disagree with my answer. I believe that a moral life is one that not only limits its actions where they would impose upon another, but is also one that causes us to treat others in a positive and uplifting manner. That is, it is not simply that we do not hurt people, we also actively look to help them. I believe then that this three-fold pattern defines a moral life:

Do not aggress against another;
Do all that you are contracted to; and
Practice kindness and courtesy.

Like all moralities, this is more simply stated than lived. But until I read Stansberry today, I don't think I had ever bothered to even try and state what I meant by a moral life. Here's to my first effort.

Unintended consequences

2008-04-07T17:37:00.003-07:00

Check out this story: Smoking Laws Threaten Drivers.

There is this principle known as the Law of Unintended Consequences, which states that any action taken in a complex system will inevitably have consequences which no one foresaw, and which are frequently more serious than the problem which the original changes were designed to fix.

It is this reason, more than almost any other, that I am a small government conservative. There is no way a group of about 500 people (the size of our Federal government), no matter how capable they are (and that is a subject open for much debate), can possibly anticipate the effects of their actions. It only follows then that they should be restricted from acting in as many areas as possible.

That's what the Constitution says. It's just not how we are governed.

Isn't it cute when atheists try to think logically?

2008-03-02T22:12:00.002-07:00

I have, as of late, come to find it not so much irritating as it is amusing when atheists attempt to use reason and logic. Not necessarily because they have proven to be particularly inept at it, but because it is against all reason for them to do so.

By definition, an atheist is not only one who doesn’t believe in God, but who is also a materialist. And here is where reason falls apart. If the mind truly is nothing more than mechanistic processes acting on chemical compositions known, for convenience, as cells, then there is no particular reason to believe that the process of reasoning and thinking has any meaning at all. The thoughts of such a brain are nothing more than the determined outcome of chemical processes. So, there is no reason to place any weight in such thoughts, certainly no reason to expect that any one set of thoughts have any more validity than any other set of thoughts. Even the thoughts about the thoughts have no inherent meaning to recommend them over any other collection of thoughts.

I am aware of how many times I used the word “reason” in the last two paragraphs. Because the truth is, we all know our thoughts are meaningful. That’s why it’s so amusing, even cute to watch atheists think. They are like the little child who insists that he is “Helping” daddy carry the heavy board. The child’s input is of negligible impact, but he is convinced of efficacy of his efforts, all the while failing to even notice the simple fact that he could accomplish nothing if it weren’t for daddy.

I wish life was simple.

2008-02-03T21:46:00.000-07:00

I really do. I wish that the bad guys were always the bad guys, and that the good guys never stumbled. I wish those on my team were always right, and that the other team always cheated for every gain that they made. I wish that fatal flaws were only the province of someone else, and that trust, once earned, could be counted on forever.

I wish that I could know everything about someone solely from the group in which I placed them. I wish that all members of every group with which I disagree could be reliably counted on to kick their dog, hit their wife, and cross in the middle of the road.

Unfortunately, life is never that simple. The good guys aren't perfect. Some of the bad guys have really redeeming qualities. Most of the time, members of a groups are as varied as those outside of the group. And unfortunately (for this idyllic, simple view of the world) there are a lot of really good people who differ with me. Or with you.

I just finished John Grisham's The Appeal. the world isn't as simple as he would make it. Last week, Michael Medved interviewed Jim Wallis, author of the book The Great Awakening. Mr Wallis wants to believe that every fundamentalist of every stripe has a secret, violent nature just under the surface. Ignoring the question of whether his mistake is narrowing the field too much, this simply isn't true. If you know me, you know that I am a serious political conservative. It would be comforting to believe that every liberal in this country is an evil demagogue who only wants to grow the size of government so as to increase their temporal power, and that there is no real idealism behind their stands.

But it isn't so. And I know it isn't. I can only hope and pray that more people come to understand this. About those they disagree with.

Grisham's "Contradiction"

2008-02-01T07:00:00.000-07:00

John Grisham's new book, "The Appeal" is his first legal thriller in 3 years (according to the press release). I'm a big fan, I look forward to each new effort.

There is a section in this book that reflects a meeting at a large Family lobbying group in Washington. Grisham observes that this mythical organization is both pro-life and pro-death penalty, then wonders that no one see the contradiction.

Of course, we don't see the contradiction. There is none. The pro-life movement is interested in protecting the right to life of innocents. This is the same motivation behind support for the death penalty. To call the two positions contradictory is to make the mistake of morally equating an innocent unborn child with a convicted murderer. I cannot believe that John Grisham actually considers the two categories morally equivalent.

The correct equivalence, of course, is to equate the unborn to the victims (current and future). They are the ones that the pro-life and pro-death penalty seek to protect. For wholly non-contradictory reasons.

It's looking hopeless

2008-01-29T07:27:00.000-07:00

You know, it's kinda disappointing. I was listening to Dennis Prager interviewing a religious leftist. Their conversation was very congenial; they disagreed often, but did not degrade to ad hominem attacks or yelling. Still, on topic after topic, it was as if they were talking about different things, even though they both were discussing the same subject.

Makes me wonder if we will be able to get past the extreme partisanship of the current era in any short time. Not that we have to get along, but there is so little discourse right now, and I had hoped that perhaps a revival of listening would raise us back to a modicum of discourse. But when two extremely intelligent men cannot even manage to talk to each other on a single subject and agree, not on content, but on the nature of the discussion, it does not bode well for the rest of us.

Am I going to answer him?

2008-01-25T09:42:00.000-07:00

I was asked by a commenter if I intended to answer the last comment to my post The Premise of God (a follow up). The short answer, before the question was asked, would have been "no." There was nothing in the comment that required an answer, as there was nothing new that was not already in my original post. Further, I did not figure anyone else cared, and so I decided to let it go. Now, someone cares, so I will respond.

It is a mistake common to modern atheists to require that even God be subject to natural explanations. Hence, my questioner's insistence on God being "more complex" than His creation. This is a logical fallacy. It is inappropriate to make any statement concerning the "necessary" nature of God based upon natural law - if (as I assume) He exists, He, of necessity, must stand outside of natural laws. We can assume nothing about the nature of God, as He is totally outside of our experience. This, by the way, explains the need for revelation. If God exists and desires that we know something about Him, He will have to tell us, and choose the analogies He deems most appropriate.

I will not even comment on the assertion that my knowledge of evolution is in some way deficient, except to point out that in my role as defender of the faith, not only for myself but also for the hundreds who have heard me teach on the subject over the years, I am confident that I understand the subject as well as any layman, and perhaps as well as most graduate students in biology.

Considering the kalam argument for God's existence, I should have looked it up rather than relying on my (now aging) memory. My bad. The argument actually states "Everything that begins to exist has a cause." It is again, an argument based on natural regression. Since theists assert that God does not begin to exist, He stands outside the argument and is therefore sufficient as a first-cause.

My equating of the design hypothesis to the dark matter hypothesis is invalid only if we assume that all knowledge is achievable using just our 5 senses. This is not true. If God exists, and He designed the universe that we see, then He is absolutely a reasonable explanation. If He does not exist, then He clearly would not be. However, to exclude Him a priori and then assert that He cannot be used as an explanation is meaningless. If one chooses to not believe in God, that is a faith statement, not a statement based on any collection of facts. I choose to allow for the possibility that the universe is created, and on that assumption, I also find that the evidence supports that conclusion. That is all. The faith is only in allowing the assumption, it is not in landing on the conclusion.

Finally, we come to the silliness of the last paragraph. I would pay it some mind if we were comparing jelly-bean unicorns to the myths of the Greeks and Romans. But we are not. We are talking about the stories of the Bible, which for all the cultural shifts that have occurred since, have proven to have a greater impact on the actual life and behavior of men than any other set of teachings in all of human history. Yes, some of the stories seem out-of-date in our modern world, but they did not take place in our modern world. In spite of this, even today, the real lives of real men and women all over the world are transformed based on these ancient stories and teachings. I have read some of the detractors, I have read many of their commentators, and I am singularly unimpressed. There is more reason to believe today that the Bible is what it says it is than there ever was in the past. When someone devises a jelly-bean unicorn mythology that has that sort of transformative power, then I will give it credence. No one believes in these unicorns; I believe, with a massive quantity of reason and experience behind me in these very stories.

Clever apothegms are no substitute for sound logic. They are, unfortunately, the purview of the modern atheist, who finds himself disarmed in most battles of wits against believers who know what they believe. If you haven't seen the debates between Dinesh D'Souza and several atheists, you should take the time to watch. They can be found in YouTube and at michaelshermer.com. In both cases, just search for dinesh.

50,000!

2007-11-29T14:10:00.000-07:00

I did it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was at 49,754 words at 11:30am when I had to leave for an appointment. Agony. I returned, sat down, and got over the hump.

I'm actually into the third part of the story. William died at 49,754, and we are now back to the story begin voiced by a narrator. The journal has been discovered, it is time to re-visit William's life in reverse from his own perspective.

I have, I believe, the last line of the novel:

Honey, I think I'd like to go and talk to Marcus. Would you mind coming? We have a lot to talk about on the way.

45,592

2007-11-26T23:56:00.000-07:00

Less than 5,000 words to go.

At this point, there is no way William dies before I get to 50,000 words. I at least managed to get his wife to file for divorce today, but I have to get some transition out of this phase of everyone's lives before he can die.

At least I now know that I could get to 50,000 in one more sitting if I had to.

42,435

2007-11-25T23:11:00.000-07:00

5 days left to write. I think I'm going to make it.

I not longer believe that I will kill William before the month ends. The novel will only be at most 75% complete when the competition ends, but at least I will have a whole story and 50,000 words.

I'm very excited.

40,273

2007-11-24T18:38:00.000-07:00

Today is 80% of the month. The target would be 40,000 words.

Somehow, I manage to continue to avoid writing the lat section of the story. At least I have my main character in Boston, where he will be dying very soon (soon as in pages, he will actually live 3-4 years, all of which will be summarized).

But he isn't dead yet, and until he dies, I cannot start the last section.

Maybe tomorrow.

Writing on Thanksgiving

2007-11-22T09:41:00.000-07:00

Happy Thanksgiving.

35,000 words. I need to get to 36,666 by the end of today to keep on pace.

The current part of the story scares me. I am writing of my pastor character's first deep insight, and I really want to get it right. I've written about 2,800 already today, it doesn't feel like that. I thought the writing was going slowly, but that's actually a lot of words. It gives me hope.

While writing my pastor's monologue of self-discovery, the structure for one of my other writing ideas came into focus. It is a story I really like, and now I think I know how it goes.

I'm not telling, so don't ask.

32,273

2007-11-18T23:16:00.000-07:00

Today, the pace is 30,000 words. Only 12 more days left in the month.

I am writing of the "conversion" of the pastor character. It is an interesting process for me; I do not want my novel to be a "Christian" novel, so I do not want his recovery to be expressed primarily in religious terms. But at the same time, that would be a part of what I would want to have happen to him in this story. Right now, I am attempting to use little religious terminology to describe his internal conflict. I figure that if I do not like the final product, it can be re-cast in editing.

Sometime in the next couple of days, I will write the last significant event in William's life and send him off to his death for the second time in the novel (the first chapter ends with his death in the hospital). Then I work back through his journal, using that as a mechanism to really explore William's own life struggles, and to use them to bring about the redemption of my final character.

Should be a piece of cake. :-)

30,538

2007-11-17T23:46:00.000-07:00

28,333 needed to be on pace. I'm also over 100 pages in Word. Wow, will there be a lot of editing if I pursue this story any more. I'm thinking about changing the name of my main character!

2 great quotes, purportedly from Hemingway:

"The first draft of everything is garbage."

and

"There are no great writers, only great editors."

The Premise of God (a follow-up)

2007-11-17T09:00:00.000-07:00

My earlier post on my analogy between dark matter and God generated an interesting comment (interesting not least of all because it showed that someone is still reading). I did not think I could do justice to the substance of that comment in the space of a followup comment, so I have commenced a new post to address the arguments therein.

[your post] mistakenly assumes a creator is the simplest solution...

We start with a very slippery confusion about what it means for a designer to be the simplest explanation for the appearance of design in the universe. My reader takes issue with the notion that God (or any designer) could be simple. But that is not my point. It is irrelevant whether the actual designer is simple or complex, it is not the nature of the designer that I am calling simple, simple, it is the fact of the designer as an explanation that is simple. To repeat the argument: in every instance in this world where we see the appearance of design, there is a designer responsible for it. The ambiguity in what is meant by design has lead design theorists, of late, to speak in terms of information content rather than design. Stated another way then, my argument is that systems which contain large amounts of information are always, in our current experience, designed. Information does not generate at random by any currently known process. And the laws of physics seem to imply that we will find no such process.

This is an observation that is plain to nearly every human being that ever lived. Even to the skeptics. The search for intelligent life in outer space depends on the absence of information content outside of intelligent agency. In fact, the argument of the naturalist appears to be that life is too complex to have been designed. I am not sure how that follows: everything of sufficient complexity in our everyday experience is designed; except the most complex of all. That must, of necessity come about by accident. Or, to use Dawkins' favorite illustration, by a series of tiny, improbably steps. But there aren't enough steps, and there isn't any reason to believe in a near-infinite process of accidents as a better explanation. Unless you choose to.

So I assert again: given the appearance of design in the universe, the presence of a designer is the simplest explanation for that design.

Now to the question of the complexity of the designer. The second half of the first paragraph of the comment in question makes the point (again due to Dawkins) that if there is a designer, it must itself be so complex that it is in much greater need of its own designer. Thus begins an infinite regression of designers. Isn't it just easier to assume no designer and to cut off the regression before it begins? The answer, unequivocally, is 'no.'

The error here is one that has been made with regards to this particular argument for centuries. The argument that the world needs a designer is one of the classical arguments for the existence of God. That it has not been effectively countered is evidenced by the fact that this new generation of evangelistic atheists feels compelled to offer a new counter-argument. But the problem with the new counter is that it is, in fact, the same as the old ones. Universally, the actual argument is simplified and misstated. This makes sense, it is easier to counter an argument if it is oversimplified and missated (we all make this mistake). My commenter recognizes this flaw, but attempts to sweep it away with a joke and another misstatement.

To the point: the classical theodicy states that "Everything that is caused has a prior cause." Put another way, "everything that is created has a creator." Or again, in terms of design, "everything that we see in this world that has high information content is the result of a designer." In each form, there is a built-in, necessary limitation to the regression. In the first form, we limit the regression to those things that are caused. This is not merely a trick, or a little joke to get out of a tight spot; it is a necessary characteristic of the argument. For we cannot speak of things that are outside of our experience; we know only about the laws that govern this universe. It is true that in this universe, our experience is that all effects have a cause. But if the first cause were itself outside of our universe, we can say nothing about the necessity of its causation. It operates under rules about which we cannot say anything meaningful. Again, do not think of this as some sort of philosophical nit put in place to shore up an otherwise weak argument. In fact, this is one of the most striking differences between the God described in the Bible and the gods of the rest of mankind: the God described in the Bible is truly transcendent and separate from His creation. Thanks to the skeptics, we now understand that logic and the laws of the universe require this of Him. If there is a designer, he would have to be like the God of the Bible in this sense. For another approach to this argument, see this article.

There is no use at this point arguing that if the designer is wholly different then it is meaningless to talk about him. I will concede the point only to observe that the Bible has already made it for us. The story Jews and Christians tell is of a God so different from us that He has had to speak in symbols and analogies just to give us a fighting chance at knowing anything about Him at all. If you do not believe in any God, then the notion that one might try to talk to men is purely ridiculous. But to land on your presuppositions at then end of an argument is not logic, it is fallacy.

The second paragraph begins by misstating the purpose of my post. I do not care one whit that science is using a plug, they are welcome to their plug. When you run up against the end of all you can observe and there is something missing, you have no choice but to guess about what else is there. Rather, my point in my post is that science is being less than forthright when they complain that the hypothesis of a transcendent designer is not scientific. I believe that the design hypothesis is of the same sort as the dark matter hypothesis: it is a good fit, given the data we have, for explaining a phenomenon which we cannot otherwise explain, one which produces causes which appear, to our instruments, to be uncaused.

It is a vast overstatement of the current science to say that dark matter conforms to the laws and structures of the universe: the actual form, composition and distribution of dark matter is so completely unknown that it exists only in the equations of relativity and quantum mechanics. There is no single, widely accepted interpretation of these equations; to say that dark matter follows the laws of physics is to say that the laws of physics follow the laws of physics. Dark matter is an interpretation of the laws, naturally it follows them. Except, of course, when it doesn't, and then the theory is neatly modified to make it fit. This is not dishonest, it is the nature of cosmology. What is dishonest is trying to make it more than it is.

The comment asks why not state that magic is the cause of the phenomena now attributed to dark matter? From what I understand (and I admit to only a layman's understanding) that is not far from the truth. There is little difference between magic and dark matter. Dark matter and energy are nothing more than the remainder of a sum that has yet to be completely solved. It may be the right remainder, or it may not (it is looking like a good candidate though). But an honest look at history will recognize that it began its life not so different from magic.

Finally, as the comment winds down, we encounter another one of Dawkins' favorite analogies: comparing the hypothesis of God to the hypothesis of a mysterious, unseen teapot encircling the earth (or perhaps orbiting the sun in the same orbit as the earth). If we carefully define the teapot, goes the argument, then we can never disprove its existence. For every counter-point made to the teapot hypothesis, its defenders cleverly devise a new explanation, each more inaccessible than the last, so that finally there is no evidence that can be brought to bear against the teapot. The problem with this analogy is that it only acknowledges one side of the issue. The teapot in question explains nothing outside of itself. Those who reject the existence of the teapot have a simpler, neater world. This is not the case with God. The analogy ignores the fact that God answers certain nagging questions that remain intractable in his absence, design being only one of them. And while it is certainly fair for the skeptic to say "convince me," it is not an argument, it is a request. I believe that the evidence says that God explains a good deal more of our experience as humans than does naturalism. Lewis makes this point in several of his books; and I have yet to see convincing arguments against him. Again, for a different spin on this point, see this article.

The comment states that magic is not on an equiprobable footing with dark matter; I contend that atheism is not on an equiprobable footing with theism. At least, none of the neodarwinist atheists that I have read so far have managed to make it so.

27.968

2007-11-17T00:23:00.000-07:00

26,666 needed to be on pace.

I started yesterday with the second section of my novel, written in the voice of my second character, recounting the last decade of my main character's life and the impact he had on him. I wasn't sure it was going to work, but I am thrilled. The voicing is so natural, I think it would have been tedious to read if spoken by a narrator. I have three main episodes I need to get into this section: William's (the main character) marriage, his learning about the downfall of the man who ruined him at NASA, and his divorce. I then can move him to the main city where he re-connects with the third major character and dies. As of right now, William is newly-married.

I think of my story in words now. I figure I will wrap this portion of the story in less than 10,000 words, leaving me 12,000 or so to finish up. Since I expect the final section of the story to be nearly as long as the first two combined, I shouldn't have any trouble hitting 50,000 words.

Halfway

2007-11-15T23:54:00.001-07:00

Today is November 15th, the halfway point in the month. I have been on the ragged edge of being sick for several days, so I have not stayed up late to write. That meant, in order to get to 25,000 words, I had to write nearly 6,000 today.

I'm at 25,116.

I have been asked for my profile information. You can find me here: http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/232474.

I have finally made it out of the first part of my story. As a narrative device, I have decided that the novel will have three sections: in the first, the story is told by a narrator; in the second, it is told in the voice of the burned out pastor whom my hero befriends; in the third, it is told by a combination of a narrator and excepts from my hero's journal. As I approached the transition between parts 1 and 2, I became nervous about the effectiveness of this idea. Then I realized that if it doens't work, I can just quit and go back to the narrator.

But my last 1000 words tonight were in the pastor's voice, and I am really liking it. Once again, at great personal risk, I am including a (very) lightly-edited excerpt from this section. I hope you enjoy it.

Besides, I couldn’t ever get away from the fear that maybe, even though I didn’t believe it, what I was saying was actually true. I could see that many of the people in my congregation who left each Sunday and tried to live what I said seemed somehow happier than I was. I tried to convince myself it was simply because they were simpletons who could be satisfied with easy answers to the hard issues of life, while I was the sophisticated and wise pastor who knew the truth behind the words. But even that explanation didn’t ring true for me. I’m sure it didn’t help that my wife seemed to be one of the simpletons. Especially since I had met and married her at Princeton, and knew her to be more intelligent than I.

So naturally, I did what every good man does who knows that his life is a lie and that, whoever else he may be fooling, he isn’t fooling himself. I threw myself more wholeheartedly into the lifestyle. I had left Princeton a teetotaler, not on any moral principles, but simply because I had seen the foolishness of my peers who allowed themselves to become too enamored of string drink. But the social circle in which I now travelled demanded a sophisticated appreciation of fine drink, and so, slowly at first, I began to have a glass of wine, or an after-dinner drink, just to be a part. I wish my story were more original, I have always wanted to think of myself as my own man. But the reality is that after 10+billion human beings, there aren’t any new ways to ruin one’s life. I had never kept alcohol in the house, since we never hosted any of the parties, but I began to keep some “good” liquor, and some of the more highly-regarded beers of the region, just to help me “relax” at the end of the day. At least, I told myself that that was the reason; I now understand (as I’m sure you already guessed) that the alcohol was to mask the pain of my meaninglessness. Serving as a pastor for so long, I met a great many frauds. The most important of them were given the opportunity to sit in my office and confess their sins to me, as I sat wisely nodding and offering them what absolution my faithlessness and the theology of my church allowed.

The irony was that as I sat there, something inside of me longed for someone to whom I could confess, someone who could offer me absolution. As I sat there as the high and lofty judge of the poor, lost soul who was before me, I was actually giving them what I could not find for myself. So I did the only thing I knew, I drank.

My wife knew, I’m sure she did. Like I said, she was more intelligent than I, but she also believed. I’m certain she had seen through my façade a long time before, and she didn’t believe any of it. I suspect that she prayed for me daily. She went to all the parties, she drove me home drunk at the end, and she generally made sure that I kept something together for the sake of my congregation.

You have probably noticed by now that I speak of her in the past tense. She was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 47. When she went in to see the doctor, he estimated that she had actually had the cancer since her early 30s. These days, mammograms and self-exams might have saved her life, but we didn’t have or know about such things back then, and she died within months of the diagnosis.

19,107

2007-11-12T00:20:00.001-07:00

The robots at NaNo say that I have 19,125. Either way, I'm almost 40% of the way to my goal.

I really didn't feel like writing today. I wasn't able to write the last 2 nights, so I went from ahead to behind and now back ahead (to be on pace, I would need 18,333 words today). Thankfully, after about 15 minutes I got into the flow, and cranked out about 3,200 words. NaNo has pep talks from famous authors every couple of days, Sue Grafton (whom I have never read) talked today about writing just to write. She even encouraged us to plan on never letting this see the light of day to reduce the need to produce something presentable. We shall see, I still like my story so far, although not necessarily the writing. I know there will be massive editing and re-writing needed.

I'm in the midst of destroying my character's hope right now; I definitely need this life to be shortened. I may end up killing him off in his late 20s - he's 19 at this point in the story.
So the beginning of my store will need a complete timeline revision. Assuming I every go back.

15,877

2007-11-09T00:02:00.000-07:00

I wrote a lot today. In fact, I could keep going, except that it is midnight and I need to get some sleep. It's a good thing I wrote extra today, as tomorrow my son's band has to play at a football game 40 miles away from here, and we will be out very late, probably too late for me to write tomorrow. Right now, I have enough words to remain on track even if I write nothing tomorrow.

I decided to introduce one of my other significant characters early. I have morphed the burned-out Psychiatrist into a burned-out Neurologist, and have brought him in at this stage to do some preliminary examinations. This has allowed me to do some foreshadowing with regard to his future situation, and to enable Will to seek him out later. I have also developed the conflict that will result in Will to leave his first position (currently at NASA, that will probably change in the editing); I expect him to leave in the next 5,000 words or so.

I also feel like I am finding my voice. I noticed a couple of days ago that my vocabulary seemed to have shrunk while writing this story, but today I found that a broader range of expression came more easily. Hopefully, that trend will continue.

3,000 words was a nice amount. It felt like I had time to really enter the story, if I have time, I may shoot for that number rather than the minimum 1,667. Besides, I know that I won't be done at 50,000, so I might as well write more.

Still writing

2007-11-07T22:49:00.000-07:00

12,233 words. 45 pages in Word 2007 with 12 point Calibri.

Today's goal is 11,667, so I am 600 ahead. The problem is, I have now decided that my timeline (in the novel) is too long. I originally planned that my character would live about 60 years, so his early adulthood would occur in the early 1960s. Now I think I need him to live only 35 or so, so I can move his life into the 80s. But I chose for him a career at NASA during the space race. While I can keep him at NASA and move him to the shuttle years, I'm afraid of how much work that will be. Plus, I don't have time to go back and edit right now, so at some point I either change timelines and leave the issue to be fixed, or I finish the current timeline and re-do everything later. Not sure which way to go.

On the other hand, I am having little trouble generating words. Those who know me will not be surprised about that. Whether the words are any good remains to be seen.

I'm also in doubt as to whether I can be done in 50,000 words. Seemed like a lot a week ago.

NaNo update

2007-11-06T22:31:00.000-07:00

10,117.

I am 1/5th of the way through the month and still on schedule. Except for the fact that I am way less than 1/5th of the way through my story.

I should have known 50,000 words wouldn't be enough.

My novel, day 5

2007-11-05T23:03:00.000-07:00

I don't know how long the average participant in NaNo lasts before giving up (their website has been unnavigable for days), but I'll bet many drop out by now, or at least have begun to fall so far behind the pace that they are effectively out.

I am at 8,844 words. By the end of day 5, you need 8,333 to be on pace for the 50,000. It takes an hour or more every night to crank out the necessary words. They tell you not to do any editing; I don't need the restriction - I no more want to go back and rework this now than I want to try and break the world record for sitting in a bathtub with rattlesnakes that a Texas man just set. No, right now I just want to get the story moving along. I am just about to hit the first major tragedy of my main character's life; I'm a little nervous about plunging in to real drama.

On the other had, I am really liking the story. I'm sure it is severely lacking in depth of presentation (that's what editing is for), but in general terms, I'm pleased with how it is coming along. Against my better judgment, here is a small sampling of my writing:

---------------

After gathering his belongings, Will headed out of the hospital and straight for the General’s office. Space was in short supply in the engineering areas, so the General had a small closet of an office with no receptionist to control access. Will had just started to knock on the door when he heard his name from inside. Against his better judgment, he didn’t knock, but leaned closer to the door to listen.

“… I know Carlisse is sick. But the doc thinks that with some limitations, he can still be involved in our work.” That was the General’s voice; Will was surprised he hadn’t heard it booming further down the hall.

“What the hell good to me is a 17 year old freak who can’t work when there’s work to be done?” Will didn’t recognize that voice. “10 hour shifts! You said you were going to have him do some drawings; I wonder if the doc will let him do some of that in his dorm. And does that 10 hours include his work towards his doctorate? If it does, I’ll be lucky to have him 7 hours at a time. Look General, when you told me you had found just the piece we needed to complete this team, I didn’t expect you would bring me a boy who’s only half a man.”

Will stared at the door, unsure of what to do next. He started to turn, and then heard the door open behind him. He looked, and saw Henry, the guy Robby had told him as the actual team leader, storming out of the office. “Get me someone else, General.” He looked up and saw Will. Without a word, he brushed by and disappeared down the hall. Will turned to look at the General, who had an apology on his face.

NaNoWriMo

2007-11-01T21:09:00.000-07:00

This month, I recently learned, is National Novel Writing Month. Please notice that it is not "Writers Month," but "Writing Month." This is the month, set aside several years ago, in which people are challenged to write a novel of 50,000 words. There is a web site, www.nanowrimo.org, local chapters devoted to helping you get through the process, and lots of resources in the form of books and pamphlets.

As my profile says, I have a deep desire to be a writer, so I decided to take the plunge and sign up. You don't have to pay anything, just sign up and start writing. I attended last night's countdown event, and wrote the first 600 words of my novel.

I hope to blog on the process over the next month. To get to 50,000 words in a 30 day month, you have to write 1,667 words per day. So I may not have any energy to write another word after finishing my writing each day; but if I do, I will record some thoughts.

So what is my novel? At the moment, it is a novel of redemption. My main character is a man of prodigious gifts but a devastating neurological disorder that prevents him from ever realizing his potential. In the process of his life, he builds meaningful relationships with a pastor who has lost his faith and a burned out, cynical Psychiatrist. Through the strength of our hero's character, both men find their lives and purposes restored. It will not be an explicitly Christian novel, although the themes in the novel will reflect my Christian worldview.

Will I publish any of it? I doubt it. It would be nice, but it is probably too much to hope that my first attempt, drafted in a mere 30 days, will be of any substance. But the process will tell me something about myself, and I will share that, at the least, on this blog.

Dumbledore is gay!?

2007-10-23T00:00:00.000-07:00

So J.K Rowling has stated, in answer to a fan's question, that Dumbledore is gay.

I believe this neatly delineates one of the central cultural questions of our day, to whit: what exactly is the essence of homosexuality? Is a person gay because of something in their nature, or are they gay because of their behavior? The answer to that question lies behind the entire cultural war. So I find it interesting that the most successful fictional series of our time provides such a compelling answer.

How does Rowling's response answer the question? Just this: You see, Dumbledore never exhibits a single gay behavior throughout the entire series (I know, I've read every book multiple times). He is only gay because Rowling imagines him to be gay. I believe this is the same for the vast number of homosexual men (women too, to a lesser extent). However, the facts as expressed in the series make the point in start terms. Since Dumbledore does not exist, he cannot actually be anything, except what the author says he is. His homosexuality exists entirely in Rowling's mind.

This is not to lessen the realities of real, live homosexuals. It is just to say that there is an interesting statement about the thought processes of a culture when the statement of J.K Rowling is taken as having any meaning whatsoever.

An analogy between Intelligent Design and Dark Matter

2007-10-22T21:36:00.001-07:00

In my reading, the most common complaint raised against Intelligent Design is that by invoking a creator, design advocates are invoking something that is by definition unmeasurable and is therefore irrefutable. The argument is that any truly scientific theory must be falsifiable, and the postulate of an invisible creator, totally separate from the universe it created, is not.

Two answers, one positive and one negative are most commonly given in response. On the negative side, it is noted that Darwinian evolution is itself not falsifiable, to the extent that it is so open-ended that it is able to subsume any data, even contradictory data. On the positive side, design theorists invoke Paley's Watchmaker, and argue that in our experience anything that bears the appearance of design is most simply explained by the presence of a designer.

While I, as a design theorist, find the argument against evolution compelling, it seems that those on the other side are able to ignore it (perhaps just from wishful thinking). On the positive side, a great many philosophers have taken aim at the Watchmaker analogy, believing themselves to have shown it lacking. And while anyone familiar with philosophy can see through their arguments, they are given much weight among evolutionists simply because they have been cited so frequently that they appear to be well-established. So I am here, in this totally unread blog, proposing an analogy that I believe is very apropos, and will be much more difficult for the opponents of design to set aside.

Most cosmologists currently believe that the vast majority of the mass of the universe consists of so-called dark matter and/or dark energy. What makes this matter/energy dark is the fact that it cannot be measured, except indirectly, by any known scientific process. That is, we cannot see it or detect it directly, we can only infer it from its effects on things around it. The only reason that scientists believe that it exists is that it appears to be necessary to make the current theories of the structure of the universe "work out." Or put another way, dark matter and energy is the simplest explanation for the universe that we see.

Just like a creator.

Scratch Lives (Living For Eternity)

2007-10-05T07:09:00.000-07:00

Wayne Cordeiro, in his book Doing Church as a Team, writes of this notion of "scratch lives:"

To contrast the brevity of our earthly existence with that of eternity, I would take out my ballpoint pen and draw a vertical scratch on [an] extended cable. Then I would tell you that the width of that scratch mark (about 1/32 of an inch) represents the length of our life on earth compared to eternity. Not very long!

But do you know what most people do? They not only live on that scratch, but they also love that scratch.... They live scratch lives, have scratch businesses, raise scratch families with scratch hopes and scratch dreams....

....They try to elongate it, stretch it and extend it as much as possible. But even in the midst of their attempts, they know deep inside that there's got to be something more.

There is no doubt that a great many people live only for this life, squandering their time here on nothing more significant than acquiring new toys and new experiences. There can be no question that a life so lived misses the greater point of life, living only for the now rather than for eternity. But my question is this: what does it really mean to live for eternity? The old American saw tells us that "you can't take it with you." What exactly do we take with us?

For years in church I was taught (and then I taught from the pulpit) that all we take with us are the lives that we touch for Christ. A beautiful sentiment, but is it true? I think, to the extent that it reminds us that we cannot live solely for ourselves and calls us to look for opportunities to impact others that it it true But I, at least, too often forgot that one of the lives I could touch would be my own. God has great love for me, and created me that I might love Him as well.

C.S. Lewis, in the Great Divorce, argues that our lives in eternity are but an extension of our lives here on earth. We begin to develop our character in this life, a character which is grown and extended for all of eternity. The point here is that our lives as lived actually count for eternity. We do not live just to make a choice for Christ and then help others find their way to Him; rather, we live so that we might make choices and develop character that, in God's design, can only be made and developed in the context of this life. I suspect that this life is unique in its structure and opportunities; and that we will look back from eternity on this life and regret a good deal more the things we didn't do in this life than we will regret the things we did. And these will not just be "spiritual" things.

Very few people can live their lives successfully on the big stage. Of all the people currently alive, I can only count Billy Graham as having successfully navigated the treacherous waters of significant earthly power without grounding himself on the reef of great personal failure. If this is so, why does nearly every person long for great significance? I suspect it is because God has placed in us an understanding that our lives, lived out on this little stage of our scratch, will extend for all of eternity. And it is in that eternal extension that they will find great significance. So it become incumbent upon each of not, not only to engage in great spiritual activity, but to be as truly and authentically ourselves as we can manage within the context of our short lives.

For I suspect that one of the "few things" that God calls me to be faithful to is just being as authentically Don Wilcox as I could be. In the midst of the big questions of life, I think He will ask me if I attempted to live the life He gave me. I cannot believe He has no interest in that.

What is a soul?

2007-09-12T21:53:00.000-07:00

It occurs to me that if I am going to talk about souls, I would do well to be clear on what I mean by "soul." There are two points which require clarification.

First, I believe that the Bible teaches, and logic dictates, that human beings are comprised of two parts: a body and a spirit. The body is the physical component, encompassing all those functions which are traceable to physical processes, including much (but not all) of what we think of as "mind." The spirit is non-physical, representing the free-will of man. It is the part of us that recognizes and responds to God, and is the source of our moral sense. As Lewis puts it, the spirit is the necessary origin of "ought." When I use the word "soul" in this series, I am referring primarily to the spirit, but would also include that part of us that is more ambiguous. By this I mean the place where body and spirit interact, those aspects of our personality and nature that cannot be traced easily or definitively to either the physical or non-physical. All of this together is what I mean when I speak of the soul.

Now, if you had searched inside my thoughts to determine what the phrase "creation of the soul" meant to me before a couple of days ago, you probably would have found something along the lines of this image: when the time came for God to create a new person, He would reach into a jar of "soul-stuff," pull out a handful, pat it really good, and stick it inside the body. Not that I would have expressed it in this way, but that is more or less the image I think I had. But once I began to consider the subject more intentionally, I understood that this is woefully inadequate. You see, this picture makes the soul a mere add-on to the body, stuck in to "animate it," and introduces a division between body and spirit that is not present in reality. Although I spoke of body and spirit as two parts of a human person in the previous paragraph, I do not think they are two separate, symbiotic entities. Rather, they are the two inseparable components of a complete human. This is why Paul speaks so unambiguously of a physical resurrection: man is both body and spirit, so when God creates a man, He creates both components fit together to make the whole. And when God resurrects a man, He will resurrect both, bringing an whole man into eternity with Him.

In light of this, then, a much more reasonable image of creation would be God carefully crafting the soul and body together into the shape and form that He desires. He designs the soul as the seat of the humanness of the created person, and builds into the soul all the possibilities that He sees for that person. The body is designed to facilitate the soul reaching its fullest potential within the lifespan that God has measured for that body. This is a much more creative and loving act than I would have considered until now. It is in this act of creation that God first expresses His love for the individual that He is creating.

So that's it. The soul is the non-physical (or spiritual) component of a human. It is created uniquely and specially by God to be the true expression of His love for that individual. Even these simple facts have profound implications. We shall investigate them in the coming days.

Souls and the sovereignty of God

2007-09-10T13:48:00.001-07:00

As a long-time evangelical, I have not thought much about the creation of souls. I would imagine it was probably a topic of interest to the early church fathers, and may still occupy theologians of one stripe or another. It has not, heretofore, interested me. This all changed for some unknown reason several days ago, when I awoke thinking about the implications of the fact that souls are created by God.

I remember from my theology training that the question of the pre-existence of souls is one that occasionally pops up in Christian theology, but to me there is little to discuss. A simple syllogism summarizes it all: Primary Premise: God alone is uncreated; Corollary: everything else must be created; Secondary Premise: all things are created by Him. Conclusion: all souls are created by God.

Back to the main subject. My first thought on subject (I am going to move slowly through all the ramifications as I try and think through them all) is that the fact of God's active creation of souls implies that God exercises sovereignty over the structure, nature and disposition of every soul that He creates. This implies that He knows the soul - its capabilities, limitations, and potentialities - from the very moment of its creation. This does not constrain the actual freedom of the created soul; God may know it well yet still grant it real freedom to make choices (however, see my post on choice for more on this). For example, I know my children very well, but they still have the capacity to surprise me. God knows the details of a created soul to a much greater extent, and deals with that soul from a position of both love and power.

This may all sound either like silly philosophical nonsense or trivial tautologies to you, but I believe that it has profound implications on a number of subjects having to do with God's sovereignty, human freedom, and the nature of salvation. I intend to explore these implications in coming posts.

Choices

2007-09-01T14:04:00.000-07:00

I believe that man has a free will. If forced to pick, I would choose to come down on the side of Arminius, but I believe that the real answer to the question: "Is God sovereign or is man free?" would be "Yes." Not just because I love to answer "either ... or ..." questions with a "yes" or "no" answer, but rather because I believe the question is too simple to capture the complexities of the issue.

However, I have another thought on the subject of man's free will. Personally, I think we have a good many fewer truly free choices than we realize. I believe that the combination of our created nature and our upbringing (nature and nurture) determine the vast majority of our actions. There are situations in which we theoretically have control over our choices, but in reality, the experiences we have already lived through have so shaped who we are that our actual behavior is effectively determined.

I wonder if, when we look at our lives from the perspective of eternity, if we won't be surprised to see that we made, not thousands of decisions, but maybe just 2.

OK, 3.

Alcohol

2007-08-22T21:39:00.000-07:00

It is one of those subjects that seems to come up on a regular basis: the tenuous relationship between Christians and alcohol. For years as a young person I was given the impression, if not told outright, that the Bible forbids consumption of alcohol. This worked out fine for me, I had no taste for the stuff, and my total abstinence made a positive impression on my non-believing High School friends. I was invited to all the parties, and while I was there the alcohol wasn't. I'd like to think that I may have saved a few lives just by showing up at parties. I'll never know.

The problem is, the Bible does not forbid alcohol; so as I grew into adulthood and began my career as a student and teacher of the Bible, I was forced to come to terms with this fact. There were a few years of struggle - the "badness" of alcohol was firmly entrenched. Then, for a couple of months I had a job as a waiter, and I found that when I worked late I would have trouble unwinding from the stress. During those days I found that a little alcohol helped me to fall asleep more quickly. I never developed a taste for strong stuff, and to this day I prefer a wine that tastes like KoolAid. But I will drink when in a group, and even occasionally on my own. If anyone is still reading my blog, this probably shocks you.

It shouldn't, at least not because I am a Christian. There are plenty of reasons not to consume alcohol, and I have seen many studies linking alcohol to a wide range of negative results. Just today, I came across another: in her book Unhooked, Laura Sessions Stepp takes a look at the "hook-up" culture of casual sex that is prevalent among those in their late teens and early twenties. She covers a lot of ground, and backs her work with a lot of interviews. One of her conclusions is that alcohol is used by young people as a means of greasing the skids towards casual sex. Now, I do not know enough to take issue with this relationship; certainly it looks plausible on the surface. However, I came across an article by a Rev. Mark Creech in which he takes this relationship and draws an equivalence between casual sex and alcohol.

To begin with, there is a logical fallacy here - just because alcohol is used to facilitate casual sexual behavior does not mean that alcohol is the cause of that behavior. In fact, the work by Ms. Sessions indicates rather that the intent to have sex clearly predates the use of alcohol, the alcohol is simply an available tool. One assumes that were it not available, the young people would find another aid to suppressing their consciences. To argue from this relationship that Christians should totally abstain from alcohol is to draw too broad a conclusion. Nearly every activity in life contains some element of risk; wisdom comes not from eliminating risk, but rather in managing it. The Reverend Creech contends that there are no redeeming qualities in either drinking or sex outside of marriage; this is patently untrue. To be fair, he actually states that there are no redeeming qualities that are not countered by risks - but to say this is just to say that there are risks. I think Rev. Creech means that he wants these acts to have no benefits. But even sin has benefits, otherwise it wouldn't appeal to us. As in all areas, we must be clearheaded in our thinking if we are to make wise choices and decisions.

But all of this comes to a head when Rev. Creech states that, while the Bible does not explicitly condemn consumption of alcohol, it

treats alcohol somewhat like it does slavery: it doesn't universally condemn the practice, but it clearly undermines and ultimately dooms the custom by the lofty moral standards set forth throughout its many pages.

The only way to see this analogy is to bring it into Scripture with you. The Bible, as always, has an exceedingly practical approach to alcohol. It warns about and condemns excessive use; but recognizes and encourages careful partaking. There is no similar perspective on slavery, which is redeemed in the law by raising the status of slaves, and is ennobled in the New Testament by being adopted by Paul as the image of the Christian life. The situation with alcohol is totally different. There is nowhere where the Bible encourages the offering of slaves as part of the sacrificial system (Exodus 29:40 and Leviticus 23:13). Jesus did not turn water into a slave (John 2), nor did Paul recommend that Timothy take along a slave to further his ministry (1 Timothy 5:23). But mostly, I am fairly certain that we do not celebrate the Lord's Supper with bread and a slave.

Does consumption of alcohol bring along certain risks? Absolutely. Should young people abstain until they are adults? Without a doubt. Are there people who should avoid consumption of alcohol at all costs. Indeed (some are my friends). But let's not have any of this adjusting what the Bible says in order to "protect" us from the evils of the vine. God was apparently not afraid of His people enjoying alcohol. We shouldn't be either.

Names

2007-08-21T11:27:00.001-07:00

I am in the process of fixing a conceptual problem in the software that I work on. As I began to delve into the code to change it, it occurred to me that the problem has resisted early attempts to resolve it because some of the key pieces of the program have misleading names.

This seems a trivial issue at first glance. Why get all hung up on the names of pieces of the code? Just fix the problems and move on. After all, we have a major release coming up in just a couple of weeks. But truly, names are not trivial. It is a basic human trait to name things. I believe that the significance of naming is reflected in the fact that the story of Adam naming the animals is one of the stories retained in the creation narrative. I honestly can say that I do not remember taking any great note of this fact in the past. The presence of this tale in the creation story should give us an indication of the importance of naming to humans.

Upon further reflection, this becomes obvious. We name everything, mostly because names give us short handles for the complexities of the universe. So much of many advanced courses studies comes down to learning the names of things; consider the examples of medicine and law. By learning the names of the things around us, we simplify the complexity and make the difficult manageable. Imagine if every time you wanted to talk about your child, you needed to go all the way back in your family tree to describe their lineage - their name eliminates all of that.

But names do more than just label things - they bring connotations and emotional content as well. This is why, in modern political discourse, it is so important that you get to pick the names used in the discussion - the term "pro-choice" has many fewer negative connotations than does "pro-abortion." The correctness of either term is not the point; the point is that the power to choose names often dictates the course of the ensuing debate.

But we use names internally as well. For years, I struggled against the internal name "useless" that I applied to myself. I didn't really recognize it, but that name informed everything I did and all of my thoughts about myself. As I learn to abandon that name and recognize the truth, I learn to apply more accurate names to myself.

There is a lot more to this; but I would do well to think more intentionally about the names that I apply to myself and to those around me. After all, they define the world for me, whether accurate or not.

Clear thinking

2007-08-01T17:27:00.000-07:00

A new paper argues that democracy is doomed to be non-optimal (that is, to rarely take the best course of action) because most people in a democracy will not bother to understand an issue before acting on their preconceived notions about that issue. As a result, democracies tend reflect the unfounded beliefs of their population, and only very slowly make changes.

At the same time, Walter Williams' most recent article on townhall.com notes separately that people do not typically have an accurate understanding of the costs of their actions. They tend to value maintaining the status quo without considering whether the current course will accomplish the goals they have in mind.

You put these two together, and I doubt most of us are really in any position to act, or even speak intelligently, on any issue of great importance.

I would really enjoy discussing these issues with people who disagree with me; but of course, rational discourse is no longer in vogue. It is easier to call names than to allow for the possibility that you might have to re-think your position.

If all this doesn't make you pessimistic about our future, I'm not sure what will.

High-risk activity

2007-07-31T21:53:00.000-07:00

It shouldn't be, but apparently taking your children to a movie targeted at them has become a high-risk activity. I took my boys (11 and 14) to see Transformers today. I have heard good reviews from a number of sources that I normally find trustworthy, so I felt good despite it's PG-13 rating. Unfortunately, there was way more "13" in this movie than I would have liked.

One scene in particular really makes me angry. The main character (a 16 year old boy) is in his bedroom looking for something the good robots really need, when his parents come up to inquire as to the racket he and the robots are making. Now, you have to know that there are a number of very funny, clever things about this scene. At one point the lead robot (Optimus Prime) is looking in the window and speaks to our hero in a voice that is reminiscent of a parent mildly frustrated with their teenager. To hear it come from a giant robot was hilarious. Anyways, his parents come into the room, and follows a discussion about what is going on that centers on "self-pleasuring." I choose not to use the standard term here because I do not want my blog to go down the same path as the stupid movie. I was so frustrated. And the scene went on and on, all while I was sitting next to my 11 year old who needs not be exposed to this right yet. He will be soon enough, it was just so aggravating to have to sit through this totally gratuitous scene.

Why is this necessary? There was absolutely no need for it, and I remained sufficiently angry throughout the rest of the movie that it lessened my overall enjoyment. Why would anyone target a movie to young boys and then go in this direction? The low-key sexuality of the starlet was bad enough, but is there not a single person in all of Hollywood with the practical sense to know that this would be inappropriate for a large portion of their target audience?

And since when is this subject even funny?

Harry Potter

2007-07-30T22:04:00.000-07:00

I love the Harry Potter books. I have since the first one came out all these many years ago. From the very beginning I have differed strongly with the shallow perspective of many Christians concerning these books. In my previous life as the associate pastor of an evangelical church, I kept my opinion mostly to myself. However, I no longer have this constraint, so I thought I would take a minute to reflect on the issue.

I was one of the millions who stood in line at midnight to get a copy of the 7th book. I knew that I could have just slept in and gotten one the next day. I didn't even start reading it until I awoke the next morning. I just wanted to be a part of the fun of the final book. I met 5 or 6 really interesting people in line; one of the young ladies in out little group won the door prize of a signed poster and we all rejoiced with her. I think that is one of the nice things about the books - the heroes are unquestionably the good guys, and the bad guys are unquestionably evil - so there are not a lot of ambiguous fans. Everyone roots for the good guys. It's a huge club.

Since then, I have read two very different articles about the series, both by conservative Christians. One, in the online journal OneNewsNow.com, is a wondrous example of the silly, shallow stupidity spouted by Christians who don't bother to think beyond the surface. Nearly nothing the "evangelist" Tim Todd says about the books is inaccurate, yet he is viewed as credible by many. He makes statements about J. K. Rowling without any corroboration, and rather than quoting her, he makes vague references to things she is reported to have said. All in all, it was embarrassing; but even worse, I am fairly certain that Mr. Todd is not, and will never be, embarrassed. And worst of all, there are probably many people who read his writings or hear him speak and accept what he says as authoritative without ever bothering to check his credentials.

The other article, by La Shawn Barber in townhall.com, (do not read her article if you have not read the final book, to say it has spoilers is a MASSIVE understatement) is none of these things. Ms Barber is a fan, and she see the positive qualities in the stories for what they are. There is no superstitious fear of a book because "magic" is the underlying plot device; rather, Ms. Barber points out the power of the common themes of sacrificial love, true friendship and rebirth. These are themes that resonate with humans because they are the themes on which our fallen world is now built. The final resolution of history will come from the sacrificial gift of the One who created it. Men and women are destined for a glorious rebirth because of that sacrifice. And while the Potter books do not use these themes for religious reasons, the themes are nonetheless there, and believers can find much that recalls for them the truths in which we place our hope.

Finishing the final book was horribly bittersweet. I will greatly miss Harry, Ron, Hermione, Hagrid and Dumbledore. I have looked forward to each new adventure, and have loved sharing them with my boys. If you haven't had the opportunity, or have been afraid, go find a used copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and read it. Or, if you haven't the patience, watch the movie. These are stories that reflect the Great Story told by the Greatest Storyteller of all.

My children recently asked me if I thought God liked the movie Evan Almighty (we all did), and I told them I thought He probably did. I'm pretty sure He likes the Potter books as well.

More on civility

2007-07-28T22:12:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, while talking about the helicopter crash here in Phoenix, I touched briefly on the loss of civility in our culture. This came to my mind in part because of a segment on the Hugh Hewitt show last evening. He and his guest were reviewing some of the submitted questions for the GOP YouTube debate, and they and I were both struck by the tone of the questioners. So many of the clips featured people being major-league smart-alecks. Now, I have a long history of sarcastic wit, it probably is even genetic to a certain extent for me, so I can appreciate the approach (I have, however, sworn it off, but that is for another time and post).

The problem with sarcasm in adversarial relationships (and debate questioners are typically adversarial towards their targets) is that the sarcasm effectively ends communications. The target of such attitude would really like to propose a suitable destination for the attacker, who is themselves obviously looking for a fight. So, rather than doing anything to mitigate the dissension and find a place of conversation, the sarcasm guarantees that neither participant in the exchange is even vaguely open to communication. And both leave feeling that they got the better of the situation.

Personally, I would love to see a lot less attacking, fewer sound-bite arguments, and more open discussion of what we purport to be talking about. With all the sarcasm, there isn't much communicating going on right now.

Tragedy

2007-07-27T22:36:00.000-07:00

I live in Phoenix. Today, two news helicopters collided in mid-air, killing the pilot and photographer in each aircraft. My prayers go out for each of the families. They were following a police chase of a stolen vehicle, and early reports are that there was some confusion as to which was above the other.

I am hoping that this will cure us of our morbid cultural fascination with these stupid car chases. Years ago the sports channels stopped broadcasting idiots who run onto the field of play during a game; I think a similar, self-imposed moratorium would be appropriate here.

In general, I would welcome a preference for facts over voyeurism in news coverage. I think this morbid fascination with the exciting is telling of the overall degradation of civility on our culture.

Or maybe I'm just a prude.

Blogging

2007-07-26T21:24:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted in months. Many things are changing in my life, and I cannot any longer keep track of everything. As a result, I have let blogging slide, even though I enjoyed the expression immensely while I was doing it.

I'm back now. I do not think there is anyone reading me; but I am no longer writing to be read. I am writing to write. Hopefully, someone will read, but even if not, I still need to write. There is something visceral for me about expressing my thoughts. When I was teaching or pastoring, there was a natural outlet. Those things are gone for me for now, and I need to do this on this forum.

So if you're still out there, I welcome you to come back and get re-acquainted. I have placed my email address and real name on my profile, I would love to hear from you as well.

Until tomorrow.

Jerry Crawford

2007-04-20T11:47:00.000-07:00

Jerry is (was?) an NBA referee. During a game last week, Crawford, known for having a short temper at times, gave Tim Duncan of the Spurs two technicals while sitting on the bench. If you know me, you know that I am a long-time Spurs fan. I know that Duncan is a bit of a complainer (but with the possible exception of Hakeem Olajuwon, every big man with a post game is), but two technicals for a guy who is sitting on the bench NOT saying a word to the official is a new on for me. The explanation Crawford gives is that Duncan, who was laughing it up with his teammates on the bench, was laughing at him for a series of bad calls. But no matter what the reason, Duncan was out, and the entire NBA world waited to see what the league would do.

Duncan got fined the characteristic $25,000. Crawford received an indefinite suspension, effectively ending his officiating career. Everyone was stunned. Crawford has been in the league 31 years, and his grandfather and father and one of his brothers (or some such combination) have been profession sports referees. Yes, Crawford has a temper, but this seemed a huge overreaction. Most everyone thinks that the punishment is not commensurate with the crime.

But I find myself wondering if maybe I don't know the whole story. Yes, the results to not seem in accordance with what I know. So I have two possible conclusions: either the league is overreacting, or I don't know the whole story.

Hypocrisy

2007-04-07T18:44:00.000-07:00

I was listening to Dennis Prager a couple of days ago. He was interviewing Michael Rogers, a gay activist and journalist who aggressively "outs" politicians (especially those on the right) who are not supportive of gay rights in their public life. His purpose, he says, is to attack the hypocrisy of those who profess one thing but live another in their private lives.

Dennis spent a great deal of time trying to get Mr. Rogers to explain exactly what it is that most concerns him about politicians who privately practice homosexual behavior but who publicly oppose the lifestyle. In spite of continued questioning, the journalist refused to elaborate. He just kept coming back to the "great evil" of hypocrisy. At one point, Dennis asked him if there was any difference between a person who in private practices homosexual behavior but in public supports policies that are viewed as anti-gay, and the person who supports penalties for cheating but who is himself not always honest. Mr. Rogers was not willing to acknowledge that these are morally similar. I suspect that he did not want to make the admission because such hypocrisy is much more widespread, and to recognize any equivalence between the two hypocrisies would dilute his source of outrage.

And I got to thinking (how many times have I said that in this blog?). If hypocrisy is defined as behaving one way in private while being against such behavior in public then we are all guilty of hypocrisy. It is commonly recognized that people are often most adamant in their condemnation of behaviors that hit close to home. This has always been presented to me as a bad thing, but I wonder. Perhaps it is not that we are hypocrites as much as it is that we aspire to be better than we are; and we rightly recognize that many of our private behaviors are wrong. In a great many cases we even want to see them disappear from our own lives. During the time between recognizing our failures and overcoming them, we run the risk of being labeled hypocrite. But I do not think that it is hypocrisy to believe that everyone ought to behave better than we actually do. Do we not all agree that society would be better if everyone behaved better than they actually do. We cannot define socially-acceptable behavior based on what we do. This is the flaw of moral relativism.

But you don't have to be a relativist to make this mistake. The church also misses this distinction as well, expecting that those who lead will themselves not struggle with sin. Or at least not with any sin that the leader may condemn in public. With one exception, no one has risen to this standard of flawless behavior. The story of the Bible is one of deeply flawed people who manage to continue to follow God in the very midst of their flaws. In the New Testament Paul himself admits that his struggle with sin was ongoing and frustrating. I myself expect and desire that my behavior would always be more Christ-like and good than it actually is. But my sins are not any less wrong just because you or anyone else may struggle with them as well. And lately, I have learned that I have enough to do worrying about myself, and have little time remaining to worry about so-called "hypocrisy" in others.

The 2nd Amendment

2007-03-08T17:14:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking lately, and have about come to the conclusion that the second amendment to the United States constitution is partially obsolete. The amendment states (in full):

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

Looking back at the writings of the early leaders of our government, you see that there are two purposes for this right. The first is to provide for powerful defense of our country in the event of war; the second is to allow the citizens the ability to protect themselves from the power of the federal government. As examples of the second, consider the following quotes:

Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power, and jealousy will instantly inspire the inclination, to resist the execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive.

---Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution (Philadelphia 1787).

Clearly, Webster is arguing that an armed citizenry provides protection against the central government. Patrick Henry, at the Virginia ratifying convention, made the same point:

Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined.

The question I ask is: does anyone really believe that today, with modern military weaponry, that armed citizens possess any power to stand in the way of their government? Please know that I am not arguing for violent overthrow of the government, nor am I arguing for the repeal of the second amendment.

What I am saying is that we need to think carefully about what the second amendment does actually provide in this day and age. While defense against armed invasion remains a real benefit of an armed citizenry, the risk of actual invasion of our country is truly minimal. The ability to defend our personal property against criminal behavior, while very real, was not (to my reading) part of the original intent, and it is in many ways regulated by our government. Are we now left with a right without a purpose?

This matters because there is a very real push by many in our country to gut, if not downright repeal, the second amendment. Those who wish to defend it need be very clear exactly what it is that they are defending. We live in a society that does not by default accept the judgement of those long dead as sufficient reason for any action. The question now for those who defend the second amendment: what exactly are you defending? If you do not come up with an adequate answer, you are destined to lose.

Dawkins - Look Ma! No God!

2007-02-26T17:48:00.000-07:00

Chapter four of The God Delusion gets to Dawkins' main point - why there almost certainly is no God.

Once again, he is all over the place in this chapter, throwing his logic in as many directions as possible, presumably hoping that some stick. I can only assume he is impressed by the force of his reasoning; I am not. Perhaps I will have a chance to comment specifically on some of these individual issues, but his primary argument (which does not consume the bulk of the chapter) is that if there is a creator-God, then he is most certainly exceedingly complex, as he must be able to devise and implement the amazingly complex universe that exists. However, any such being does not solve the problem of the existence of the universe, it simply pushes the question back one layer. That is, when believers invoke God as an explanation for the complexity of the universe Dawkins says we haven't explained anything.

Put more simply, Dawkins is arguing that you cannot bail on answering the question, "If God created everything, who created God?" Traditionally, believers have argued that God, being eternal, simply has no beginning. Dawkins doesn't buy it. The crux of his argument is that, while the universe is extremely improbable; it does you no good to solve it by assuming something even more improbable. And Dawkins finds the notion that there is a god extremely unlikely. It is to this issue that he devotes the bulk of the chapter.

But why is this so? Is God improbable just because Richard Dawkins finds Him so? The bulk of Dawkins' argument is that smart people don't believe in God. Really. He cites studies showing that there are only a small fraction of believers in Mensa; that there is an inverse relationship between IQ and religious faith; that the higher the scientific honor, the less likely the scientist is to believe in God. I am fairly certain that I could dismantle each of these studies if given the raw data - for example, the Mensa study. For those who don't know, Mensa is a society that has as its primary membership criterion an IQ above the genius level. Why might believers be less well-represented in Mensa than in the rest of American society? Could it be that believers of high IQ have better things to do than join Mensa? Could it be that the church provides a more comfortable community? Could it be that believers are just less likely to find meaning in measures of intelligence. I suspect that the relationship between IQ and faith is less dramatic than this study would indicate.

As an alternative to God; Dawkins resorts to two rather insubstantial arguments. First, he says (without elaboration) at least a dozen times in this chapter that natural selection explains everything. It is so consistently stated, it becomes almost a creed. But I have no more confidence in the truth of the proposition that natural selection can create highly unlikely structures than he has in the proposition that God did it. And Dawkins' assertions to the contrary, natural selection doesn't explain anything.

His second alternative to God is what is known as the anthropic principle. Put simply, the anthropic principle says that, no matter how unlikely it is that life should show up in the universe, it must have happened because we are here. Or, more basically, "I know it may be hard to believe, but this all just happened. We know this is true, because if it weren't, we wouldn't be here to know it". No mechanism is needed to explain how it happened; so you are free to pick the mechanism you want. Dawkins picks natural selection. I don't.

I do not have time to list his other points. Hopefully I will be able to address them in successive posts. But the breadth of Dawkins' misstatement of theistic positions is breathtaking. He has decided that there is no God, and that those who disagree are idiots. Interestingly, He himself quotes the verse which tells us that fool has said in his heart there is no God. He would just contend it is the other way. His arguments are not compelling.

Slavery and Virginia

2007-02-24T20:49:00.000-07:00

So, Virginia has passed a resolution officially apologizing for slavery. I find it ironic on this day - when a movie about a man who devoted his life to pushing the legislature of the British Empire to make significant changes is playing around the country - that a group of legislators makes a meaningless symbolic act in an effort to demonstrate their leadership and compassion.

It takes no guts today to pass such a resolution in the United States; it takes brains and courage to do something that would actually have a positive effect on the oppressed in our nation today. Pity there are no men or women of vision and courage in the legislatures of our country today. I am certain that this resolution (and the similar one being considered in Missouri) will have a profoundly positive impact on the lives of those inner-city children being raised in fatherless homes, and one the lives of the thousands of young black men who turn to gangs and crime because they believe that there is no other option for them.

Well done.

Amazing Grace Movie

2007-02-24T20:32:00.000-07:00

I went and saw the movie Amazing Grace this afternoon with my kids (as we walked up to the box office, my pastor and his family were there as well, so we all saw it together. But I digress.) Wilberforce has always been one of my heroes, not just because of his work to abolish the slave trade; but because he understood, as the movie makes so clear, that it is possible to serve God and change the world at the same time.

The movie was wonderful in every way. It started slow, as they attempt to establish the story. But soon I was engrossed in the telling of a story that I already knew. There have been a significant number of movies in the last couple of years that attempt to tell a story with which I was already familiar; and I have been disappointed in nearly all of them. The Lord of the Rings movies were the lone exception until today. The movie gave me an appreciation for the time Wilberforce devoted to his cause, and for the frustrations of his slow progress. The depth of the anguish suffered by John Newton (composer of the hymn Amazing Grace) is brought into stark reality in the movie. The acting is wonderful, the cinematography beautiful, and the storytelling magnificent. No matter what you believe about Christianity, I recommend this movie as the telling of the story of a true hero of the modern western world.

If you have children, know that there is a scene of animal cruelty at the beginning of the movie, and several tellings of the true fate of slaves that might be unnerving for smaller children. There are also a handful of profanities, all mild, except for 2 uses of the N word. Both are in context; but after all these years of avoiding the term in my own life, it was rather shocking to hear. Just caught me off guard, that is all.

The best line of the movie, for me as a believer, comes from the mouth of John Newton, when he says "This I know. I am a great sinner; and Christ is a great saviour." The line is historical, the truth is timeless.

Go see the movie. Now.

Dawkins - The God Hypothesis

2007-02-23T16:21:00.000-07:00

Chapter 2 of Dawkins' book is devoted to the question of the reasonableness of what he calls The God Hypothesis (a phrase taken from LaPlace). The question he asks is simply this:

It is reasonable to assume that there exists a super-human, supernatural intelligence who deliberately designed and created the universe and everything in it, including us? (page 31)

He proceeds in the chapter to address a myriad of subjects, almost none of which is germane to his question. In fact, by the end of the chapter, he has made absolutely no progress in answering the question. Rather, he has regaled us with stories of atheist-phobic hicks, theologians who express offensive opinions and ill-advised studies of the efficacy of prayer. He has told us that Jefferson was an atheist who simply didn't know that it was a permissible opinion. He has mocked theists simply because they are theists, choosing only the most superficial arguments as the targets of his derision.

Finally, he concludes his narrative with an attempt to argue that because Stephen J. Gould wants the province of Science and Theology to be non-overlapping, then theists must accept this restriction. He does this in spite of the fact that the greatest theological thinkers have never made such an argument. He observes that some say that Science addresses the how of the universe and Theology the why. This seems to be an artificial distinction - useful at times, but hardly a general rule. Rather, I would state that Science and Theology can both offer their explanations for what we see around us - and may the best explanation win. Interestingly, Dawkins would undoubtedly accept such an offer; but he is already convinced that Theology has nothing to bring to that table, so there would be no competition. Unfortunately (for him and the book), he never gets around to actually making the case in this chapter.

What he does do is to state, over and over again, that Theology is of no value. He quotes all of his patron saints (Darwin, Jefferson, Einstein, Sagan, et. al.) over and over, as though the only thinkers in this age were men who questioned the existence of the God of Abraham. It is as if his argument is, "God must be a silly idea, because Jefferson (or Sagan, or whoever) says so". The chapter comes down to a "my experts can out-think your experts". And while he does quote a number of "theistic thinkers," he noticeably manages to avoid quoting anyone who thinks deeply about these issues (Ravi Zacharias, C. S. Lewis, and William Dembski come to mind). It then comes as no surprise that he sees no value in the thinking of theologians - those he mentions say nothing of value to me either.

I do not think that Dawkins' book begins well for him. To begin by setting up straw men and resorting to ad hominem attacks on one's opponents is to begin with nothing. A friend sent me a link to a review of the book by a thinking theist. I am going to avoid reading it until I have finished the book myself, but the introduction to the review notes that Dawkins spends much of his time making arguments that would make a first-year theology student wince; not because they are so devastating, but because they are so superficial. After chapter 3, it feels that way to me.

Richard Dawkins, part 1

2007-02-22T17:31:00.000-07:00

I picked up Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion yesterday and began reading it. Dawkins is probably the best-known modern atheist, and this book is an evangelistic text for the cause of atheism. I bought it, not looking for a new belief system, but because I wanted to see what he had to say. It is my intention to comment on the book in my blog over the next couple of weeks as I read it.

I am certain that I will differ on much of what he says. However, in the first chapter he writes something with which I not only agree; but which has significantly helped me to understand where he is coming from. He writes:

The notion that religion is a proper field, in which one might claim expertise, is one that should not go unquestioned. [A] clergyman presumably would not have deferred to the expertise of a claimed 'fairyologist' on the exact shape and colour of fairy wings. (page 16)

This is a point which deserves consideration. If religious belief is no more significant than belief in fairies, then it is deserving of no more respect. Since he devotes the bulk of his book to demonstrating that religious belief systems are of little or no merit, I will set aside the assertion for now.

But independent of the accuracy of his contention, I cannot argue with the logic. And it helps me to understand better why so many people regard religious belief with disdain. You see, I not only hold to a particular belief system, but do so with all the intelligence I can muster. Because of this, I can hold open the possibility that religious belief is rational, even if I disagree with the particular belief. But Dawkins, and others who hold to a philosophical atheism, regard those same belief systems as wholly irrational, or in Dawkins' words, delusional. Thus, they need be given no consideration at all.

I disagree, but now I understand.

One more thing, Dawkins' logical applies across religious systems: if what I as a Christian believe is true, then all other religious systems are no better than fairyology. This calls the entire multi-cultural / religious freedom premise into question.

Evidence

2007-02-21T17:36:00.000-07:00

One of the reasons why Science can't claim access to absolute truth is that deduction (drawing a conclusion from previously known facts) is very susceptible to what is called the expectational bias. That is, we look only at the evidence that supports the conclusion we expect to reach, ignoring the counter-examples. The most common example of this is the tendency of humans to only see the events that confirm their expectations. If I think that all Phoenix drivers are idiots when it rains (and they are), I will only tend to notice to poor drivers on a rainy day, effectively ignoring all the evidence (good drivers) that contradicts my perspective.

I got to thinking; expectational bias is probably why God placed such a severe penalty on prophets who predicted wrongly in the Old Testament (Deuteronomy 18:22 prescribes death for a prophet whose prediction does not come true). Prophets in those days commanded a lot of attention and influence. Lower the threshold for that sort of power, and it is easily abused. So God chooses to draw attention to the counter-examples, raising the bar for the status of prophet, and protecting His people from abuse.

And there is, in my experience, a lot of abuse in churches when people are allowed to speak in the name of God. I am increasingly skeptical of anyone who would believe that they have heard from God on anyone's behalf but their own. Too often I see these people waltz in, pronounce their dictum from Sinai, and waltz out leaving tsunami-like damage in their wake (to mix at least 2 and possibly 3 metaphors). When confronted with their errors, they respond with disclaimers; but when correct, it simply bolsters their belief in their gift. I wonder if we would be so quick to speak in the name of God if He enforced the death-penalty in modern Charismatic churches.

I don't know how many readers I still have after my month off, but if there are any of you out there, I would challenge you to find for me even a single Scriptural basis for members of the church speaking from God into another person's life (what is sometimes called personal prophecy). I do not know of one, which makes me even more skeptical of the validity of this practice. If you know of one, I would be interested to hear.

Hmmmm. This could have been a part of my heresies series.

Heresies, part 3 (the Gospel)

2007-02-21T14:30:00.000-07:00

Let me first acknowledge that a series with over 3 months between part 2 and part 3 does not actually count as a series. Nonetheless...

I find myself, as of late, questioning much of what I have thought about the gospel. Not the core stuff, not the truth that Jesus, as both God and man, came to earth to re-open relationship between God and man. Not that part. The other stuff. In particular the notion that we must present the event of Jesus' life, death and resurrection solely in terms of sin and forgiveness. This notion is so prevalent in evangelical circles (in which I have travelled my entire adult life) that it is seen as a cheapening of the gospel to address the felt needs of those in our culture. This is particularly true if that means the we don't get around to "You are a sinner destined for hell" before a person responds to the message.

The problem with this approach is the education required. You see, there is good evidence that modern American culture does not come with a built-in perception of sin. So before we can give someone the good news that Jesus died for their sins, we have to convince them of the bad news that they are sinners. I'm afraid that too often we have lost them before we ever had a chance to really touch them.

But what our culture is looking for is a sense of purpose, a sense of community, and a chance to meet God. These we have in the church as well. In fact, Paul spends much of his writings talking to people about building community and about living a life of purpose. I find myself wondering if we wouldn't be more effective in touching people's lives if we spoke to them about those things and let the Holy Spirit handle the awareness of sin part. Personally, I doubt that a person could enter a growing relationship with the God of the universe as related in the Scriptures without eventually coming to terms with the fact of their own sinfulness.

So it's not that I am looking for another way to God, maybe just another way to Jesus...

Expectations

2007-02-13T14:36:00.000-07:00

A very good friend of mine loaned me the DVD set for a TV series from the turn of the millennium. I am not going to tell you what the show was, in part because I do not want to spoil it for you should you ever watch it. And you should, because even though there is a good deal of sexual innuendo (and sometimes more than innuendo), it was an incredibly well-written show, and the characters were the kind you really want to pull for. Of course, this isn't much of an endorsement, since I'm not going to tell you what show it was.

When my friend loaned me the DVDs, he and his wife both told me that I would love the show but hate how it ended. It only ran for 2 years, and ended rather abruptly. I misunderstood what they were saying, and thought that the show ended on a very down note. So as I watched the show, I found that I had trouble enjoying the struggles through which the cast worked, assuming that it was all going to end very badly, and I was enduring a modern-day Greek tragedy.

But I was wrong. The show ends very positively, with the cast overcoming their struggles and building for future success. I loved this cast enough that I was tearful as I watched the ending. Tearful and stunned, because I expected tragedy. I found myself thinking, "I would have enjoyed that a lot more if I had known it was going to turn out OK."

Not the lesson I expected from a cancelled comedy. A good lesson, just unexpected. But the Bible says very clearly that our lives, as we walk in the relationship with God that Jesus' sacrifice has availed us of, turn out OK. No matter what the current struggles, this life is not a tragedy. He has promised in Romans 8, verses 28, 31, and 38, that He will bring triumph out of tragedy; that the looming disasters will not destroy us; and that the ending will make us cry with joy.

I would like to have that perspective during those times of my life when nothing seems to be going well. Perhaps, if I could grasp the truth of God's sovereignty over all, I would be able to enjoy, not just endure, every moment of my life, whether it appears to be destined for disaster or delight.

It's not fair! Emperor penguins get all the photos!

2007-02-12T07:09:00.000-07:00

A friend sent me a link to this article on the disparity between the amount of attention that cute endangered species get as compared with ugly ones. My first reaction was "Duh!" but I thought I owed the writer, who is after all a professional journalist and paid for insightful, information-rich writing, to read the article and avail myself of their expertise.

Past research has shown that lack of human interest in an animal group can result in decreased funding for its protection.

Really?! That surprises me. Let me see if I understand: we human have all the money, but it took research to figure out that we only spend it on things we are interested in. Isn't that sort of the definition of interest? We spend money where we are interested. What's next? Research to determine that we only hang out with people we like? That we only engage in activities that we believe we will derive some benefit from?

Seriously, though, I find it very telling that our intellectuals no longer recognize that our interests must dominate our behavior. This is a central part of our freedom. I suspect that the same conservationists bemoaning the fact that we use our freedom to do whatever we want are the ones who argue that there is little or no significant difference between humans and other living species.

If that is so, let the ugly species get their own money.

Christian Art

2007-02-03T17:32:00.000-07:00

Robin Parrish, who edits infuze magazine, has spent his last couple of editor's columns bemoaning the lack of quality art from the church. I feel his pain; I have found myself going to the recent flurry of movies produced by Christians with a great desire to see high quality. Unfortunately, I have been disappointed. Many of the films were above average, but in general they have not been superb.

I was thinking about this while reading the AFA Journal this morning. The AFA has for years been laboriously documenting the overwhelmingly negative attitude of Hollywood and TV towards anything Christian. This month, they have an article reviewing five movies either out, or just about out, that all have a decidedly Christian feel: Rocky Balboa, Amazing Grace, The Last Sin Eater, Thr3e, and The Goal. I haven't seen Rocky Balboa, I have seen Thr3e, and the other three are not out yet.

It is difficult to express how frustrating it was to read these reviews. For the most part, they focused on the negatives of the movies: the (relatively small) number of profanities, the lack of a complete telling of the gospel, and other elements. I find myself wanting to scream at someone, "Could you possibly just rejoice at the fact that there are 5 movies out that present Christian faith in a positive light!!!!" Sure, Rocky Balboa doesn't have a call to holiness in it, and the movie depicts faith in the context of making it through the hard times in life. But why is that bad? This is a major film from a major studio that presents faith as central to its main character's life. And this isn't just any character, Rocky is an American icon; as close to a cultural hero as we come in this country.

Just once, I would like to see these so-called defenders of American and Christian cultural sensitivity recognize that not everyone shares the purity of their vision. We live in a culture that is awash in vulgarity and profanity; and I for one appreciate the attempt to make a movie that shows that faith works in that world, not just the one inside the four walls of a modern evangelical church.

The Poem of Your Life

2007-01-04T19:54:00.000-07:00

An old song, from 1994. I have been on a bit of a retreat for the last week, with lots of time in my car. I pulled some music, and grabbed this CD by mistake. Not that I don't like it, I was just shooting for another one by Michael Card. Anyways, the album is called Poiema. The first song, titled The Poem of Your Life really struck me.

Life is a song we must sing with our days
A poem with meaning more than words can say
A painting with colors no rainbow can tell
A lyric that rhymes either heaven or hell.

We are living letters that doubt desecrates
We're the notes of the song of the chorus of faith
God shapes every second of our little lives
And minds every minute as the universe waits by.

The pain and the longing, the joy and the moments of light
Are the rhythm and rhyme, the free verse of the poem of life.

So look in the mirror and pray for the grace
To tear off the mask, see the art of your face.
And open your earlids to hear the sweet song
Of each moment that passes and pray to prolong
Your time in the ball of the dance of your days
The canvas of colors, of moments ablaze.
With all that is holy, with the joy and the strife
With the rhythm and rhyme of the poem of your life.

So I find myself wondering: do we live our lives too small? Do we allow everyday life to become mundane? Do we lose the reality that God Himself, the One who made and sustains us, the One who loves us to the point of His own pain, that He Himself shapes every second of our lives? Do we forget the truth that we live our lives in front of a crowd of witnesses, not jeering our failures, but cheering our success; pulling for us and rooting for us the way I do when my boys play games? Do we even remember that the angels themselves look with wonder on us as they see the magnificent love of God expressed in the lives of His redeemed children?

There is a point perhaps in understanding that this life is temporary, but not because it is unimportant. There is nothing unimportant about any of our lives - God has laid out for us a life that is to be a song, a poem, a painting.

My heart cries for this to be true. As I write, I ache for this to be a reality. I hope as you read you feel it as well. Tear off the mask, see the art of your face. Sing, dance, exalt in the poem of your life. It is why He made you.

A Wild Creator

2007-01-04T18:45:00.000-07:00

I am reading a book titled Wild At Heart. In it the author makes the statement that our creation is wild, but good. He uses as examples the jungles of India with their tigers, the desert Southwest with its rattlesnakes. You could also look at the fearsome beauty of the Grand Canyon, where discovery always includes great risk. His point in the book is that God Himself loves adventure.

This got me to thinking. We assume that much of the risk in our world is a result of the fall: that tigers eat people because the world is broken. Many creationist theologians even argue that animal death is a result of the fall - that in Eden, there were no carnivorous animals.

But I wonder. If the image of a fierce and wonderful God that we see in Scripture is accurate, perhaps He made these things just so from the beginning. As Lewis says in Narnia, "He isn't safe, but He is good." I wonder sometimes if it wasn't always this way. He didn't make us, especially men, to look for safe. Perhaps the God who loves a good adventure built such a love into us as well, and made for us a world of adventure, not always safe, but definitely good.

A Christmas Funny

2006-12-25T07:31:00.000-07:00

A friend's blog provokes ongoing debate, and I enjoy taking the opportunity to jump in every now and then. As I have been involved lately, it has occurred to me how often these debates are over whose set of presuppositions are correct, so the debate itself is pointless - few people are willing to give up their presuppositions because of a few lines on a blog somewhere, no matter how well written.

This leads to a stridency that makes the debates even less fruitful. Everyone takes the simplest, most dogmatic position, and yells invective at each other.

All of this was triggered by the following comic which gets just about everything correct. The main characters in this strip (if you have never read Frazz) are Frazz: the young single, well-read janitor at an elementary school who provides reason in the midst of the chaos; and Caulfield: the over-smart elementary schooler who provides nonsequiters to the teacher's "Any other questions?". You can find it at: www.comics.com

Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas

2006-12-24T15:35:00.000-07:00

In Matthew 11, John the Baptist sends to Jesus from jail and asks if He is the awaited Messiah, or if should they look for another. Jesus responds, not with a simple "Yes" or "No" but rather with a summary of His work: the blind see, the lame walk, the poor hear the good news, and then adds an encouragement not to be offended by Him.

The word for offended here is the Greek scandalon, which means a rock that causes someone to stumble on the road. Jesus was warning John not to get caught up in His previous conceptions about Messiah. Undoubtedly, John expected a conquering King who would overthrow Rome's oppression and set up a glorious kingdom in Israel. In fact, one wonders if John was not so aggressive in condemning Herod precisely because of these expectations. Perhaps Jesus' response was going to be the moment when John would realize for the first time that he was not going to be released from prison when the Messiah set up his throne.

Jesus always surprises us. He is often less than what we expect because He is so much more than we could imagine. It was this way on the first Christmas, it is often that way in our lives.

Have a Merry Christmas. May Jesus be more than you can imagine in your life, not only in this season, but all through the year.