Sacrifice

I have lots of thoughts about what the Biblical Universe is about today - they've kind of been brewing for a while.

'Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani'

This had to be. This feeling of being completely separated from God was a sacrifice on Jesus' part, He could have prevented it, but without making a sacrifice, how could Jesus (having been a man) come before God? Jesus knows that the rules are: God demands a sacrifice (no idea why - I don't buy that perfect stuff because after a sacrifice we are not perfect).

'Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani' is much better than Jesus telling one of the fellows being crucified with him that they would be in Heaven soon - in that verse there is no permanent loss or hardship, just temporary pain.

Maybe to go to Heaven we need to make a sacrifice in our lives. But not a sacrifice that we believe we should make. We should make a sacrifice that we believe we should not make. Do something that is truely altruistic - in my post of June 18 I wrote (check out http://blogsearch.google.com :-)):

So to me, "true altruism" is where one does something that one knows is against the ideal state one has in one's own mind of how things should be.

Perhaps this is what God is looking for? If we can do this just once then we are fit for Heaven?

+++

I don't like the word "righteous". It's too generic, vague, open to interpretation (ie. Immam's are righteous they would claim) - and well, it's darnright arrogant. If Heaven is full of smug (expletive deleted) - ah - "folks" then I'm not interested.

+++

Evidence for natural selection - I've been playing some chess on the server lately and I'm struck by the desire that people have to win. Or more accurately the desire that we people have to achieve what we set out to do. There is a chess variant called "loser's chess" the objective of which is to lose. If you lose the game then you win. People play that with a passion too. The instinctual desire to achieve one's aims is very very very strong - is it bred by natural selection? It strikes me that such a desire would indeed be a characteristic of "survival of the fittest". In the sacrifice suggested above, is God looking for us to recognize this urge and reject it? At least once?

+++

Good luck in your exercise or exorcise? We all get annoyed, the best remedy I have found is to let the emotion rise and wash over me, and then - smile and laugh out loud. When I do that I remember that the small thing I got annoyed over was pretty trivial compared to what life is really all about, and that we're all at different stages of learning along our respective paths.

+++

PS. Why would anyone call their kid "Dallas"? Poor guy :-)

The Power of Words

I don't think you should feel too guilty about the cursing. But I understand why you might feel that way. Sometimes I wonder if the desire to curse isn't really more a desire to simply give voice to something explosive ... and the words used aren't really the issue. I wonder if we're just conditioned to view certain words as being useful in those situations. I wonder if under different conditioning we might just as easily use other words -- "Oh, basketball!" or "What the vacuum cleaner!?" We'll never know ... we're conditioned the way we're conditioned.

* * *
I've been reading the book "The Divine Conspiracy," and in it Dallas Willard has been giving an exposition on the Sermon on the Mount. His reading of the Beatitudes is like nothing I've ever seen: the "blessed" statements are meant to convey that the "Kingdom of God" is available to those classes of people who at the time were felt to not be elibible -- the poor, the meek ... in other words, all those not in the ruling religious elite.

That's an interesting approach. But I'm not sure it holds up for the "Blessed are the peacemakers" and "Blessed are those who thirst after righteousness" passages. Willard's argument is that true peacemakers are often shunned, because they refuse to take sides in a dispute. The "thirst after righteousness" one stumps me ... I would have thought that was the very definition of "Pharisee." Perhaps Willard was reading that as non-Pharisees who thirsted after true righteousness, not just external manifestation. I'm not sure.

In any event, later he was expounding on the "Judge not" passage. Here his reading was aligned with what I've heard/read elsewhere. The point is not that we are to suspend our faculties for discernment, but rather that we are not to be harsh, critical, and condemning. Now this makes some sense ... and I must confess that I have a real inclination to be harsh, critical and condemning. Certain in my heart, and too often by way of my tongue.

So I'm trying something -- I'm trying to not give voice to the condemning thoughts that spring up in my heart. There's little I can do at the moment about the thoughts that pop up in my mind ... but forming the words with my mouth is an act of conscious will. Perhaps by exercising this small thing, I can slowly start to make myself more receptive to the Lord's promptings to change at an even deeper level.

* * *
Hurricane Rita is barreling down on the Texas/Louisiana coast. May the damage and suffering be minimal.

Cursing

I wrote that I cursed when I realized that my wallet had been stolen. And then felt guilty afterwards.

An article was published on the net yesterday which I found interesting:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/20/science/20curs.html?ex=1284868800&en=aa9497f028be8281&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

(Not sure if you have to take a free "sign up" to see it though).

But they're talking about the power of words. And it occurred to me that The Word is a very important religious concept.

"People can feel very passionate about language," she said, "as though it were a cherished artifact that must be protected at all cost against the depravities of barbarians and lexical aliens.""

and

"Among Christians, the stricture against taking the Lord's name in vain extended to casual allusions to God's son or the son's corporeal sufferings - no mention of the blood or the wounds or the body, and that goes for clever contractions, too. Nowadays, the phrase, "Oh, golly!" may be considered almost comically wholesome, but it was not always so. "Golly" is a compaction of "God's body" and, thus, was once a profanity."

and

"Yet the urge mounts, until at last the speech pathways fire, the verboten is spoken, and archaic and refined brains alike must shoulder the blame. "

I will get blogging again this weekend I hope ! I trust that you are well.

Milestones

Thank you, good sir, for your warm and kind comments in your last post. I don't recall exactly why I decided to take that detour. I think it was because I started thinking about songs from the 1980's. The 1980's for me was rich was lifestyle milestones, and I mark my memories relative to those milestones. The idea of a person's life being marked by event milestones occurred to me after we moved to Howell. Suddenly everything was "pre-move" or "post-move". And as my life proceeded, more milestones were introduced.

I've oftened wondered what life must have been like for ancient cultures where life had few such milestones. People were born, raised, lived and died all in the same place. Everybody did essentially the same thing -- farmed and tried to survive -- and they did this generation after generation, century after century, for thousands of years. How different is our world of rapid change.

* * *
As for you daughter ... love her, be there for her, and provide a living example of normalcy. And ask the Lord to watch over her and provide for her.

* * *
Both you and I have the same character trait: we tend to discount our skills. I don't know why this is so. But for others, looking at us, it must be baffling. At least it keeps us humble. :-)

* * *
Is God a mathematician? Absolutely! I think I wrote once before about the book "Prime Obsession" by John Derbyshire. He writes of the question for understanding prime number distribution along the Zeta function. I can't recall all the details, but apparently there's a relationship between the distribution of prime numbers and the nuclear decay rate. And I think you once wrote that Pi works its way into physical science in ways not directly associated with a circle's diameter and circumfrence.

The realization of all this really struck me as profound.

In the book I'm reading right now -- "The Divine Conspiracy" by Dallas Willard -- he writes of how people tend to discount the intelligence of Jesus of Nazareth. People tend, Willard writes, to think of Jesus as "average" in intelligence, but little more. When asked to truly trust Jesus now, we tend to shy away a bit. Willard argues that Jesus was in fact brilliant -- more brilliant than anyone else, ever.

This is similar to the argument made in the book "Your God is Too Small." By holding a diminished view of God (or Jesus) we really hinder our ability to truly trust Him.

* * *
Sorry to hear about your wallet, but I'm happy to read you got all your credit cards back. Cash is easily replaced. Calling the credit card companies and canceling all the cards is a real effort.

About a boy

Wow. That was some last post pal!

The mini potted history of Bagwell you posted indeed gives me some insight into your good self - what made you post it? I am glad that you did. There are a couple of things that I would like to delve into more deeply (here is my couch, sit down, relax, you are feeling sleeeppppyyyy ....) - because they have clearly been instrumental in making you who you are today.

And I have a selfish reason, I want to best know how to assist my daughter through the next 6 or so years, she is living with someone, her mother, who has quite a few "mental issues" and I want her to come out of it as unscathed as is possible. From what you say about being physically 18 but emotionally 14, I have to ask "where was your father?"

Clearly though, you and I have not managed to avoid life, which is messy. The mathematician in me does not like messy.

Ok this is personal stuff - let's move on!

My course was ok, but I did feel that I needed about 2% of my mental capacity to follow along. One exercise was quite interesting as they showed us clips of the Ron Howard Apollo 13 movie and asked us to comment on the "core competencies" being displayed by the characters. It was my job to watch out for "strategic risk taking". It couldn't have been better for me as I am a massive US space program fan, so my feedback was a little more detailed than it could have been :-) I don't care if I am a geek.

There were at least two Christians on the class as they introduced themselves as such during the intro sessions. One of them is involved in helping Christians overseas. Neither of them viewed what I would call the worshipping of false idols (business, computers, the over head projector) as a problem. "If you are blessed to be good in business then so be it - use your blessings".

This kind of struck me as missing the point. Oh well.

It seems that I don't have a good self image. I would rate myself low on competencies and everyone else rate me high. This is good information for me, the instructors told me.

I'll be 42 this year, I'm happy with who I am, it took me a long time to get this way you know !

People don't seem to like globalization either. To me it seem inevitable. Let's embrace it.

The other thing I learned is that the number 1 appears very often in our everyday base 10 arithmetic. In fact, actuaries use the lack of frequency of number 1's on people's expense claims to indicate falsehood. Wow. Maybe God is a mathematician?

I had my wallet purloined today in the changing rooms of the local swimming pool, I made the mistake of leaving my pants (uk = trousers) unattended around a corner less than 1 meter away from me. Whilst I was washing the swimming pool out of my daughters hair in the showers the thieves struck.

They (two young boys I found out later from the receptionist) had handed the wallet into reception after taking the cash out. I didn't lose much, about $30 USD and thankfully none of my credit cards.

I can't imagine that ill gotten gains will do these kids any good. I didn't call the police, although maybe I should have done, if they had been apprehended a short sharp shock may have saved them from a life of crime?

My daughter enjoyed the whole scene and hopefully learned what to do when you get your wallet or purse stolen. ie. curse about the state of the world today :-)

"The Soul of the Machine"

Do you remember the book by that title from the 80's, written by Tracy Kidder? It provided a behind-the-scenes look at the development of a new Data General mini-computer. It was a pretty good book, actually, as was Kidder's other book "House" (which provided a similar behind-the-scenes look at the plannning and construction of a custom home).

Note: I'm going to detour before getting to the question of machines and "souls."

Ah, the 80's ... the days of my early adulthood. When I look back on my life, I see a series of time slices framed by certain milestones:

• 1959 to @1963 -- early infancy, very few memories from this time era. I have one memory (in black and white, interestingly) of me in a playpen. I would imagine I was 2 or 3, but not older than that. I dimly recall TV coverage of one of the early Mercury space shots (whether it was Shepherd or Glenn I do not know), as well as the funeral of John F. Kennedy.
• 1964 to 1969 -- childhood, part one. The endpoint of this time frame (1969) was when my family moved from the suburbs of Detroit out to the country. These were relatively good times. I attended "Volney Smith Elementary School," which was located at the corner of Lexington and Vassar in Redford Township -- two blocks from home; I used to walk to school, even kindergarten. It was a relatively dense 1950's-era suburban development (small, 3 bedroom bungalows) with relatively low-traffic streets that afforded us an opportunity to ride out bikes with some freedom. We'd set out as a small group of kids on bikes, and pick up stragglers as we went. Once we accumulated nearly 30 kids on bikes, riding around like a wolfpack. My first love, Jill Garrett, came into my life when I was in the second grade. She sat next to me and was a pure angel. I demonstrated my affection for her as any 7 year old boy would -- I rode my bike over to where she lived, taunted her and threw rocks at her house. It was during this time era that the Frisbee was introduced, and my older brother was one of the first in the neighborhood to learn how to throw one. We used to spend hours out in the street throwing the Frisbee back and forth. We were fearless athletes in those days, sacrificing our bodies in crazy diving catches. Summers were a time of dream-like suspension: 8 weeks of no school and no structured activities. Each day would bring a new adventure. This era ended the summer after 4th grade, when my family moved out to Howell, Michigan.
• 1969 to @1973 -- childhood, part two. Howell was at that time a distant farming community, and my father took upon himself the crazy-for-that-time commute of 55 miles each way each day. Our move to the country was ostensibly to provide room for me and my five brothers and sisters to grow. This was admirably provided by the 12 room farmhouse with a barn and 70 acres of land. It was a much different world from tightly-packed Redford Township near Detroit. Bike riding became more difficult as the roads out in Cohoctah Township where I lived were largely unpaved. Houses were a quarter mile or more apart from one another. Still, it was a time of exploration of new things in a new setting. The barn was a place where by all rights I should have ended up dead, given my fearless (and foolish) activities there. It was a classic post-and-beam design (hand-hewn beams, built around 1870 we figured), and I'd scamper up the the beams like a monkey. Twenty feet up off a hard wood floor, I'd jump over to another beam and literally run across the 8 inches of the perch. Crazy stuff, but I'm still here, so the Lord clearly was looking out for me. Howell was then a small town, with a small town attitude ... which meant we were considerd "outsiders" to their protective enclave. This era ended with no hard milestone, but rather it melted into a kind of darkness ...
• @1973 to 1977 -- I mentioned earlier how the move to Howell was to ostensibly provide room for growth. Well, in reality the move was to provide an attempted fulfillment of a dream for my mother. One of the axioms of life is this: beware the fulfillment of long-cherished dreams. They do not live up to the expectations fostered in a period of desire. Such was the case here, when reality overtook my mother's picture of the idyllic life. The world went black (details intentionally withheld). This was time when I should have started developing a sense of emotional maturity -- ages 13 to 18. Instead, it was a period of intense withdrawal and a literal suspension of emotional growth. This end of this era was marked by my going off to college.
• 1977 to 1981 -- my undergraduate years. When I entered college (Michigan State University) I was chronologically 18 years old, but emotionally about 14. Worse, I looked tremendously young for my age. And I was in no way prepared for the rigors of higher education. My first term I pulled a 2.46 grade point average (out of 4.0). It was the five credit calculus class that killed me. I was a math whiz in high school, but the depth and pace of my high school education was nothing compared to what I experienced in the fall of 1977. Still, by spring term I'd pulled myself up and figured out how to deal with college. The process of maturation postponed in Howell started to take place here. This era ended with two events the roughly coincided with one another: my first marriage and graduate school.
• 1981 to 1984 -- in September of 1981, at the ripe age of 21 years 11 months I got married. My motivation was purely the avoidance of being alone; in other words, driven by insecurity. Mary Kate was a very nice person, but even as I walked up the sidewalk to the church to get married I knew it was the wrong thing to do. Still, a promise was a promise and I went through with it. 1981 was a time of very bad economic times in Michigan, and graduating from college with and undergraduate degree offered virtually no opportunities. By the grace of God I was able to secure a summer internship in a warehouse where I earned $6/hour. It was the summer of 1981 I decided to go to graduate schoole, which was a decision driven pretty much by a lack of any alternative. Graduate school suited me far more than undergraduate, and I found the course work and topics much easier to handle. It was during this time that I ascended to the role of "supervisor" of the students working for the campus police doing traffic control and sports event parking. One of my most cherished accomplishments was the earning of respect and trust from the police commander. My term as supervisor came on the heels of a period when others had abused the position, padding the payroll and not doing the work needed. It was here that I learned the value of integrity. It was during this time that I met my first true love. Unfortunately, I was married to another. Kim was a tall beauty of Lithuanian descent, and due to my being married our initial interaction was absent any sexual or relationship overtones. I was also more relaxed in my demeanor because I didn't feel compelled to pursue her. Our friendship developed naturally, and we discovered a fairly deep bond between us. Kim worked for the campus police, and I was her supervisor. We'd spend hours after a work event drinking beer and talking. The realization of my attraction to her clashed with the hard fact of my being married to another woman. I truly loved Kim, like no woman before. I took the intimacy out of my marriage and gave it to Kim. But strictly speaking I never violated my marriage vows -- though the opportunity would have been there had I pursued it, I felt compelled to honor my marriage vows. This era ended when I moved to North Carolina to start my career with IBM. I was tormented over the dilemma of moving to NC with Mary Kate, or violating my promise to her and casting my lot with Kim. I stuck to my vows. The hardest thing I ever did was when I set out on the drive to North Carolina. I came to the corner where a left turn would have been to Kim, and a right turn to NC. I turned right. Though we exchanged letters for a bit, I lost contact with her in 1985. I still think of Kim, and I probably always will.
• 1984 to 1989 -- the start of my career at IBM. My first 18 months were spent in the manufacturing warehouse as a process analyst. I was out of my depth, but I managed to do a few things right. But the politics of the place drove me crazy, so I worked my way into software testing on the TPNS product. I prospered. I worked ridiculous hours: 12 hours a day, often 7 days a week -- all in pursuit of contentment and fulfillment. Remember what I said about "beware the realization of a dream?" It was here that I came to that moment: I'd acquired a house, a car, a career, success ... and it didn't satisfy the longing in my heart. That, and the lingering damage from my relationship with Kim, resulted in my getting divorced. My marriage to Mary Kate was never miserable; in fact, our parting was fairly amiable. Looking back, I now see that the problem was really a mis-match between expectation and reality. After we separated in the fall of 1988 and she moved back to Michigan, I met another in North Carolina. And then my world collapsed. In a panic I pulled the plug on my life in North Carolina and moved back to Michigan.
• 1989 to 1992 -- I was officially divorced in December of 1989. There was a time prior to that in which I harbored a fantasy of getting back together with Mary Kate and living happily ever after. That was a short lived fantasy, and the night that bubble popped was one of the darkest nights of my life. (Side note: my dog, with no prompting from me, jumped up on the sofa and very softly laid his head in my lap. It was a very clear reminder that things weren't quite as dark as I'd imagined. Someone once told me that dogs demonstrate better than anything else what God's grace is all about.) It was during this time that met Lisa, who lived in Atlanta at the time. This era came to a close when Lisa and I married.
• 1992 to 1994 -- living in Michigan with Lisa. This ended after Lisa endured a winter where we suffered through two straight weeks of -20 degrees F weather. It was so cold the salt failed to melt the ice on the roads. We moved to Washington D.C. as a way of getting her to someplace slightly warmer and near where she went to school (the University of Virginia).
• 1994 to 1997 -- the worst years of my IBM career. I spent a year as a networking sales specialist as the networking division fell apart, and I spent two years as an RS/6000 sales specialist during a time when that brand was suffering from poor performance and shoddy supply. Working in sales literally sucked the soul right out of me. By 1997 I was emotionally spent, literally unable to consider going on in that role. With only a distant history in mainframe work, I was hired on at the Washington Systems Center by a BUE who took a chance.
• 1998 to 2005 -- the halcyon days of my WSC work. Net.Commerce, HTTP Server, WebSphere ... things were going great. Except a hole in my heart still existed. It was during this time that I received a spark from God and started seeking Him in earnest. I gave myself to him in 2002, and have been trying to get a foothold to grow in Grace ever since. This era ended when Lisa and I moved to Tucson.
• 2005 to ??? -- and so here I am, in Tucson, looking back across the epochs of my life. It's been an interesting journey so far. I have no idea where things will go from here. I sense a change, but I can't put my finger on exactly what that will look like. I have to keep reminding myself to look to the Lord, to pray and most of all to trust in him.

* * *

Thanks for indulging me my detour! :-)

* * *

The question of what a "soul" is really is one of the deep questions of our existence, isn't it? I'm presently reading a book by Dallas Willard called "The Divine Conspiracy." Willard is a sincere Christian, a college professor, deep thinker and well versed in the areas of philosophy and theology. In another of his books called "Renovation of the Heart," Willard writes:

The soul is that dimension of the person that interrelates all of the other dimensions [thoughts, feelings, will -- Willard calls this the heart or spirit, body and social context] so they form one life. It is like a meta-dimension or higher-level dimension because its direct field of play consists of the other dimensions, and through them it reaches ever deeper into the person's vast environment of God and his creation.

Because the soul encompasses and "organizes" the whole person, it is frequently taken to be the person. We naturally treat persons as "souls." But of course the soul is not the person. It is, rather, the deepest part of the self in terms of overall operations; and like the body, it has the capacity to operate (and does, largely, operate) without conscious supervision.

Note: both books -- Divine Conspiracy and Renovation of the Heart are very good books. Thoughtful, scholarly ... and, to my eye very insightful. I suspect Willard's view of the Christian life would appeal to you. It's somewhat revolutionary ... so much so that my suspicions are not yet fully satisfied that Willard is within the bounds of normally accepted reformed theology. My hunch is he's okay ... he's just using language differently from what I've seen others use. First and foremost, his assertion that Christ expects us to be disciples of his today, not just in the afterlife, seems to strike me as reasonably aligned with my impression of the Gospel message. The idea of Christianity being little more than an "insurance policy for admittance to heaven" is a very real problem with contemporary Christianity, and one I could never embrace. Willards puts the lie to that way of thinking and argues rather strongly that Christianity is not merely a sin management doctrine.

I won't claim to fully comprehend that ... I offer it as one person's considered view of the "soul." From Willard's description, I would find it hard to relate the "soul" back to some biochemical brain function. Feelings? Perhaps ... one could argue that happiness is due to one brain chemical; depression the lack of that chemical, etc. But the "soul," being a meta-dimension, seems to transcend that. I would think that a person's will (as Willard describes it, as the "heart" or "spirit" of a person) is also something beyond mere biochemical processes, though they may be part of that.

We're into a place where my lack of words and lack of knowledge hinders me. There is, no doubt, a deep mystery here ... a mystery beyond our comprehension. I doubt man will ever "discover" the will or the soul, though we'll see TIME magazine covers trumpeting some CAT-scan discovery purporting to have discovered it.

At the risk of getting into dangerous territory, an interesting question is whether other forms of life have a "will" and a "soul." Clearly some animals are of higher intelligence than others, and demonstrate what may be considered a "personality." My dog, now departed, had a very clear personality and a very stubborn will. There were times I very clearly saw him surrender that will to me, particularly in times where he was in considerable danger and required me. But what about a snail? Or an amoeba? Or a bacteria? Or a virus? It raises the question whether there are in fact degrees of awareness, degrees of a soul. I have no answers, only questions.

I am led to believe that there is something unique about humans, and that whatever it is that makes us unique is God-given. But that's a belief, unsubstantiated by anything other than an accumulation of reading and thinking. This is why I believe machines will never possess that, unless God himself grants it.

But that's my opinion.

Eugenics

I LOVED that spaceship chart - thanks.

++++

New Orleans - sorry about that I was suckered by the press again. My intention was to get folks praying. No offence intended.

++++

You wrote:

We always do

Is that because there is something different about humans that reside on that piece of the Earth?

++++

Machines - do they have souls? What is a soul? Is there any evidence for the soul, other than what is written in The Bible? If not, are we then again into the world of imaginary friends riding invisible pink unicorns? Ie. The land of faith ? If a person doesn't believe in the soul might that person think that machines will inevitably supplant humans?

++++

I have a busy day at work tomorrow followed by a two day personal growth leadership class so will be "out of pocket" til the weekend. Mind the store willya pal?

Take "care" (but don't forget to take it!)

For the Sci-Fi Geek in you ...

Have fun:

http://mijnkopthee.nl/images/space_comparison_chart_huge.jpeg

Regarding New Orleans

There is an enormous relief effort going on down in the New Orleans area as I write this -- perhaps the largest in this country's history. From what I understand, something in the neighborhood of 1.5 million people have been displaced, some -- perhaps most -- permanently. My heart goes out to these people -- imaging sitting on a cot in a covered sports stadium 300 miles from what was your home, with no more possessions than the clothes on your back, wondering just where to begin ... and how.

But the American people will find a way to absorb the impact of this and rebuild -- not just the houses and the city, but the lives and the community fabric. We always do. As I write this there is underway an unprecedented response at the personal level -- people taking families into their homes, knowing that the duration may be months. Churches from all around the country are "adopting" churches in the affected areas, pledging support -- supplies, money, prayers. Much of this is taking place without any central coordination ... just people doing what they know to be the right thing.

In the meantime, billions of dollars of federal assistance is pouring into the region. The news media is behaving as they typically do -- seeking to sensationalize the worst news, overlooking the good -- all filtered through their own ideological prism. And, worst of all, the lawyers are swarming all over this, getting ready to file the largest set of class-action lawsuits in this country's history.

This is a titanic battle between good and evil. The forces of good are those who are prompted by the stirrings of the Holy Spirit to open their hearts, their homes and their wallets. The forces of evil are prompting others to spew accusations, try to score political capital in the midst of this, and, as I mentioned, prepare for gratuitous -- but hugely lucrative -- lawsuits.

I earnestly pray "Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven" -- that is, that from this tragedy will arise an opportunity for people to increasingly place their trust in Christ, to do his will with the same sense of joyful obedience as is exercised by those in heaven, and that in so doing the Lord's Kingdom -- that realm which truly places God on the throne of their lives -- will expand.

My soul finds rest in God alone;
my salvation comes from him.
He alone is my rock and my salvation;
he is my fortress, I will never be shaken.

(Psalm 62:1-2)

New Orleans

"Nobody's coming to get us. The secretary has promised. Everybody's promised. They've had press conferences. I'm sick of the press conferences. For God sakes, shut up and send us somebody."

- AARON F. BROUSSARD, president of Jefferson Parish in Louisiana.

Let's lift up our prayers for aid.

Imaginary Friends

Yes, I do believe in your imaginary friend. I met him the other day riding on the unicorn. We had lunch. He has a hearty appetite.

* * *
My point was that the notion of scientific proof being the only means by which one can believe in anything -- anything -- has lead to a considerable deterioration in people's ability to believe at all.

* * *
I don't believe machines will ever have a "soul," even if they get really good at mimicking human intelligence, emotion and behavior. Unless God himself grants the machine the spark of life -- life in the sense Christ himself meant -- the machine will simply be very fast at being lifeless.

Galaxy song

Whenever life gets you down, Mrs. Brown,
And things seem hard or tough,
And people are stupid, obnoxious or daft,
And you feel that you've had quite eno-o-o-o-o-ough...

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour,
That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned,
A sun that is the source of all our power.
The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour,
Of the galaxy we call the "Milky Way".

Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars.
It's a hundred thousand light years side to side.
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick,
But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide.
We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point.
We go 'round every two hundred million years,
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.
(Animated calliope interlude)

The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth,
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth.

+++++ Sorry, watching a Monty Python movie +++++

I think you hit the nail on the head when you said that for computers to be "sentient" they must be able to program themselves. We humans do that to a large degree, although we do have a lot of innate hard-wired characteristics.

But, when computers exceed us in intellectual capacity -- even then, at that point, will they have souls?

+++++

You wrote:

That, dear friend, is one of the fundamental problems in our world today, and is the product of the "enlightenment" -- if something can't be proven, it can't be deemed true. The existence of God can't be proven, therefore it can't be deemed true.

Ok, but do you believe in my imaginary friend and invisible pink unicorns?

+++++

One more wafer thin mint? A wise choice monsieur. Voila.

A Blessing Among Misery

No doubt you've seen the news about the effects of Hurricane Katrina. Most of the news being reported is heavily biased towards misery and political sniping. In the midst of all that comes this:

Hours before Hurricane Katrina stormed ashore in southeast Louisiana, Lester Jackson’s tight-knit family hit the highway — their vehicles pointed in all directions.

Miraculously, the family — all 57 members, 12 different vehicles and no means of communication — will wind up in the same place today: Bossier City’s Hooter Park.

The family celebrated with prayer this morning, rallying together outside the makeshift shelter opened by city officials for hurricane refugees. The park’s infield became the site of a spiritual revival moments after the final six members of the family, housed at a shelter in Lafayette, got through on a cell phone to say they were highway bound for Hooter Park.

“This is how awesome God is,” said Lester Jackson. “We couldn’t locate none of them, but God brought us all together. It blows my mind. When you let go, and let God, he never fails you. He’s always on time.”

Honestly, deep.thought ... each day brings me closer to understanding the truly awesome character of God.

Sentient Machines

Fundamental first question -- for a machine to be sentient, it must be constructed in a manner that allows it to self-program, correct?

In thinking of this ... if the "sentience" is really nothing more than an incredibly complex set of fixed responses, computed very rapidly, it's still a finite state machine, correct? What may appear like "emotion" is really a programmed response.

But only by constructing the machine to "learn" -- to develop it's own "neural pathways," to make mistakes, to accidentally kill itself perhaps -- would it ever really be "sentient."

Am I just crazy?

A Response

Following Something

I don't have "evidence," per se ... just a hunch that somewhere deep in the human psyche we have a need to look for something to believe in ... something bigger than ourselves. For some, that's God. But when God is removed from the equation, people will seek to find something to believe in. For many, that something is the pursuit of material possessions, or environmentalism, or belief in their own victimhood. But something.

That, I think, is a big problem today. There is a tremendous lack of purpose on the part of people, and they're desperately searching for purpose. Honestly, look around ... do you find people to be content and satisfied with their lives?

Here, I think, the first item in the Westminster Catechism is helpful: "The chief aim of man is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever."

That'll be poo-pooed by many, but there's deep truth in that.

Human Nature

What you've touched upon in your post regarding the "nature of human beings" is precisely why I think "treat others as you wish to be treated" can't ultimately work. That's because selfishness is without question part of our nature. It's not just that we're somewhat selfish ... we're essentially selfish.

That's why the Bible says, paraphrasing: "Love God with everything you're got; put him first ... then as a secondary thing go out and love your neighbor as yourself." As I've stated before, without the first, the second is simply not possible. Human history proves that over and over again.

Note: it's also why the 10th Commandment -- "Thou Shalt Not Covet" -- is there. If one doesn't covet, one won't be selfish. Covetousness takes two forms, remember -- a desire for something, and a desire to deny others something. In the case of the latter, what someone is coveting is the either the deprivation of another, or the elevation of themselves. Covetousness goes straight to the heart of the human condition.

What's the answer? Well, there was this man who came along and healed the sick, gave sight to the blind, drove out demons and helped the poor and afflicted ...

Science, Faith and Opinions

I won't argue with you that once we move out of the realm of repeatable scientific demonstration, we move into the realm of faith and opinions. But ... even though an opinion is just an opinion, it might still be true. I'll agree it's difficult to discern the superiority of one opinion vs. another. But just because it can't be proven, doesn't mean that it by definition can't ever be true.

That, dear friend, is one of the fundamental problems in our world today, and is the product of the "enlightenment" -- if something can't be proven, it can't be deemed true. The existence of God can't be proven, therefore it can't be deemed true.

A more deviously evil concept could not be conjured up. It has wrought misery and destruction for several hundred years.

Next ... machines with emotion, feelings and a "soul?"

Human Nature and The Big Bang

In "Discerning the Will of Jesus" you wrote:

Now, it's unrealistic to assume people can abandon their thrones for long ... people won't follow nothing, they'll find something to follow

Why is that? Is there evidence for that? Do you mean being a football or baseball supporter if not a Christian? Or becoming a Muslim if not a Christian? I'm a little confused!

And you said:

Do I pitch a hissy-fit because someone stepped in front of me in a queue? No

Even if you don't show it, or have *almost* socialized it out, inside you do get upset. I see people treating others in a way that they themselves would not wish to be treated (eg. your pushing-in a queue example) and have seen it cause all the unrest in the world.

The reason they (we?) do this pushing in, is that it is in our natures, the nature of the human being. When my daughter asks me why the boy pushed in front of her I tell her because it is in the nature of human beings. I have looked and searched and can find no other answer as to why people do certain things.

It is connected to why people want to succeed. Why does a parent want to protect it's offspring, and have it's offspring succeed? Why do people work to get rich? Is it to gain breeding rights and gain a competitive advantage over other people? To have their genes succeed?

Consider people who decide not to have children (for no medical reason), and a subset of those couples who choose to strive to be financially successful. If my suspicion is "true" then these folks become financially "rich" without really understanding their drivers for doing so - which is kind of funny :-) And I can't see how that could lead to happiness, would they not get to the end of their lives and at some point have their eyes opened and realise they have missed the boat. I worry about my dear older sister!

Still, do I really understand what motivates me? I'm trying to understand my motivators, my fears, my dependencies, inadequecies and ... blessings.

===============

In Sidetrack: God vs Naturalism you wrote:

So my question: is it possible for a Christian to completely dismiss Intelligent Design?

Only if they say God has no intelligence. I don't believe they believe that God has no intelligence so the answer if "no". QED. No further discussion required :-)

===============

In Chimpanzee DNA you wrote:

Good luck. Comparing molecules of a complex DNA chain won't tell you that. Will there be a gene that can explain our self-awareness?

No, there will be a set of genes that explain how the brain in formed then there will be an explanation of how the synaptic structure of the brain leads to the phenomenon that we call self-awareness.

Will there be a gene that explains why we value something at biologically useless as the beauty of a sunset?

Same answer. Extreme sports, eg. surfing big waves off of Honolulu is a "survival negative" activity. It's not necessary for life, and indeed you may die from partaking in such an activity. People do it. Some "smart" folks do it. The brain is so complex that smart people do dumb things. Perhaps emotions are the appendixes of our intellect?

where did the atoms come from to create the DNA?

Current theory and models show that when the Universe came into existence (from whence no-one really knows) in a type of explosion there was only hydrogen and helium in the Universe. Ignorning anti-matter, hydrogen and helium are just made up of protons, neutrons and electrons. So how did more complex elements form? They formed in either of two processes - 1) fusion (if lighter or equal to the atomic weight of iron) and 2) nucleosynthesis (if heavier than iron) inside of the first stars. The primordial Universe was not quite smooth (due to quantum fluctations). So the available hydrogen and helium started to clump together, and they eventually formed stars, the pressure (and therefore temperature) got so high in their cores that nuclear fusion started. When these stars blew up, the material formed other stars and solar systems with these elements in them. Now these new elements (such as oxygen, nitrogen and phosphorous) could combine with the original hydrogen and helium to form complex molecules such as water, adenine, thymine, gianine, cytosene - commonly found in the nucleic acid called DNA. They've all got funny names but they are just combinations of protons, neutrons and electrons.

The assignment: create life in the lab using only elemental compounds. (No gene splicing, no starting with already-formed amino acids ... start with the basic elements ... simple carbon strings, oxygen, etc

You'd need a lot of time. The nice thing is when we look at the Universe we see that many stars have planets around them. I believe that most stars have solar systems. There are trillions of planets in this Universe. That's a very large chemistry experiment. As a result, it's not as unlikey as you may think that this Universe-experiment would come up with DNA. I don't think it's a good argument for God.

If, IF, there was only one planet in the Universe, or one plus a few wanderers then I would agree that this would be an excellent argument for God. Hey I just realised, that's what people thought when the Bible was written - there was only really one world that was known of - ours - called Earth :-)

To me, the best scientific reason for needing a God is not to do with the chemistry of the Universe, but when one asks "Why does this Universe exist?" Ok then one could ask me "Why does God exist?" - but I say "One question at a time please".

Measurable and repeatable science will tell you "How?", but never "Why?". And if measurable and repeatable science cannot tell you "Why?" then you're into Faith. And then you're into people's opinions.

I believe that God created the Universe for beings to enjoy life. What's so bad about that?

Chimpanzee DNA

From the Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/31/AR2005083102278.html

From within the article:

More profoundly, however, the achievement promises to help answer the alluring but loaded question of what, exactly, makes us truly human.

Good luck. Comparing molecules of a complex DNA chain won't tell you that. Will there be a gene that can explain our self-awareness? Will there be a gene that explains why we value something at biologically useless as the beauty of a sunset?

Anyway, as to my previous post, here's something I saw in a blog, with reference to this article

Somewhere at This Very Moment ... a Young Earth Creationist's head just imploded like a swiftly punctured hot water bottle.

Honestly, I don't get it. There's nothing in that article that subtracts from the fundamental first question: where did the atoms come from to create the DNA? The implied sentiment of that comment is: if it's possible to demonstrate that some change in the molecular structure of life has occurred over time, it's proof-positive that it's all the product of pure random chance.

Plus ... science by now has an understanding of all the building blocks -- molecular structures, DNA, the chemistry of protein folding, etc., etc. The assignment: create life in the lab using only elemental compounds. (No gene splicing, no starting with already-formed amino acids ... start with the basic elements ... simple carbon strings, oxygen, etc.)

Can you tell this area frustrates me?

Sidetrack: God vs. Naturalism

I almost hate to open this thread again, but I'm genuinely curious. I recently e-mailed with John Derbyshire, who writes for National Review (a magazine in the United States). He's a staunch opponent of Intelligent Design. Oddly, he also trumpets his attendance at an Episcopal Church.

So my question: is it possible for a Christian to completely dismiss Intelligent Design?

Honestly, I don't get it ... anyone who purports to be a Christian can't, by definition, say that there is no "intelligent design" behind the universe. If there isn't, then there is no God, there is no Jesus, there is no Christianity.

We can argue all day long about whether natural selection played a role in the development of life, what "life" really means, etc., etc. But underneathe all that is a fundamental first question: does God exist and did he create the universe? To answer "no" makes one a pure naturalist, and therefore the entire notion of the super-natural is an impossibility. Therefore, the idea of God incarnate is impossible (a miracle, or the super-natural invading the natural), as is the resurrection. Hence, no Christianity. To answer "yes" immediately lends credence, by definition, to the idea of "Intelligent Design."

Unless the definition of "Intelligent Design" is meant to mean something like "the story in Genesis 1:1 is 100% literally true." But that's not what the advocates of ID say about themselves.

Note: in fact, from what I can gather, the ID proponents' argument is simply one of drawing into question some of the assumptions now taken as fact. Did life spontaneously come about from the primordial ooze? It's a widely held "fact," but scientific experiements can't substantiate it. To me, that's using science to question other science. What's wrong with that?

Honestly, I get so frustrated with this ... there's an enormous logical inconsistency in some of the arguments. I have far more respect for someone who flat-out claims to be an atheist and Darwinist ... at least they're consistent. But "Christian" and "anti-ID" is an oxymoron.

Discerning the Will of Jesus

You're absolutely correct when it comes to the practical difficulties in discerning the will of God. When it comes down to specific things, such as you cited, we're not going to find guidance in Scripture to help. And if it's not in Scripture then we can't validate the "private revelations" people say they've received.

I think the response Willard would offer would be along these lines: don't concern yourself with the specifics of modern life, but rather the essential concepts of Christ's teaching. For instance, what would happen if we truly stopped being so obsessed with trying to get our way with things, particularly small things? I know I'm guilty as can be about this ... my sense of pride is easily wounded and I'll fight until I'm a bloody pulp to prove a point on principle. In so doing, I create all manner of external friction and internal turmoil. And the picture of me doing it is definitely not Christ-like. What if I instead inclined my heart towards God and said, "I trust in you, Lord, not me ... I will not try to get my way on this issue."

Think of the ramifications of that. Most of the conflict and turmoil in this world is of a relatively petty nature. Most of it springs out of people who sit on the thrones of their little kingdoms and try desparately to extend the reach of their power and influence. Now, it's unrealistic to assume people can abandon their thrones for long ... people won't follow nothing, they'll find something to follow. If we truly look to Jesus Christ not just for our salvation -- important as that is -- but as the Lord of our lives as well, over time our very beings will be transformed by the power of Christ to be more like him.

Look, I fully understand and appreciate the short-term problems with this. If I don't fight for my positions, I'll be steamrolled by those who fight for theirs. Here, I think, a principled separation of "big stuff" from "small stuff" is necessary. Do I stand back and not stop an injustice that I'm within my power to stop? No ... I am clearly called by Christ to hate injustice and to work to eliminate it. Do I pitch a hissy-fit because someone stepped in front of me in a queue? No ... that would be me simply seeking to "have my way" over something that in reality makes little real difference.

There are no cut-and-dry answers, of course. If I seek them, I immediately fall prey to problems and legalism. That's how the Jewish faith got so legalistic -- they tried to codify every last known permutation of everything. Hence all the strict and arcane "laws."

* * *
I'm not saying I'm fully on board all this. What I do know is that I've long felt that faith and trust in Christ has to be something more than just faith and trust that his death and resurrection will get me into heaven. But I also recognize there's a real tension here ... between one extreme (faith and no change in my life) and the other (works righteousness). I'm still working it all out.

* * *
You like your isolation ... nothing wrong with that. Some people are quiet and introspective, others are more outgoing. I'm a quite and introspective person as well. My desire for isolation goes only so far, though ... eventually I start craving some other human contact. The idea of being some isolated research scientist in the Arctic, with nothing but a radio, would drive me nuts.

* * *
Speaking of toilets, I read a fascinating article about a month ago about an engineer who has dedicated himself to toilet design. In the United States the government mandated low-flow toilets some 10 or so years ago. At first the toilets were manufactured with a smaller tank, and that's all. Those worked horribly. This engineer was saying how they've discovered that there's actually a fairly amazing set of physics that takes place to effectively flush a toilet with 1.6 gallons of water. In the mundane sparkles the amazing, I guess.

Slip sliding away

Your last post covers a lot of things, I'd like to pick up on a couple of things here:

You wrote:

"The ideal is a full measure of both -- a person deeply committed to Christ and showing that through their everyday actions and deeds"

My only concern about this is we need to be sure, or at least agree upon, what Christ is telling us to do. I have seen many people twist His message of love. I don't know what is twisted and what Christ actually wanted and really said. I believe that He told us to love God and love our fellow human being.

There may have been a number of things He told us to avoid, for our own benefit, but I am not 100% sure of what they are, and other Christians would disagree with me on these things. For example practising homosexual Christians would tell me that being a practising homosexual is ok with Jesus.

Is it ok with Jesus to look inside the atom, and then to split it?

Is it ok with Jesus if we clone humans?

Where is the line between our prejudices and what Jesus commanded?

You wrote:

He argues that the "Kingdom of God" is not to be entered and enjoyed after our death, but rather right now.

This is along the lines of some recent thoughts that I have had. To personalize my story, lately I feel I have been becoming more isolated, on purpose. I'm feeling less and less inclined to connect with people. A "Help The Aged" leaflet came through my door this morning, they're looking for charitable donations to help with the "problem of isolation". I immediately thought "Hey, isolation is good, I like isolation". And this reminds me of the story you told me about, where after death people in Hell move further and further apart. Maybe I have entered Hell already? And that's why I am becoming a miserable old so and so?

And on the toilet - of course it is the latter. I'm not suggesting creating the problem of sliding off of the can, but of creating the benefit of saving hundreds of millions of gallons of fresh water per year in reduced flushing :-)