Fairy Tales

Two Peoples of America

    The most realistic fictions are the ones that do not seem most realistic, but rather the ones that gives us what we want most.  In America, grace given for free, is anathema.  Neither left-wing Christians nor right-wing Christians wish to embrace what the German Theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer called "costly grace."  The left wishes to demonstrate its benovolence through its "good works" while the right wishes to prove its grace through its "economic gifts."  Both miss the point that Christianity is not about what you get out of it.  It is a world view in the purest sense precisely because it resists the things it can get out of the world and accepts the blessings of a good day and the suffering of a bad day with the same joy.  It is absurd, I know, but those who argue that absurdity is a reason to discount it, miss the point that life itself is absurd and dictated by the absurd.  However, I am not arguing Christianity right now, but rather the fairy tales created by the right and left in order to ignore their Christian heritage.

    I voted for President Obama, lets get that on the table right now.  I believe he is a good "American."  And by this I mean he is a pragmatist who is willing to reach concessions and willing to try anything that might conceivably get us out of this financial dilemma.  He has the country's best interest at heart and it probably wouldn't matter if he were Christian, Muslim, Atheist, or whatever; his first loyalty is to the country.  So, when certain segments of society criticize him for not being Christian enough; I respond, "We probably wouldn't like that too much if he were."  Mr. Obama was not elected to be the "high priest" or "pontifax maximus" of the United States.  He was elected to be the president of the United States of America.  If he were elected to be the bishop of a synod or the pastor of my church; then I would not have voted for him to hold this office.  His views on Christianity are very "works-based" righteousness and it wouldn't take any great theological master work to punch holes in his viewpoints.

    I bring up Mr. Obama not to discredit him, but to highlight two very important points.  Firstly, in America, the separation of church and state is not only something beneficial to our survival; it is actually something quite deeply rooted in our Christian heritage.  From Jesus saying, "give to Caesar what is Caesar's (the state) and give to God what is God's (the church)" all the way through Augustinian and Lutheran notions about the "Kingdom of the Right and Kingdom of the Left."  Christians work within the state and follow the state's rules, but adhere to further dictums of their religious affiliation.  The two come in conflict a great deal less than critics believe.  Mr. Obama's faith and his reason for what he does are not mine.  He is not Lutheran.  His speeches are to deal with finances, the environment, and the Constitutionality of such-and-such; not on the theological aspects of free-will v. determinism or the Trinity.  He has a job, his own brand of Christianity informs him of it; but I am not looking to him for theological insight and I highly recommend that you do not either.

    The second point that I would like to make is that his Christianity is one that I find to be flawed.  It expects that works are the cause rather than the fruits of grace.  His decisions and his involvement allow him to have a good cache in the Bank of Heaven.  He was fortunate enough that his politics was able to accept Christianity; and that he could get by with a little work's based righteousness.  This is anathema to the good Lutheran, who, though we do good works, see it as a gift rather than an obligation.  To many leftist Christians any "good work" is seen as the ultimate sign of faith and even trumps the Christian who "doesn't do enough good works."  I don't know who is going to get into heaven, Jesus doesn't know who is going to get to heaven, and Barack Obama doesn't know who is going to get into heaven (and he has the good sense to keep quiet about it).

    The right on the other hand seem to leave their faith at the door when they pursue their issues.  Gay marriage and anti-abortion and (I don't know how) the tax code; become enmeshed not in their Christian world-view, but in their Pharisaical desire to be "right."  To them the issue is paramount and their faith is secondary.  They have a fervor that is not found in anyone in the New Testament except Saul of Tarsus before he saw the light.  And so, when someone comes to the table with viewpoints they do not particularly care for, they do not argue the point but attack the issue.  Dialogue cannot continue in that environment.  However it is more important to know that Christ befriended the extortionists, the prostitutes, and whoever else would listen to him.  He didn't do it to prove some point and he never accepted their excuses for why they did what they did; but to him the message of God's saving love was more important than some political plank.  I wonder how many we needlessly alienate by not trying to figure out how God went missing in someone's life and how we can be like Philip and say "come and see."  Instead the right is trying to legalize morals and ignoring that the law was fulfilled by Christ.  We are not free from the law or tax codes or obligations to the state by Christ's death, but we are free to share the good news.  That's what it means, and so much more.

    The fictions of the religious right and the religious left are so desirable because they require us to be in charge.  They allow us to delegate and regulate good works or morals.  They don't allow the Holy Spirit and God to be at the center of our lives and so they should be disregarded as fairy tales that we ignore now that we are older.  Our faith in God is bigger than our faith in the state or even in our own determinism.  Our grace should be the determining factor in our lives.

Summer in Ohio

Summer in Ohio

    Its finally summer time in Central Ohio.  The sky is gray and filled with rain and people have been working on lawns and house projects.  The tulips and daffodils finished blooming a while ago and now it is time for the irises and daylilies to finish their cycle.  A talk with a good friend of mine by the name of Spencer Troxell reminded me of something my dad said a long time ago.  Spencer asked if I was being to harsh on people what with my criticisms; and that reminded me of how my dad said he was going to avoid writing anything nasty on his blog.¹

    While none of us should be Pollyannas with rose-colored glasses and happy mindless babble; I think I have spent far too much time in the stuffy ivory towers of human perfection.  When I say that we humans have issues and problems, its nothing new.  The problem is that many of us can get so frustrated that the world is not the way it should be, that we often sound angry.  Our idealized world becomes more important the world around us.  We forget to look at people as people.²

    So as I stare out my windows and onto the world around me and think of tomorrow and its promises of a good walk with a friend of mine, I think that maybe I am not taking life seriously enough.  The serious fact that I didn't make a beautiful day and if I didn't, than maybe it was created for me to enjoy.

    

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1. An almost herculean effort to be sure in this day and age of foaming-at-the-mouth-ideologues.
2. I was going to argue this point in this blog post, but it seems more appropriate to argue it in a footnote where it won't disturb the flow of the rest of my post and it will fulfill the requirement for my response.  Mr. Troxell pointed out that I was too hard on humanity and that we have god complexes.  He is right.  I believe we all want to be, not just the hero of our story, but the gods as well.  Whether that is good or bad is up to you and your philosophy.    I believe I am too hard on people because we ignore just how wonderful it is to be human.  Here is a bit of a paradox because in my criticism I am actually ignoring their humanity which has built into the capability of doing monumentally stupid things, but also can look up at the stars in wonder.  It is pretty amazing that no matter who we are, we all seem to look up at the stars in wonder.  I get frustrated when people just don't think too much, but I think way too much for anybody.  I suppose that is projection of desires for people to think more about what they do.  Big deal, its my way.
   
       I also was told I didn't have to write so much, but I like to write.  So whatever.

You Can Stop Whining Now

You Can Stop Whining Now

    Everyone does it.  Its second nature really.  I have family members who do it.  My best friends do it.  Heck, I do it all the time.  It is America's favorite past time and is far more popular than football or baseball or pizza or the latest iPhone.  Yes, folks its whining.  And now that I come think about it, it is something so universal that Americans can't claim it as just their own.  Which reminds me, "Why are all these foreigners whining as much as us?  We're the best whiners in the world."

    Now I know that just like war and the poor and reality television, whining will always be with us.  Its human nature, so the story goes.  I also know my little blog post is not going to stop me from whining.  And if it doesn't stop me, than it certainly will not stop you.  What kind of hypocrite would I be, then?¹  However, every time I start complaining I do make a mental note of what I am doing.  I weigh very carefully the stupid problem I am having with the fact that I am a middle class American, and that alone tends to stop me in my tracks.²

    However, I think whining is one of the most crucial subjects to talk about when discussing religion.  It may even be more important than the problem of evil and is certainly more important than the number of angels which routinely find it enjoyable to dance upon the head of a pin.³  Yes, without facing the fact that we love to whine when we talk about religion is fundamental.

    I'll give you a few examples.  I have a good friend who, while discussing religion on a car ride said, "Dawkins was right."⁴

    "How so?" I asked.

    "He said that if another religion is attacked by an atheist, the Christian will always back the other religion."

    Another time a coworker stated that atheists were the most hated segment of society.⁵

    One of my friends from high school is lamenting that "the government" is systematically trying to remove religion from school systems via "evolution."

    What do all of these statements have in common?  The answer is whining.  Are we a nation that believes what we believe so that it will get us special advantages?  Do we join groups to because we want to be well-liked or highly esteemed?  Or do we join a group because we believe and maybe even think, that it makes the most sense?

    For human beings whining gets down to that most dangerous of human problems: pride.  When we whine about our fair share, what we are really saying is that it is not fair that you do not think like me.  We are wanting ourselves to be the free-thinking god of the universe and every other person to be a mindless automaton.⁶  And I think this is something that we Christians and Muslims and Buddhists and maybe even the atheists (if they want to join), can agree upon.

    I find it in myself though.  I can't understand why Christians aren't as interested in their philosophical heritage or why my non-theist friends just don't agree with me.  It isn't for me to worry about though and it certainly isn't for me to whine about.  There are too many issues that really need calmly and logically to be addressed without me feeling persecuted.  

    This is, I guess, the crux of my argument.  We all feel persecuted, perhaps we are (albeit in a blunted American way).  We all feel as if our opinions are overlooked or ridiculed and we all have a perverse desire to "be right."  Instead we have to ask ourselves "Am I angry because I am not being taken seriously or because my position is being ridiculed?"  If our position is being ridiculed than either humanity or God will take care of the problem.  If it is because we are being ridiculed, than maybe we should rethink why we took up the position in the first place.

    Atheists and Theists too often wear their believes as badges of honor and do not realize the humility involved with being chosen to take up their particular cause.  I did not become a Christian because I wanted power, or money, or fame, or because it was easy, or because I am stupid.  I became a Christian for reasons I do not know and because of answers I cannot even begin to fathom.  I think that others chose their viewpoints for quite the same reason; or perhaps they are chosen by their viewpoints.  When we shed ourselves of our own pride and fruitless struggling, we find the sad truth; "we are all beggars."  Then we are happy for it at last and we realize we have no more reason to whine.

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1. The Answer:  An human being.
2. Albeit briefly.  I am an human being after all.
3. The answer is 42.  Deep Thought II hasn't reached this point yet.  Aquinas hit upon it somewhere in his Summa ... Whatever.  The dude wrote like eighty books because he was a freakin' monk.  I mean, imagine one long toilet break and multiply that by like a billion and you are roughly in the ballpark for the kind of time monks had on their hands in the middle ages.  When they got bored they created hospitals and eventually beer, but churning out eighty some volumes on every question that enters your I've-just-finished-my-umpteenth-ninety-nine-bottles-of-beer-on-the-wall-in-thirteenth-century-latin marathon is a pretty decent achievement.
4. Starting off a thought with something that from the outset is illogical is probably not a good thing.
5. Actually no.  In my book atheists trail stop light algorithm programmers.
6. As a Christian I would argue that if there is a God, he is comfortable enough in His skin to allow us some degree of freedom.  Even though He is perfect and free-thinking, He is comfortable with non-automatons.

I Have More Important Things To Do

I Have More Important Things To Do

    Throughout the history of Christianity we are faced with a rather difficult dilemma.  We are constantly bridging two lands, there is a land that we have already been to and must keep going back to and a land that is our future.  The concept is frustrating to the human mind, but completely necessary.  In essence we are beset by a rather horrible dilemma which is how do we live in a world over which we have very little control.  Therefore, I am not going to argue my Christian belief with anyone who is not willing to listen.  It isn't arrogance, quite the opposite.  It is humility.  I am not in charge of getting people into heaven, but rather I am just in charge of playing my part.

    In this area, Christians have a wonderful advantage.  Our point is being made through us not by us.  We do not have to prove the validity of our arguments.  The first Christians lived in a culture whose hostility makes our current culture's hostility towards any opposing viewpoint look positively quaint.  The atheist dismisses the Christian as being a fool, the "theist" dismisses the atheist as being damned.  Round and round we go, well, at least no one is dying.  No one is being nailed to crosses or fed to lions or having his or her country leveled to the ground.  In short, the only thing we Americans have to worry about is the momentary discomfort of having someone look at us as if we have just uttered the most absurd nonsense.

    This is not to say that I do not believe atheism to be problematic at best.  It seems to have certain errors that grind my philosophies in particular ways.  Atheism could very well be true.  A world absurd enough to have a God would certainly be absurd enough to not have one.  And if there is no God, well, Pascal's wager finds me quite well.  However, I am digressing.

    Nonsense though.  Is that all we Americans have to fear?  This is a country that stood up to the most powerful empire in the world because it thought "hey, just thinking out loud here, but what would happen if we elected our leaders?  Just a thought."  This is a country that fought itself to end slavery.  This is a country that braved torturous months to go West into an uncertain future.  The list goes on.  Now, however, we are a country that is afraid to simply ask questions at a dinner party.  Perhaps Americans have never been the best philosophers or theologians, but we are still human and that means we can buck the systems and cultures around us and say, "well, why not?"

    I am not going to argue faith with anyone.  People who argue against someone else's belief systems are almost always in it for the wrong reasons.  We must argue for our own ... but even that is not quite it.  We must share our happiness.  A long standing belief in Western Thought is the centrality of happiness.  Aristotle put happiness at the chief aim of humanity and Christ talked about "happiness" in the beatitudes.  St. Thomas Aquinas would synthesize the two thoughts by calling the ultimate happiness: God.  We all should believe that the most happy place we can think of is the thought we are most willing to share.  And, to a Christian, that happy place is God.  Don't bother trying to argue that that particular place is unhappiness to you or a certain group with whom you associate.  To the Christian, God and all the things that go along with him are simply happiness.

    I can imagine that there are many calling into question certain checkered spots in Christian history while seeming to leave out all the good its caused.  By this "logic", systems apparently must be executed perfectly by human beings in order to be true; as though all of nature can operate from a completely different origin.  Nothing in this world is perfect, one merely has to read the Bible to see that.

    However, there is a great danger that all human beings share, both nontheist and theist alike, because we are all of us homo sapiens.  We all wish for everyone to follow along with what we think is best.  Christians identify this, quite rightly, as wanting to play God.  And whether or not you believe in God or not, you must come to the realization that each and every one of us wants to dominate over the other person.  Nietszche called this the "will to power" and the real question is if it is right or wrong.

    It seems to be manifest that it is wrong.  Societies that follow a cult of a leader who wishes to dominate and control everyone seem to lose their luster sooner or later.  Be it the atrocities of Nazi Germany or velvet-fisted animal brutality of Augustus' Rome, people catch on that there is a sickness to the domination.  (What has been the main problem with the current American wars has not been that they have happened, but that they may have happened for the wrong reasons and executed with the wrong ethics.)

    Yet we know the opposite to be true as well.  We love cultures where the leader, as selflessly as any human can, gives himself or herself over to helping others.  We swoon over Gandhi and Washington and Martin Luther King Jr. because they wished to live in societies that valued the greatness of humanity and not the greatness of the self.  The Christian finds that perfection in Christ.  India and America and Christendom have done brutal things when these cultures have looked out for the interest of single individuals or privileged groups, but these are aberrations and because they are aberrations we find them so sickening.  These aberrations are not the beliefs to which we want to adhere.

    In Western culture the aberrational sickness was all we knew.  Carthaginians with human sacrifice, Greeks with xenophobic racism, Romans with bloody games, and Gothic tribes with familial loyalties; this was the world into which Christ entered.  He entered into the mess that human pride had erected.  He told us what to do and for the most part we tried to do it.  The result was that the most barbarous hodgepodge of people ended up a little better than before.  And for all our talk of how that was just white-wash over our real history, we have never been able to escape the myth.  If that is the case, than everyone believes the myth and denies the truth that we are all selfish people out to dominate one another.  This is what is commonly known as crazy talk.  If humble and self-giving love were a lie, and everyone knew it was a lie; it would have been dead quite some time ago.  However, everyone really truly wants to believe that they are good and benevolent people and not really wanting to steamroll over someone else.  Even Nietzsche didn't make it very far with his own will to power.  It seems that only Christ seems to stand alone as the great, inescapable "superman" of Western culture.

    What does all this mean?  To be perfectly frank, nothing at all.  Each and every human being will believe in something regardless of whatever evidence is before them.  Atheists pull out their hair at the stupidity of theists, while pharisees in false theistic clothing rant and rave about how atheists and theists just won't accept their evidence.  Such people have limited imaginations and no real faith.

    I know I am not going to change anyone's mind or heart.  I believe in a God who will do that if people will let Him.  My faith is not in a powerful personal will.  My faith is in a God who, in spite of all the odds, went and became a little nobody from a backwater of a vicious empire; and turned Himself into the greatest engine for change in all of human history.  I have more important things to do than quibble about the reality of what I believe.  I don't know if I am right, but each and every day it seems to make more and more sense that this thing I believed in stupid faith might actually be the truth and happiness I need.  If anyone disagrees, that is fine; but please, make sure you are doing it for the right reasons.

Life with Google

Life with Google

Many of you may remember my blog post discussing why I am glad for companies like Google, Apple, Toyota, and Nintendo.  There is something called the "halo effect".  This is where an item is so good that it is used to raise the prestige of the other objects that the company is trying to sell.  It is a good marketing technique and usually works pretty well.  But sometimes a company's ethic goes beyond an halo effect.

Apple computers are often considered top notch only because of the tremendous appeal of the iPod.  However, an Apple computer more than pays for itself.  A prime example of this is longevity.  Apple customers are not loyal to Apple because of the iPod or because of better marketing.  It may lead them to buy their first Apple computer, but it is far from the reason why they are loyal.  They are loyal to Apple because they feel like Apple is loyal to them.

However, some companies seem to go far beyond this.  The ethos of the people at the top want to push the boundaries of what can be done.  There are companies that seem to break even these rules.  They go farther and desire to do bigger and bigger things.  Google seems to be such a corporation.

While visiting friends, I installed a copy of Google Chrome on their computer.  The speed at which it ran far exceeded the speeds of the Internet Explorer.  The point I am trying to make here is that we hope and desire for companies and people to do things they love for the sake of what they love.  However we usually put in our time at jobs, but live secret lives outside of work.  We escape into other people's fantasies about what our lives should be with movies and television, and yes, even books.  However, what if we lived our lives for the sheer joy of living them?  What if we pushed the envelopes of human understanding?

Thus it is good to have companies like Google who could rest on their laurels (like Microsoft) but instead choose to innovate and make things work better.  It is ironic that the companies that succeed the most in capitalism are usually the companies where the profit is only a part of their understanding of what it means to be a business.  If this is so, than the holistic approach to making money is bar far better than the more libertarian form.  To not do evil, the motto of Google, not only produces an halo around Google, but it produces innovation and thus wealth.

It is good to return again and again to the things that deserve encouraging.  While I disagree with Google's China stance, I am quite happy to report that I use blogger and typed this document on Google Docs.  I find their web browser to be quite good and I use their search engine constantly.  Such innovation deserves public kudos and I am glad to support their ethos.

A Late Night Thought

A Late Night Thought

Well technically its early morning.  I was doing some baking and a bat flew into the kitchen hovered around and left before I could get a blunt object with which to bash its brains in.  Yes, this is where I live and this is my life.  (Still no sign of the bat.)  So, like Estragon and Vladimir, I am waiting on some guest that will never show up or like Elliot Templeton waiting for that final invitation.  So, to while away the time I listened to Mike Duncan's podcast entitled, "The History of Rome."  I'll give you three guesses and an hint: I'm an history major.

Duncan's podcast has gotten better over time.  The early shows sound quality stands out as poor when one listens to it compared to the more recent episodes, and there are a few episodes in the middle with an almost intolerable buzzing; but nevermind all that, it has truly been fascinating listening to them.  I honestly don't know what I am going to do pretty soon because I am almost completely caught up with the series.  (Yeah, I know, most people try and catch up with Lost and The Officed and I am trying to catch up with a one man production of the history of Rome.)

Duncan is flippant and you can tell he really loves what he's talking about.  This, along with a handful of other things I have read and a couple classes, have made me realize just what an history major I actually am.  I began reading an history of New York City and hope to delve in depth into all my books on history.  It is great when someone reawakens a great enjoyment in us.

However, it is sad how very little we know of the past.  The late eighteenth century early nineteenth century Americans had a far better grasp on Ancient History than we do today.  They respected it and learned from it; and thus were better for it.  A great deal of why we fail as a society today is our inability to learn from history.  The dangers of not knowing history are obvious to all, not just the paranoid lunatic fringe.  Yet very few of us really learn anything outside of a few small tidbits that back up some of our desirous claims.

From the history of Rome we can learn how nepotism and cronyism destroy a society.  We learn that optimates and plebeians fight their power battles and reduce a culture to its worst character if left unchecked.  We learn how we would be wise to not give our power to special interests, or the masses, or business men, or emperors; but rather that we should try to form a more perfect union.  Perhaps the most important thing to take away is the knowledge that things could be and have been much worse.  We should be thankful to live in the time and country that we do now.

It is far too late and I am tired of waiting for the bat to appear.  I am going to go to bed and dream of:

 the beauty of fair Greece, 

And the grandeur of old Rome.

Have a great night.

Mr. Duncan's site is:  http://thehistoryofrome.typepad.com/

I encourage everyone to look it up.

Guess Where I Am

Guess Where I Am



So, I had some paperwork that I needed to finish up for seminary.  I had thought I had finished it, but I got a call recently saying that they never got it.  After having the program close on me on my Macintosh, I racked my brain and decided to fire up the old Dell using the Windows Operating System.  It worked out okay after that.



Now many of you Mac haters will use this as an example of why Windows is better.  However, it is obvious what happened, the people making the program rushed out the Mac version while focusing on the Windows Version (because 95% of the world uses it).  I think there is a lot to be learned from this.

I live in constant fear that one of my programs on my Window's machine will crash.  I live with the fear that my entire system will crash in fact.  The notion of saving early and often came with the rise of Windows.  One never hears of NASA in the space age¹  or the old punch-card machines needing to be backed up early and often.

In addition to this, I fear a lot of viruses.  I fear inadvertently having my identity stolen. 

I guess its nice to come back to Windows, kind of like coming back to a part of town you used to live in, but that is now run down and dilapidated.  We like seeing where we grew up, but we make it back to our homes on OS X or Linux before nightfall to get the real work done.

I guess my biggest problem is that in order to really do what needs to be done with a system, people have to be bold.  America is a country that has become a shadow of the innovative powerhouse it used to be.  We used to make bold steps with this innovation or that innovation, but now the only innovations are introduced by Billy Mays and tell how we do can live a life with more stuff that will make it simpler.

It would be nice to see large companies really try and make OS X and Linux viable for the workplace.  There are thoughts that such a changeover would be expensive and problematic.  It would save money in the long run though.  (Switching to Linux would be practically nothing.)  It seems that with all our screaming and squawking for corporate freedom, we forget that the innovations they preach are rarely ever the innovations they practice.  The corporation will work much harder at keeping everyone down as compared to work to innovate.

If we move to a more efficient, secure, and intelligent system, it will not solve all our problems; but it will drive us forward to capturing the ideals we used to hold.  It may even allow us to get paperwork in on time.

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1. Though one might be able to make an argument why those guys were such ... well for lack of a "G" rated word ... awesome heroic people.  They might have been using Windows and just been tired of all the crap. that went on with it.  Maybe a predecessor to Windows caused Apollo 13.