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.

---

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.

I'm Done Protecting You.

I'm Done Protecting You. 

(It's late and I didn't proofread this.  I try and be more positive, but I think this needs to be said.  I think Hebrews would back me up.)

I'm tired.  I'm tired of protecting those who don't want to be protected.  I am tired of analyzing those who don't want to be analyzed.  I'm tired of listening to those who don't listen.  In short I am done protecting the remnants of the Republican party.  I suppose, though I am doubtful, that there are those hovering around the outer rim of a party they once believed in; but now feel themselves isolated by a party more full of venom and vitriol than of the great ideas of their forbearers.

It didn't used to be that way.  There used to be a time when the Republican party stood for something worth standing for.  There used to be a time when Eisenhower and T.R. and Lincoln boldly took views that were unpopular with the leading people. There was a time when writers of the party were not afraid to be marginalized by asking deep and important questions.  I know many of my current Republican acquaintances would say, "We still do."  No, not anymore.  there was a time when the Republicans would listen to those answers and thoughtfully disagree.  Now, it is all about thoughtless ignorance of other people's opinions.

The failure of the Republican party wasn't complete for me until just recently.  I have always considered myself a staunch (albeit hard to digest) moderate.  I am a contrarian by nature, so being fully allied and against any party has been an unpalatable choice.  I never thought that I would be so against one of our major political parties.  However, it has become apparent that that day has come.

So I abandon you to the fate that you have proscribed for yourself.  I allow you to wrap yourself in the mantle of hatred and stupidity.  I allow you to hide in the obscure recesses of your self-imposed exile.  I would reach out to you, but you do not wish to hear me speak.  I have grown too tired of talking (me of all people too tired of talking) to try and reason with you.  I am a moderate democrat now because you have left me here behind with your reason and hope and joy.  I will await your return to the land of sinners, which we all must dwell in to be made more holy by grace.

I would not mind so deeply the fact that you had gone were it not for the fact that rather than being people of the city on a hill, you have become pharisees.  You condemn the problems of the world, but do nothing to alleviate them.  So many non-Christians I talk to are amazed that I am a Christian because I listen to them and their problems.  So many non-Christians are amazed that many of us Christians are Christians because of what has happened.

Some facts: Christ never promised that we would not be exploited by poor people who live lives on welfare forever and ever.  Christ never promised that we would control government.  Christ never promised us that we would get a nice house and fancy car if we followed him.  Christ never promised that we could keep guns.  Christ did ask that we pay taxes though.

The fact is I am done protecting the far right, who has unfortunately morphed into the "right" itself, because you are done protecting Christ.  You don't make sacrifices with joy to help people.  When I think of the Christian Conservative, I think of an angry person who clutches to the false straws of "an ungodly president".

I share your blame.  I do not make the sacrifices I should.  I do not help the poor as I should.  I do not volunteer for causes like I should.  I do not even love my neighbor as myself.  But if you do these things without the joy of Christ in you, than you are just as guilty as if you had never done them at all because you are doing them for yourself and by yourself without the love of Christ in you.

I will end with this.  I do not know where my good friends from college stands on his political views, but I can imagine he is a conservative.  He loves God with all his heart, mind, and soul.  I have never met a happier person who loves his wife and child so much.  It would be nice if my friend were the rule and not just a random example I have to give.  I think we would all do our best to remove our sack cloth and ashes and go and live with the happy abandon of Christ's love.  If that sounds a little too drastic for you, than maybe we

The Price We Pay

The Price We Pay 

I've asked around of my conservative and liberal friends.  I have enquired of the internet.  I have even asked my dad.  No one can tell me what these tea parties were all about except that they were protesting taxes.  Now most people I know hate taxes.  It is no fun, kind of like going to the dentist or the doctor's office.  At least that must be what it is like for most people who pay taxes in one lump sum.  However, I have always gotten money back from the government, even when I didn't think I deserved it.  In that way, I actually like paying taxes.

I can hear the hisses and guffaws from my fellow Americans.  They will say things like, "Well, that's good for you; but as for me I want my money."  However, this is a bit of a misunderstanding.  

First off let me explain why I am happy to pay taxes.  I do not live destitute and scrounging around trash cans for my next meal.  I have frozen pizzas, bread baking supplies, and enough Mountain Dew to survive for quite some time.  Yesterday I went out to eat with friends.  I have a bed, a computer, and more books than I need.  In fact, I have a lot.  Now, there are plenty of things I want to buy that I can't afford.  Things like roads, public parks, and a good education come to mind.  Whenever I look at my paycheck and see the money taken out for taxes, I think to myself how privileged I am that I own a stake in this country.  I know that when I go outside I will not need a Roman noble's entourage to ensure my safety as I walk down the street or that if I want to hike somewhere I will not have to pay a fee to roam about public land.

Is it a perfect system?  No, of course not.  There are areas that need streamlined.  American politicians, like Jeff Flake of Arizona, have it exactly right when they back their convictions up with real action by not accepting earmarks and pork.  However, this is a responsibility more of the voters than of the politicians.  If we really want less spending on waste, we'll vote for the right things. We don't, so we have  a lot of pork.  Simple as that.

Secondly, I should ask this question: did you print that money?  I mean, perhaps it is government interference that prohibits us from going to our basement with a printer and green ink.  If so, well that is fine by me.  I am reminded of something a wise man once said, "Give to Caesar what is his."  Many of us Christians seem to forget this.  It is ironic because conservatives and especially Christian Conservatives tend to lament the loss of classical Western thought.  If you understand Aristotle properly, than money is merely a form of order.  It isn't something in and of itself, but rather it represents the interaction of human beings and the world in which they live.  

The purest sense of economy is therefore not capitalism but bartering.  I raise a goat and you give me some apples.  Merits and fortune are at their peak in this form of economy, but nothing truly great is accomplished.  The individual is at the mercy of the fates to a greater degree than anywhere else.

In a completely free capitalist economy we run into pretty much the same thing.  Countries with less government interference in one way or the other don't really exist and perhaps there is a reason for that.  Human beings are hardly smart enough to create a worldwide cabal that prevents such libertarian countries from emerging.  My theory is that such economies exist under the aegis of larger economies, so let us look at those.  Such an economy is hardly autonomous but rather useful as a piggy bank for the larger economy and in that economy the average human being is unable to pursue happiness.  (In fact in modern America happiness is usually forgotten in the pursuit of success.  If success makes you happy, that is well and good but please leave the rest of us alone.)

Also, as was pointed out by one of my dad's friends, why is that in countries with limited government we see less stability and poorer people?  Areas with little central government usually push up the worst of society.  In fact I believe that Navy Seals had to rescue Americans from people living in a country with virtually no centralized government.  I am of course speaking of Somalia which is controlled not by enlightened Randian entrepreneurs; but by thugs, warlords, and the occasional pirates.

So, I think that paying a few bucks each week for a stable and relatively happy society is a good deal.  I like looking at roads and schools; and thinking that while things can always be made better, my country is still the best in the world because people take an active part in each others' lives be it by themselves or by simply paying taxes.

The Writer's Block

The Writer's Block 

Best books ... chosen by James Toback 

Its late, but as many of you know, this is when my brain functions at its best.  Usually my papers are churned out at the hours between twelve and three.  There is fervent praying, reading and re-reading, and of course caffeine consumption.  However, I was just reading through the magazine The Week and decided to comment on books chosen by this week's selector of must read books, director James Toback.  I don't think I will be viewing Mr. Toback's upcoming film; and to be honest I am not sure I am interested in his previous work.  However, it is impossible for me to overlook his taste in literature.

But, I am getting ahead of myself.  Let me explain about all of this.  The Week is a magazine that attempts to synthesize and paraphrase the news reporting from the week.¹ Among its articles is a section where a personality (usually an author) describes his or her favorite books.  This week's picks were selected by the afore mentioned James Toback, who is directing the upcoming film "Tyson".  His selections were of works that he had used in his movies.  While he never goes into depth about what each and every book is about, he takes a different tack and shows how he used them in his film.

I personally am a fan of four of the six author's mentioned, but I have only read two of the works mentioned.  These authors are Fyodor Dostoyevsky, William Shakespeare, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Oscar Wilde.  Their selected works are Notes From Underground, Hamlet, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, and The Ballad of Reading Gaol respectively.  I am not trying to say anything here except this.  You should go and read these works.  (I know I should.)  Life is too short to read the average stuff.

Between Hamlet's indecisions about life and death (and the innumerable other questions found in this brilliant work) and the Tractatus's exploration of humankind's relationship to language and words (as well as the innumerable other questions found in this brilliant work); we find authors trying to come to grips with the unknowable answers.  Perhaps they are answers that we will never ever know fully.  I believe they are beyond our grasp.  To some this would cause fear and because it is fear, it is best left unsaid.² Yet, one cannot totally ignore these questions and so we disdain those who ask them.  We hope that maybe if we insult, cajole, and intimidate enough; the questioners will go away and with them, maybe, just maybe, so to will the questions.

However, our hatred for the questions shows our contempt for our own lives.  In cursing the unknowable we are cursing the very universe in which we live.  You and I do not have the answers, we just have the questions.  What the questions mean is as useful and necessary as our daily job.  Each day we will have to struggle at our jobs.  We are defined by what we do in large degree, but at the same time we should be judged by what we think.  If we think great thoughts, there is no guarantee we will be great; but if we think small thoughts, it is fairly assured that we will be small.

We talk as if we are great innovators and adventurers who push the envelopes of science and the humanities, but our fear of being wrong often relegates us to the weaklings of history.  We are afraid to take the serious questions as seriously as we should; that is with the smile and joy that we approach our daily job.  I think that is what Mr. Toback was trying to get across.  Great novels, tracts, essays, poems, and cetera don't exist in a vacuum and never were meant to do so.³ They are to remain accessible to us at all times.  We should feel a joy at being able to bring a work into the thread of a conversation.  We have, so to speak, brought another voice into the the story we are trying to tell; the story of our lives.

Perhaps one of these days I'll get around to writing my top must read books, but for now I am content to give kudos to other people's selections.  After all, it is very late and while my mind does work at its best during these hours, I never said it worked for very long.

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1. Much like the fine, and now quasi-defunct, World Press Review.  While the World Press Review still exists in a way in cyber-space, it ceases to exist as the magazine that would arrive weekly in my mailbox at college.  I'll never forget the day it stopped being printed and I was given U.S. News and World Reports in its stead.  This is partially the reason why, to this day, I cannot tolerate U.S. News and World Reports; but most of that hatred is because the magazine finds better use in starting grill fires or composting mulch beds than as a credible periodical.
2. If death were sitting before us at the dinner table we would not desire to acknowledge that he was there.
3. If a book is built to stay in some lofty ivory tower, than the author is a fool. The purpose of a work is not to show what you know, but what you've learned. It should be the secret hope of every author that his or her work is surpassed and never surpassed by a member of a succeeding generation.