15 posts from 2006

Most people would rather die than think; in fact, they do so.  -Bertrand Russell

This morning I stumbled upon a web site titled "36 Christian Ways to Reduce Stress"  although only five or six of the items listed were remotely specific to Christianity.  I found something on the list that works best for me when I can manage to do it. 

#14.  K. M. S. (Keep Mouth Shut.) This single piece of advice can prevent an enormous amount of trouble.

You know you're getting old when you've lived long enough to realize that we create most of our stress with our own mouths.  Unfortunately, probably few people live long enough to master this stress reliever but I'm trying.

0.999… is the same as 1.

Not just very close, but precisely identical:

a = 0.999…

10a = 9.999…
10a - a = 9.999… - 0.999…
9a = 9
a = 1

From Futility Closet

As a Libertarian, I don't care much for either major party and I see a bright side to the results of the '06 midterm election:  the checks and balances should start working again.  While some may be discomfited at the prospect of Democratic policies becoming law, we have a Republican President who will now use his veto pen.  While some may be chagrined at this President's unconstitutional policies and practices, we now have a Democratic controlled House that might investigate and impeach him if deemed necessary.  At least a Democratic Congress will not give a Republican President carte blanche let alone without due accountability.

In the short term, policymaking may suffer as a result of deadlock but, in the long term, the Constitution may have been the real winner in this election.  Time will tell.

According to a UPI article released today, "Texas Gov. Rick Perry has drawn criticism from rival candidates for saying he agrees non-Christians are condemned to spend eternity in hell."  Perry's opponent, indepedent candidate Kinky Friedman said, "He doesn't think very differently from the Taliban, does he?" and "Being obsessed with who's going to heaven and who's going to hell is kind of a pathetic waste of time." 

Apparently candidates for public office no longer have First Amendment rights and the thought police are on patrol to assure that they don't or that they are duly condemned and shamed if they do.

Yesterday, I had some quiet time in which I was actually able to focus well enough to do some quality reading and thinking.  I used the time to read the transcript of a debate between William Lane Craig and Bart. D. Ehrman on the topic Is There Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus?.  Craig is the Research Professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology in La Mirada, California. Ehrman is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and also the author of the book Misquoting Jesus that I'm setting out to read.  Craig is arguably the foremost evangelical philosopher in our time and I've read quite a bit of his work.  I have to say that even as an novice amateur logician I had no difficulty identifying quite a bit of fallacious reasoning on the part of Ehrman.  The skeptic in me not only hoped but also expected that Ehrman would have out reasoned and out debated Craig.  I have to say that part of me was disappointed.  Craig was superb. 

The transcript is a relatively short read (38 pages - pdf) and I found it informative and compelling.

I had no real expectations for Ehrman's book beyond exposing myself to views that challenge the dogma into which I was indoctrinated against my will as a youth.  Now, I might be approaching it with an unfavorable bias (which will be well deserved if his argumentation is done as poorly as it was in the debate). 

I'm on the downhill slide toward 50 but this morning I learned another life lesson from my Dad.

We've recently gotten a DVR thru our cable company and are having some difficulty getting it to work properly.  Well, maybe that's not exactly correct.  I hooked it up and it worked perfectly for about 15 minutes then it stopped.  Friday the manager of the local Mediacom office told Dad he would dispatch a service tech to our home first thing this morning so Dad and I get up and are ready at 7:30am.  Skeptic that I am, I told Dad the guy won't show up today (if for no other reason than we both remembered he was supposed to come). 

By 9:30 am I was already getting agitated. We've been dealing with this cable company for years and experience has shown that "first thing in the morning" means between 8:00 and 8:30.  Clearly patience is not a virtue of mine.  I started fuming to Dad about "that sorry cable company."  What did Dad do?  He started changed the story.  "Maybe didn't say first thing in the morning."  Then "maybe he din't say morning."  And when he tried another one, I lost it.  Why are you changing the story, Daddy?  You said he told you first thing in the morning.  Why change the story to let them off the hook?"  I was fried. 

It appeared he was dissembling and being lied to no matter how inconsequential the subject matter, sets me off.  But as I stood there over the stove stirring the shredded cheese into the scrambled eggs, I realized something about my Dad. He was not dissembling.  He was not changing the story in an attempt to appease my dissatisfaction.  He was modeling humility.  Rather than assume the other guy was in the wrong, instead he questioned himself.  Maybe he had heard wrong.  He gave the the cable company the benefit of the doubt. 

I realized that my Dad, who was acting out of humility, was not at all angry or ruffled while I was bent completely out of shape.  Why was my reaction so different to his?  While he quietly went about his business waiting patiently without a worry, my mind was raging. I realized the root of my reaction was this question: How dare someone give me an expectation and then have the nerve to disappoint me?  My Dad's response was one of humility.  Mine?  My reaction was one of pride.  I wonder how much of my anger about other things is because of pride.

God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.  

I've recently started trying to read Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why by Bart D.Ehrman.  This book is getting a lot of coverage in the blogosphere so I want to see what all the fuss is about.  I'm reading it in e-book form and that's pretty hard on my eyes.  We'll see how far I get. 

Here's the book description found on Amazon.com:

When world-class biblical scholar Bart Ehrman first began to study the texts of the Bible in their original languages he was startled to discover the multitude of mistakes and intentional alterations that had been made by earlier translators. In Misquoting Jesus, Ehrman tells the story behind the mistakes and changes that ancient scribes made to the New Testament and shows the great impact they had upon the Bible we use today. He frames his account with personal reflections on how his study of the Greek manuscripts made him abandon his once ultraconservative views of the Bible.

Since the advent of the printing press and the accurate reproduction of texts, most people have assumed that when they read the New Testament they are reading an exact copy of Jesus's words or Saint Paul's writings. And yet, for almost fifteen hundred years these manuscripts were hand copied by scribes who were deeply influenced by the cultural, theological, and political disputes of their day. Both mistakes and intentional changes abound in the surviving manuscripts, making the original words difficult to reconstruct. For the first time, Ehrman reveals where and why these changes were made and how scholars go about reconstructing the original words of the New Testament as closely as possible.

Ehrman makes the provocative case that many of our cherished biblical stories and widely held beliefs concerning the divinity of Jesus, the Trinity, and the divine origins of the Bible itself stem from both intentional and accidental alterations by scribes -- alterations that dramatically affected all subsequent versions of the Bible.

For all his faults and atrocities, Saddam Hussein may have ruled his country the only way that will work in that region of conflicting ideology and culture.  Not so long ago I would have probably been glad for the news that he has been sentenced to death by hanging; but, after the way things in Iraq have gone the past year or so, it looks like it will probably take another tyrant to bring order to that region and to maintain it.  History will remember this as a case of better the devil you know than the one you don't.

Whatever threat Hussein may have been to the US pales in comparison to the internal threat the Bush administration has caused by undermining and disregarding the Constitution under the guises of national security.  The wise and noble words of Benjamin Franklin come to mind.

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Whatever threat Hussein may have been to the US will pale in comparison to the threat he will be once he is dead.

The tyrant dies and his rule is over, the martyr dies and his rule begins.  -Soren Kierkegaard