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Whirled Views 10.22
Good morning!
Today’s movie quote: “You talkin’ to me?”
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back to top134 Comments to “Whirled Views 10.22”
Lynn,
Good to see your avatar pop up this morning. Apparently you have not been evacuated yet. It seems like all of San Diego is on fire. We are OK here, but we are getting ready for friends coming from Escondido and San Marcos. Time for another “fire party.”
Some of y’all out there is blogland get snow days. Here in So Cal we get fire days, or smoke days. It is scary here today.
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The Lion King? (though my husband wonders if it was just used there as a requote of something from an earlier movie)
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I know the genie in Aladdin says this when he pops out of the bottle.
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My gravatar! How exciting. Actually, once I figured out how, I created a wardrobe of gravatars, so you’ll see several, including one with my picture.
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I think it was Robert DeNiro, but the movie escapes me.
I see we’re loading up on the gay threads again here at WoW. Is there a schedule for this somewhere?
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I thought I’d start with the one of me.
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I’m not a tree.
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Nice avatar, EYG!
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It was “Taxi Driver” (Robert De Niro).
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Argghhh, Anlir beat me to it, by about 2 minutes.
“Taxi Driver” should have been Best Picture of 1976. No doubt about it. “Rocky” was a very good movie, but it is a travesty that it won out over TD, imho.
Anlir, who won the football pick-em contest. I’m going to assume that you probably threw out the fictitious Arizona St v. Cal game. OTOH, I will admit that had you put up Cal v. UCLA, I would have still picked Cal and missed the winner.
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EYG – I like your avatar – I almost decided to use a tree as I love trees – my husband has farming in his blood and farmers love to clear cut everything.
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I changed my avatar this morning to a letter “j”. I wanted to see how long it takes to show up. I’m assuming it will change on all my previous comments, too?
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Thank you Janie and VS. I love trees, too. But on one of these posts, my picture will pop up. If not, no problem. The tree was my first choice anyways.
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I am feeling more and more out of things. Could you explain a little more about the gravator thing and how you got it, EYG? Very slowly.
for those of us who are not there yet? I do like your trees. Trees do tend to fascinate me as I am amazed at the variety and beauty of them. Especially here where they are so different in all the different seasons. My crabapples go from the beauty of spring blossoms, to green leaves, to reddish leaves, to red apples left all winter for the birds to peck at all fall and in the winter when they thaw out, to bare branches and around again to blossoms. Right now I am enjoying watching the bluejays and grouse compete with each other and their fellow birds for the apples. I suppose the deer come out at night too. The snow is always trampled with hoof prints beneath them all winter long. No snow yet, thank you. We are grateful for all the rain we have gotten, but would love to send it to the Southeast where they need it so desparately, or to where the fires are.
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VS,
Does ‘clear cut’ mean chop them down for the sake of clearing a field?
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KI, what a lovely scene you described.
Also, how fun to share a love and fascination for trees with so many, here!
I clicked on my gravatar. Or, you can go to gravatar.com.
Then you create an account and then log in. The e-mail you use, should be the same one you used to register on WMB.
You can google a subject matter on Google images.
Pull up a picture.
Right click on it.
Hit the ‘properties’ option.
Find the image location and type it in carefully.
If gravatar freaks out. Don’t panic, just hit help. Wait a minute or two and it will probably resolve.
Once gravatar has the picture. It lets you crop it.
Once you hit the ‘crop’ button, you’ve input your gravatar.
It might ask you to hit a ‘confirm’ button.
I created a wardrobe of them by using the ‘add another gravatar’ option, after a while.
It seems to take a day to come up.
I hope that helps. I’ll say a prayer for you, as I did for myself.
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Here are the results of the first College Football Saturday Contest:
TJ Wins!
He got 4 of the 5 correctly.
He gets the first *Digital* S’more hot off the campfire!
TJ – you are correct, I screwed up the AZ St. vs Cal game. The newspaper I used had it listed for some crazy reason (I’m gonna use ESPN from now on). So I threw that game out when counting up the scores, so everyone stayed the same.
Sadly, the Tide did indeed “roll” over the Tennessee Volunteers Saturday
I think Phil Fulmer’s job is in real jeopardy. Losing to Bama is bad. The Vols still have to play S. Carolina and Kentucky. They’ll be lucky to make it to the Peach Bowl.
I came to work this morning and someone had changed both of my monitors to “Roll Tide” and pictures of the Alabama team. Grrr…
I will pick 5 games each Friday morning for the College Football Saturday Contest. Everyone is welcome to enter, even if you don’t know much about football. All you gotta do is pick the winners (not the score). Look for it on Friday’s “Whirled Views”, then get your picks in before 10 a.m. on Saturday. Winner will be announced the following Monday on “Whirled Views”.
Remember…the winner get a *digital* S’more hot off the campfire. That’s good stuff!
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If you choose an image on your computer it’s even easier, and does all the work for you, practically.
I’m jealous about the snow and cooler weather you get!
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I too love trees! For years I have gone to an Episcopal church near my house and gathered up leaves every fall from a huge old Oak tree. I press them in a leaf press, then I mount them and give them away as gifts. You’d be surprised how difficult it is to find the perfect leaves.
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I have one for all of you and would really appreciate any comments, thoughts, etc you may have.
Friday afternoon when I picked Chloe up from school she told me she got sent to the principals office. Well of course my ears pricked up and I asked her what she did to get sent to the principal. She tried to buy an extra bag of chips at snack. the snack lady wouldn’t sell them to her. This part is open for interpretation: Chloe then had a friend who had left her snack in the classroom so she gave the other child money and she went to get a bag of chips. Apparently the snack nazi was suspicious of this situation and later came to the classroom and had Chloe go to the office and talk to the principal who explained that it was a health issue.
I have spoken on this site before of my concerns about Chloe and her eating habits, but her pediatrician assures me she is healthy and normal to below normal on weight and size (which she has been since birth). He told me at this point a calorie is a calorie.
I went to the school this morning to speak with the principal but she was not in so I spoke with the Assistant Princiipal. She seemed to understand my concerns but says this comes down from the state board of education health guidelines. My feeling are this:
1. If they are concerned about health, serve better food in the cafeteria, not the slop they are serving.
2. If they are concerened about health, then give them more time on the playground to run and burn calories and be children.
I have already had to take the scales out of my house because she was looking at the fat grams in food and weighing herself before and after she ate. SHE IS 10!!!!! My friend Malia was telling me that her daughter Maggie who attends the same school came home the other day and asked to be served something besides iced tea with dinner. Seems the school councelor was talking to her class about drugs and caffeine is a drug and Maggie just didn’t want to have anything to do with drugs. They are bad you know. (oh and Maggie’s older sister is the child I have asked prayer requests for who has been battling anorexia for two years!!!!)
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EYG – Yes, that’s what I meant about cutting trees, brush etc in order to plant a field. When we bought and moved to the home we’re in now 21 years ago, I had my eye and mind set on having an apple orchard on one section of land. There were already several apple trees there and I have wonderful memories of my grandparent’s apple orchard – my husband had something completely different in mind for that field – pasture for animals.
I’m not looking forward to winter/snow! But I do love the change of seasons and we’ve had a beautiful fall so far. The leaves here are at their peak in color! Plus we’re still enjoying sunshine and temps in the 70’s!
KI – What part of the country do you live?
(My son did my avatar although now I’m kind of thinking I should have tried figuring it out on my own – knew it would cause me alot of frustration, however!)
Anlir mentioned Smores – has anyone tried the Smores Dessert Pie that you can buy at WalMart’s bakery/deli? They’re all made up – all you do is bake them. I did remove alot of the marshmallows as they were really too sweet with the amount of marshmallows on them.
Been thinking of you Adios and Lynn!
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Kim – I’ve heard similar stories recently from various people in various states.
My cousin goes in to eat lunch with her elementary child sometimes – used to be they could go in anytime and now it’s limited to once a month and the visitor isn’t allowed to take in any “fast food” to them – even Subway, which is relatively healthy, isn’t allowed. It has to be a homecooked meal or they have to have the school’s lunch. Last week I went in to have lunch with my grandson and they had sloppy joes on these white roll hamburger buns – those have no nutrition so what kind of nonsense are they trying to pull? They had carrots that looked as if they’d been cooked for 23 hours and canned peaches – why not fresh fruit and veggies?
I’m part of a “My Family” website and we get on there and vent to one another – much of our venting is to do with the STUPID public school system and how out of control this is all getting to be!
I think more parents need to start making a bigger deal/stink out of some of these intrustions and nonsense! And if they’re so concerned why are they selling the snacks in the first place?
The more I see/hear of public schools, the more I HATE them. And my dear little grandson is in one in KG. My beautiful 18 year old niece just graduated from one last June. She told me I didn’t even want to know some of the stuff she witnessed going on in the hallways and corners between hetero couples and lesbians. Pretty sad when your 18 yr old is trying to protect you from such things.
Ok, I’m done.
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Me too, I keep hoping we’ll hear more from our Californians. We are praying for you. It’s dreadful what’s happening there. Please check in, you all, if you can.
VS. My husband and I often have different/conflicting plans! So, what happened? The orchard or the animals.
We don’t get much color change in the trees in Florida. I would love to the foliage somewhere this year! I grew up around the most amazing foliage. It was the best I’ve ever seen, except, Gatlinburg, TN truly rivaled it. What can you do but praise god in the presence of so much natural beauty?!
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Kim,
I’m thinking about your post re:Chloe. is she allowed to bring food to school?
I’m sorry to hear that she’s weighing herself before and after a meal, at 10 years of age. That concerns me, too.
I am thinking and praying and will respond if I think I have any wisdom or experience to share.
Meanwhile, I’ll pray for her and for you.
About the school… Well, gov’t interference and regulations like the ones you described frustrate me terribly. I absolutely chafe under such control.
Yuck. I don’t blame you for not liking it. I hope that Chloe can take food with her in case she gets hungry. Would a doctor’s note help?
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Thanks VS,
It’s crazy here. The sky right above our house is still clear, but there is a bank of smoke moving up from the south. My brother, who is a cop, has been working all night. His wife left very early as she is the pricipal of a school that is an evacuation center that had to be evacuated. Shortly after she left their neighborhood got reverse 911 calls to evacuate. They have great neighbors who evacuated their dogs and will let their horses go if they can’t trailer them out. My nephew is on a fire line and his wife is brining their babies here since the smoke is horrendous at their place.
On the bright side, it’s a good day for the beach. The Santa Ana winds hold the face of the waves up nice and the wind blows a sweet mist off the lip. And we’re suppose to get overheads today. But I supppose surfing today would be like fiddling while Rome burns.
Off to make breakfast for the evacuees coming here.
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TJ Wins!
Thanks, Anlir. Care to “show” that digital s’more? Possible something like this:
=====
@@@
=====
OK, maybe that’s just a giant s’more.
I don’t think Fulmer’s job is in jeopardy if he manages to turn this around (he didn’t get fire a couple of years ago after that awful season, and I think he’s much beloved in Knoxville). He certainly managed to get his team up for the Georgia game (grrr…). Of course, the local press was probably to “blame” for much of that, poor-mouthing the team the week before the game (thanks). SC and UK are certainly “beatable” (although KY is very good on offense). On the other hand, Alabama was missing several players in that game, so there’s not much excuse. And if he loses to SC, UK, and Vandy…well, even Pete Carroll and Urban Meyer would lose their jobs over that.
I still have a few 3 day old donuts left, if anyone wants one.
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I posted the following on Saturday’s “World Views” this morning, but thought I would repost it for Mumsee:
“# 75: It seems I remember the name “idahomike”, but I can’t, for the life of me, remember what we discussed. Was it possibly sports-related?”
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EYG – The husband won – he always does.
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Congratulations to Anlir! Today’s quote was from “Taxi Driver.” You win the virtual cash today!
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Let’s see. Nazi’s are harassing kids and parents over an extra bag of chips. Schools won’t let kids bring their lunch from home. No outside food allowed except from Subway. The school food is the same horrible crud they served us (only still on the burner since we were in school.) School officials are blaming the district guidelines for their own insanity.
Where is the ACLU when you need them? I guess the kids should refuse to eat school supplied food and picket the cafeteria during lunch every day with the TV stations there to film the kids being arrested, handcuffed and lead off to the gas chamber.
It’s much cheaper to feed dead kids
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Ok, I’m back with my Movie Reviews. This past weekend I went and saw “We Own The Night”.
The movie stars Robert Duvall, Mark Wahlberg, Joaquin Phoenix, and Eva Mendez. Here’s a quick rundown of the plot: It’s set in the late 1980’s around a family where the father (Duvall) and one of the son’s (Mark), are cops in New York City. The other son (Joaquin) is the manager of a nightclub, which is very reminiscent of the legendary Studio 54. The Russian mob owns the club and is in the drug trade. Eva is Juaqin’s girlfriend and works in the club. Without giving the story away, it’s about the complicated relationship between the dad and his sons, and the two brothers.
The best performance by far is by Joaquin. He does an excellent job of playing a person caught between two worlds. Eva does a really good job also. Robert Duvall is his usual character and plays it well. Mark Wahlberg kind of phoned his role in, playing pretty much the same character that he played in “The Departed”.
Ok, here’s the nitty-gritty stuff:
Sex – one make-out scene at the beginning that’s a little explicit, but no nudity. Oh, there is one brief flash of nudity in the club.
Violence – there is some violence, and a couple of bad scenes, but nothing over the top. This is the Russian mob afterall, so you know there’s gonna be violence
Language – while I’m sure there was some swearing, I honestly can’t recall any. So it’s certainly not gratuitous.
Intensity – there are some great chase scenes and some gut wrenching stuff.
Note: There are also numerous incidents of drug use (cocaine), as this is a movie about the drug business.
As always, my recommendation is based on two things:
1. Would I pay full price to see this movie? Yes.
2. Would I see it again? Yes.
All in all, I am glad I saw this movie. It hasn’t gotten rave reviews and has kind of flown under the radar. It’s actually got more heart than I expected. It’s not as good as “The Departed” or “Taxi Driver”, but it’s still good. It has some great 80’s new wave music, which is a plus in my book. This is definitely a movie for older teens and adults (17 and up).
All in all, I’d give this movie a “7” on a scale of 1-10 (10 been excellent).
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TJ & Anlir. South Carolina is indeed beatable. They are back to 15 in the ratings, which is about where they belong. The offinse is atrocious, but they have a great defense. The offense gave Vandy two touchdowns. (Interception & fumble inside the 30). The defense won the Kentucky game. If Spurrier can find some offensive tackles & guards, the Gamecocks will make lots of trouble for Tenn, Ark, and Fl. They should also be able to handle Clemson. But they haven’t scored a TD in 6 quarters.
Do I have to get one of them there avitars? Maybe I could let that little lamp, or guy skipping rope be mine.
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I just read that Kid Rock was arrested in Atlanta for fighting at a Waffle House. Talk about living up to stereotypes.
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The farmers who used our land previously are probably rolling in their graves. When we bought our land, it was a field for cows. My husband planted hundreds of trees. We would be glad to sell the carbon credits. At the very least, we are covered for life. We live in northern Minnesota. We could have snow, but fortunately, we do not yet. It lasts a long time when it comes, so we can wait IMO.
Thanks for the help on the gravator. I did try half-way once and then panicked. I’m always afraid I will totally mess up my computer!
I also prayed for those of you in fire country. We had that situation just briefly last spring. I can’t imagine living with it year after year.
That teaching coming out of public school is not new. Of course, in my day, the only junk food on campus was ice cream bars. My daughter has complained because her son has a choice between chips or veggies at his school. She wondered why anyone would give children this choice? Her son informed me one day, when we were there and offered to take him and his brother to McDonalds to eat and play, that it was junk food. I told him he was right and maybe we shouldn’t go. He backtracked. We did have a good discussion about all things in moderation. Perhaps that is a good way to approach your children with the caffeine and junk food idea. The next time they want chocolate or pop w/caffeine, raise a fuzz about it. I bet they won’t be so adament. Parents need to keep an eye on these teachings and let the teachers know that you are. Be there to support them when they do well too.
I would like to ask for prayers for another daughter and her husband who are praying for wisdom on where to send their son to school next year. Homeschooling is not a choice at this point. Private or public is. My daughter has done all three and her husband is a public school teacher.
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Just a quick hi before I go back down for a nap.
The kids and I all have a bit of a cold. (I got Theraflu thanks to someone’s recommendation–Mumsee or Lynn?–and I’m sipping it.) My sleep has been short anyway with the kids, and it’s a gloomy, rainy day. As much as we need rain, rainy days are still gloomy. And we’re not getting much rain yet anyway.
As to my gravatar, I’m glad it popped up. It’s my collie, Miss Tennessee, and I don’t know why the small image shows black lines across her nose. But y’all are missing the best part, since it got shrunk so small: She’s wearing pink bows thanks to a five-year-old hair dresser.
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No, Llama, not even Subway is allowed. No fast food.
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TJ,
Losing to Bama is considered a cardinal sin in Tennessee. While it’s not the same as 10 years ago, it’s still considered a “touchstone” game.
If they lose another game, that will be 4 losses, which is barely passing. If they lose 2 more games, giving them 5 losses, I think Fulmer will be on the hot seat. If they lose 3 more games (for a total of 6 losses), he’s probably gone. He may well survive this year, but next year he will be expected to have a huge improvement and take them to a BCS bowl game. If not, he’ll be gone. The Georgia game may turn out to be a “fluke” in the end.
As hard as it is to admit, Tennessee has fallen into the second tier in the SEC. People used to fear playing the Vols. Not so much anymore.
More and more, parity is coming to the SEC. Of course, that makes it very difficult in the national polls, when the SEC is beating each other up every week. When you have ranked teams playing each other, it makes it more difficult to stay in the polls with a loss. The only other school that faces this difficulty is Notre Dame when they’re having a good year. They always play a fair number of ranked schools. This year it’s not a factor.
****
Thanks for the idea on the digital S’more!
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#19 TJ
Do you remember how the US felt about it’s self after the Viet Nam War? I have always thought we were depressed for “losing” a war. We started to feel good about ourselves as a nation starting with “Rocky” and came all the way back when our college boys beat the big, bad Russian ice hockey team in the Olympics.
I think “Rocky” was important to America for the feelings it gave us.
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Cheryl D.
I’m just getting over that bug, today. You have my sympathy and my prayers for recovery.
I like EmergenC powder. You can drink it hot or cold. Does Theraflu make you drowsy? I probably needed it. Still do, a little.
So nice to hear from you. Glad you check in when time allows…so grateful for the moments of enjoyment and wonder you get to experience in this great endeavor.
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VS
My hubby always wins, too. Except, when he doesn’t, but that’s his choice. (Most of the time…)
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My family members–who live in Santa Monica, south of Malibu; and in Westlake Village over the hills from Malibu–report the winds are behaving in a very unusual pattern. My son is not worrying about evacuating because the winds are coming from the northeast thus pushing the fires toward the coast. But it is very disturbing to see photos of places I know very well being burned to the ground.
My brother said driving into Westlake Village yesterday (going to visit my new grandson) was very eerie with fires in the hills to the west and thick smoke swirling through the air. But the baby was cute.
In football news, please note, UCLA did beat Cal. Isn’t that what I predicted?
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Kim,
I guess it depends on the school district. Here in our district (in eastern Iowa) there are no restrictions that I know of on what our kids pack for their own lunches. When parents send in snacks for the class (even second graders have trouble making it through to lunchtime without a little snack), the only requirements are that it be reasonably healthy (I generally send animal crackers or cheese/cracker sandwiches), able to be stored at room temperature (possibly for days at a time if they have more than they need), and that there be no peanut products (because some children in the school are known to have allergies to peanuts).
I think the school lunches are reasonably healthy but also good-tasting. My younger son prefers to take lunch because he’s picky and likes to know he’ll have something he likes. My older son buys school lunch every day and enjoys it (well, I’m not sure he enjoys the salad but he eats one every day and no one is forcing him to).
I think it’s good for the school to promote healthy eating, but not a good idea for them to try to enforce it.
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Bob, a VERY interesting point about “Rocky.” I don’t think there’s any question that “Taxi Driver” is a better movie (especially when one considers the historical implications with regard to the movie’s influence of John Hinkley — not that I’m saying an assassination attempt is good, just a factor that Academy voters could not have known in 1976/77; sort of like something I read yesterday, concerning one influence on Ted Kazinsky’s life being from his days at Harvard, when he was assigned a novel by Joseph Conrad about a man going to live in the woods, and he read that novel over and over…).
Chas, why not try to find a Gamecock avatar? It should be pretty easy to do that on the web, then load it on the gravitar site.
Anlir, didn’t Fulmer have a losing record a couple of years ago (including, if I remember, a loss to Vandy?). The funny thing is that Georgia used to give the Vols fits back when the Vols were much better than they. Now that the Vols are “down” a bit, they have destroyed UGA the last two years.
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BTW, Chas, I’m still sore over Georgia losing to USC. Of course, UGA’s Achilles heel is dropped passes, and there was one on the goal line late in the game that would’ve made the difference. There were also a couple of long runs that Georgia made earlier in the game that might have been possible touchdowns, but USC’s secondary pursued well and made touchdown saving tackles (literally, for both of those runs resulted only in FGs). SC deserved the win, though, because Georgia played like junk.
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Chloe does take her lunch every day. She just enjoyed being a big girl and buying her snack. I usually send ham, cheese, juice, a bag of chip or something like it. A brownie or cookies for dessert. Today I sent gold fish soup because it is rainy and I thought a hot lunch would be good. Last week I went and had lunch with her. The cafeteria food that day was “chicken terriaki” no one could readily identify it. All the children who had a tray and were at our table did not eat it. They all ate their roll and their jello. Now there is a healthy nutricious meal if I ever heard of one.
I sent extra food today as she did not want to buy anything from the snack lady. Chloe is a very sensitive child and if you hurt her feelings it takes a while to get over it.
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Good idea TJ, about the Gamecock avitar. I’m not that rabid a fan, but I like to see them win. The only time I was really serious was in the early ’70s when Frank McGuire took the basketball team to #2 ranking, (Even #1 for a week).
Gamecock fans can’t afford to take it too seriously. But the fans are loyal. The first year Lou Holtz was there they went 1-9 (I thank), but they still averaged over 75k per game.
But I still haven’t tackled the avitar problem.
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Chas,
Now don’t you be stealing my jumprope guy. I am planning on keeping him when all you people express your individuality.
Public school: along the lines of Chloe and the food but not Chloe or the food related. We have taken the liberty of changing the passwords for oldest II on his myspace and email and are waiting until he begins to do his schoolwork before restoring them. Meantime, there was the incident at school where the filter was down and they have an open campus so can go to the public library (it is open three times each week and the school kids go there to check what they are not allowed to check at home) as well as each other’s homes. He has asked that we give him his passwords as “he has no access but here at home when we allow it” (Ha hahahahahahha). Anyway, a person in authority at school let us know that son is accessing illegal sites at school or so they think because the computer was so used when he and his buddy were in the room and nobody else was, but they have no proof so can’t tell him their concerns or, officially, us. We cannot know what our seriously broken young man is doing or might be doing, in the interest of his personal space. And yet we are to fix him.
Reminds me of the time in NY when the school superintendent asked me to homeschool my neighbor child when she got herself kicked out of the last alternative school available. Oh, well. The kids were all asking about homeschool yesterday, we tried to get across the idea that we could not consider it unless we were confident they would give it their best shot and be cooperative. We let them know that the work must be done. Littlest suggested it could be done a lot quicker if they could be given the work and allowed to do it rather than all that time spent waiting. Out of the mouths of babes..
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Chas #32 “Do I have to get one of them there avitars? Maybe I could let that little lamp, or guy skipping rope be mine.”
That was the funniest thing I’ve read all day. Now even if you get an avatar I’ll remember you as the “guy skipping rope.”
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Chas, I thought USC went something like 1-21 for two straight years (one year 0-11) when HOltz got there (though one of those years might have been the year prior to his tenure). He certainly turned them around for a while after that. It does speak well of the fans (unlike another school in the Upstate, which we will not name, that expects to win the national title ever year, and will turn on the team in a heartbeat if things don’t go their way).
Random, I have a proposition for you. I have an idea (actually two) about a book I would like you to read/review. Actually, I can do this on the cheap, and it might (or might not be) convenient for you. Go to my blog and read the latest post (book reviews) and download the book Faith with Reason at the bottom (it’s a PDF file). If that’s not convenient, let me know. It’s only 110 pages or so, so it shouldn’t overwhelm you. However, it does raise some of those philosophical issues I’ve mentioned to you before, rather than simply rely on “evidence.”
In the course of thinking of a book, however, you have led me to an “epiphany” of sorts (don’t anyone read too much into the use of that term!). I do not have, on my shelf, an example of a good book to hand to an unbeliever (forgive me for using such a term, but I do so for expediency’s sake) that actually addresses the questions I’ve mentioned. So, I was thinking about actually writing such a book myself and sending you a copy when I finish. I would desire to keep it very short (because no one’s going to want to read anything too long), it would capture some of the issues I would desire (apologetically speaking), and it would be written in a tone and manner that is not condescending nor over-the-top. What do you think?
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Cheryl D,
Not me, I rarely, if ever, recommend store therapies. Tobasco sauce, while purchased in a store is not generally considered a therapy. I, too am taking my regular doses of Tobasco in an attempt to stave off the cold that several of the children have attempted to pass on. We are discussing the value of handwashing, not spitting on your food or utensils to keep others from taking them, covering your nose and mouth when sneezing and coughing, not licking your sibling when mad at him or her, handwashing again, adequate sleep, fresh air, eating right, and handwashing.
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Anlir, how would you compare the language and violence of “We Own the Night” to “The Departed”? I enjoyed the latter movie, but I thought it went too far with some of the violence (head shots, for instance) and the language (particular Wahlberg’s character) was way too much.
***
VERY MINOR SPOILER ALERT:
Interesting note that I read after I saw the movie (but went back and checked later): in a tribute to the 1930’s (I think) “Scarface” movie, every time in “The Departed” you see an “X” on the screen, someone’s about to be killed (e.g., w/o giving too much away, look for a duct tape X in a certain elevator, and look for a large red X on a floor in a hallway). I thought it was pretty cool.
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Cheryl – Have to tell you that Miss Tennessee is beautiful!
And I got a good chuckle out of Chas being the little guy jumping rope!
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TJ,
Yes, Fulmer did have a losing record two years ago, when they lost to Vandy. Losing to Vandy was the ultimate humiliation. It was a horrible year. Then last year they bounced back some. This year has been a yo-yo so far, and doesn’t look good.
I’m sorry, but anywhere that Steve Spurrier coaches is on my “bad” list. I don’t know that he can deliver S. Carolina to the upper reaches of the SEC.
Poor Georgia – they’re kind of mired like Tennessee. Mark Ritch’s halo has definitely slipped. He’s safe for this year, but I’d say one more mediocre year and he’s gonna be on the hot seat. The Atlanta paper is all gloom and doom these days. Georgia, Georgia Tech and the Falcons have all been a big disappointment so far.
*****
As for the language in “We Own The Night” compared to “The Departed” – there is no comparison. I can’t even recall any swearing in “We Own The Night”, though I’m sure there was some. I try to pay attention to that for my movie review. “The Departed” is way worse. Also, the level of violence was much worse in “The Departed”.
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Lynn, I read where some 250,000 people have been evacuated from San Diego. Are you and your family ok?
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Anlir, re: Richt.
Yes, last year was a disappointment, but I think Richt will have a longer leash than you imagine. Two of last year’s losses can be directly attributed to the injury of Brandon Catu (sp?), the placekicker. It also didn’t hurt they finished the year with 3 straight victories over ranked opponents. And Richt has won two SEC championships (which is exactly two more than anyone post-Dooley), won another SEC East title (remarkable since no one else not named Tennessee or Florida has even won one), had two teams finish top-five in the nation, and has a something like a 5-2 record in bowl games. That’s pretty impressive. OTOH, consistently losing to Tennessee and especially Florida is what did Jim Donnan in.
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I, too, love trees. I am so grateful to live in New England & be blessed with the beauty of the changing seasons. (Though it would be nice if the snow only fell on the grass, & not on pavement or sidewalks or such, like in Camelot.)
It is a gorgeous day today in Connecticut. The sunshine is accentuating the various colors of the leaves, which look lovely against the blue sky.
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Not a real Indian summer here since no frost yet, but sort of one, as we had rain and 40-50 last week and today is sunny and expected 70 degrees. A beautiful fall day.
EYG, like the tree. Like trees in general, even though they make a mess sometimes. My neighbor has a big Japanese maple and in the next several weeks when it gets windy and rains, my house, driveway, lawn and car will get covered with myriad little red leaves.
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Well I wish I could send Georgia and California some of our rain. but I am glad to have it.
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Okay. Now I’m jealous of you both!!!
Japanese Maples are among my top favorite trees. They are glorious and change color several times. I miss my Japanese Maple that I left behind in Nashville, along with my seven Yoshino Cherries and one Kwanzaan Cherry.
I miss them so much!!! (pouting!) My husband had planted them just for me!!
Don’t know how to make a smiley cry, or I would have posted a crying smiley.
;-(
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TJ,
I Richt doesn’t get them in the top echelon of the SEC East and start beating TN and FL regularly, he’s not gonna be around very long. The expectations are much higher than an 8-4 (or even 9-3) season. A 10-2 season and a BCS bowl game are the minimum. That’s the expectation for Florida, Georgia, and Tennessee each year.
*****
By the way, I want to thank everyone who participated in last Friday’s “Rants and Raves” weblog. As far as I know, it will be a regular Friday feature around here. So save up your “Rants and Raves” for this Friday.
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Kim,
I’m giving away Florida heat and humidity if there are any takers!
(Okay, maybe not. It’s not in my dominion, and I’m sure God’s ways are high above mine.)
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#49 TJ
I just glanced at your message very quickly. I will look at it in more detail later as I get a little more time. My off the top of my head answer would be “yes,” but i will wait a little to see if my head comes down to earth and answer more thoughtully later.
I might also have a proposition for you, or for you and Cameron, perhaps.
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Chuck Norris has put his support behind (drum roll please) Mike Huckabee for the Republican nomination for POTUS
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/
So you better think twice before voting for anyone else, or he’ll come over to your house and kick your butt.
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Anlir, it might be the “expectation”, but that’s not very realistic (for any of the schools). At the very least, of course, none of them will have fewer than 2 losses this season (and UT already has 3; either UGA or UF will have 3 next week). The SEC East has obvious gotten tougher with the rise of UK and USC, so judge accordingly. I do hope you’re wrong, though; that kind of “expectation” is the sort of thing that I detested when I lived in Greenville, SC for 3 years: the Clemson folks thought they were going to contend for a national title every year. I’d say be happy with a conference title first. At least Georgia has a couple of those under Richt.
Isn’t it interesting how “competitive” the SEC East (and half the West) has become? If just about any of those teams in the East were in just about any other conference, I wonder what the results would be?
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Speaking of trees, Kyle A did a post on this topic at his blog last week.
I personally love the white birch, the pin oak and evergreens and more! Apple trees – to me there is just something so beautiful about an apple tree!
We planted a Red Flaming Maple in honor of our grandson’s birth 5 1/2 years ago and planted a Bradford Pear (white flowers) for our granddaughter.
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I plant trees so the voles will have something to eat. They have done a thorough job of eating all the root systems. Now my dogs are feeding the fattened voles so I do not need to feed the dogs. Kind of like baiting in hunting.
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Checking in – Daughter, SIL, Granddaughter & I have been evacuated from our north SD county homes, but are ok in a condo in Pacific Beach [Mission Bay]. We’re soon to be joined by 2 families of friends who’s homes are in more danger than ours. A friend of my Granddaughter’s has lost her home to the fire, but the family is safe.
When I went to bed last night there were 2 fires, both in more rural areas. When I was awakened with an irritated throat at 4am there was a fire less than 5 miles from my house. They say the winds did not die down during the night as they normally do,
so the existing fires spread & new ones started.
These fires remind me more of what happened in 1996 than the Cedar fire of 4 years ago, because they’re spreading through canyons towards the sea.
Please keep all of SoCal in your prayers, this will last for days.
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Speaking of trees again, I remember in grade school that we planted a tree every year in the school yard on Arbor Day. Does anyone still do that?
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KAYVEE post 67,
our thoughts and prayers are with you.
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KAYVEE – 67
I’m praying for you. God bless you all, and your families. I’m glad you have a good place to stay.
Another fire has broken out on the Pass about an hour ago.
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TJ post 49:
I have downloaded the book and am reviewing it.
There is an obvious question that I have about page 18, but I will finish the book and then ask some questions of you, hopefully by tomorrow.
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TJ post 49:
I will ask for your thoughts on what is meant by a Bible-believing Christian.
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TJ post 49:
and for fun, do two negatives make a positive?
For example: It is not non-existant.
If it does, does it do this for all languages?
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Musing, you’ve decided to join in the fun! But you weren’t invited!
Your question in post 73 is an interesting one. In mathematics, two negatives make a negative if you are adding, but a positive if you are multiplying. Obviously, “not” is not (ha!) non-existant. And as far as languages go, I do know that the double negative in Greek (specfically the “ou me” double negative) is actually used for negative emphasis (as in “absolutely not”), so certainly two negatives do not make a positive in that case.
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TJ post 74,
actually my question was driven by chapters 4 and 5.
So there are a variety of Bible-believing Christians:
1) strict literal interpretationalists
- Chicago statement model: this is what is implied on page 38
2) a strict authorial intent model
- Mr Meaner expresses much of what I mean here
For the moment I will stop here.
These two approaches frequently results in very different interpretations of the Bible and very different outcomes.
My sense is the author is expressing a strong Chicago statement model. Does this match your understanding?
And you are very correct that the double negative can mean either a positive or an emphasized negative. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_negative
which would seem to bear on comments on page 26.
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I am watching two bucks dueling it out on the hillside above the house.
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Adios #1: Some of y’all out there is blogland get snow days. Here in So Cal we get fire days, or smoke days.
I’ll take our snow days over a fire day anytime.
Musing #73: and for fun, do two negatives make a positive?
For example: It is not non-existant.
If it does, does it do this for all languages?
Spanish and French use double negatives (French requires it).
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Thanks, Musing. The Chicago Statement would be my guess to (and fairly represents my position as well). I’m not sure exactly what you mean by MM’s view, though. I’m not sure the two are mutually exclusive, but then again, I’m not sure I understand you.
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#68 Anlir,
We plant trees. It’s one of our greatest joys.
Currently, we’re trying to sprout 2 avocado pits in hopes of growing two trees. Avocado trees are beautiful.
VS, I hope you get an apple tree. You sound like you’d truly enjoy having one.
Mumsee,
How awesome to look out your window and see deer.
Also, from another post, I think it’s so sweet that you were the family baby.
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EYG,
It is fun to see them, except when they are eating my garden or new trees. Along with the bucks is the harem of about twenty five does and fawns.
It is not easy being the baby. All the responsibility, you know.
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TJ
I downloaded the book. As several volumes of the Roger Williams is ready for me to pick up and my time with it is limited, it may be a bit before I look at the book you recommended, but if I remain healthy and semi-coherent, I will get to it.
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TJ post 78,
so Mr Meaner, savedbygrace, and I have looked closely at Genesis 1:1 – 2:3 and Genesis 2:4-25 and concluded that the texts as written do not seem to provide any information on the duration of time between these two occurrances. Further an analysis of the Hebrew words suggests that Genesis 2:4-25 can not be about the original creation: the word till with respect to the plants is key here.
The conclusion is that a reading of Genesis 1 – 2 does not allow one to conclude that the authors considered the earth to be a Young Earth.
Yet most who espouse the Chiocago statement typically insist that Genesis 1 – 2 requires a Young Earth.
This would appear to be a significant difference in interpretation even from groups who insist that the Bible be considered as true.
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Musing, there is the possibility, of course, that the three of you could be wrong.
Actually, I have no problem with embracing someone as “Bible-believing” if they believe in an Old Earth model of creation as long as they affirm the historicity of the opening chapters of Genesis (i.e., it is not reduced to some kind of “mythology”) and the special creation of mankind (which would tend to rule out “theistic evolution”). Personally, I think it actually generates more problems than it solves (for instance — and the book you downloaded pointed many of these out — it would contradict several other places in Scripture, including the NT and even the words of Jesus; if the whole of Scripture is then doubted, it would be difficult to see how someone could be called Bible-believing). But, there are lots of folks with questionable exegesis of certain passages of Scripture that still think are attempting be faithful “Bible-believing” Christians. I meet them every day!
Seriously, though, I don’t think anyone is perfect in his/he interpretation of the Scripture. Perhaps the difference might lie in whether a person studies the Scripture with an intention to be submissive to what God has revealed, or whether he/she comes to the text seeking to impose his/her own will onto the text (thereby making it “submit” to him/her), because there is a dislike/distrust/whatever of the Scripture. Of course, there may be other possibilities, but motivation is key, I think.
Also, I reject the view that would claim that Genesis 2 is somehow a different account (other than in emphasis/focus) than Genesis 1. I do not understand what you mean by the word “till”, since that does not appear in Genesis 1 (there is the command to “subdue the earth” in 1:28, but that is explained in the latter half of the verse; there is the comment about there being no man to “cultivate the ground” in Genesis 2:5, but that is explained in the surrounding verses, and it obvious that the two expressions are not meant to be parallel, since different words for earth/ground are also used). Perhaps I do not understand what you mean.
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It is not easy being the baby. All the responsibility, you know.
Mumsee, that’s great.
Actually it sounds fun! I don’t think I ever met a family baby who didn’t love it. Have you?
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*I’ve
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School lunch: There seems to be a Puritanical moral streak in America no matter what side of the political fence. From the conversation, it seems parents are told what type of snacks are appropriate and when and what to eat with their child if they are at school. And this is the land of the free? At times, I would like to tell parents what to feed their kids so they don’t reappear in the afternoon all jacked up on sugar but …. we don’t do that in this lovely country of live and let live.
Ontario schools don’t have a school lunch programme although several of the poorer neighbourhoods have a school breakfest programme, using food donated by the local grocery chains — mostly healthy cereals and fruit with oj.
From what I understand the American programme is designed by the Dept. of Agriculture which uses the programme to subsidies farmers; giving them an outlet for substandard food. Schools should be ashamed of themselves for allowing them to be used in such a manner. Far be it for me to suggest corporatization of the school system, but a franchise deal with a responsible company like Subway might be a better idea.
Our middle school students can go out for lunch with parents permission and several use this opportunity to visit the only fast food place close enough to walk; Tim Horton’s which specializes in soup and sandwiches. Of course, like most Canadians they take coffee to go and arrive in class with more caffiene then me.
Deer; mating season is ready to begin and as the sun is late in arriving and early to disappear, I have to be careful on the way to work since the bucks have only one thing on their mind and isn’t the traffic.
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“Bible Believing Christian”
Maybe some of you don’t know this, however, many cults consider themselves “Christian” they also consider themselves to be “Bible Believing”…..
When you look at the Jehovah’s Witnesses you might not understand, but they believe the ‘Bible’ that is ‘their Bible’ (The New World Translation) the one where many verses, and some chapters are no longer there. They believe that Michael the Archangel was none other than Jesus Christ. They can’t substantiate that claim, nor can they prove it, but THEY BELIEVE IT, and according to them they are Christians who believe the Bible. The Jehovah’s Witnesses do not believe that everyone who is a Christian is “Born Again” …… only those who are chosen, and they will be part of the 144,000 mentioned in Revelation, the rest are just Christians, they don’t need to be Born Again. They believe that the “Born Again Christians” will go to heaven, and all the other so called “Christians” will be here on earth, to live forever.
Then you have the Mormons. They will tell you they are Christian, and they believe the Bible, well sort of, except they have to have their “Book of Mormon” to over-ride what the Bible says. Then there is their belief that Jesus was the brother of Satan.
It is very important when telling people what one believes to be SPECIFIC, when I say I am a Bible Believing Christian, ……. I should say, I am Born Again Bible Believing Christian.
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Yes, Victoria, I would agree with most of what you say. I’m not positive (it is late, and the old brain doesn’t work that well at this hour), but I don’t think JW’s actually want to be called “Christian.” Certainly they don’t treat historic Christians as “brothers and sisters”, and you are correct about their rewriting of the Bible to suit their own erroneous (Arian) theology. Mormons, on the other hand, wanted to be called “Christian”, and missionaries will even present themselves at your door as “just another denomination” (my wife and I had this happen to us, and when I spent a couple of minutes explaining exactly what Mormons believe how that was different from what Christians believe, one responded, “Well, I guess that would be different…”). Of course, they have the Bible (KJV only), but also the Book of Mormon, Pearl of Great Price, and Doctrines and Covenants.
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So I completed reading “Faith with Resaon” last night. This quote from page 25 seems to summarize the central thesis:
“They do not understand that faith actually precedes reason. Reason is not opposed to faith in itself”
where reason appears to be defined as (from page 26):
“Reasoning necessarily presupposes certain laws of logic that govern right from wrong thinking.”
so that, in the context of this book, reason and logic appear to be intrinsicly bound together.
This is a nicely written book which appears to collect in one spot a large number of the discussions which occur in this blog. As such this would appear to provide a good reference work as a starting point for thinking about these issues. It also clearly shows the inter-relationship of the various issues. Topics covered include:
- a discussion of what is truth
- a discussion of presuppositions
- a conversation regarding the relationship of faith and reason
- Christian presuppositions
- a discussion of liberal vs. “Bible-believing” Christianity
- the claim of circularity of Christian reasoning
- the problem of good and evil
- a discussion of Creationism vs. Evolution
- some thoughts on other religious and philosophical models
In short a relatively complete collection on these types of subjects.
I have two semantic issues with the book as written:
1) the author starts using “Bible-believing Christianity” which appears to mean Christianity using the Chicago statement assumption of Biblical truth. As the discussion progresses, however, the language appears to become “lazy” and he reverts to “Christianity” or “Orhtodox Christiantiy”. This verbal bobble muddies the disucssuion a bit and a good editing on this point might be in order
2) the author appears to misunderstand evolution (page 77):
“When Charles Darwin published the Origin of the
Species in 1859 he offered an explanation for life’s origins completely opposite to that of the Bible’s creation story.”
and
“The Bible roots the beginning of the cosmos in the supernatural, but Darwinism is rooted in naturalism.”
As has been discussed many times, evolution does not dicuss what are typically thought of as origin questons: origin of the earth/universe or origin of life. So it would appear that there is a misunderstanding of the author on evolution as a whole.
As is usual with a book discussing complex philosophical issues, I suggest that a deep look at the fundamental assumptions, what the author calls presuppositions or worldviews, is in order first.
Because this book is long and complex, and this post is already quite long, I suggest that the discussion continue as separate individual posts on specific topics with the hope that the combination of the posts will make a coherent whole.
TJ, thanks for bringing this book to my attention.
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TJ post 74,
Now the key underlying assumption of this book appears to be (page 61):
“Christianity’s truth-claims ultimately rest upon the authority of the scripture itself. The Bible must stand on its own testimony.”
And further:
“Only by taking the whole Bible (including its integrated history-theology) and demonstrating it to be the absolute standard necessary for interpreting all of reality (as it claims) can it be proven true.”
As TJ and I have discussed, this appears to be a Chicago Statement type assessment of biblical truth, where the Chicago statement is:
http://www.reformed.org/documents/index.html?mainframe=http://www.reformed.org/documents/icbi.html
“The following Statement affirms this inerrancy of Scripture afresh, making clear our understanding of it and warning against its denial. We are persuaded that to deny it is to set aside the witness of Jesus Christ and of the Holy Spirit and to refuse that submission to the claims of God’s own Word which marks true Christian faith. We see it as our timely duty to make this affirmation in the face of current lapses from the truth of inerrancy among our fellow Christians and misunderstanding of this doctrine in the world at large.”
And the author or “Faith with Reason” starts out by carefully noting that this is what he terms “Bible-believing Christianity”.
Now his qualification here is important. The demographic denominational majority of Christians do not believe in a Chicago statement form of biblical inerrancy.
I have posted the following link before to demonstrate this point:
http://www.usccb.org/seia/southernbaptist.shtml
where the key phrase form the roman Catholics participating is:
“For Roman Catholics, inerrancy is understood as a consequence of biblical inspiration; it has to do more with the truth of the Bible as a whole than with any theory of verbal inerrancy. Vatican II says that “the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching firmly, faithfully, and without error that truth which God wanted put into the sacred writings for the sake of our salvation” (Dei Verbum 11). What is important is the qualification of “that truth” with “for the sake of our salvation.”
If I add Episcopal and a variety of other churches to the milieu, it becomes clear that this strict inerrancy assumption is in fact held by a minority of Christians.
And so that author is arguably correct when he makes assertions about what he calls “Bible-believing Christians”, although I should note that Roman Catholics and the other denominations with a different interpretation here also consider themselves “Bible-believing”, they just interpret the bible differently.
What is key here is that the bulk of the argument appears to rest on this assumption. If one drops this assumption, then a good portion of the remaining arguments appear to be unfounded.
Now the only true way to establish difficulties with assumptions is to show that they are self-contradictory.
Now the author notes (page 89):
“A true defense of any claim must also deal with the evidences that challenge or contradict it. In other words, truth is not only a matter of offense, in that it makes certain assertions. It is also a matter of defense, in that it must be able to make a cogent and sensible response to the counterpoints that are raised.”
Given the insistence on reason/logic, it would appear to follow that this statement is justified not only with respect to those disagreeing with this interpretation of Christianity and truth, but it should also be valid for the arguments presented in “Faith with Reason” We will call on this shortly.
Further, the author notes (page 53):
“In the course of religious discussion between Christians and non-Christians both sides should be put into the position of justifying their beliefs. To reason against Christianity one must do more than simply deny it.”
and again, it would appear as the analysis continues the author should be held to this same standard.
So this would appear to outline what appears to be the foundational assumptions of this book. We should also probably consider the presuppositions which this book appears to be arguing against.
That, however, will, have to be another post.
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TJ post 74,
now I believe TJ you can begin to see where this discussion is going.
So I will pause here:
1) do you really want to discuss this topic?
2) do you want to discuss is in an objective fact based maner?
3) do we have the patience to work through all the issues?
And your thoughts?
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So lets add some codecils here.
Everyone starts with assumptions. The chapter on presuppositions discusses this in depth.
Further, the author explicitly notes that these presuppositions must be challenged.
What is important to note is that:
1) the more complex one’s assumptions, the more liklihood for a self-contradicton
2) if one is making hard assumptions which must always be true, then a failure in a single point of the assumption set unravels the entire argument as noted by the author (page 39):
“The Bible appeals to no authority other than itself and claims to be the very Word of God. Either it is or it is not. If it is then it must be taken on its own authority and accepted as God’s revelation to man. The Apostles claimed that all scripture is completely inspired of God, (2 Tim 3:16) authoritative, (Matt 5:17-19) and true in what it records. 1Thess 2:13) This includes its entire picture of reality, including propositions about God, man and the cosmos.”
3) individuals make assumptions, and individuals need to be responsible for the consequences of their assumptions. If one’s assumption set results in inconsistencies, then it is the responsibility of the one holding the assumption to resolve it without necessitating that anyone else make accomodations for their assumptions.
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Well, if you want me to be honest with you, your discussion sometimes take too many rabbit trails to be completely addressed on this blog. Outside of Mondays (my day off) and sometimes Saturdays, I don’t really have time for long, drawn out discussions. In addition, it a bit inconsiderate of others who might not like seeing series of posts from the same blogger talking about issues of which they have no interest. If the questions were a bit “tighter”, then maybe. But I don’t see that happening.
I will address, briefly, what you have raised above. I think, if you will go back and read the author, that he would classify some of those “denominations” you have mentioned above as not being “Bible-believing.” Now, this is not to say that there are not Bible-believing Christians in those particular groups (no sweeping generalization here), but to say that someone who denies the authority of the Bible, or accepts another authority as equal to or above the Bible as being the word of God, is still “Bible-believing” is absurd. As Victoria has wisely noted above, not everyone who claims to be “Bible-believing” is, in fact, Bible-believing.
Let’s take an example from one of the groups you’ve mentioned: Episcopals. I’ve met many Episcopals (and Anglicans) who are very theologically conservative (an Australian Anglican, Graeme Goldsworthy, is one of my favorite Christian authors) and would gladly (and accurately, imo) wear the label “Bible-believing.” On the other hand, I’ve met (well, seen in person) one particular Episcopal gentleman, John Shelby Spong, who could in no way be classified as “Bible-believing” (nor do I think he would even like the label). This man has been ordained by his denomination, was “promoted” to a high-ranking office, and yet he denies one of the central tenants (historically speaking) of his denomination (i.e., the 39 Articles — if denominations were honest about their value creeds and confessions, this would be a fairly easy way to see if they were “Bible-believing”, by simply looking at their confessional standard and seeing what it says about Scripture; however, far too few folks take vows on anything seriously anymore, and we should not be surprised if they “cross their fingers” when it comes to making such a vow about their church). It was asked of him in a debate (for which he avoided the answer) that if a Muslim iman denied that Muhammed was the prophet of Allah and denied that the Quran was the word of Allah (these are analogous to Spong’s “beliefs”), if the iman could, in any meaningful way, claim to be a faithful Muslim. The answer should be obvious.
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To continue with some of the points you’ve made, I think that your observation of (what I would call) slight changes in terminology is worth noting. However, I would not call this “lazy.” I would simply say it is something that virtually all authors do, using different terminology in roughly synonymous ways for various reasons (such as grating repetition of the same phrase over and over). If I had to venture a guess (I may be wrong, of course, and I don’t mean to offend), it would be that you don’t “like” his particular definition of “Bible-believing”, so you wish to take some issue with it. You may agree with him, but I think he is at least being consistent on this point.
I think the author would have no problem with you asking him to justify his own beliefs. I think, though, that he would also point out (and this should have come out in the book, but sometimes things get glossed over in 110 pages, and sometimes folks minds gloss over when they hear complex philosophical concepts — I know this was true for me the first time I contemplated these things), that one of the things the unbeliever does is “assume” certain Christian presuppositions in order to make an argument (I think he mentions several of these in the book, but I would have to look up the references). He is simply stating that the various worldviews (such as naturalism, which you mentioned) assume various things that they have “borrowed” from the Christian worldview and cannot justify strictly from within a Christian worldview. To put in vulgar terminology, they would cherry pick the things they find useful about a Christian worldview (such as the uniformity of nature, the basis for knowledge, the existence of reality, the reliability of the senses, the existence of objective moral standards, etc.) and smuggle it into their own way of looking at the world.
If the Bible is what it claims to be (the word of God), the author is correct in observing that no higher standard could exist (for nothing could be higher than God). This is part of the problem with the “proofs” for God, or the appeal to logic and reason as a “higher standard” — they begin by assuming that the Christian worldview is not true (in this case, with regard to the authority of Scripture). This is why, I suppose, the author spends so much time speaking of “Bible-believing” Christians (I would probably also add, this is one of the reasons non-Christians spend so much time attacking the Bible). The author is not willing to adopt another standard, because this would be equivalent to denying his worldview in order to do so. I am not will to do otherwise either.
But, this is one of the reasons I don’t want to get into a prolonged discussion on this matters: I have many tasks today (bailing out our basement again), and I’ve just spent nearly an hour on the computer in response to you! With that, I shall bid you a good morning as I return to my perpetual task for the day!
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TJ post 93,
we need to be a bit careful here.
I will for the moment allow you the use of “Bible-believing” as you descrbribe, noting that the word as chosen in itself prejudicial in the argument from the outset.
We do not in general know what individuals believe.
We do know for enough cases to be interesting what the denominations positions on the interpretaton of the Bible is, and hence my denominational demographic majority comment. The comments from the Roman Catholics essentially cinch this case, and the other denominations add window dressing for the statistics.
Note: I am not making a value judgement one way or another. I am merely asserting that the author’s position is not the majority positions among Christians. As such, his use of Christian without qualification in the middle portion of the book would appear to be a poor choice of words.
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TJ posy 93,
this is whirled views. There is no topic, so this is not off topic.
Further the discussion is open to all: it is not a closed ended conversation between you and me. I would look forward to the comments from others.
Now I could give you the sound bite response to this book.
It would, however:
1) provide little real information
2) would dishonor what I tought was a real request on your part for criticism of this book
3) would only be fodder for those who do not seem to take the time to think through what are arguably very critical issues
So I have spent a fair amount of time reading, analyzing, and attempting to understand this book. It appeared to be at your invitation.
So this would appear to be a reasonable venue.
If you have the energy, I am willing to continue.
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TJ post 94,
to the best of my knowledge, I am making no assumptions about the author’s beliefs. I am making every effort to support my understandings of the author’s intent from direct quotes from the book.
You are an excellent debater, so I assume that if I make a logical error in my understanding, you will be happy to assist me in correcting my error. That is indeed the whole point of having deep discussions on complex topics.
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Musing,
The only “logical error” that I would point out to you at this point is that you seem to suggest that the Christian position on the Bible should be defined by the view of the majority of Christians (the argumentum ad populum, or mob appeal fallacy). The majority opinion does not decide right or wrong, of course (or, as I’ve pointed out to an atheist or two, they would automatically be wrong, since they adopt the minority position). Rather, if we let God Himself dictate what “Bible-believing” means (e.g., 2 Timothy 3:16-17; 2 Peter 1:16-21), then we will, for instance, that RC appeals to papal infallibility and tradition do not “hold water.”
And speaking of holding water, I’m back to my bailing duties.
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TJ post 98,
actually no I am not making that assumption.
I am saying that since the majority of Christians do not hold an inerrant model of the Bible, it is clearly incorrect to say that Christians in general hold such a view.
Hence the need for a qualifier. For this discussion we can continue to use “Bible-believing Christian” if you like, although we must remember that this is Bible-believing in the context of the Chicago Statement.
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TJ post 98,
now I note you comment:
“Rather, if we let God Himself dictate what “Bible-believing” means (e.g., 2 Timothy 3:16-17; 2 Peter 1:16-21), then we will, for instance, that RC appeals to papal infallibility and tradition do not “hold water.””
Appears to be a judgemental statement. but I thought you were just charging me with being judgemental. But, perhaps I am confused here.
You do see, of course, that, much as the author points out, your argument is circular. We can discuss this in a minute if you believe the idscussion should continue.
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TJ post 98,
good luck with our bailing. I have much experience with unindended indoor swimming pools.
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TJ and Musing,
Just a note that I am following your discussion with interest. What it means to be Bible-believing – and what reasons there are to be Bible-believing in the various senses of the term – are questions I have long wrestled with.
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Pualine post 102,
as I suspected you might be.
I am sensing at least four classes:
1) a strict literal interpretation, typically of the Chicago Staement form
2) what I will term a strict authorial intepretation: one need to carefully indestand what the author meant: Mr Meaner is the example I would use here
3) possibly what appears to be a Roman Catholic: “true with respect to the needs of salvation” model
4) a variant of the above: The Bible is religious truth, but nor necessarily literal truth
What is of course possibly interesting is that all of these traditions will argue that the believ in the Bible.
And of course each of these traditions results in predictable and generally very clear disagreement.
And your thoughts here?
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Pauline post 102,
What is of course also interesting, I find that even within the tradition there are significant disagreements.
This would seem to suggest some interesting observations on some of the claims regarding Biblical accuracy.
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Musing,
Per your quote of me in post 100, that was not intended to be judgmental nor even directed solely to you. It was intended to be a general statement about people in general.
I think the problem we are having with communication is that we have focused so much on “Bible-believing” and not on what “Christian” means. Perhaps you and the author are not defining Christian in the same way. If so, then that would change much of what you reference above.
I believe our author pointed out (unless I am conflating books) that all reasoning is circular to some degree. That is b/c everyone begins with axiomatic assumptions about the natural of reality, etc. His point was whether those assumptions lead to contradictions within the system. That is the crux of the argument, imo.
The bailing is not getting any easier. The problem source is filling up (roughly 25 gallons) every 1-2 hours. I have fixed one leak with cement, but the water still needs to be bailed. And now it’s raining again. I truly wish the folks in SD and Atlanta were getting this right now.
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TJ post 105,
ah but I start with the writers own words: Bible-believing Christian. And the author makes no ambiguity about this term.
He then compares Bible-believing Christians to Christian Liberalism (page 40).
Now it is clear that the author does not have high respect for Christian Liberalsim.
But he also explicitly calls them Christians.
And this is a key point: a Christian is one who follows Christ and has been so since Antioch (Acts 11:26) if I remember my Bible correctly.
But there are, as wre are now discussing, many different types of Christians, and hence the need to provide a qualifier, as indeed the author does most of the time. We can explore this concept in more detail if you like.
You are correct about the author commenting on circular reasoning. I was planning on addressing that several posts from now.
I am so sorry to hear you are still bailing. We finally put in a sump pump and made the problem go away. My prayers are with you my firend! Good luck!
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#103
musing,
I’m not sure which of those categories my husband falls into. He believes the Bible is “infallible” but not “inerrant” – which he defines to mean that it is true “in all matters of faith and practice” but not necessarily factually accurate.
I lean towards that view myself, though sometimes I am unsure exactly what is the basis for it. I tend to see it as depending largely on the traditional Christian view of Scripture as truth (which I consider a very important consideration). I’m not at all certain that, if I just read the Bible itself, with no knowledge of Christian history and theology, that I would come to the same conclusion. (And of course I had a great deal of exposure to Christian tradition prior to first reading it for myself.)
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Musing, I will concede your point about qualifiers. I would caution, though, that to simply say a Christian is one who follows Christ, while technically correct, raises at least one slight (or maybe not-so-slight) problem, perhaps similar to what Victoria raised above. There are many groups that also claim to follow Christ, but the Christ they claim to follow is different (more obvious in some cases than others) than the Christ of the NT. 1 John is very emphatic that a false Christ cannot save. Therefore, it would seem to follow that if one were to follow a false Christ, then he/she would not be a Christian (except, perhaps, in name only, not that this means much). Mormons and JWs are certainly examples of this. Liberal Christians might be, but I would not want to make a sweeping generalization here, and it would depend person-to-person.
We have a sump pump, and we are still having trouble! At least the hydraulic cement sealed the crack, so water isn’t coming in. It’s still raining and we’re still bailing.
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TJ post 108,
you are absolutely correct, there are many who call themselves Christian and they have a wide variation in how they follow Christ.
But we need to make sure we do not fall into an excluded middle trap: it is not either version A or version B. It is possible that both version A and version B right. It is even more probable that both are to some extent wrong.
It is very appropriate to argue that I find my version of Christianity the proper one for me.
But remember: man is finite, God is infinite. Further all humans are different. I can pull appropraite quotes to support this from “Faith with Reason” if you like, but I will use my own form here.
So while it is appropriate for me to say this is the proper Christinaity for me, it is not clear that it is proper for me to say what the appropriate Christinaity for you is.
And in the end only God knowns for sure. And I can be absolutely certain that my understanidng will be incomplete. And in all but the most extreme cases, it is entirely plausible that “the other Christian” fits within my limitations in understanding.
So God probably knows for sure, but it is not obviuous to me that God has given me the right to judge others on their forms of Christianity.
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TJ post 108,
oh my it is out running the sump pump!
You would seem to be having the 100 year flood!
My heart goes out to you.
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Pauline post 107,
it sounds like a version of type 3 or 4, which is actually a very common version among most Christians.
And of course this is quite a sustainable model: if one asserts that the Bible is your arbiter of belief, then of course what is in the Bible is establshed as your belief.
This model works supremely well for faith or belief. It has some interesting issues when applied to factual data.
And to reiterate, one must take full responsiblities for ones own assumptions.
Now your comment appears to suggest that you have a complex understanding of what you mean by “Truth”. Would you feel comfortable in expanding on this statement?
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TJ,
more on “Faith with REsason” tomorrow.
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TJ,
Now “Faith with Reason” is relatively sparse with respect to its characterization of what it considers opposing views. It does make the following statements, however:
page 18: ”
Science operates upon a belief in the niformity of nature even though it does not account for it. Presuppositions of science, logic or morality are not natural objects of the universe. They are merely held by individuals to be true. They are presupposed. They are assumed – by faith.” [emphasis by the author]
page 85:
“But if naturalism is presupposed then there is a huge philosophical problem. On the one hand, naturalists must affirm that nature keeps itself uniform. Since no outside governing force over the universe can be known (supernatural or otherwise) naturalists must assume the universe governs itself. On the other hand they must also affirm that nature violates the very laws producing its regularities in order to create the macrochanges necessary for evolution to take place.”
And what this suggests is that the author:
1) considers uniformity in nature the key aspect of nature
2) that this uniformity is assumed as an act of faith
My observation is that all too many attempts to dispute science rest on the assumption that science and its processes rest on faith.
Now it is true that anything can become a “faith” to some people: right now there is a Red Sox “faith” in Boston.
But that does not mean it is faith. It can mean that these people have not thought through the situation carefully.
My own formulation is as follows:
1) the Cartesian tautology: Cogito ergo sum
- the only thing we can prove from first principals is our ouwn consciousness
- do note that this suggests that the subjective is the beginning point for understanding
2) the entity observes that certain correlations (note this is correlation: we have no idea of causality) appear to repeat and are consistent
3) the entity observes that other entities claim that they observe the same correlations
4) it is observed that accepting these correlations as valid appears to increase the longevity of the entity
In short what I term the objective world, that is to say the world which can be observed, is accepted as a reality because it is pragmatically useful.
Further, if observations fail to sustain the pragmatic usefulness of considering this objective world, then the objective world as we think of it will be abandoned.
First it is not uniformity bur repeatability which is critical. And this is not a semantic statement: as shown in the authors words this is a fundamental pardigmatic statement.
Second: the objective world is not accepted by faith but rather because doing so is pragmatically useful.
And when we:
- remove uniformity and replace with repeatability
- replace faith with pragmatism
then many of the objections to a non Bible-believing Chritian viewpoint found in “Faith with Reasona” appear to rest on unaccepted assumptions.
In short, I beleive we have provided a model which suggest that what appear to be fundamental assumptions of “Faith with Reason”:
1) a strict belief in truth of the bible
2) that a non bible-believing christain approach to the objectvie world is itself based on faith
are indeed shown to be debateable. And since these are assumptions, either side can be disproved only by showing that the assumption set of the opposition is internally inconsistent.
And we can being to explore for potential internal inconsistencies in “Faith with Reason”.
Do note that I am directly addressing the authors insistence that (page 89):
“A true defense of any claim must also deal with the evidences that challenge or contradict it. In other words, truth is not only a matter of offense, in that it makes certain assertions. It is also a matter of defense, in that it must be able to make a cogent and sensible response to the counterpoints that are raised.”
I have provided an alternate derivation for the objective world which is not faith based and rests on a clear discussable paradigm.
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#111 “Now your comment appears to suggest that you have a complex understanding of what you mean by “Truth”. Would you feel comfortable in expanding on this statement?”
musing,
Comfortable or not, I’ll give it a try. Truth is – I think all of us would agree – what corresponds to reality. The difficulty is with expressing truth within our limitations, which involve the limitations of language, imperfect understand and memory, etc.
If I tell you about a conversation I had yesterday with my husband, I will recount it in what I consider a true manner, but I do not even attempt to give a word-for-word account, let alone reproduce tone of voice, body language, etc. There may be certain words or phrases that I do remember, and repeat, word-for-word and perhaps even with certain intonation and body language, because they were particularly memorable and are perhaps why I am telling the story to begin with. As long as I represent my husband’s and my positions in the conversation fairly (that is, I don’t cause you to think we took positions differently from what we did), I consider my account to be true, and I would think you would also. We don’t expect people to reproduce remembered conversations with the fidelity of an instant-replay recording.
Proponents of Biblical inerrancy point out that because God was overseeing the process of producing Scripture, He (being omniscient) could cause them to remember accurately every word, and even to know every word of a conversation at which they had not even been present (such as Jesus’ prayer in John 17, when the disciples were sleeping). I agree that He could, but I disagree that it is necessary for Him to have done so in order for the account to be true. And reading the Bible, it does not appear that He did so.
Lee Strobel tells in one of his books (I think Case for Christ) of learning from one of the experts he interviewed that it was normal and accepted in Bible times for people to make variations in the details of how they told a true story, up to about 40% of the story, while the remaining core had to be remain constant. Truth was not in 100% factual accuracy but in faithfulness to the essential core of the story and in using it to teach true moral principles (the whole point being in influencing people’s behavior to do what was right, more than imparting factual data).
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Pauline post 114,
and I am in substantial agreement with your post.
However, it does seem to leave open a potential question (based on your observatios on positoons perhaps). I am now eating breakfast. So consider the following two statements:
1) there is a sausage on the plate in front of me
2) sausages taste good
How are these two true statements different? How are they the same?
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Pauline post 114,
looking over post 115, let me refine statement 2 to:
2) this sausage tastes good to me
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Musing,
It has finally stopped raining and the water problems are not so much to trouble me. However, I am not feeling well today (perhaps being continually soaked by rainwater is not sitting well with me), and I still much catch up on work that I missed yesterday due to my bailing activities.
However, I will address one point in your statements. It is true that our author does point to the uniformity of nature as a problem for the naturalistic worldview. You refer to repeatability. However, I would put it to you that the two are intertwined. That is to say, if nature were not uniform then, then the option of repeatability would be pointless. So, I do not think you can realistically point the the latter without axiomatically accepting the former. Therefore, the naturalist/materialist must account for uniformity (and, I would add to that the viability of induction, which is also connected to your reference to repeatability). I would say that the materialist/naturalist assumes these things, but he cannot account for them in a strictly materialistic universe. I think this is our author’s point (although my brain is swirling a bit as I type).
And concerning not “judging” others: while it is true that we cannot judge the hearts of others, and it is true that we cannot hypotcritally judge others (the point of Matthew 7:1), to suggest that one should not be discerning of the statements of those who profess to be Christians is a mistake (and contrary to Scripture). Jesus Himself warns to be wary of false teachers in Mathew 7 (which would necessitate “judging”) and we have warnings from the Apostles to the same effect (Paul’s warnings against a false gospel in Galatians 1; John’s warnings against false teachers in 1 John 2). I would also add that all three of these examples assume an objective (orthodox, if you prefer) standard by which to judge. It would seem reasonable, therefore, that God has revealed the truth about Himself with enough clarity to justify such statements (I could say that more clearly, and I would need to add a supernatural element to it, namely the Holy Spirit, but again head is swimming so I will shut up for now).
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TJ post 117,
I am glad things are getting better. Hope you get weel soon.
Ah but the author himself points out that because of uniformity, evolution can not occur: the argument being that if everything remains uniform, then major changes can’t occur.
But of course when I introduce repeatability we can have major changes, they just will, under similar conditions, repeat. I suggest the atomic bomb as an excellent example. Definitely not uniform, but highly repeatable.
And do note that it is the author of “Faith with Reason” who introduces this as an issue, not I. I am merely showing how with a change in perspective, the nominal issue raised by the authhor is, in fact, not an issue.
As to judging others beliefs, I am afraid that it looks like we must agree to disagree. As the material develops, I think the reason for this will probably become clear. And yes, the non-judgemental stance on issues of belief is clearly a world view difference between the author and myself. In the case of the author, this appears to be assumptional. In my case it arguably derives form the original assumptions, so it is not a free standing assumption on its own.
And one of the things which sould be coming clear is that I consider assumptions very expensive: one should have the fewest number of assumptions required to achieve one’s goals.
And by the way I have a distaste of orthodoxy. It seems to be a case of the majority defining religious correctness, and I remember someone else telling me that the majority do not make something right religiously.
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#115/116
musing,
Both statements are true because they reflect reality. Neither statement is verifiable by me a this time, as I can neither observe what you have on your plate, nor whether you appear to experience pleasure when you eat them.
If I were present in the room with you, I would be able to observe whether or not you have sausages on your plate (though it’s possible we would have to make sure we agreed on the definition of sausage). However I could not be certain that you were telling the truth about the sausages tasting good, since you could pretend to enjoy them while actually disliking them.
Whether that mattered to me would depend on whether it was of any interest to me whether you liked the taste of the sausages. And if it did matter to me, I would probably take into account any previous knowledge of you that would tend to make me suspect that you were only pretending to like them – either that you had a habit of pretending in such cases, or any plausible reason you might have to deceive me about that.
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pauline post 119,
and so we have a clear demonstration that in some way, there are different types of truth.
As you note, you can observe whether a sausage was there and you quite rightly point out that we need to agree on what we mean by a sausage.
And you note that you can’t observe whether I actually like sausages or not: it is not observable.
And here is my core thinking: we have a clear demarcation between the observable and the non-observable. For the observable we can reach a consensus on what is “true”. For the non-observable this appears problematic.
And, as I should have epxected form some one with the deep insights you have, you introduce the concept of whether it mattered to you.
But we see the whether the non-observable mattered being raised repeatedly in this blog. The author of “Faith with Reason” explcitily argues that everyone is concerned with the meaning of life/universe etc. while qwerty for one has argued that these questions dont matter to him. I probably will address this in a future post on “Faith with Reason”.
And I hope you don’t think that I am trying to deceive you here. I don’t think I could if I tried, but I most certainly am not trying!
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Musing, I think you are possibly operating under a different definitions of “uniform” and “repeatable” than is normally accepted (I only say this because of your example of an atomic bomb, which strikes me as a red herring — of course, in my fog [which is better], I may just be misunderstanding you). By “uniform”, the author is referring to nature operating under “fixed” laws (for lack of a better term). This is generally accepted, even outside of the scientific realm: if I drop an egg off the counter today, it breaks; if I do the same tomorrow, I expect the same thing to happen. Of course, this is based upon observation, it depends upon induction, and it is repeatable (although “repeatability” does not prove that future occurrences will yield the same result, as Hume and Russell have both noted in the past).
With regard to your discussion with Pauline, to say that there are “many truths” seems a bit suspicious, although there may be a fundamental difference of definitions here as well. In the examples you gave her, one was tied to observation and the other was not. But this seems to beg the question, because observation is not the sole source of achieving knowledge. There are other means as well that are generally accepted axiomatically by people (relying upon a credible source, for instance). The requirement that something be placed in a test tube and tested repeatedly is a very limited (and internally consistent) method of obtaining “truth”. I am not saying this is what you believe or think (although I think you have been heavily influenced by it — most of us have), but it is integral to the materialistic/naturalistic worldview, which is what author is seeking to expose.
With regard to orthodoxy, I don’t think I’ve suggested anywhere that the “majority” determines this. In my previous post, I pointed to NT teaching, which is not the same thing. On the other hand, if one’s beliefs do differ significantly from what has generally perceived to be correct with regard to historical Christianity, that should cause one to pause and at least reanalyze one’s beliefs. The major does not rule (as Luther affirmed, men and councils have sometimes erred), but novelty of belief needs to be carefully considered as well.
Having as few axiomatic assumptions as possible certainly is a noble goal. The problem with the materialistic/naturalistic worldview is that it makes MANY assumptions about the world and then doesn’t really bother to attempt to justify these (Cornelius van Til referred to this as “borrowed capital” from the Christian worldview — things like uniformity and such would fall into this category).
I remembering watching a (very) short video by a Christian thinker (I can look up a link if you’re really interested) where he states that there are basically two views: either God exists, or He does not. The Christian assumption would be that He exists (and, consequent to this, that He has spoken). It would seem everything flows from this, even if the conclusions we draw may differ somewhat. It would seem that going back to the way He has revealed Himself, though, would be a good place to continually return, if the presupposition is indeed true.
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TJ post 72,
the authors quote is (page 85):
“But if naturalism is presupposed then there is a huge philosophical problem. On the one hand, naturalists must affirm that nature keeps itself uniform. Since no outside governing force over the universe can be known (supernatural or otherwise) naturalists must assume the universe governs itself. On the other hand they must also affirm that nature violates the very laws producing its regularities in order to create the macrochanges necessary for evolution to take place.”
which speaks for itself. mMacroevolution can not occur because nature must be uniform would seem conclusive.
But of course if I substitute uniform with repeatable (and my atomic bomb explosion was not meant in jest: many of the other discontinuities in the universe are much larger than this) then this issue is a non-issue.
If the author insists that unifrom precludes macro-evolution, then I believe it is safe to say that my analysis of the authors intent would appear solid.
If you suggest my many truths seems suspicious, please show where Pauline’s analysis of the sausage situation is incorrect.
Look carefully at your orthodoxy statement and your point in post 98:
“The only “logical error” that I would point out to you at this point is that you seem to suggest that the Christian position on the Bible should be defined by the view of the majority of Christians (the argumentum ad populum, or mob appeal fallacy). The majority opinion does not decide right or wrong, of course (or, as I’ve pointed out to an atheist or two, they would automatically be wrong, since they adopt the minority position).”
If it good for the goose, it is good for the gander (yes, I was waiting for this inconsistency to appear).
You noted:
“Having as few axiomatic assumptions as possible certainly is a noble goal. The problem with the materialistic/naturalistic worldview is that it makes MANY assumptions about the world and then doesn’t really bother to attempt to justify these”
and I agree which is why I try to make my assumptions as transparent as possible. Do note that most people do not seem to be truly aware of their assumptions: it seems to be a characterisitic of people in general.
And you point:
“a Christian thinker (I can look up a link if you’re really interested) where he states that there are basically two views: either God exists, or He does not.”
would seem to have two issues:
1) an exlcuded middle problem: we can discuss further if you like
2) what kind/which God
Any attempt to argue that there is the Christian God or no God is leaving out a wide variety of alternate models.
And yes I would like the link to the video.
As an aside, the “uniform worldview” does nto seem like a Christian posession. My ferret has a similar “uniform worldview”: he escaped once through that door so he believes based on uniformity that he can escape again.
I suggest that all too often Christians claim “borrowed capital” from many fine thinkers in a variety of traditions which precede them.
My sense is some commentary on “circular reasoning” might be an appropriate next posting.
Your thoughts?
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TJ referencing post 113,
as I review the material it would seem that we have an intermediate issue to address before we go further.
As noted in post 113 (and for that matter the discussion with Pauline) a differentiator between different forms of statements is whether they are observable or not (my sense is that we will come back to this in another form as well latter).
Now if the key to the objective world is observation it suggests the corralary:
- if something purports to be from the objective world it is reasonable to subject it to searching observations
In short, in the objective world, nothing is beyond questioning.
So when I encounter the concept of gravity it is perfectly reasonable for me to question what the phenomenon is and explore it with as many different observations as I have the interest and energy to pursue (notice the “I have the interest and energy to pursue”).
As we noticed in the discussions with Pasuline, it is straight forward to ask questions of the form what (What is it? It is a sausage. What is happening? Two masses are being attracted to each other.)
Asking a question of “why” something is is a much more interesting question.
First we must allow that some may not, as Pauline noted, find the “why” questions interesting. Under my assumption sets so far, it would seem that there is no reason why they should have to have interest. Again this is antithetical to what appears to be some of the conclusions raised by “Faith with Reason”. But since rejecting questions of the form “why” does not appear to violate the assumptions so far (c.f. post 113) I am unsure where the objection to rejecting “why” questions comes from.
Second, since “why” is typically not observable, it is not obvious to me how we can ensure we have a consensus among entities on the answer to the “why”. I can’t observe it and it is only the shared observation on which a general consensus was established to pragmatically accept the construct of the objective world.
So in summary:
1) it would seem appropriate to ask any observation question feasible with respect to the objective world
2) questions of “why” do not appear to be of the objective world, and the assumption set as derived does not provide any method for establihsing a consensus on “why”
P.S. we need to be careful with the use of the word “why”. In this formulation it is referring to metaphysical questions such as “why am I here?”. I can obviously construct “why” questions which are of the form of “what” question, e.g. why is there a force when I separate the two masses. We can pursue this to more formality if you insist, but I think the basic intent is clear. If I were pursuing this in a more formal manner I would make this more precise. It is not obvious that it will contribute anything to the discussion if we do this here.
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Now that we have opened the issue of observation and its importance to establishing the objectvie world, there are a number of challenges which get made of observation.
Rather than answer these now, I will leave this questioon hanging and see if someone wants to engage on this field.
I believe it is a cleanly severable discussion and we can address this latter if the audience is interested.
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Now perhaps it is time to visit the circular reasoning argument.
Perhaps the crispest example of assumptions is the postulates of Euclidean Geometry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euclidean_geometry
“Euclid gives five postulates (axioms):
1) Any two points can be joined by a straight line.
2) Any straight line segment can be extended indefinitely in a straight line.
3) Given any straight line segment, a circle can be drawn having the segment as radius and one endpoint as center.
4) All right angles are congruent.
5) Parallel postulate. If two lines intersect a third in such a way that the sum of the inner angles on one side is less than two right angles, then the two lines inevitably must intersect each other on that side if extended far enough. ”
Now these are among the most famous assumptions in mathematics. Further using these assumptions, an incredibly rich number of theorems/concusions can be drawn.
And amusingly, since there was no reason this should have been true, Euclidean Geometry describes much of the real world.
There are a number of deep understandings behind this concept, and again we can return to them if readers desire.
Now there are some interesing characteristics of these assumptions:
a) they are atomic: any given assumption is not embedded in another assumption.
b) it is in principal possible to change any given postulate and construct a potentially valid geometry
c) the postulate set is not circular: it does not state that if you believe any postulate you must believe all of them
The classic case of relaxing a postulate in this system is to relax the parallel line postulate. One can introduce a variety of postulates here and upon observation it is found that often the new system describes the geometry of distorted surfaces. As it turns out, the General Relativistic space-time is curved.
Also note that the assumption set/postulates are parsimonious: it is believed to be the minimum assumption set required to establish the geometric operations.
Now lets look at the assumption set as apparently laid out by the author of “Faith with Reason”.
page 59:
“Christians presuppose biblical truth as the ultimate standard by which they test other views.”
[yup referenced a different version of the Biblical truth statement - lets have some variety]
page 60:
“Ultimate standards are self-attesting. Ultimate
standards for truth must be permitted to stand (or fall) on their own. There is no logical problem with Christians accepting the authority of the Bible upon its own testimony as God’s Word.”
page 66:
“Man, however, has a metaphysical limitation to his knowledge. The infinite God comprehensively knows things that finite man does not know.”
So now we have what appears to be a very interest5ing assumption set. If you challenge this set,that is fair. But I suggest this the minimum set which I could discern from the author’s perspectvie and I suggest that challenges will be of the form of adding more assumptions. We have already discussed the utility of minimum assumption sets.
So the first thing one observes is that this assumption set is not atomic: saying that we must accept the entire Bible is actually a massive set of assumptions. Second it is, in contrast to Euclidean Geometry, circular (the author admits this). Finally it explicitly states that one is not to challenge the assumption set.
So I suggest we can make some observations:
1) the Bible-believing Chrtistian assumption set appears to require one to accept in toto a very complex set of assumptions as the strting point. Euclidean Geometry by contrast is a relatively simple assumption set each of which is essentially atomic.
2) the assumption set for the Bible-believing
Christian appears to be an all or nothing. By contrast one is free to modify the assumptions in Euclidean Geometry as one see fit. It may not be Euclidean Geometry but it may still in fact be a viable system of geometry.
Which of course suggests the following challenge: how does one determine the validity of an asusmption set? After all assumptions are assumed, not proved. The answer of course is that assumption sets must self-consistent. If there is a self-contradiction of the assumptions, then something is wrong with the assumption set.
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TJ,
so I can continue here. The following seems clear:
1) the chapter on evolution would appear very weak and the argument appears to fail the authors own test for assumption sets
2) the chapter on world religions uses Hinduism as an example. I suggest that the chapter would read very differently if, for example, Islam were used as an example. I am outlining the basic structure of the argument here and post 125 seems to provide an interesting starting point for this discussion
3) the authors argumets on logic are flawed: there is a deep issue regarding abstractions and reality which I hint at early in post 123
These are the obvious remaining topics.
Obviously I can continue.
The question to you TJ, is is it necessary?
I suggest tha following as the summary:
1) “Faith with Reason” is a nice clear compendium of the issues typically raised during disucssion between a strict interpretaionalist perspective and a non-strict interpretational perspective
2) it appears to rest on some assumptions which do not appear to be accepted by all
- the defense of these assumption would appear to fail the authors own requirements for validating an assumption set: see post 90 page 89 quote
So in short, while I believe it does a nice job of documenting the arguments well, it does not appear to provide new and unique insights into the argument AND it is not clear that it moves the argument forward in any measurable way.
And it is very unlikely that it will be accepted as a valid argument by anyone who has not already accepted a strict-interpretationalist viewpoint.
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Sigh. This is why I was so reluctant to want to “play” with you, Musing. I make one post, then you post several in reply, which I expected to digest, purpose even making a single post, to which I fully expect several more in reply. Sorry, but I don’t really have the time or interest for that. Please don’t think of this as blowing you off or considering that our communications are unimportant (they are not), but blame it on a short attention span (and a busy life) with me.
Just a couple of observations, though: 1st, I never maintained (and even denied) that a “majority” position was sufficient for defining Christian orthodoxy, so I do not understand your goose/gander/inconsistency comment (unless you were attributing it to our author, not I). And with regard to your law of excluded middle comment: yes, we have had this discussion before, we did not agree (I merely pointed out that if a “different God” that the one proposed by the speaker exists, then the second proposition, that God does not exist, is a logically valid one; you do not agree with this still, I am guess, and I am not interested in numerous posts back and forth to dig up ground that has already been mined).
With regard to our book (btw, you keep using the phrase “atomic”; did you mean “axiomatic”?) and presuppositions, I would say you are somewhat mistaken. As I stated above, saying that Christianity begins with the presupposition that “God exists and has revealed Himself to mankind” is not a complex set of presuppositions. One may argue that complex issues result from this, and, yes, there are epistemological and metaphysical questions that are related to this, but in comparison to other worldview/philosophical systems, which assume quite a bit more, it is relatively simple. Granted, as with any single statement in language, there are myriad assumptions that are made, but if this defines complexity in a statement, then neither of us (and I mean more than simply you and I) is going to get anywhere fast. We could sit down and take perhaps a single sentence from you of your posts and debate the meaning of words and phrases for quite a long time, but that is not only unprofitable and a waste of time, but it defies the normal modes of communication (which assumes that two individuals communicating have a basic understanding of what the other person is saying). One might even argue that the development of language is another problem for the materialistic/naturalistic worldview as well.
To say that Christians claim that those who preceded them borrowed capital from the Christian worldview is a misunderstanding of Biblical revelation. Granted, the name “Christian” did not come about until after the birth/death/resurrection of Christ, but it is a mistake to say that the “Christian worldview” did not exist until then. Since the gospel was promised in Eden (according to Genesis 3), and since the opening chapters of Genesis claim that God created man in His image, it is not a stretch (in the least), if one presupposes the validity of the word of God, to say that a “Christian worldview” (you can call it something else, such as a “Biblical worldview” or a “Yahwehist worldview” if you like) can be extended to the beginning of history. Of course, if one presupposes that the Bible is not true (which is the worldview our author is arguing against) then one will argue differently, but it is the author’s contention that this will lead to self-contradictions in the worldview (and borrowed assumptions in order to make the worldview “work”).
I would disagree that the book does not forward the argument. You are not really the “target audience” (at least not the primary one). He is writing to show that the Christian religion is a reasonable one (which I don’t think you would object to). There are certainly better books out there, but this one is written at a more popular level and doesn’t go too deeply into complex philosophical arguments. But it does at least consider these arguments, which most folks arguing, for instance, from a materialistic/naturalistic worldview have not even really considered (many that I’ve come into contact with think they are being perfectly neutral in the way they consider the universe, and they haven’t even considered the possibility that this in not even true or justifiable without making certain assumptions). If it causes the unbeliever to reconsider his/her worldview, then it does push the argument forward, imo.
But, having now spent more than 30 minutes writing a single post that does not address everything in your multiple posts. If we are having a battle of wits by attrition, I would say that the spoils will ultimately go to you, and ask for a cease fire.
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One more thing for you to peruse on your own, Musing (no, with regard to this, I am not wanting to analyze this line by line; I am providing the links so that you can see how one might argue these points with an unbeliever, one who obviously has not accepted the presuppositions). It is a debate that you might be familiar with, that took place over twenty years ago between a theist (Greg Bahnsen) and an atheist (Gordon Stein). This link should work for the audio: http://www.straitgate.com/gbgs.ram
This link contains a transcript of the debate: http://www.bellevuechristian.org/faculty/dribera/htdocs/PDFs/Apol_Bahnsen_Stein_Debate_Transcript.pdf
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TJ post 128,
thanks for the links. I will look into this.
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TJ post 127,
some points: no I meant atomic: each axiom addresses what is arguably a single specfic assumption: e.g. a line is a connection between two points.
The assumption of an strict-literal interpretation of the Bible encompasses accepting all the points in the Bible: as is specifically noted by the author. As noted, the denominational demographic majority of Christians do not accept this model of interpretation.
But of course this is a rather large bundling of a large number of assumptions. If one is not very careful, it can lead to a large number of internal inconsistencies.
As a last point, it was my belief that you wanted an honest, and attentive review of the material. I have attempted to do so with an effort to base it directly on the quotes of the author so as to minimize the possiblity of misinterpretaton on my part. I did this to honor your sense of the quality of this material.
I could have given you the short summary of my observations on this book, but it would have provided no understanding of why I came to those conclusions.
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TJ post 127,
and the quick summary is that a strict interpretation model of the Bible is the sticking point for all of these discussions.
And I seriously doubt that for anyone who accepts that:
“In the course of religious discussion between Christians and non-Christians both sides should be put into the position of justifying their beliefs.”
would assert that the argument to justify an inerrant interpretation of the Bible is not supportable unless one uses circular reasoning. And I have demonstrated that circular reasoning is not required for an assumption set.
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Musing, let’s stick to just one question/point. I don’t think I am understanding you here (or perhaps we just don’t agree): “I have demonstrated that circular reasoning is not required for an assumption set.”
The assumption set is axiomatic. It is correct that this, in and of itself, is not circular. However, everyone reasons from a basic starting point, and, in that sense, everyone is ultimately circular in their thinking (only because they are basing their reasoning on that particular starting point). It is the contention of the author (and I would agree) that the materialist/naturalist cannot justify the use of such reasoning, since there will a conflict at the base level.
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TJ post 132,
but you suggested a 100 page book with 10 chapters on different topics!
No, in a stanbard logical formulation, the logic is linear. You start with the assumption set, whch is given and you derive additonal theorems based onthese assumptions. I will let Goedel’s argument leave for a while here.
If one finds a contradiction then one goes back and decides which axiom to change or relax.
In the case of the author’s position, the Bible is inerrant. All beliefs must be challenged. If the challenge shows the Bible wrong, the challenge is in error because the Bible says that it is true, and after all humans have finite understanding.
Very different than exploring geometries or other logical frameworks where when an axiom fails, one relooks at the axioms.
The author’s model fails by the very test with which the author insists we must evaluate all presuppositional systems.
And remember, I pulled these points from the authors quotes, that was one of the reasons the posts were so long.
I suggest that it is logical systewm shiwhc dare not allow the assumptions set to bne challenged which create the circulkar reasoning so that the assumption set can n ot be challenged.
I gave you my assumption set in post 113. Please show me where I am circular?
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TJ,
so you might be interested in reading “Alpha and Omega” by Seife. It seems to explictly discuss many of the topics which we have been discussing.
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