Lecture Notes

Last night I attended a lecture. A friend of a friend talked for about an hour about the science/atheism vs. religion divide. One of the key points he hammered was that this debate/dialogue has devolved to a place of waste. The conversation is being defined on both sides by people who are ignorant to the questions that need to be (and have been) asked. He briefly cited Hitchens, Harris, and others in the new atheist movement and discussed the typical "arguments" that come from the religious side. A lot of his angst seemed to be rooted in the state of this dialogue.

The lecturer, Keith, was well versed in history, philosophy, and religion and was adamant that this debate/dialogue could happen in a real and productive way. He talked about people he knew and some who he didn't, on both sides of the argument, who could engage in a way in which we could all get more informed, intelligent, and grounded on the issue of religion and science.

While his point was correct, I think we're beyond that. Keith talked about Nobel prize winning people who could engage this topic productively and all I could think was how un-entertaining nobel prize winning people *probably* are (I've never met any, but I have a stereotype in my head). I don't think we want to get smarter and more informed. This is even more true when we look at the idea of religion. The thing we want more than anything is to be entertained. There is nothing entertaining about being educated slowly over the course of time. The argument, as it is currently defined, is entertaining. We are getting what we want in this debate.

The second big theme from Keith's lecture focused on doctrine, creeds, councils, etc. This was the part of the talk when people started shifting awkwardly in their seats. Keith talked about many of the spiritual traditions (Native American, Buddhist, Judeo-Christian, etc.) and how there are many fundamental similarities when you look at life and material reality. While we typically have crazily different "doctrinal positions," when we look at the lives we say we want to be living, things start to level out.

During the Q&A time at the end, this was the point that seemed to rub people the wrong way. Questions were asked and re-asked about this. Universal Truth, Foundational Morality, etc. were discussed. As I was sitting there the question that seemed to be floating around the room, underlying the questions that were being asked, was "How do I know if I am winning?"

This question can be viewed in two ways: zero-sum or non-zeor-sum. While it was being phrased in a non-zero-sum way (we can all win!), I think it was really being experienced in a zero-sum way.

How do we know if we are winning? Well, I guess if we can figure out who is losing...right?

Keith drove the idea that doctrine, in and of itself, is impotent. While I agree with him, I would submit that doctrine is the mechanism we use to define the winners and losers on a cosmic scale. It's the basic way we have decided who's in and who's out.

Finally, Keith had a great beard. I give his beard two, enthusiastic thumbs up.

Being Open Minded

Been thinking about this for a while. I consider myself fairly open minded, progressive, whatever. However, I am finding that I am becoming more and more close-minded with close-minded people. Is there such as thing as open-mindedness?

5 Observations/Thoughts about Ironman 2

1. It was really entertaining. Robert Downey, Jr. is a great, charismatic actor.
2. It's amazing to see how far the special effects technology has come in the past 10-15 years.
3. Movies disseminate the mythology of our culture and world.
4. Ironman 2 is mythology.
5. The myth of unlimited progress is the overarching theme of this movie. The movie would have us believe that science will always stay ahead of the curve. By the time the bad guys have scary technology, the good guys' technology will be superior and we (ahem...we are the good guys) will be able to kick the bad guys' butts. Science will be able to solve the problems that science created. Eat popcorn, drink Coca-Cola, fear not!

Mission Statements & Taglines

I have always found these things to be frustrating and meaningless.They are all about style. They lack substance. They tell one side of the story. They may market your company/organization/church, but they do not tell the full and real story. Offering only the shiny part of who you are is where the seed of cynicism starts. So be honest....about all of it.

Surface Level: Some Oil was Spilled

I love watching the Sunday morning political shows. Today's biggest (and scariest) topic was the oil "spill." Here are some random things that happened on the show...and went through my mind.

• "We're dealing with this on the surface." --some BP exec. Truer words were never spoken.
• How can this be called a "spill?" When you spill something, you say "oops" and clean it up. 200,000 gallons of oil per day (or more) is not quite an "oops."
• This could truly decimate (environmentally and economically) a big chunk of the South.
• Why are we relying on BP to solve the problem that they created?
• In becoming all riled up about this, I am participating in deep irony. I whine and complain about this "spill" and our oil-based economy, but then I drive and drive and drive.
• In our quest to "harvest" the oil (a non-renewable resource), we will likely destroy the seafood industry (a renewable resource) in much of the Gulf.
• The long-term effects of this "spill" will long outlive those of Hurricane Katrina (except for those who lost people in the storm, of course).
• The conservative view is that this "spill" is collateral damage to our economic system.
• The liberal view is that oil is evil, so let's get into some other type of energy (while maintaining our level of consumption).
• Are there any other options?
• As I often do, I was thinking a lot of Wendell Berry. I was thinking of Jayber Crow watching his town and state move forward and "progress."
• Is progress a myth?

I took a nap after lunch.

Two Problems from One Solution

In one of Wendell Berry's agrarian essays, he discusses two of the biggest problems in modern, industrial agriculture: loss of soil fertility and producing too much animal waste. The scientific, industrial method depletes natural soil fertility (micro-organisms, micro-nutrients, etc.) thus creating more and more dependence on chemical inputs (which have unintended consequences-comprimised water supply, bees?, beneficial insects?...). Industrialized animal production produces a lot of *crap*. Food, Inc. describes one hog farm in Utah that averages over 1 million hogs on site at a time. Because of the food input and, ahem, *output*, this one hog farm produces more *waste* than the city of Los Angeles. Holy *crap*.

Wendell Berry describes a typical, small farm prior to the industrialization of farming. He tells of farmers who knew how many animals their land could support. He writes about how farmers used the *waste* from their animals to fertilize their fields. Free, nutrient rich poo with much more complexity and variance than the typical three-nutrient chemical fertilizer. Wendell Berry reflects on this and says that, in typical industrial/scientific style, we have created two problems from one solution.

Economic and Political Insanity

Two connected items from a talk I did last weekend:

1. Anyone remember what George W called us all to after 9/11? Shopping. Go to the malls. Consume. Spend.

2. Anyone pay attention to the societal/political reaction when Obama suggested that we avoid blowing our kids' college education money in Vegas? You'd have thought he was recommending human sacrifices. How dare he!

Richard Foster (paraphrased) says that when we live in and allow ourselves to be consumed by a sick culture, we become sick. I am interested in becoming less sick.

Thanks BMW...and a Request

In business school, I was taught that business, in its truest form, was about solving problems. In this vein, I would like to congratulate BMW. Their latest advertisements tell us, "We don't just make cars...we make...joy." We live in an increasingly joyless society. I, for one, am glad that someone, somewhere has developed a combustion-based transportation machine that can also make joy. The evolution is amazing! Now these machines are solving emotional, relational, and community problems. Unfortunately, I can't afford a BMW right now, but I would like to propose something. I would like two other people to split the cost of one, new BMW. The car would rotate between the three of us on a weekly basis. I would be joyful for one week and then I would have two weeks of joylessness before it was my turn again. Any takers?

I Hate Pete Rollins. Also...I Love Pete Rollins.

I saw Pete Rollins at a churchy conference this summer. Never have I seen people so pissed off as when Pete spoke. Never have I seen others (myself included) so moved. Watch this video to get an taste of Pete's work. Churchy is a word I made up. You can use it if you like.

God Sez...

When someone tells you that God told them something, one of two things is happening.

1. They have had a connection with something big, scary, and real. Somehow, someway God has spoken.
2. They are uninterested and/or afraid of any feedback or pushback. They are, in reality, saying, "Don't ask me any questions about this thing."

The World's Hardest Question (for dudes)

Big Love, an HBO show, is great. It centers on a polygamist family living life in the modern suburbs of Utah. My wife and I have been watching on DVD for a month now and are hooked. It's a show that brings up great conversations about family, love, faith, and morality. However, it also brings up THE WORLD'S HARDEST QUESTION (for dudes). I will now recount a conversation I had with my wife a few nights ago...

Me: This is such a great show.

Wife: I also love the show.

Me: ...what?

Wife: What do you think about polygamy?

Me: What do you mean?

Wife: You know, what do you think?

It was at this moment I realized that this is THE WORLD'S HARDEST QUESTION (for dudes). Were I to say, "I kind of think it's cool," you can imagine the follow up. However, were I to answer, "I think one wife is enough," well, you can imagine the follow up to this. The question is unwinnable. Here is how the convo concluded...

Me: You know, I believe that we have just stumbled upon THE WORLD'S HARDEST QUESTION (for dudes). All I know is I love you.

Wife: You answer wisely...

Two of My Favorite Things

My son and an heirloom tomato we grew together.

A Thought on Eternal Destiny

From the Christian perspective, you've got three choices (simplified).

• Exclusivism: You must say the name of Jesus in this specific way in order to be saved.
• Inclusivism: God knows the hearts of everyone living and dead and will be the final judge.
• Universalism: God will save everyone.

I realized today that both Exclusivism and Universalism are really two sides of the same coin. They both purport certainty about something that cannot be truly known. They're both ultimately judgemental. Inclusivism isn't really even in the middle of these two; it's a whole different game (yes, this is where I fall on this issue). Also, it's kind of funny to think of a fundamentalist right-winger and a loosy-goosy left-winger as one and the same.

Advice From Jayber Crow

This is a reading from Jayber Crow, a novel by Wendell Berry. Anyone who interacts with kids about school and academic performance would do well to listen. The passage describes Jayber's adolescent experience in school.

Although I can't say that I liked school, when I wanted to be I was a good enough student.I liked learning, especially learning that could be got by reading. I made fair grades, but I and my teachers knew that I could have done better. I was, they said, like a good horse who would not work; I was a disappointment to them; I was wasting my God-given talents. And this gave me, I believe, the only self-determining power I had: I could withhold this single thing that was mine that I knew they wanted.

From Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry

Kierkegaard Opens Up a Can

...the parsons canonize bourgeois mediocrity. We Protestants have done away with the Catholic canonization of ascetics and martyrs, etc.--as a substitute those interested in the bourgeois corporation are canonized and of course they are canonized by the last clerical order to appear in Protestantism: the office seekers and place hunters.

From Christ the Offense

Zoinks!

Carry the Fire

I read The Road a few years back and have begun rereading it for a book discussion I am hosting in a few weeks. The book is about a father and son on the road after the apocalypse. So basically, it has my two favorite things in it: significant and meaningful relationships and an exploration of "the end times." I grew up in a faith system that was moderately preoccupied with the "end times," prophecies found in the book of Revelation, and our faith group's important role in this. Relationships, particularly family relationships, have always fascinated me. The book focuses on the survival of this pair, physical, emotional, spiritual. Throughout the story, the father reminds his son that they are people who"carry the fire." They remain good in a bad world. They choose right when wrong is everywhere. They go hungry instead of eating people (yes, this is a dark, dark book). On the eve of father's day (and my youngest son's first birthday), I am faced with this question: If I carry the fire (and I hope I do), how do I help my kids learn to carry it? Thanks to my three littlins for reminding me there is a fire. Thanks mom and dad for teaching me to carry the fire. Thanks Cormac McCarthy for writing such an amazing and haunting book. Thank God for the fire.

A Walker Percy Formula

A Lover of Man=Thoreau
A Technician of Man=Skinner
A Lover of Man + A Technician of Man=Hitler

John Steinbeck on the Progression of Mystery

I guess we're all, or most of us, the wards of that nineteenth-century science which denied existence to anything it could not measure or explain. The things we couldn't explain went right on but surely not with our blessing. We did not see what we couldn't explain, and meanwhile a great part of the world was abandoned to children, insane people, fools, and mystics, who were more interested in what is than in why it is. So many old and lovely things are stored in the world's attic, because we don't want them around us and we don't dare throw them out.

John Steinbeck from The Winter of Our Discontent

I don't know why, but the religion/science question has heated up in my circle lately. Everything I've been reading has been coming back to the question. Even when I'm just trying to read a novel, there it is.

Today, I was thinking about what I was like when I was a teenager. Regrettably, I was one who knew it all. It wasn't until my early twenties that I was able to make decisions out of my vast knowledge and wisdom...and it wasn't until the last few years that some of these decisions have come home to roost. I wonder if science (I'm talking about the ideology/religion of science that pervades our culture) is in that early twenties phase. The knowledge has been met with resources and now it's on like Donkey Kong.

A list of scientific accomplishments whose conseqences are mostly unknown:

1. Genetically coded plants who only respond to proprietary fertilizer and herbicide.
2. Cell phones vs. brain health
3. The long-term effects of an industrialized diet
4. The internal combustion engine and its possible link to climate change

I'm not saying we throw out science, scientific progress, and cell phones, I'm just wondering what science's 30s will look like. Will we be too far gone?

Goodbye Tree

I expanded my garden this year by cutting down a Leyland Cypress. Cutting down a thirty foot tree with a chainsaw is manly...in case you were wondering.

The Wire

I love morally complicated stories. The Wire plays this line to perfection. All the characters, both the "good" and "bad" guys, are flawed. The story in the first season centers on a police unit trying to take down a drug dealing operation in Baltimore. The show digs in on both sides. You get to know the cops and the dealers. The more you know, the more ambiguous it gets. It's making me think about the nature of good and evil, the reality of moral ambiguity, and the sadness of drugs and addiction. If you like thinking about these types of things, watch it.