Category: Uncategorized

Literal or non-literal

At church last Sunday, the band played a familiar worship song that was occasionally sung at both another church we have attended as well as at the evangelical churches we attended in the States. What I found interesting, however, was that the English words were translated somewhat differently into Italian.

Church 1: Potrei cantar del Tuo amor per sempre

Church 2: Cantero’ sempre del Tuo amore

The translations are similar, but not identical. The first one is more literal and takes some mild liberties with the words in order to maintain the meter. The second slightly modifies the meaning in order to better accommodate the grammatical structure of the language.

Church 1: I could sing of your love forever.

Church 2: I will always sing of your love.

In like manner, every Bible translation features many such minor variations that depart from every other translation. For the most part, these variations are extremely trivial, although a few of them have led to some serious problems of interpretation, such as the English translations from Hebrew “ratsach” to “kill” rather than the more accurate “murder” and “‘ôp” to “bat” rather than “flying creature”.

This is why I think it is such a massive mistake for Christians to make a fetish of Biblical perfection. While I believe the Bible is the Word of God and is to be applied in the most literal manner possible, I do not believe that the human mind is capable of properly comprehending either the Word of God or the Will of God. There is, I submit, considerably Biblical evidence to support this contention, especially in the words of Jesus Christ and the Apostle Paul. Now, this does not mean that one can pick and choose whatever sections of the Bible one happens to think makes the most sense at any given moment, but it means that there is no need to concoct elaborate structures of illogic in order to paper over what appear to be minor contradictions or to insist that the entire verity of the Bible stands or falls on the perfection of every translator working in every language.

The Bible itself is abundantly clear that to fetishize Scripture is a massive mistake. No one knew the Law better than the Pharisees, after all. One of Jesus Christ’s primary occupations was to point out, again and again, that it is the underlying message and the spirit of the texts that matter most, not the literal letter of them. And that is why I contend it is both counterproductive and downright Pharisaical to claim that one’s faith in Jesus Christ and ultimate salvation has connection whatsoever with one’s literal belief in the accuracy in a passage from Genesis, Nehemiah, or 2nd Peter.

I simply don’t believe that God cares at all if we believe that He created rabbits in a single 24-hour day or that they evolved from some proto-rabbits in the post-Cambrian. After all, He knows what happened so all of our various speculations can only amuse Him. I suspect our varying opinions on that and many other supposedly important matters are about as important to Him as our opinions on the passage of Obamacare and whether Brett Favre is going to play football in the 2010 season or not. God cares about our love for Him, our obedience to His Laws, and our willingness to place our faith in His Son and bend our knees before Him.

Evil Greens

James Delingpole happily shares the results of a recent scientific study on the morality of the environmentally conscious. Or rather, the lack thereof:

Do Green Products Make Us Better People is published in the latest edition of the journal Psychological Science. Its authors, Canadian psychologists Nina Mazar and Chen-Bo Zhong, argue that people who wear what they call the “halo of green consumerism” are less likely to be kind to others, and more likely to cheat and steal. “Virtuous acts can license subsequent asocial and unethical behaviours,” they write.

The pair found that those in their study who bought green products appeared less willing to share with others a set amount of money than those who bought conventional products. When the green consumers were given the chance to boost their money by cheating on a computer game and then given the opportunity to lie about it – in other words, steal – they did, while the conventional consumers did not. Later, in an honour system in which participants were asked to take money from an envelope to pay themselves their spoils, the greens were six times more likely to steal than the conventionals.

It’s hardly surprising. These are the same jokers who completely fail to see anything wrong with the vast AGW/CC scam. They are clearly moral vacuums.

Goodbye to a Good Dog

In the winter of 1994, Big Chilly, the White Buffalo and I decided that the Digital Ghetto needed a dog. The White Buffalo decided on a Basenji and we even went to visit a breeder or two, but his plans fell through for reasons I cannot recall. I was initially interested in a Shiba Inu or a Husky, but after reading through a few dog books, I was struck by a very pretty breed from Hungary that had golden eyes. After Big Chilly and the White Buffalo saw one at a dog show and enthused about how beautiful they were, I decided that my dog would be a Viszla.

In the summer of 1995, I found a breeder in southern Minnesota and the three of us, accompanied by the White Buffalo’s girlfriend, made the trek to pick out a puppy. To this day, I have never seen anything cuter than eight very young Viszla puppies running madly towards us with their long ears flapping up and down. After spending nearly an hour playing with them, I settled on the second largest male pup because he was playful without being overly aggressive. It turned out to be an excellent choice, as he grew into the nicest, most graceful, and most strikingly attractive dog I have ever seen. I named him Mithra, in what turned out to be a comically inappropriate reference to the Roman soldier’s god, although for the first six months he was usually addressed as Mr. Saggy Puppy Butt for the way in which all of the fur on his back sagged off his backside whenever he jumped up on something or sat down.  He was about as fierce as a newborn lamb and never met a lap he didn’t believe was just his size.

For 15 years Mithra the Viszla has been the very best of companions. He travelled halfway around the world with Spacebunny and I and always greeted us at the door with a happily wagging tail and the traditional Viszla gift in his mouth. Even when he could barely walk anymore, he always insisted on painfully pushing himself to his feet and making his unsteady way to the door to welcome us home. We still laugh about how he once brought a favorite stuffed animal to the door, prompting frantic shrieks of “Hinny sad! Hinny sad!” from the highly alarmed owner. And he played a significant role in Spacebunny and I getting to know each other, as many of our dates that first autumn involved walking paths covered with fallen leaves, trailing after our dogs as they ran together through the woods.

He hated the Minnesota winters, but loved chasing the low-flying seabirds on the abandoned beaches of northern Florida when we lived there. He also enjoyed the Italian sun, and liked nothing better than to recharge his batteries by sleeping in front of the big picture window with the southern exposure. He was a little lonely after Spacebunny’s dog was hit by a car on a visit back to Minnesota, but appeared to bitterly regret getting what he’d wished for when we came home one day with a very enthusiastic and energetic Ridgeback puppy.

He was always a favorite with everyone no matter where we went. People would stop us on the street to admire him and children adored him despite his aristocratic demeanor. Big Chilly and Spacebunny’s brother liked him so much that they, too, decided upon Vizlas for their next dogs, Freya and Kjetil. He learned to answer to Sha-sha since children couldn’t pronounce Mithra; that was about the only trick he ever mastered. He was a perfectly obedient dog, he simply wasn’t intelligent. And, to be honest, with looks like that, who needs brains? “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful,” those golden, somewhat vacant eyes seemed to say. At obedience school, he would run through his entire repertoire in a desperate attempt to demonstrate his complete willingness to do whatever you wanted if he could only figure out what it was.

It became clear that he was aging when the Ridgeback gradually began overtaking him when they were out running around the fields. She would stalk him like a lion stalking its prey, then pounce on him with gleeful abandon. After some initial disgruntlement on his part, they wound up getting on very well together, although as he became more and more fragile, we had to keep an eye on them to ensure that she didn’t accidentally hurt him in her playful enthusiasm. Mithra outlived both Freya and Kjetil, but his health declined and we finally had to move his kennel outside because he couldn’t make it through the night without needing to relieve himself. Throughout the last two winters, we expected to wake up one cold morning and find him gone, but he lingered on despite losing most of his hearing, most of his eyesight, and much of the use of his back legs. We were reluctant to put him down, though, because he was still the same, good-natured dog who happily slept away his days in the sunshine and greeted us at the door.

Unfortunately, he recently started losing weight no matter how much he ate and his hips deteriorated to the point that he can’t even lie down comfortably by himself. His time is upon us and we simply can’t deny it any longer. So, after posting this, I am taking him to the veterinarian to put him to sleep. I’m thankful that he has had such a happy and well-loved life, but it is very difficult to finally say goodbye to him all the same. This afternoon, we took him for one last little walk together, then gave him a treat and lots of pets and hugs before making a bed for him in the car. They say it will be quick and painless, and I trust that will be the case.

Goodbye, my little friend. I will always miss you. You were a good dog. You were a VERY good dog. May you rest in peace, and if there is a dog heaven, let it be filled with squirrels to chase, beaches on which to run, soft beds upon which to lie, and never-ending sunshine in which to sleep.

UPDATE: He died as he lived, in an effortlessly beautiful manner. He lay his head on my arm and the vet was surprised to see his eyes were closed and he was nearly asleep before she had the first tranquilizing shot prepared. It was hard and it was sad, but it wasn’t awful.

Mailvox: Eurosclerosis and collapse

Eilonwy asks about RGD:

I’m reading The Return of the Great Depression, which I bought at full-price at the Wall Street Borders. I’m only a quarter through it, since I have to call my securities-analyst brother once a day to make sure I understand the concepts. In short: it’s slow, but worthwhile, going for me.

One question I have for you, and maybe it’s answered later in RGD is: when? I get this sense from reading your blog and Mr. Denninger’s, that the center cannot hold much longer and that we are tottering on the brink of a Greek-style collapse. Then I read on Yahoo Finance that Social Security has moved permanently into the red and that the debt we will accrue paying SS benefits will hurt our AAA rating, moving us yet further into debt. As Ed Morrissey states, “the wheels have begun to fly off the entitlement bus.”

What I don’t quite understand is how the welfare states of Europe cruised along – functionally – for 60 years, with entitlement programs far more progressive than what we have here, before facing the crisis they find themselves in now. Whereas (at least when reading you and Mr. Denninger) it doesn’t seem our economy will be able to hold it together for five years, and we haven’t even socialized medicine yet!

I think my question is twofold: 1) are we really bordering collapse, or could we limp along a la Britain and France, with a soft-totalitarian welfare state, and remain semi-prosperous for a decade or three before all the bad decisions we’ve made and are making really come back and whallop us? and 2) if we are bordering collapse, why do we find ourselves here so quickly?

The main reason that Europe has been able to limp along with heavier social outlays is because the European nations have virtually no defense budget. Since 1962, U.S. defense spending plus defense-related interest on the debt has amounted to around $2,500 per year per capita. If you consider that full Social Security benefits at the average income amounts to around $12,576 per retiree, it’s not hard to see where Europe has been finding its additional social spending.

In answer to your first question, yes, we really are bordering upon collapse because our total debt level is over 500% of GDP when all of the unfunded, off-balance sheet debts are included, as they must be. This is completely unsustainable even if we ended all defense spending today. Which, of course, we’re not doing anyhow. In answer to your second question, this is a rather binary problem. You can get by one way or another right up to the moment that you can no longer do so. While some still think it’s possible to hyperinflate out of the problem – which is really just a means of buying stability a little time if you consider the eventual fate of most countries that hyperinflated – there is a very serious timing problem even if the peculiar U.S. debt-money system permits such rampant inflation.

Once the fleets of money helicopters are sent aloft, it’s game over for the global economy, for everyone with savings, and everyone holding debt. That’s assuming it even works; if it doesn’t work then it’s an instant game over for geopolitical stability. So, Washington and the Fed don’t dare to issue the order until the very last minute… which means that when the next default crisis hits, there is a very good chance that they will not react quickly enough and the financial system will collapse in a catastrophic manner beyond the ability of even hyperinflation to help it limp along.

Perhaps the financial wizards who created this situation can find a way out of it, but I do not see one nor have I read anything by anyone that offers what I consider to be an even remotely credible solution. And while it’s true that these events always take longer to develop than anyone ever thinks, when they finally come to pass they tend to unfold much faster than anyone expects.

Mailvox: in which the shining void is reached

MH stumbled across the column today:

I think Richard Dawkins is tremendous, and I’m not a socially maladjusted loser, although must admit that being called that is quite a convincing argument that perhaps I’m wrong! Maybe I should rethink my ways or I’ll be called names. I essentially believe in freedom, capitalism, individualism, and reason. I’m a conservative in all things non god-related, and can’t stand progressives and their broken ideas. What I don’t understand about conservative sites like wnd is that they can be so right on so many things, then at the last second have to throw in, oh we also believe in god, santa claus, and the easter bunny.

My experience tells me that people today believe in god mostly because of family pressures, or the mistaken idea that life has no meaning on Earth if they don’t so they can’t let go of the idea. But god is like phlogiston, an idea that had some usefulness before understanding of how the world works progressed to the point where it was obvious it was a human proposal that was just incorrect and needed to be discarded. The common thread between most progressive ideas is the desire to reach a certain conclusion at all costs, the determination that their conclusion must be true because they want/need it to be, then embark on a complex mission of torturing logic so they can desperately avoid reality. Most conservative ideas however embrace reality for what it is — until you get to this one glaring exception they can’t seem to let go of.

What book(s) would you recommend for someone seeking to learn more about people like yourself who seem otherwise incredibly intelligent yet can’t seem to let go of this one bad idea? I’m seeking books based on rational arguments, preferably low on the name-calling intimidation tactics you personally seem fond of that just undermine your cause.

First, I’d like to point out that I only described Richard Dawkins’s biggest fans – the former RD.Net crowd – as socially maladjusted losers. Any substantial perusal of those old forums will suffice to prove my point, further supported by Dawkins’s own reaction to his erstwhile fan club. Second, the connection that you are missing between freedom, capitalism, individualism, reason, and a belief in God is that the first four are heavily dependent upon the fifth. This is not controversial; non-Christians and even non-believers such as Socrates, Seneca, and Voltaire have subscribed to it. You would do well to examine the difference between historical pagan societies and Christian society before concluding that your phlogiston hypothesis is even remotely credible. Keep in mind that you still live in a heavily Christian society, where even the atheists, as Michel Onfray points out, are Christian atheists. And, as I’ve pointed out, it is already clear that it is not secular scientopia that is the post-Christian heir, but rather a return to paganism.

I don’t read apologetics, so I’m afraid I can’t recommend much in the way of a positive, non-argumentative case for Christianity although I’m sure a number of commenters here will have some recommendations for you. My Christian faith and my allegiance to Jesus Christ stems from my experience and observation of evil, so it’s not a line of reasoning that is likely to make a great deal of sense to anyone who lacks it. But I would greatly encourage you to read Thucydides and his History of the Peloponnesian War, Caesar’s Commentaries, and other works of pre-Christian history so that you will have a more accurate picture of what a society without God is like. Then, perhaps you will have a better perspective on the connection between those things you accept and that which you reject.

JC also shares his two cents:

Day:

Your slide show isn’t all that impressive. I’ll cross the IQ bridge first and get it out of the way. My IQ is 156 and I’m an atheist. I suppose that stupid ignorance would be blissful, but I can’t swallow Christianity.

Religion has been around longer than modern science – your point?

Here’s the deal, Vox. I don’t believe that an invisible man in the sky is talking to you. I think you’re blowing smoke – like the religious have done for centuries.

JC
Member and Sponsor – American Atheists

The relevant question isn’t if the slideshow is impressive or not, but is it accurate or not? It’s interesting how nearly every atheist who has emailed or commented today hasn’t dared to take any direct issue with any of the refutations and claim that the New Atheist arguments are, in fact, correct. And anyone with an IQ of 156 should have absolutely no trouble understanding the point regarding the significance of the degree to which religion preceded science in light of Sam Harris’s claim that religion + science = human extinction.

But, since even atheists with 156 IQs apparently have some trouble applying basic logic, I will spell it out. Since religion has only caused 7% of the wars in human history and has never once threatened the existence of the species in 11,600 years, at least 93% of the threat to continued human existence will remain even if religion is eliminated tomorrow. This means that the threat of extinction has virtually nothing to do with religion, it is the direct result of science. If the threat is real – and naturally we must assume that Sam Harris, PhD, knows whereof he speaks – then logic dictates the only way to eliminate it is to end science. To the extent that religion and science are in opposition, then, the only rational response to the threat of human extinction is to embrace religion, regardless of one’s personal beliefs in any religious tenets, and make full use of it to the maximum extent possible in order to eliminate science.

But I am humbly grateful to JC. While I can envision a more perfect state of indifference, it would take ten Siddharthas medidating ten centuries to reach this amazing state of Śūnyatā to which his assertion of his opinion has propelled me…. I can see… everything! I can feel… everything!

The blade is sharpened

And time is fast running out:

The war over mark-to-market accounting is about to get hot, again. In coming weeks, the Financial Accounting Standards Board is likely to propose that banks expand their use of market values for financial assets such as loans, according to people familiar with the matter. That departs from current practices in which banks hold loans at their original cost and create a reserve based on their own view of potential losses.

This has to be done, but the banks are going to fight it with everything they’ve got. The reason is because, by my estimate, the values of those loans, as well as the securities and derivatives based on those loans, are around 41% overvalued. That means that marking to market rather than marking to fantasy will eradicate about $15.6 trillion from the credit markets.

Even in an economy with a $14 trillion GDP, this is likely to have an impact.

Congress, led by Barney Frank, forced the FASB to permit what has been little more than legalized accounting fraud in order to keep the banks out of bankruptcy. But because the so-called financial rescue plan has failed, the important question now is whether the politicians are determined to go down fighting alongside the banks or whether they will finally break ranks and try to save themselves by sacrificing the banksters to the vengeance of an angry public.

Monday column

Against the New Atheism

Now that its moment in the media sun has passed, the New Atheism is fading fast. Richard Dawkins has repeatedly demonstrated why he needs to be put out to intellectual pasture. He published an entire book dedicated to passing off an inference as a fact before belatedly discovering what everyone else knew already; his biggest fans are an unpleasant collection of socially maladjusted losers. Christopher Hitchens was repeatedly beaten up in debates by various Christians before being physically beaten by Syrians he had provoked. He then took Dawkins’s OUT campaign a little more literally than anyone had expected and announced that he was an occasional homosexual. Sam Harris’ two accomplishments have been to create the amusingly misnamed Reason Project, which was founded for much the same reasons and is expected to have about the same success as Air America, and to publish a wildly irrational attack on one of America’s most celebrated and accomplished scientists in the New York Times that was completely disregarded by the Obama administration as well as everyone else.

No one has any idea what Daniel Dennett has been doing, but that’s understandable because no one, including the atheists who claim to be his fans, actually reads his books.

Here is the slideshow addressing the seven New Atheist arguments mentioned in the column.

Atheist argument query

I’m in the process of putting together a tool that I think people may find useful in confronting aggressive atheists making spurious arguments. TIA has its place, of course, but the reality is that few people on either side of the debate are never going to read more than a few pages of any of the books that address the matter. Here are the seven New Atheist arguments that I’ve already addressed; you may note that I have chosen to select arguments that can be easily and graphically refuted utilizing empirical evidence.

Religion Causes War
Religion Inspires Violence
Religion Inhibits Science
Sam Harris’s Extinction Equation
Sam Harris’s Red State Argument
Atheists Commit Less Crime
Richard Dawkins’s Improbability of Divine Complexity

What arguments most demand attention in your opinion? Which arguments are most often brought up by the militant atheists of your acquaintance? Alternatively, if you are an atheist, what are the arguments that you feel most powerfully make the case for atheism?