Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • Paying People to See EXPELLED

    Given the advance publicity, and now reviews from some friends who have seen the movie, I have almost entirely negative expectations. That is not surprising, considering that I’ve sold out to the Darwinist ConspiracyTM, and no longer believe in God.* :-;

    However, it seems that the upright and theologically correct** folks who produced the movie, have even less faith in it than I do. They apparently feel the need to pay people to see it (HT: Austringer and Glen D. at AtBC.)

    They are especially interested in getting middle and high school students to see the movie, which demonstrates yet again how much more anxious they are to bring their message before the uninitiated than to bring it before people who are qualified to critique it.

    I eagerly await exaggerated claims of ticket sales based on this particular strategy. The ID folks have taken a step down from “truth is determined by popular vote” to “truth is determined by those who can pay for it.”

    *I eagerly await the first time this is quoted by some humor-challenged individual to prove I really, truly am an atheist.

    **Political correctness is a relative newcomer on the correctness scene. Theologians just didn’t have such a catchy name for it. For centuries in many places one could get burned at the stake for not being theologically correct, rather than just expelled from a university, for example. Both ideas are, of course, destructive of freedom. That’s why, of all the epithets rained upon me, I prefer “Henry the Heretic.” It’s good to be a heretic!

  • Bypass the Electoral College?

    Wayward Fundamentalist Christian has a post about a movement by some states to bypass the Electoral College. This would be accomplished by a simple expedient that I had never thought of–state laws awarding their electoral college delegates to the winner of the national popular vote. (Here’s a NYT reference for those who may prefer that source to the WorldNetDaily.)

    I hate to imagine the legal activity that would take place were enough states to vote this particular change, especially if we had a candidate who won the college, while another candidate won the popular vote. The Supreme Court would be stuck deciding who would be the next president.

    I am a great fan of the electoral college, as it was intended to function and as it functioned–once, if I recall correctly. After that it has deteriorated. The original purpose, in part, was this, according to Alexander Hamilton, in Federalist #68:

    It was equally desirable, that the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice. A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations.[Source: Alexander Hamilton Defends the Electoral College in Federalist No. 68]

    There was also the intent of blunting somewhat the power of very populous states and increasing the power of less populous states. The framers of the constitution were not much in love with popular majority. They wanted a government with a basis in the people, but they also included limits on the power of a simple majority of the people.

    At this point, the idea of the electoral college as a deliberative body that chooses a well-qualified president is dead. With delegates committed to particular candidates by the popular vote in their states, the only chance there would be for the electoral college to actually do its job would be if nobody got a majority. They could do some negotiating to see if they could keep from sending the election to congress.

    As for the route of bypassing, I’ll have to say I’m against this approach. I think it could easily put the presidency in a dangerous state of uncertainty in a future election. It would be much better–I think nearly essential–to change the electoral college through the appropriate means of amending the constitution. Personally, I fail to see the need and wouldn’t support such a change, but if it was done by constitutional amendment, at least there would be no conflict following an election under those rules.

  • Freedom Not to Invite

    I think the Nevada Supreme Court got this one right. Freedom of the press must include full freedom to invite or not to invite. I often support candidates with very low ratings at the polls, but there is no legal basis to force their inclusion in any televised debate.

  • Politician Images Don’t Interest Me

    Politicians want to reach independents? OK:

    This and this are a waste of time. You won’t attract my vote with image ads or arguing about inadvertent statements.

    This is a bit better. Puncture the image. It also led me to factcheck.org, which I will be visiting frequently.

    Analyzing policy statements and proposals would be better. Though I must admit the economic policy statements are pretty discouraging thus far.

  • Suffering and Perfection (St. John Chrysostom Again)

    Those who believe in the doctrine of Christian perfection (on which I’m a bit wobbly myself) might consider this:

    “He learned,” he saith, to obey God. Here again he shows how great is the gain of sufferings. “And having been made perfect,” he says, “He became the Author of salvation to them that obey Him.” (Cf. supra, pp. 384, 391.) But if He, being the Son, gained obedience from His sufferings, much more shall we. Dost thou see how many things he discourses about obedience, that they might be persuaded to it? For it seems to me that they would not be restrained. “From the things,” he says, “which He suffered He” continually “learned” to obey God. And being “made perfect” through sufferings. This then is perfection, and by this means must we arrive at perfection. For not only was He Himself saved, but became to others also an abundant supply of salvation. For “being made perfect He became the Author of salvation to them that obey Him.”

    From: CCEL

  • St. John Chrysostom on Hebrews 4:11-13

    I think a few modern evangelicals might regard this as heretical, being contrary to the pure penal substitutionary atonement or forensic justification. But he sure does seem to have a finger on precisely what Hebrews has to say.

    [1.] Faith is indeed great and bringeth salvation, and without it, it is not possible ever to be saved. It suffices not however of itself to accomplish this, but there is need of a right conversation also. So that on this account Paul also exhorts those who had already been counted worthy of the mysteries; saying, “Let us labor to enter into that rest.” “Let us labor” (he says), Faith not sufficing, the life also ought to be added thereto, and our earnestness to be great; for truly there is need of much earnestness too, in order to go up into Heaven. For if they who suffered so great distress in the Wilderness, were not counted worthy of [the promised] land, and were not able to attain [that] land, because they murmured and because they committed fornication: how shall we be counted worthy of Heaven, if we live carelessly and indolently? We then have need of much earnestness.

    And observe, the punishment does not extend to this only, the not entering in (for he said not, “Let us labor to enter into the rest,” lest we fail of so great blessings), but he added what most of all arouses men. What then is this? “Lest any man fall, after the same example of unbelief.” What means this? It means that we should have our mind, our hope, our expectation, yonder, lest we should fail. For that [otherwise] we shall fail, the example shows, “lest [&c.] after the same,” he says.

    From: CCEL

  • Ezra Levant and Cartoon Publication

    I was planning to write something on this, because I believe this kind of censorship is an egregious violation of human rights, but it appears the man himself can tell his own story just fine. (HT: Pursuing Holiness.)

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzVJTHIvqw8.

    Just so.

  • Blogroll: Quality of Christian Apologetics

    I really wasn’t going to blog about my blogroll today, but An Evangelical Dialogue on Evolution had such a good post that I wanted to link to it, and at the same time I can check off another blog from my blogroll for this round of linking.

    He also links to a post on Through a Glass Darkly (got to love that name!), a fellow member of the Moderate Christian Blogroll. Both of those posts are well worth watching. While I’m at it, I should mention both a disclaimer and a sneaky commercial. My company publishes a set of books on Christian apologetics, the Consider Christianity Series. Having had the experience of editing that set, I would see some points of agreement and disagreement between what these two authors had to say and that series.

    That aside, I think both authors make important points. I am only going to add a couple of things. Apologetics by nature tends to operate quite differently from science. In apologetics, we have our beliefs, and then we try to back them up. The question is how we will back them up. That, of course, interacts with what those beliefs are in the first place.

    An inflexible belief system will tend to produce apologetics that is questionable, simply because one has to work to stretch the facts to accommodate the belief system. A purely evidentiary apologetics will run into this problem, unless it can alter details of that which it defends, and even then it may be difficult simply due to the nature of reality. We simply can’t know enough to tuck in all the loose ends. On the other end of the spectrum, purely presuppositional apologetics often tends to make too many things into presuppositions, and one ends up with a very well ordered package of beliefs and defenses, but very little connection to the real world. Some presuppositionalists will consider that a good thing!

    Between those two extremes, however, are various views that recognize both faith and evidence, and in evidence recognize subjective elements that go into a belief system. For example, I would claim to commune with God pretty much on a daily basis. Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t think this makes me inerrant, nor does it mean you should believe me more than the next person. I’m not making any claims based on it–it’s just part of my spiritual life, and is something I think can be part of anyone’s spiritual life, should they so desire. Is that evidence? Well, it certainly isn’t objective evidence. I’m not going to tell you where your dog ran away to, or what the stock market will do during the day because of my mediations. There is no special light that gathers around my head. Yet that has a great deal to do with my own belief system, rational or not.

    I like works on apologetics that show some struggle with the issues (both posts I reference make good recommendations) without claiming to finally solve all of the problems. That fits with the universe as I experience it, and with God as I experience him. Neither can be tied up neatly and labeled “closed,” and I think neither is likely to go that way. But both invite me to experience them, think about them, argue about them, and look for evidence as to their nature.

    It’s more like a theme park ride than it is like a train ride with a fixed destination.

  • Textual Emendation in Isaiah 49:7

    The JPS Tanakh of Isaiah 49:7 reads, in part:

    Thus said the LORD,
    The Redeemer of Israel, his Holy One,
    b-To the despised one,
    To the abhorred nations,-b . . .

    Note b reads: Meaning of Heb. uncertain. Emendation yields “Whose being is despised / Whose body is detested”; cf. 51.23.

    I noticed this first when I read this in Hebrew, and found that I was not able to produce a translation that I found satisfactory. I remained in doubt. So I looked it up in a few translations. Note also that the reading adopted in the JPS text is itself an emendation.

    (more…)

  • Why do you Believe . . .

    . . . the things that you do believe? I’m not talking here about religious faith, though this could impact some aspects of faith. I’m talking about just about any topic on which you choose to believe one source over another.

    I’ve seen a number of cases recently on blogs, in the mainstream media, in church, and in my daily life in which people have expressed very decided opinions that one person is right and another is wrong. In some cases, I believe the people knew where they had gotten their information and had made some judgment as to whether it was right or not. That doesn’t necessarily mean they agree with me. It does mean that their viewpoint was thoughtful. Others simply repeated what they had heard from a source they felt was credible.

    But why do we feel certain sources are credible while others are not? Unfortunately, this is frequently not something we think about seriously. We just find ourselves believing what is written in periodicals we like, on blogs we like, or in books written by authors we like, and we haven’t really considered the reasons. I am not certain how one could survey this. The survey questions would be self-defeating. But I suspect that for many of us the choice is made based on whether the source agrees with our own opinions most of the time. That is likely the main, unconscious reason. (If you’re someone who carefully checks sources, this doesn’t apply to you!)

    I believe we also tend to believe people who share our religious or political beliefs. We check our opponents out much more carefully than our friends. Finally, we tend to develop feelings based on who we associate with on a regular basis. I have observed this in many political campaigns. People who associated regularly with people who supported a particular candidate or party tended to believe their candidate or party would win despite all other evidence. They would remember polls that favored their candidates and forget those opposed.

    Election season is a good time to ask yourself just how reliable your sources are. I’m not trying to tell you what or who to believe. I’m just suggesting that you make that choice conscious. Find the most objective data possible and evaluate who you listen to. Learn a bit more about learning.

    It’s a good goal for election season.