Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • Honourable Mention for Threads and Stuff to Read

    This from An Evangelical Dialogue on Evolution. Of course I use the honourable spelling for honourable in honour of Canadian connections. He links to my post Theisms, Creationisms, and Evolutionisms: An Exercise in Definition. I appreciate the mention and link.

    Since I have been writing a good bit on Dawkins, and linking to other material about him, I also wanted to mention the post Steve Martin named as Post of the Month, which is actually a two part series titled Sympathy for the Devil’s Chaplain part 1 and part 2. Dr. Matheson has noted what many others have seen–Dawkins is positively brilliant in his scientific writing and falls pretty flat on religion. I mean to experts in the field of theology, the difference is certainly obvious. It’s not a matter of disagreeing, though I do. It’s a matter of the quality of the argumentation.

    Dr. Matheson’s blog is also wonderful, and I have several other articles tagged to read soon. He writes well, and most of it is comprehensible to a non-scientist such as myself. I really love reading his profile: Associate Professor of Biology, Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan | Reformed Christian | developmental cell biologist | evolutionist | NCSE Steve | baseball fan | Bardolator.

    His blog will go on my blogroll and I’ve already subscribed to the RSS.

  • Lawmakers Apologize

    . . . and well they should. MSNBC has the story.

    One interesting paragraph was this one:

    Legal experts say the case shows the United States has violated a 1998 law that specifically prohibits the government from turning a suspect over to a foreign country where the suspect might be tortured. U.S. authorities say they do not turn over suspects to other countries without diplomatic assurances that they will not be tortured.

    He was turned over to Syria. On what basis did someone in our government believe a diplomatic assurance from the Syrians that he wouldn’t be tortured? Is it because Syria has never been known to lie before? They’re on our list of states supporting terrorism! Yet we are, of course, going to continue this practice because it is so valuable–we are assured–in fighting terrorism.

    And here is what one Republican congressman said:

    “Yes, we should be ashamed” of what happened in the Arar case, Rohrabacher said. “That is no excuse to end a program which has protected the lives of hundreds of thousands if not millions of Americans. … We are at war. Mistakes happen. People die.”

    Mistakes happen? Well, yes they do. If we had arrested and questioned him, but studied the situation carefully before we turned him over to Syria, we could presumably have avoided this mistake. The problem is that we are getting calloused about charges of [tag]torture[/tag]. After all, there are those in our own government who will defend the practice. [sarcasm]Perhaps someone sent him to Syria for his own protection.[/sarcasm]

    At least the Canadian government is doing the right thing now by apologizing and compensating the man.

  • God Reducing Machine

    Check it out here. Reduce your God to a manageable size!

    HT: 42.

  • Interesting Response to 5 Lies the Church Tells Women

    Dave Warnock has an interesting response to 5 Lies the Church Tells Women which he titles 5 Lies the Church Tells Women: does not go far enough. Working with some principles derived from Karl Barth’s writings, he responds point by point, except to a couple of them that he says he can’t take seriously.

    I commend his article to those who are trying to think about this in a way that is faithful to the message of scripture, rather than merely to certain words in scripture. It’s thought provoking stuff.

  • Agreement on Spying

    I sometimes wonder precisely what the purpose was of electing a Democrat-led congress, considering their track record. I’ve gotten a couple of notes from the ACLU on this, and also got it from the Washington Post today.

    My problem here is not that [tag]surveillance[/tag] does not need to occur in some cases. Rather, my question is how, even with emergency powers to get surveillance going immediately at need, it should be seen as soft on terrorism to require warrants to spy on U. S. citizens? You have a secret court to oversee this, but they would rather not even have them involved, and they certainly don’t want to go to an ordinary judge.

    If the problem was their ability to respond quickly, then I would have sympathy. They need to be able to respond quickly. But the law provides that they must get approval within a certain period of time. That is a good idea. It’s accountability. The rhetoric of the administration does not sound to me like that of people zealously carrying out their tasks and being held back by the law. Rather, it sounds like people who don’t want accountability no matter when in the process it occurs.

    When we connect this with problems already identified in various agencies using their new powers, the questions become even greater.

    How much freedom do we want to give up in the name of fighting terror, especially when giving up that freedom does not actually help the battle against terror?

  • John Wesley on 2 Peter 1:3-11

    I wanted to post John Wesley’s notes on this passage as I’m studying it and presenting some devotional talks on it for the Running Toward the Goal podcast (first one here). I was started down the path of studying this passage by Laura Curtis’s post on Pursuing Holiness which is well worth reading.

    John Wesley’s notes are interpolated in the KJV of the passage, to fit the language style. I took both the KJV text and Wesley’s notes from e-Sword, a wonderful, completely free Bible software package, though I added formatting.

    3According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:

    As his divine power has given us all things – There is a wonderful cheerfulness in this exordium, which begins with the exhortation itself. That pertain to life and godliness – To the present, natural life, and to the continuance and increase of spiritual life. Through that divine knowledge of him – Of Christ. Who hath called us by – His own glorious power, to eternal glory, as the end; by Christian virtue or fortitude, as the means.

    4Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

    Through which – Glory and fortitude. He hath given us exceeding great, and inconceivably precious promises – Both the promises and the things promised, which follow in their due season, that, sustained and encouraged by the promises, we may obtain all that he has promised. That, having escaped the manifold corruption which is in the world – From that fruitful fountain, evil desire. Ye may become partakers of the divine nature – Being renewed in the image of God, and having communion with them, so as to dwell in God and God in you.

    5And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;

    For this very reason – Because God hath given you so great blessings. Giving all diligence – It is a very uncommon word which we render giving. It literally signifies, bringing in by the by, or over and above: implying, that good works the work; yet not unless we are diligent. Our diligence is to follow the gift of God, and is followed by an increase of all his gifts. Add to – And in all the other gifts of God. Superadd the latter, without losing the former. The Greek word properly means lead up, as in dance, one of these after the other, in a beautiful order. Your faith, that “evidence of things not seen,” termed before “the knowledge of God and of Christ,” the root of all Christian graces. Courage – Whereby ye may conquer all enemies and difficulties, and execute whatever faith dictates. In this most beautiful connexion, each preceding grace leads to the following; each following, tempers and perfects the preceding. They are set down in the order of nature, rather than the order of time. For though every grace bears a relation to every other, yet here they are so nicely ranged, that those which have the closest dependence on each other are placed together. And to your courage knowledge – Wisdom, teaching how to exercise it on all occasions.

    6And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;

    And to your knowledge temperance; and to your temperance patience – Bear and forbear; sustain and abstain; deny yourself and take up your cross daily. The more knowledge you have, the more renounce your own will; indulge yourself the less. “Knowledge puffeth up,” and the great boasters of knowledge (the Gnostics) were those that “turned the grace of God into wantonness.” But see that your knowledge be attended with temperance. Christian temperance implies the voluntary abstaining from all pleasure which does not lead to God. It extends to all things inward and outward: the due government of every thought, as well as affection. “It is using the world,” so to use all outward, and so to restrain all inward things, that they may become a means of what is spiritual; a scaling ladder to ascend to what is above. Intemperance is to abuse the world. He that uses anything below, looking no higher, and getting no farther, is intemperate. He that uses the creature only so as to attain to more of the Creator, is alone temperate, and walks as Christ himself walked. And to patience godliness – Its proper support: a continual sense of God’s presence and providence, and a filial fear of, and confidence in, him; otherwise your patience may be pride, surliness, stoicism; but not Christianity.

    7And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.

    And to godliness brotherly kindness – No sullenness, sternness, moroseness: “sour godliness,” so called, is of the devil. Of Christian godliness it may always be said, “Mild, sweet, serene, and tender is her mood, Nor grave with sternness, nor with lightness free: Against example resolutely good, Fervent in zeal, and warm in charity.” And to brotherly kindness love – The pure and perfect love of God and of all mankind. The apostle here makes an advance upon the preceding article, brotherly kindness, which seems only to relate to the love of Christians toward one another.

    8For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

    For these being really in you – Added to your faith. And abounding – Increasing more and more, otherwise we fall short. Make you neither slothful nor unfruitful – Do not suffer you to be faint in your mind, or without fruit in your lives. If there is less faithfulness, less care and watchfulness, since we were pardoned, than there was before, and less diligence, less outward obedience, than when we were seeking remission of sin, we are both slothful and unfruitful in the knowledge of Christ, that is, in the faith, which then cannot work by love.

    9But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.

    But he that wanteth these – That does not add them to his faith. Is blind – The eyes of his understanding are again closed. He cannot see God, or his pardoning love. He has lost the evidence of things not seen. Not able to see afar off – Literally, purblind. He has lost sight of the precious promises: perfect love and heaven are equally out of his sight. Nay, he cannot now see what himself once enjoyed. Having, as it were, forgot the purification from his former sins – Scarce knowing what he himself then felt, when his sins were forgiven.

    10Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall:

    Wherefore – Considering the miserable state of these apostates. Brethren – St. Peter nowhere uses this appellation in either of his epistles, but in this important exhortation. Be the more diligent – By courage, knowledge, temperance, &c. To make your calling and election firm – God hath called you by his word and his Spirit; he hath elected you, separated you from the world, through sanctification of the Spirit. O cast not away these inestimable benefits! If ye are thus diligent to make your election firm, ye shall never finally fall.

    11For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

    For if ye do so, an entrance shall be ministered to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom – Ye shall go in full triumph to glory.

  • Stupidity and Lack of Accountability in Enforcement

    Because I’ve been blogging lately about how law enforcement can get out of hand and start to look very much like [tag]terrorism[/tag] itself when it is not accountable, I want to call attention to a couple of incidents in which I found at Aetiology (Mail harmless bacteria, go to jail). You can find further information at Effect Measure.

    In these cases minor errors on the part of individuals involved in research got blown way out of proportion, and yet the authorities can’t simply back off. They have to find someone to blame, thus justifying all of their time and expense.

    But I think there’s something else at work here. Back in 1985, shortly I first established a computer BBS system (The Wind Dragon Inn, in Bellevue, NE), with a majestic 20 MB HD and 1200 bps modem, I got a call from an FBI agent. She was investigating a case of credit card fraud, and the individual charged with fraud had called my BBS. I’m not sure what the precise connection was, whether he had charged the call to a stolen card, or whether there was some other fraud involved.

    The agent asked me what I sold–nothing. Then she wondered why people would call that number. I explained that they would connect to the BBS and exchange messages or download public domain software. I was unworried because I was fanatical about only having legitimate software available for download. She asked once again then whether it was possible I had been defrauded. I said, no, it wasn’t, because there was no money being exchanged over the BBS at all.

    I thought that was it, but then she asked the question. “What exactly is a computer bulletin board?”

    For the next half hour I discussed how bulletin boards functioned, what people did with them, how e-mail (such as it was) was handled in those wondrous FidoNet days. She thanked me profusely for taking the time to help her out. Her bosses had dumped the case on her and she had no background for it.

    I thought that was a minor case due to the newness of the computer industry, but the more I see the more I suspect that there is a great deal of ignorance driving enforcement in very technical areas. People are evaluating risks who do not have the basic knowledge needed. I’m sure there are experts around somewhere, but I suspect that such overreactions do not come from people who truly understand what they are dealing with, but rather with people whose training amounts to concentrated seminars on the general outlines.

    True accountability for law enforcement should involved persons who are intimately familiar with the standards and dangers of the particular fields, whatever those are. We see too many appointments in government much like the ones in FEMA (not to mention other agencies) at the time of Katrina, in which government officials who didn’t even have a fig-leaf worth of knowledge were trying to run the relief effort with predictable results.

    Respect for law enforcement is good. People who deserve respect welcome accountability.

  • Anthropology and Military Planning

    It seems that some people in the military have noticed the fact that we don’t really understand the territories and the countries about which we so glibly pontificate. And much of the pontification is official, which makes the ignorance more egregious.

    In an BBC article received via e-mail, I read the following:

    But that is not all. The US military has developed a new programme known as the Human Terrain System (HTS) to study social groups in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    The HTS depends heavily on the co-operation of anthropologists, with their expertise in the study of human beings and their societies.

    Steve Fondacaro, a retired special operations colonel overseeing the HTS, is keen to recruit cultural anthropologists.

    “Cultural anthropologists are focused on understanding how societies make decisions and how attitudes are formed. They give us the best vision to see the problems through the eyes of the target population,” he said.

    There’s a story that brings up mixed emotions. We certainly do need to understand people better, but a phrase like “target populations” presents an understanding that is at least equivocal. What exactly are we targeting these populations for? What are we going to do with them, and what gives us the right to do it?

    But despite my questions I welcome the notion of creating a better educated military. Hopefully somewhere in this process some military leaders will be asking just how we can cooperate with, rather than dominate local populations. Perhaps troops can learn how to work in a way that minimizes offense. But as long as those military forces are operating under orders to transform those societies into an image that is desirable in American eyes, I don’t think it will work perfectly. It’s good military strategy, but good military strategy needs to be employed in the service of good political and diplomatic strategy.

    And that is the level at which I believe our country as a whole, and particularly the appropriate portions of our government need to be better educated. A little bit of anthropology would go a long way with our diplomats. To those who suggest that we have such experts, I would answer that we are 1) not listening to them, 2) they are not as expert as they appear, or 3) we don’t have enough of them.

    I suspect all three. Why? Because somewhere up there in the American government somebody thought that we would easily accomplish the invasion of Iraq (we did), would be welcomed by the Iraqi people as liberators, and then would easily create a new government. Low cost in money, in lives, and even in time. Then we could get on with other targets in the war on terror.

    Whoever painted that scenario was somewhere between criminally negligent and grossly stupid. There was never any reason for anyone to believe that in the first place.

    Of course we need anthropologists and other social scientists in the military. The more wisely force is applied, the less force is needed. In social situations, the best result is when no force is actually applied at all. I’m not so optimistic as to think we can attain that easily, but the more intelligently we act, the less people we’re going to have to kill–our own and others.

    The tragedy is that we’ll be sending in anthropologists to help us deal with various tribal groups after much of the damage is already done. If we are to fight and win a war on terror, we will need more than a military strategy. The prime error of diplomats is the belief that diplomacy accomplishes all; the prime error of those who wield military power (but not usually of the soldiers on the front line) is to believe that force can ultimately solve all problems.

    A strategic approach to the [tag]war on terror[/tag] will have to involve an intelligent strategy, first political, and then military where problems are actually intractable.

    One further note–I can see the ethical objections to anthropologists in being part of these teams. Do you want to use your understanding of a tribal group to facilitate their manipulation by the military with no control over just what will be done and how? You would never know when your knowledge might become the key to destroying a culture. At the same time, applied at the proper level, such knowledge could result in great savings of life. Perhaps there is a balance to be sought here.

  • Any Military Connection Triggers Criticism

    Sometimes I wonder if some of my liberal fellow-citizens really don’t like change, progress, innovation, and experimentation all that much. I really thought that conservatives were the ones who were supposed to look only at traditional solutions, while liberals were open to a variety of ideas.

    This afternoon I was doing some writing in my living room, where I sometimes work when the juices are flowing slowly. There’s nothing like turning on a little TV news to annoy me enough so that I’ll start writing at my maximum typing speed. The story that got me started today was about a Marine run High School in Chicago. The link is not to the story I was watching, because I changed channels and can’t remember where that was, but the story and the tone is the same.

    Here we have a High School that young people want to get into, that offers an opportunity for discipline and learning in a structured environment, and what do the critics have to say? Oh no! We’re preparing them to be soldiers! In this case that should be Marines, but why should an Air Force vet like me care about a minor issue like that?

    Now I have to wonder why it is such a bad thing if these young people are prepared for military service. That gives them an option, even a number of options, including reserve and national guard service. It should also prepare them to go into training to become police officers for example. But more importantly, especially in areas where the public schools do not provide an education in a disciplined environment it will simply produce a high proportion of students who can successfully go on to college or to training for other careers.

    It is not the only option for students, and there are certainly students who don’t belong there, but we should welcome such opportunities, especially in the public school system. Providing options that work should be regarded as a good thing.

    Finally, we need a military made up of people who are willing to carry out the orders of the civilian leadership. Any horror one may feel at the orders given to the military–and I myself am horrified by some of those orders–should pale in comparison to the thought of a military that is not prepared to carry out the orders of civilian authority, or of a country with no professional military service at all.

    Complaints of poor people being forced into military service do not reflect well, in my view, on those complaining. It’s a risky job, but it is a job. It is a job that needs to be carried out, and we should honor each and every person who is willing to do it. We should not denigrate them by suggesting they’re just too stupid to do anything else.

    PS: While I was writing this, the story came up on Fox News whose interviewer asked the imbecilic question–“Why do you need so many of these schools?” Hmm!?!? Perhaps they work?

  • Mixed Emotions about Sweden

    I read this news article from Sweden with mixed emotions (HT: Panda’s Thumb).

    My first reaction is negative. Since these schools are faith based, it seems appropriate to me that they teach from the perspective of the faith involved in sponsoring the school. I relate this to my own experience being home schooled and being taught creationism. At the end of High School, my grades and test scores were substantially above average, and I know many home schooled or Christian schooled kids who have a similar experience.

    Personally I would prefer to have gotten down to learning what evolution actually was earlier. It would have saved me some time exploring this on my own, but in general, I would prefer to leave such choices to parents, as long as the children in question are able to pass the appropriate tests. I prefer directing education through the requirements for standardized testing or for admission to the next level, rather than prescribing a curriculum in faith-related schools.

    But there is actually the real question. Sweden’s schools are not organized like American schools apparently. The schools in question are funded by the state even though they are faith based. This triggers the other side of my mixed emotions. If the taxpayers need to pay for it, then the state should control the content. All church related schools, as well as my home schooling, were entirely funded by my parents, the same parents who chose to teach me creationism. They chose it; they paid for it.

    I also should emphasize that I believe the correct choice in using public money to fund education at the elementary or high school level is to use that money to teach consensus science, and that means evolutionary theory, and no brand of [tag]creationism[/tag], including ID.

    I’m not certain if there are non-state funded schools in Sweden that would not be subject to this mandate or if all schools are state funded in one way or another. That’s an interesting question for further research.

    Americans should be careful in reading this story and blog reactions to it, because it does not reflect our situation in terms of either funding or the general structure of our educational system.