Geoff's Miscellany

A few days ago, I read that an article had been published in a peer-reviewed journal two years back which argued that post-birth abortion wasn’t really infanticide. I thought that things were surely exaggerated. I really hoped that the article was written as a piece of speculative ethics meant to say, “If we accept ‘a’, then ‘b’ must surely follow.” It is not speculative, I fear. I found the article on Ebsco (thankful to be back in college, an ebsco article a day keeps the boredom away). Here is the abstract:

I’ve always liked this band. Their lyrics often betray a sort of optimistic nihilism. They remind me of Douglas Adams in that respect. Happy atheism seems rare, it probably isn’t, but it just seems rare. Anyhow, here’s a somewhat haunting song off Modest Mouses’ new album. My favorite lyric is probably this:

Expulsion from an exoskeleton Of our mothers we arrive Soft sticky cold we arrive and then start to cry

Lyrics:

Today I read Proverbs 24:6:

...for by wise guidance you can wage your war, and in abundance of counselors there is victory.

In all toil there is profit, but mere talk tends only to poverty.

I thought that in the military setting mentioned, the meaning of 24:6 is clear. If you have help from people who understand the terrain, the weapons in use, and the other military then your victory (or quick surrender) are more likely to succeed. If you read your Von Clauswitz and Sun Tzu, you’ll be more likely to succeed. If you’re a martial artist, but you only know boxing and a jiu-jitsu guy gets a grip on you, have a nice nap. But if you’ve learned from both styles, then your chances of success increase.

Sufjan Stevens has been one of my favorite artists since about 2006. I always liked him, but when his album The Age of Adz dropped I was a bit disappointed except for this song. I hope you like it.

Here are the lyrics:

Vesuvius I am here You are all I have Fire of fire I'm insecure For it is all Been made to plan Though I know I will fail I cannot Be made to laugh For in life As in death I'd rather be burned Than be living in debt

Vesuvius Are you a ghost Or the symbols of light Or a fantasy host? In your breast I carry the form The heart of the Earth And the weapons of warmth

Robert Heinlein. Starship Troopers 1959.

The Good:

Heinlein wrote a very solid sci-fi novel. It contains my favorite science fiction elements:

1. Speculative World Building: The imaginative nature of the battle armor and the change of civilization at the advent of interstellar travel are both very exciting.
2. Speculative Philosophy: The author has his characters philosophize about the nature of war between humans and other species as well as about human nature in a fashion that is made compelling because of the stakes in the story. I think that the philosophy leaves much to be desired, but it very nearly is the most compelling modernist expression of ethics I've read and I've read a lot.
3. Quotable moments:
   1. "There are no dangerous weapons; there are only dangerous men. We're trying to teach you to be dangerous - to the enemy." (77)
   2. "That old saw about 'To understand is to forgive all' is a lot of tripe. Some things, the more you understand the more you loathe them." (141)
   3. "On the bounce." (various)
   4. "Now continued success is never a matter of chance." (233)
   5. "If I ever find a suit that will let me scratch between my shoulder blades, I'll marry it." (131)
   6. About what was learned in officer candidate school: "Most especially how to be a one-man catastrophe yourself while keeping track of fifty other men, nursing them, loving them, leading them, saving them-but never babying them." (221)

The world was very compelling, the characters were interesting, but the story itself didn’t seem to go very far.

I think a lot of young Christians in their desire to be radical apply certain verses of Scripture in really extreme and naive ways. For instance, “Love…believes all things (1 Cor 13:7)”.

If you go back and read 1 Corinthians, this is not an indicator of how love always handles everything. It is a description of how love handles disagreement and misuse of gifts in church meetings and why love is superior to any ability that can help the church (it mediates between abilities). Thus, love believes the best of people that you find grating or irritating. Does love actually believe “all things” in all circumstances? Check out this paragraph from Proverbs:

In a wonderful little essay, Jesus the Logician, Dallas Willard observed:

To be logical no doubt does require an understanding of what implication and contradiction are, as well as the ability to recognize their presence or absence in obvious cases. But it also requires the will to be logical, and then certain personal qualities that make it possible and actual: qualities such as freedom from distraction, focused attention on the meanings or ideas involved in talk and thought, devotion to truth, and willingness to follow the truth wherever it leads via logical relations. All of this in turn makes significant demands upon moral character. Not just on points such as resoluteness and courage, though those are required. A practicing hypocrite, for example, will not find a friend in logic, nor will liars, thieves, murderers and adulterers. They will be constantly alert to appearances and inferences that may logically implicate them in their wrong actions. Thus the literary and cinematic genre of mysteries is unthinkable without play on logical relations.

Introduction Certainly, the problem of evil is philosophically persistent and even more certainly is it emotionally difficult. I think that the problem of evil has multiple solutions many of which are true and many of which are entirely compatible with one another. And though I find the problem interesting and though the problem in some way bears upon this post, I think that it can be put aside for the purposes of what follows. Whether the problem of evil has a solution or not, here we are and we face struggles, trials, unfair horrors, and nature-inflicted deformations of personhood and body. The question is this, “How shall I respond?” I don’t mean this in some insensitive way, where I claim that all difficulties are actually a good thing. Evil is evil. I mean it in this precise way:

In De Rationibus Fidei, St. Thomas explains how best to go about arguing with those who do not identify as Christians:

First of all I wish to warn you that in disputations with unbelievers about articles of the Faith, you should not try to prove the Faith by necessary reasons. This would belittle the sublimity of the Faith, whose truth exceeds not only human minds but also those of angels; we believe in them only because they are revealed by God.

Yet whatever come from the Supreme Truth cannot be false, and what is not false cannot be repudiated by any necessary reason. Just as our Faith cannot be proved by necessary reasons, because it exceeds the human mind, so because of its truth it cannot be refuted by any necessary reason. So any Christian disputing about the articles of the Faith should not try to prove the Faith, but defend the Faith. Thus blessed Peter (1 Pet 3:15) did not say: “Always have your proof”, but “your answer ready,” so that reason can show that what the Catholic Faith holds is not false.

Proverbs 12:27 (ESV)  Whoever is slothful will not roast his game, but the diligent man will get precious wealth.

There are essentially two possibilities for interpreting the first part of this saying:

1. A slothful man will have no game to roast because he's lazy.
2. A slothful man will not roast the game he has, because he's lazy.

This might apply to gym memberships, exercise equipment, a laptop, a writing desk, tools, hobby equipment, and so-on. Why buy an expensive study Bible if you never read the Bible you have? Similarly, why go “church shopping” if you don’t know the names of anybody at the church you already attend?