Brown Paper Packages Tied Up with String Theory

Physicist Brian Greene made his appearance this morning with NPR’s essay series “This I Believe.” Here’s an excerpt:

I believe the process of going from confusion to understanding is a precious, even emotional, experience that can be the foundation of self-confidence. I believe that through its rational evaluation of truth and indifference to personal belief, science transcends religious and political divisions and so does bind us into a greater, more resilient whole.

So how do you pursue understanding and truth with “indifference to personal belief” if you’re going to put this pursuit into the category of personal belief itself? And people wonder why I eschew the whole idea of “beliefs.”

Ratzinger’s Remarks on Relativism

[June 5, 2005: I made a few minor additions in the paragraph on Christ apparently changing.]

While doing a little research for my previous post, I ran across this article by Joseph Ratzinger, who now goes by the papal alias (or “regnal name,” though “papal alias” sounds so much cooler) of Benedict XVI. (Incidentally, I think the only way to make the picture on his website look any goofier would be to animate his Blessing Arm—this guy is the Head Honcho of the Roman Catholic Church? Seems like the picture could look a little less, well, cartoonish.) This article (originally an address “during the meeting of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith with the presidents of the Doctrinal Commissions of the Bishops’ Conferences of Latin America”) dates from May 1996, so he was “Cardinal Ratzinger” at the time.

Anyway, it’s an interesting article: Relativism: The Central Problem for Faith Today. It starts out pretty good, but as I came to the close of his remarks, I remained unconvinced, which was rather disappointing. Here was the “Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,” whose duty was to “promote and safeguard the doctrine on the faith and morals throughout the Catholic world,” and I thought, “Is this the best you can do?” Of course, considering the occasion, he was “preaching to the choir,” so to speak, and it was just an address, not a full-fledged book or anything. Still, the conclusion to which he came at the end of his remarks seemed rather pasted-on, a kind of prosaic deus ex machina, if you will.

After discussing some pitfalls of modern religion (several of which had me nodding in agreement—e.g., his disapproval of “New Age” religion), he comes at last to “the historical-critical method,” that infamous monster of German scholarship which has been devouring theology for the last two centuries. “At last,” I thought. “An adversary worthy of his intellect!”

So first he points out what many have pointed out:

It is not the exegesis that proves the philosophy, but the philosophy that generates the exegesis.

This is fair enough. People read a book and see what their minds are able to see, which is defined by their understanding of the world, which can only be their own understanding and therefore subjective.

Then Ratzinger gives a definition to the philosophy of the historical-critical scholars:

If I know a priori (to speak like Kant) that Jesus cannot be God and that miracles, mysteries and sacraments are three forms of superstition, then I cannot discover what cannot be a fact in the sacred books.

This, too, is fair enough. If that is indeed your a priori understanding of the world, then it is what you will read in the book. But as I read those words, I immediately asked myself, “But what of the reverse?” In other words, consider his criticism from the other direction: “If I know a priori that Jesus must be God and that miracles, mysteries and sacraments are not forms of superstition, then I can discover what must be a fact in the sacred books.” Indeed, hasn’t he already revealed his own a priori assumption by calling them “sacred books”? I think so; consider these other comments:

In short, in the revelation of God, he, the living and true One, bursts into our world and also opens the prison of our theories, with whose nets we want to protect ourselves against God’s coming into our lives.

and

If the door to metaphysical cognition remains closed, if the limits of human knowledge set by Kant are impassable, faith is destined to atrophy.

and

Our task is to serve the faith with a humble spirit and the whole strength of our heart and understanding.

But what is “the revelation of God,” and how can it “burst into our world” unless we have already preset our cognition with an a priori proclivity to interpret our experiences as divine revelation? Ratzinger speaks of leaving the “door to metaphysical cognition . . . closed,” but how is opening that door not an a priori decision to perceive metaphysics? If you are to “serve the faith” with your understanding, hasn’t your understanding become subject to an a priori commitment to the faith? If one a priori direction is wrong, why is the other not? Unfortunately, Ratzinger does not address this question in these remarks. The closest he comes is when he says that

human reason is not autonomous in absolute. It is always found in a historical context. The historical context disfigures its vision (as we have seen).

But Ratzinger himself, indeed the whole of the Roman Catholic Church, is “found in a historical context” and thus conditioned or “disfigured,” to use his terminology. He wants us to believe that historical-critical scholars have had their vision disfigured by their historical context, but to believe that the historical context of the Church (presumably because it has been around for so much longer) has not similarly affected its vision. But earlier in his remarks, when Ratzinger criticized another theologian for allowing the historicity of the incarnation to be “relegated as a relapse into myth,” he recognized one of the foundational aspects of Christianity, which is that an eternal God was concretely linked to history through his incarnation as the Christ, thus fundamentally establishing Christianity as a historical religion and subjecting it to historical conditioning. As he says elsewhere in these remarks, “Only the God himself who became finite in order to open our finiteness and lead us to the breadth of his infiniteness responds to the question of our being.” What is that but the anchoring of Christianity within a historical context? But the historical context of this alleged incarnation of God did not adversely affect all the succeeding generations of the Christian faith? Christianity can’t have immunity from historical context for itself while denying it to others, especially when it’s going to admit that historical context can have a devastating effect on one’s perspective as relates to facts and truth.

Here is another passage that struck me oddly. One of the problems with historical-critical exegesis, Ratzinger claims, is that

it wants to grasp with the greatest precision what happened in a past moment, closed in its past situation, at the point where it was found in time. . . . Therefore, historical-critical exegesis does not bring the Bible to today, to my current life. This is impossible. On the contrary, it separates it from me and shows it strictly fixed in the past. . . . Such exegesis, by definition, expresses reality, not today’s or mine, but yesterday’s, another’s reality. Therefore, it can never show the Christ of today, tomorrow and always, but only—if it remains faithful to itself—the Christ of yesterday.

While I can hardly contest his assertion that historical-critical exegesis leaves the Bible firmly in the past, I can’t help but wonder at his implication that the Christ of the “true” Christian faith is somehow changing from yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Indeed, he even suggests that reality itself is changing. If the Christ of today is different from the Christ of the historical text, how can he know this unless Christ has revealed himself today, apart from that historical text? Even more difficult is to know how this Christ has changed if reality has been changing, too. Furthermore, why—and perhaps more importantly, how—would Christ be changing such that his presence in history would be so different from his presence today that study of the historical texts as historical texts could not reveal him? Or is the alleged “Christ of today” simply a modern representation of the historical Christ, with new words put into his mouth by today’s authorities?

Finally, I have one last bone to pick. Near the end of his remarks, Ratzinger answers the question, “Why, in brief, does the faith still have a chance?”:

I would say the following: because it is in harmony with what man is. Man is something more than what Kant and the various post-Kantian philosophers wanted to see and concede. Kant must have recognized this in some way with his postulates.

What?! That’s the root of his Big Rationale? “Kant must have recognized this”? In other words, Kant must have recognized more than he wanted to concede he saw. I.e., he was dishonest by omission. In effect, Ratzinger has said, “I know I’m right because Kant, even though he didn’t say so, must have agreed with me, because I’m right.” I must say that, considering how perceptive the rest of his remarks were on this occasion, getting to the end and reading his lackluster big-finish attack on historical-critical exegesis and this non sequitur wrap-up left me feeling cheated. Unfortunately, though, I’m not really surprised. Lots of Christians say all kinds of insightful, reasonable things, only to pull back at the end and tack on some “Soli Deo Gloria” kind of thing. Like I said, deus ex machina.

Anyway, he’s the Pope now. It would be fun to get an audience with him so I could ask my questions directly, instead of just spouting them into the stuffy air of the blogosphere, but that’s not very likely, is it?

The Bare Necessities?

I found myself perusing the Old Testament prophets this afternoon after reading a section in the chapter “Against Theology” from Walter Kaufmann’s Faith of a Heretic. Here’s the pertinent bit from Kaufmann:

If only implicitly, the teachings of the Hebrew prophets are . . . consistently and radically anti-theological. “I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. . . . But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream.” These words of Amos [5:21, 24] state one of the central themes of the prophetic books. Isaiah [1:12-13, 16-17] says similarly: “When you come to appear before me, who requires of you this trampling of my courts? Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination to me. Cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; defend the fatherless; plead for the widow.” And Micah [6:8]: “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

In the Prophets and in parts of the New Testament—though certainly only in parts—love, justice, and humility appear to be all that is asked of man, and questions of belief entirely peripheral, while precise formulations about God, “his attributes, and his relations with man and the universe” are altogether out of the picture. Perhaps the Book of Jonah goes furthest: here the wicked men of Nineveh are forgiven everything because they are sincerely sorry; they are pagans and they need not even be converted or acknowledge any new beliefs whatever. [See the third chapter of Jonah.]

I suppose one could quibble with Kaufmann’s interpretation of the events portrayed in the story of Jonah, but the verse from Micah, in particular, is pretty unambiguous: “what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” Indeed. (Now, let’s see: I try to do justice, I love kindness, and, in my own way, I certainly strive to “walk humbly.” So I reject theology and religion. Have I rejected God, or have I rejected ideas about God?) But so many Christians are not satisfied with what their God apparently requires of them—only to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly. As well, they require this strange thing called “orthodoxy” (approximately: “right belief”) or its cousin “orthopraxis” (approximately: “right pratice”), which seems to be their way of defining exactly how one is supposed to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God. And which is probably why simply loving justice, kindness, and humility is not good enough to win their approval—you have to couch everything in their jargon (orthodoxy) and carry the flag on their approved social and political causes (orthopraxis), too.

Which brings me back to Jonah. Why did God send this guy to Nineveh, anyway?

Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah son of Amittai, saying, “Go at once to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before me.” (Jonah 1:1-2)

What is “wickedness”? What were these people up to? In Jonah 3:8, the King of Nineveh proclaims that “All shall turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands.” Still pretty vague. But I have to wonder: If there was a city full of people like me (thoughtful atheists who try to practice political libertarianism and personal self-restraint), would the same God send a Jonah? In a similar vein, I have also wondered what Jesus would say to me. I certainly don’t feel like a wicked, evil, or violent person. I just happen to think that religion, theology, and most of the decadent, irresponsible, bacchanalian culture of American society have gotten frighteningly out of hand, that the self-proclaimed corrective strains of religion and theology lean too far in the other direction, and that nothing in life requires a standardized linguistic or ritualistic orientation toward a theologically standardized God.

Certainly, if we want to live peacefully, we have to agree on a few standard things at least, but only a few, and as few as possible (which is why I am almost as contemptuous of our modern proliferation of laws as I am of the modern proliferation of religion), but they don’t have to be theological, and probably shouldn’t be, either. Why not? Because, for example, it’s much easier to agree that we don’t want other people injuring us than to agree on why we don’t want other people injuring us. As well, we can easily agree that reciprocity is much nicer when practiced for positive or non-injurious behaviors than when practiced for negative or injurious behaviors, but we could argue from now until the end of time on why we prefer things that way. So why bother loading up our agreements with controversial whys?

Of course, if you want to live in a community where people make public oaths or pledges expressing their solidarity to some philosophy or idea, or to the reified Community itself, you’re certainly welcome to start one. As for me, however, I’ve no interest in such things. (I’m so far gone that, while I do love my country, I still think it’s creepy when kids stand up together in class and say the Pledge of Allegiance, and when people think they have to put symbols on the backs of their cars to assure their fellow citizens where their sympathies lie. I don’t care if you support the troops or not; just drive on the right—or left, as the case may be—side of the road!) You leave me alone, I’ll leave you alone.

That’s not to say I don’t think ideas should never be discussed. That’s what this blog is all about. But the discussions ought to be civil and negative effects beyond the forum should be minimized. Agreement should be neither expected nor enforced, but understanding should be cultivated.

Which logically leads to the possibility that someone can disagree with the idea that we need to agree to behave in this way. Very well. If you disagree that we need to agree on a few things at least, to maintain the peace, then practice your disagreement and make no effort to agree on the basics or to maintain peace. See how long that strategy works, and how many friends or allies you can find—without agreeing on a few basics to maintain peace among yourselves. Living as a human, among humans requires basic agreements, just as being made of matter requires your subjection to gravity. Is this a full-blown political philosophy? Or is it just a description of what we can’t get by without—the bare necessities?

So I must wonder: How is it possible to live in human society without doing justice, loving kindness, and practicing humility? It seems like a silly question because if I want to find people who have no truck with justice, kindness, or humility I don’t need to go very far. But what happens with those people? Is their way workable? There may be “no honor among thieves,” but still there are thieves, and they are drawn to one another, and they persist. But no society is ever wholly given over to “thieves” or “thievery” (which I don’t mean literally, but to represent “people who have no truck with justice, kindness, or humility”). I suspect there will always be a portion of every human society that is dedicated to cheating the common social agreements, but will they live well? Securely? Happily? Hopefully?

My bigger question, though, I suppose, is whether those prophets of the Old Testament expressed what any outraged observer might express, or whether their moral indignation came from divine inspiration. Considering the combination of my own disdain for divinity and my propensity for similar outrage at my corrupted culture, I tend to think that just as every society has its thieves, so every society has its outraged commentators, without regard for divinity. Is this orthodoxy? Orthopraxis? Or are those words descriptive rather than prescriptive? That is, are there ideas and behaviors that will always be considered more “right” than others simply because they work better, or do humans need to be told by some outside source which ideas and behaviors are better? (Once again, Euthyphro.)

By now, you probably know exactly where I stand on this question. But the problem will always end up where “intelligent design” ends up: even if it seems that good behavior is unavoidable for stable societies, someone will be there to claim that the tendency was designed and flows from God. Nor can either perspective be proved or verified. That is, we disagree on why we should behave, not that we should behave.

So what should be codified in our social contract if we want to maintain a harmonious existence? Certainly not the why. If you officially codify that good behavior is mandated or necessitated by God, then you have essentially inducted all good behaving people into your religion (if only as heretics), whether they like it or not. Conversely, if you officially codify that good behavior has nothing to do with God, then you have essentially displaced all believing people from their religion, whether they like it or not. The solution, then, is to simply agree that good behavior, peace, and stability are common desires, and leave it to individuals to discern for themselves why that might be.

At any rate, while I certainly think our society could (and should, but probably won’t) withstand a good deal of ideological destruction, there is a limit to the destruction that is not arbitrary, nor does that non-arbitrary limit necessarily indicate the presence of God.

Nerd City

Over the last few days I read a great little piece of Star Trek pulp: Ex Machina by Christopher L. Bennett. It’s been years since I read a Trek novel, and even longer since I finished one. (A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away—er, in high school—I picked up Enterprise: The First Adventure by Vonda McIntyre but gave up halfway through when I got bored.) But when I saw this publicity blurb, I had to read Bennett’s book:

In the aftermath of the astonishing events of Star Trek^©: The Motion Picture™, the captain and officers of the U.S.S. Enterprise™ remain haunted by their encounter with the vast artificial intelligence of V’Ger . . . and by the sacrifice and ascension of their friend and shipmate, Willard Decker.

As James T. Kirk, Spock, and Leonard McCoy attempt to cope with the personal fallout of that ordeal, a chapter from their mutual past is reopened, raising troubling new questions about the relationship among God, Man, and AI. On the recently settled world of Daran IV, the former refugees of the Fabrini worldship Yonada are being divided by conflicting ideologies, as those clinging to their theocratic past vie with visionaries of a future governed by reason alone.

Now, echoes of the V’Ger encounter reverberate among the Enterprise officers who years ago overthrew the Oracle, the machine-god that controlled Yonada. Confronting the consequences of those actions, Kirk, Spock, and McCoy also face choices that will decide the fate of a civilization, and which may change them forever.

Seeing as how Star Trek: The Motion Picture (known to hardcores as “ST:TMP” or just “TMP”) was my favorite Trek flick (followed closely by Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, because they both kept the old Star Trek spirit of making philosophy and theology into adventure, critical dismissal be damned), and thinking “about the relationship among God, Man, and AI” is one of my favorite pastimes, I couldn’t resist.

And I’m glad I didn’t. What the publicity blurb does not include is that Bennett has also embedded his plot in a situation of cultural imperialism and terrorism, to go along with the “those clinging to their theocratic past,” which makes the book all that much more engaging, since we’re living in our own situation of cultural imperialism (depending on who you ask) and terrorism, including people clinging to a (probably imagined) theocratic past right here at home. On top of that, Bennett has done a swell job of channelling the characters, especially Kirk and Spock. As well, there are lots of fun little references to other Trek incarnations. (My favorite being one scene where Christine Chapel, who was played by Majel Barrett on the TV show, asks “Do I sound like the computer?” and “Do I look like someone’s mother?” If you’re an initiate, you’ll know why that’s cute, but if you don’t I can’t tell you because Star Trek “Easter Eggs” are the traditional way for nerdy fans to feel superior to non-fans, who are too busy having lives to know this kind of nifty stuff.)

Anyway, despite being linked up with the beleaguered Trek franchise, it’s a nice little piece of sci-fi. But, as another Star Trek alumnus has been known to say, You don’t have to take my word for it.

Toilet Training

Link up and read:

Prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention facility told FBI interviewers in 2002 and 2003 that guards repeatedly desecrated the Quran.

Oh, dear. Cry me a river. “Guards repeatedly desecrated the Quran”? Flushing it down the toilet? “Humiliating the Quran“? How do you humiliate a book? And why are we stopping with the Quran? This is America, land of equal opportunity. I say we start flushing copies of all holy books down toilets. Look! You can still believe in your religion, even though other people don’t believe in it, even though other people think it’s stupid, even though other people make a public show of denigrating it!

While we’re at it, lets flush copies of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights and the Magna Carta and the UN Charter and the writings of Thomas Jefferson and Charles Darwin and anybody else who is revered by somebody. And let’s flush a flag from every nation, too. I’m not joking. People all around the world—not just Muslims at Gitmo—need to go through the process of seeing everything they love humiliated and denigrated by someone else, and then discovering afterward that they can still make the choice to value what they love despite the opinions of others. Destroying and denigrating and humiliating objects and symbols does not destroy (or even negate) the faith, hope, and love of those who revere them. Where is your faith? Where is your identity? Where is the center of your being? In an object? A document? A statue? A person? Or is it something beyond abuse, which cannot be touched, even by the most wretched and blasphemous infidel?

Too many religious people are idolaters, and cringe too easily when the objects of their idolatry are scorned by others. Here’s another (hypothetical) example, from Religion Explained by Pascal Boyer (p. 86):

In many places Christians also treat some artifacts as endowed with special powers. People for instance go to a distant place to pray to a particular Madonna, which means standing in front of an artifact and talking to it. (You may find this description rather crude, and retort that no one is really talking to a man-made object; people are considering a “symbol” of the Virgin, a “sign” or “representation” of her presence and power. But that is not the case. First, people are really representing the Madonna as an artifact. If I tell them who made it, using what kind of wood and paint, they will find all that information perfectly sensible, as it would be indeed of any other man-made object. Second, it really is the artifact they are addressing. If I proposed to chop the Madonna to pieces because I needed firewood, and suggested that I could replace it with a photograph of the statue or with a sign reading “pray to the Virgin here,” they would find that shocking.)

Muslims ought to understand this, at least a little. After all, they take seriously the graven image ban, adorning their mosques only with text. But then the physical text becomes sacred, apparently, when printed in a book. Yet these are the same people who insist that translations of the Quran are not the true Quran, so apparently it’s not the content but the language that’s important. But flushing the artifact down the toilet apparently scandalizes their sensibilities, if one can call them that. I think they’re insensible. Consider:

One prisoner, the FBI notes say, “considers it his duty as a Muslim to believe the rumor [of Quran abuse] until it is proven untrue.”

Sensible? Rational? Nope. And that is why these people are dangerous. (Also, while they bitch and moan about Americans flushing a book down the toilet, they’re busy blowing people up or beheading Westerners.) As L says, “some people just need to get a sense of humor—religious extremists never seem to have one.” Indeed. If your religion can only survive in some coddling, uncritical environment where no one, not even an unbeliever, is allowed to voice criticism, then perhaps you ought to think it over again. I thought God was supposed to be impervious, even against the swirling waters of a toilet.

Now, let’s hope I don’t get the Salman Rushdie, Taslima Nasrin, or Theo Van Gogh (!!!) treatment for writing this. Lovely people, those Muslims.

Dictator Porn & Hair-Trigger Outrage

So Saddam Hussein has been getting a little more coverage than usual. Personally, I couldn’t care less. If publishing pictures of an ex-tyrant in his underwear is a “devaluation of the dignity of human rights,” then what rhetoric is left for the condemnation of torture? Still, a lawyer for Hussein is going to sue:

“I think it’s a strategy duly orchestrated by the Americans to destroy the image of President Saddam Hussein – and to say, ‘look at this man, he’s not a god, he’s only a man … He’s a prisoner, he is our prey, it’s no worth it to still believe in him.’”

Sorry, but it wasn’t pictures of Saddam in his undies that destroyed his image; it was his behavior while in office.

Meanwhile, back in Iraq, we have people like this guy:

Thirty-five year-old Sattar Jabbar says it is a shameful that these photos were published because Saddam Hussein was president of Iraq once, and its a humiliation for the government and the people.

And this guy:

Maithan Shehab Ahmad says he hates Saddam after the 12 years he spent in the military fighting in the Iran-Iraq war. But he says he was disgusted to see the photos.

“Saddam Hussein stole my life from me,” he said. “I spent 12 years of my life in the military and he took everything. But that does not mean we accept the humiliation of our president.”

Here in the USA, people frequently bewail our ubiquitous irreverence by asking “Is nothing sacred?” But when I see these kinds of comments coming out of Iraq, I have to wonder of these people, is everything sacred? Here this Ahmad fellow is claiming that Saddam stole his life, but still he can’t seem to stomach a little humiliation for the deposed dictator. (In a similar vein, I would chuckle at the Muslims who are outraged by the alleged defacement of the Koran by US military personnel, if only their hair-trigger sense of indignity weren’t potentially violent. Will Middle Easterners ever lighten up about anything?)

However, at least we can rest easy knowing there is at least one sensible person in Iraq:

Shopkeeper Ayad Mahmoud says the photos would only humiliate the Iraqi people if they liked or respected Saddam. “But if you ask anyone, they will tell you he did not represent the Iraqi people, he was just a tyrant,” he adds.

Indeed. Meanwhile, back in the USA, our president, who certainly has his faults, is not only not revered, he allows his wife to lambast him in public. Is nothing sacred? No! Nothing is sacred! (And we’re better for it.)

Yet Another One

A Pennsylvania woman who wanted to read from the Bible to public school kindergartners thinks she is the victim of “a pattern of discrimination against Christians.” No, she’s the victim of her own ignorance and inability to understand the meaning of context and the authority lent by a power differential. When are Christians going to understand that they are not being discriminated against or persecuted for being Christians, but that they are being systematically chastised for abusing public and civic authority in the service of their religious beliefs? These baseless accusations of discrimination and persecution are becoming more and more tiresome and they are certainly not winning any points for Christians among non-Christians.

Attacking the Clones

Over in South Korea, scientists have made a breakthrough with embryonic stem cell research. Meanwhile, back here at home, President George “Science is Evil” Bush has condemned their advance:

“I’m very concerned about cloning,” Bush told reporters in the Oval Office on Friday. “I worry about a world in which cloning becomes acceptable.”

Mind telling us why, Mr. President? In fact, would anyone mind telling me why cloning is such a bad, bad thing? Because, to tell you the truth, I just don’t see it. Clones are not Xerox copies of individuals; clones are not sci-fi automatons; clones are not intrinsically slave material any more than non-clones. But some people think there are hard ethical questions about cloning. For instance:

Do clones have souls?

No. Souls don’t exist. Have you seen one? Neither have I.

Should clones be used for scientific experiments?

No. Should your twin brother or sister be used for scientific experiments?

Isn’t cloning “playing God”?

No. Cloning is just a different method of reproducing. Is it “playing God” knock up your girlfriend on prom night and bring a child into the world who lacks responsible parents? (Hint: No, it’s just stupid.)

What if we made clones without brains to harvest their organs? Wouldn’t that be wrong?

No. How would a body without a brain know or care that its organs were being harvested? How would a body without a brain suffer? No brain equals no knowledge, no caring, no suffering, and no ethical dilemma.

Would you want to be cloned?

Only if I was going to have no contact with him; I wouldn’t want to influence the poor bastard. Let him make his own mistakes.

Isn’t cloning absolutely terrifying?

Only if you’re a Christian, apparently.

Does It Really Matter?

I’ve not been here much, of late, for a variety of reasons including, but not limited to, illness, busy-ness elsewhere, and a strange case of not having much to say, which happens occasionally (and leaves me feeling profoundly disturbed, because the world has not changed, so clearly I have). It’s not that I’m not still annoyed by the shenanigans that swirl around me in this decadent and degenerate culture (for instance, last night’s foolishness on 20/20), but that sometimes it seems futile to bother with speaking out, according to the following reasoning: No one really cares about what anyone has to say unless (1) they already agree or (2) they are the target of criticism. The first group is known proverbially as “the choir,” and the second group is generally intractable, intransigent, or otherwise immune. So why bother?

Maybe that’s just a tad on the cynical side, but how much difference does informed discussion really make in our culture anymore? We’ve reached the critical mass of blithering idiots who are willing to be spoon fed by advertisers, national media, White House press secretaries, Oprah Winfrey, and the like, if they’re even paying attention to that stuff at all. Better not to pay attention, keep watching television, keep getting fat, keep worrying about the cost of gas without worrying about your consumptive habits, and keep filling the pews down at the local house of worship. Then, when they talk about Jesus on 20/20 and completely ignore the critical perspective, you can do what this guy does, and exult in the fact that a very important facet of the story has been “publically [sic] excluded.” So leaving out opposing viewpoints is good? Oh, wait, this is Christianity we’re talking about, where opposing viewpoints are not just honest, intelligent people who disagree with you—they’re heretics or worse.

Anyway, I might get back in the blogging groove this week, might not. Depends on how things go. At the moment, however, I am going to Starbucks where I shall read Saul Bellow’s Herzog.

Church & State

Mark Lilla has an interesting essay up at the New York Times. (Unfortunately, the NYT requires a free registration to read its articles.) Here’s the part I liked best:

In truth, the leaders of the British and American Enlightenments shared the same hope as the French lumières: that the centuries-old struggle between church and state could be brought to an end, and along with it the fanaticism, superstition and obscurantism into which Christian culture had sunk. What distinguished thinkers like David Hume and John Adams from their French counterparts was not their ultimate aims; it was their understanding of religious psychology. The British and Americans made two wagers. The first was that religious sects, if they were guaranteed liberty, would grow attached to liberal democracy and obey its norms. The second was that entering the public square would liberalize them doctrinally, that they would become less credulous and dogmatic, more sober and rational.

Follow the link; read the rest.