Stanley Fish, Comments, and Purpose

 

 

 

So many people believe in God because it is an evolutionary advantage to believe in God, just like almost all physical and mental traits in humans.
Although I am a devout atheist, I myself understand the beauty and peace of a religious belief. I satisfy this need through meditation and other means, but cannot believe in such a thing as a God. –sp

http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/god-talk-part-2/#comment-82867

God Talk, Part 2 – Stanley Fish Blog – NYTimes.com

 

I have become a frequent reader of Stanley Fish recently.  This time though, it was the comments which piqued my interest.  There were many comments on one side or the other for or against the existence of god, and for or against certain ways of debating the existence of god.

The quote I have above was one comment which I enjoyed immensely, though there were many others.

 

As I read the article, and the comments, it occurred to me that many of the commenters were starting in the wrong place.  Before you can debate the existence of god.  Before you can debate the concept and reality of religion.  You must examine the existence, or lack thereof, of purpose.

 

Is there a reason behind the universe?

At the beginning of the universe, was everything random, or was there some form of purpose behind it.

If it was truly random, as was everything after it, then we exist in a world of remarkable coincidences.  I choose not to believe this, because for me, to exist in a world that is truly random would lead only to feelings of purposeless and emptiness.  This may not be so for others, and I recognize that, but for my self I can not accept a purposeless world.

If the universe is not random, how much purpose is there?And at what point can we call that purpose god or spirit or creator or anything?

The debate should not be about god, but rather about purpose.  For that may be something that we can debate.  We can examine the probabilities of the circumstances that created our universe and debate at what point must there be a fraction of purpose in order to tip the scales of randomness.

 

If you wish to follow the thread connecting purpose more to the Christian God then I highly recommend Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis.

 

A few questions to leave you with; if reason supposes that one thing follows from another, then there must have been a point at which reason was created.  What was before reason?  Or is reason a random evolution?

At what point is coincidence too much and we must begin talking about purpose?  Once there is purpose, at what point do we call that purpose by a name?

Republican Reformation

 

Last week, Rush Limbaugh called for Powell to leave the Republican party after the former Secretary of State gave a speech in which he suggested that the GOP was increasingly coming under the control of radicals. Limbaugh said that Powell should "become a Democrat instead of claiming to be a Republican interested in reforming the Republican Party."

 

I feel that it’s important for all students of history and religion to pay attention to the present.  It is far too easy too often to interpret the past through the lens of what happened after.  For example we look back on the reformation of the Church and talk about how if they had just stayed in the Catholic Church they could have helped to reform her.  Yes they were kicked out, but had they tried to bring the Church through in baby steps then it would not have come to such a head that they were excommunicated.

This was the attitude of a professor I had in University.  He believed that if those like Luther and Menno Simons had stayed in the Church they could have brought about a slower change, but kept the Church whole.

Now lets look up at the quote from an article published in the Huffington Post today.  We have Powell (and others) who believe in bringing the Republican Party back to it’s origins, to a GOP that was true to it’s core, before people started changing it.  Of course those who currently set the tone of the Republican party (Limbaugh) couldn’t abide this, as a return to Republican Principles would decrease their power and change their comfortable position.  So they call for him to be ousted, that he shouldn’t even be considered a Republican anymore.

Sound familiar?

Now Powell could stay in, and try to change the party from the inside, but somehow I don’t think that’s going to work.  The more that people like Powell have attempted to get the Republican party to see the error in its ways the more that the radicals in the party have pulled the other direction.  It will be interesting to see what happens here.

Now unlike during the Reformation there is a second choice.  Instead of creating a new party they can join the Democratic Party.

This will give us a good opportunity to observe something similar to the reformation.  Will the Republican Party change, will they be split into two or more parties, or will the moderating influence simply leave for the Democrats until there is but a shell left?

Social Justice 12 and Democracy

As I am temporarily living outside of Abbotsford I had mistakenly thought that this issue was dead.  Apparently it isn’t.

The website http://www.parents4democracyineducation.org/Welcome.html is currently advertising on one of the local newspaper’s websites; and the letter writing war seems to be continuing in all local papers.

I agree with the Parents for Democracy in Education Society on one thing.  The name.  I believe strongly in a parents role in raising their children.  I also believe strongly in democratic education.  And I believe strongly in democracy in education.

Now I should probably define these. 

Parents are the biggest teachers of their children.  A teacher can explain, lecture, rant, or preach, and if the parents have done their job then their teaching will hold truer.  That doesn’t mean that the teacher isn’t doing their job, I’m sure that the students are learning Math, English, Social Studies, etc, but if a teacher thinks that their moral concepts or system of belief is going to be passed on to the student, they are dead wrong.  Teachers, peers, the media, and parents are all major influences on children.  But regardless of how you arrange it, a parent’s influence will always be greater than the teachers.

Teaching students how to be proper citizens is a major part of education.  The ability to think and reason is essential in a democracy.  How can students choose between two or three or five choices if they don’t know enough to decide which is closest to their personal moral and political beliefs (which, by the way, are mostly shaped by parents).  Democratic education is education aimed at preparing students to take part in Democracy.

The third part is the one where I seem to diverge from PFDE (wow, no wonder they don’t use an acronym). 

They define Democracy in Education as the beliefs of the majority determining what may be taught in school.  This is shown by their “directive” and their attempt to stop an elective class from being taught.

I define Democracy in Education as the ability to chose what you (or your child) may take in school, and what school they go to.  In the case of Social Justice 12 this means that if you don’t want your children to take the class, don’t sign them up for it.

Democracy should not be the majority choosing for the minority (shades of colonialism), but rather should be each and every person being given the freedom to express their opinion (yes, the PFDE should be allowed to express their opinion too) and the right to choose not to do something (within the law).

In the school system this happens many ways.  First, there is no law that says you must attend public school.  You are free to home school your children, or enrol them at an independent school.  If attending a public school, it is expected that your student takes certain courses.  The same courses are expected to be taught at home school or in an independent school.  However, it isn’t the required courses that the PFDE have an issue with.

Social Justice 12 is an elective.  It is not required, it doesn’t help you get into university, or to get a job.  It’s just an extra four credits.  If you don’t like the course, don’t sign up for it, no one’s forcing you.  If not enough people sign up for the course then it won’t be offered.  It’s called voting with your feet.  But why should your not liking the class stop someone else from taking it?  High schools routinely offer elective classes that people don’t like.  Religious Studies class is one.  Would you like it if an atheist wanted to stop your child from taking a Religious Studies class on the basis that he didn’t want his son to take it?

As a Christian I find it hard to understand those who would try to impose their morality on others.  Christianity went through it’s early period attempting to stop others from imposing their morality on us, why should we now turn around and impose ours on others?  Morality doesn’t get you into heaven, especially morality which is forced.  Christians should be working to change hearts, and this fight over Social Justice 12 is a step in the wrong direction.

Historical Morals and News Commentary

I have a bad habit.  I like to read the comments people leave on news websites.  Often the comments are intelligent and well reasoned, even if I disagree with them.

I came across a comment on the article that I wrote on previously which attracted my notice.  The commenter was attempting to give a reason why the Bible should not be taught to children.  The specific part that attracted my notice was “Numbers 31:7-18 (Moses and God approves of rape of virgins girls)”.

I was surprised that God would order the rape of virgin girls so being a naturally curious man I did what anyone would do.  I googled the verse.  Which lead me to the King James Version located here.

The general gist of the verses is this: there’s a war between Israel and Midian (the cause happens several chapters earlier, Midianites were trying to turn the Israelites to their religion and also seemed to carry a plague which wiped out a large number of Israelites) and the Israelites win, they completely destroy the Midianites.  They take the women, children, livestock, gold, jewels, etc. back to Moses.  Moses is ticked off, the army was supposed to kill all of the Midianites in punishment for what they did.  He orders all of the boys killed and all of the non virgin women killed, and the younger women taken as wives.

Yeah, by today’s morality that seems a bit wrong.  We get the whole plunder thing, and the taking the livestock thing.  We might even be able to understand the killing of the boys and older women thing (since apparently the women were heavily involved in the attempts to sway the Israelites away from God).  But lets look at the last part.  Now first of all the verse says nothing about rape.  It does imply that the girls will be taken as wives though, which I suppose can then be extended to be allowing marital rape.

This though is examining it by today’s morality.  I live in an area where less than 500 years ago it was common to get your wife via war.  You would be part of a raid on the neighbouring nation and in the course of that raid you would kidnap yourself a wife.

Numbers is believed to have been written either as early as 1400 B.C. or sometime between 1200 and 400 B.C.  Regardless it describes events which take place in the 1400s B.C.  3000 years later there were still cultures following the practice of getting your wives via military conquest.

Moses’ allowing of the Israelites to take their wives in war may seem inappropriate to today’s audience, but you need to think about what the moral beliefs were at the time.

 

ps. I didn’t seem to find any mention of the order coming from God, it seems to have been all Moses’ idea.

Teaching the Bible as Literature

British Poet Laureate Andrew Motion said in an interview that he believes that the Old and New Testament should be taught in schools, along with the Koran, much in the same way that Greek and Roman myths are taught.

Sounds like a good idea to me.

The Bible is one of the core works in the western consciousness.  Even without wanting to we assume that our readers have a working knowledge of some basic Bible stories.

Not teaching the Bible is like not teaching Shakespeare.  Sure you can still function in modern literature without knowledge of Shakespeare, but without it you would be missing out on some major parts of modern literature.

I had this made very clear to me the other day when my students were reading The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.  They didn’t understand why Lucy was called a Daughter of Eve.  They wondered how the Faun knew her mother’s name.

Western writers assume their readers have a basic familiarity with Greek and Roman myths, and with the Bible.  Because of this it makes sense to teach bible stories in the same way that we teach the myths.

eBooks and Price Gouging

I read books.  I read a lot of books.  I don’t care if I’m reading a paper book, or an e-book (I love my Sony PRS-500), or listening to an audiobook (Audible is a godsend for long car trips).

I understand that publishers want to make money.  It takes a long time to write a good book.  Much longer than it takes to write a good song.

However.  Yes, there is a however.  A paperback book is cheaper to produce than a hard cover book.  Thus it makes sense that a paperback book is cheaper than a hard cover book.

An e-book is cheaper yet.  Why then does an e-book cost more than a paperback book?  Why do they sometimes cost more than the hard cover edition?  This is not an attempt to move into a new age of books, this is pretending to care while quietly hoping it goes away.

Audio books are more expensive to produce than e-books.  And yet… and yet… I buy e-books from audible at approximately the same price as a paperback.

Publishers need to learn that this is a market which they can make a killing in.  E-books allow publishers to make more per copy than paperbacks.  If publishers were to set their pricing at the same level as paperback books they would see an increase in purchases, resulting in increased profits.

With books, as with music, if price gouging continues then people will turn to alternatives.  Most of these alternatives result in a lowered profit for publishers.

Mr. Prime Minister meet your mistake

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Ahhh Canadian politics.  I’m loving this.  As you know we’ve got the current situation where the Conservatives proposed a number of budget cutting measures which would essentially cut public funding of political parties (a necessity now that large corporations aren’t allowed to donate) and also would strip some rights from public sector employees.

As a result the opposition parties said they’d bring down the government over it, and, in a move of wonderful diplomacy, Harper said the equivalent of “bring it on”.  So they did.  The opposition parties got together to begin planning a coalition government.  Harper began backpedaling and removed the two most odious parts from his proposition, but they weren’t having it.  He’d made a mistake.

The best part was when Harper said that forming a coalition government was anti-democratic and anti-Canadian.  He apparently forgot that our country was founded in a minority government deadlock, and it was only because of a coalition government that we truly began.

Harper thought that by pushing through this attack early that he’d manage to cut the other parties off at the knees, and that since no one wants an election this close after the previous one the other parties (or at least the Liberals) would stand by and watch it happen.

But somehow over the past few months the Liberals developed a spine.  I think it might have something to do with having nothing to lose at this point.

The opposition parties know that they can’t keep this coalition together, they are too dissimilar, but that’s not the point.  This isn’t about forming the government, any more than the defeat of the Paul Martin Liberals was.  It is about slapping down an upstart.

The Liberals when they had a minority government behaved like they were still the majority.  Because of that they were taken down and P.M. P.M. was ousted.

If the opposition parties succeed in this coup they won’t be able to hold the government together.  They’ll get a year, maybe a year and a half.  But that’s not the point.  The point is that Harper has made a huge mistake.  And they’re going to make him pay for it.  If the Conservatives fall be prepared to see the knives come out very very quickly.  If the Conservatives fall all the blame comes down to Harper.  And in Canada that’s a political death sentence.

Section 13 may be going down

CHRC Main Office

I talked about Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights act a bit ago.  I claimed that it was redundant as it covers the exact same thing as Part VIII 318-319 of the Canadian Criminal Code.  It seems that I’m not the only one.

Since then the Conservative Party of Canada has decided that Section 13 must go, and the CHRC’s own commissioned report came back saying that Section 13 should be repealed.  Check out what Ezra Levant has to say about it.  He has, as always, an interesting take on the situation.

I would like to add this to the conversation though.  I suspect that the only change that will happen at the CHRC as a result of this is that Section 13 may be removed.  They will still employ the same corrupt officials, they will still use the same illegal procedures, and they will still think of themselves as Canada’s Thought police.

I think that it’s time to investigate not only Section 13, but also the practices and procedures carried out under their current Commissar.

Joe the Plumber Questions Obama’s Patriotism

I think McCain needs to bury this man.  He lacks the ability to say anything without there being a huge blatant red flag coming up.  This time he’s on Fox News questioning whether Obama is “loyal” to the country.  Yes, questioning Obama’s loyalty.  Because this is exactly what you want your campaign to look like.

It’s just another sign of McCain’s campaign looking more and more like one of those Chain E-mails I get.

John McCain on SNL

John McCain has impressed me.  He did a great job on Saturday Night Live tonight.  He gets it.  You go on a comedy show to get some good press.  People tend to like people they are laughing with.

Politicians go on comedy shows to laugh at themselves.  By laughing at themselves politicians show their constituents that they understand the silliness of some things they do.  They also point out the silliness in any accusations towards them.  Thus it is the perfect PR stunt.  You go on, make a fool of your self in front of a sympathetic audience and deflect some criticism.

Sarah Palin has a lot to learn from John McCain about comedy shows.  Her performance came across not as laughing at herself, but as the unwitting guest of honor at a roast.  Laughing at yourself is a prerequisite for going on comedy shows.  If you can’t do it, don’t bother.

As for John McCain, he reminded me of a time just over a year ago when I said that John McCain was the only Republican running who I could see voting for.  Ahh those days.