Totally Acerbic Observations

Have you noticed that the folks who do the network morning shows appear to be abnormally happy -- smiling and laughing beyond what the situation merits?

Items it is usually futile to talk to your doctor about include the following: nausea, sleep issues not related to apnea, and and abdominal distress unless caused by ulcers or cancer.

http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml

What's Wrong with the World?

Two fundamental things are essential to figuring out what is wrong with the world--original sin and universal suffering. Original sin is the natural, built-in tendency to prefer our own good--as individuals, societies, institutions, nations, etc.--to the good of others. Universal suffering means that all have known some form of human affliction--pain, accident, circumstances, disease, sorrow, failure, oppression, etc.--that take away in various degrees our joy and happiness. Suffering results from causes arising out the nature of things -- natural evil, and out of the harm we do to each other -- moral evil.

What is the solution? We have to recognize that that all --we and others--are afflicted with both egotism and suffering. This must be accompanied by the desire for understanding that leads to compassion for others.

To focus on moral evil, the typical dialogue between individuals and groups about our conflicts is that each has its own narrative and an explanation of its own suffering and injustice, which is not a dialogue but two monologues in which each party yells out its own story and does not hear or care to hear the story of others. Consider: abortion, same-sex marriage, the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis, the US and North Korea, Iran, Russia, China, Pakistan, Venezuela, and on and on and on.

The problem: nobody listens to the other. The solution: genuine listening, which leads to a sharing of the truth and suffering of the other, which can ideally lead to understanding, which produces compassion, followed by repentance, which can result in good faith efforts to resolve issues in a way that enlarges the truth shared by all and the suffering endured by all.

My text has been: Repent and believe the Gospel, which being translated means. Come to terms with the fact that we have all screwed up, some more badly than others, repent in sorrow, and therefore become open to the possibility of hearing the good news that a better future for all is waiting to be born if we are willing to receive it in faith, hope, and love.

Now I have diagnosed the problem and offered the solution. It is up to others to begin working this out in practical ways. Meanwhile, I have to write another blog resolving other pressing issues. Global warming is next on my list. Good luck.

http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml

What They Learn in Journalism School

Based on years of watching TV news reports, I can imagine the day in Universal School of Journalism when they dealt with "How to End Your TV Report."

The cardinal rule, never to be violated, is: Do not end on a positive note, never. Several options are available:
1. Suggest that something awful could still go wrong.
2. Suggest a countervailing trend.
3. Raise a question that qualifies any optimistic developments in your piece.
4. Use your imagination to suggest that somehow the future is still in doubt, so viewers should tune in next time.
5. Say anything just as long as it is negative in some way.

That appears to be the one thing that all the students learned well.

http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml

Quasi-Acerbic Oddities for Today

Senator McConnell said he did not want a judge on the Supreme Court who let subjective preferences and personal ideology affect their rulings. You mean you do not want judges like Scalia, Thomas, Roberts and Scalito?

Somebody should instruct Senators that all people have ideologies, personal background experiences, and identities that affect their rulings. I did not say determine, I said affect, i. e., influence.

Cheney is to the left of Obama on gay marriage. He favors it if the decision is made by the states, while the President has so far only indicated support for civil unions.

Senator Greg Judd says he does not want government bureaucrats making decisions about our personal health care. Apparently, he prefers to have them made by corporate bureaucrats working for companies who want to maximize their profits by limiting services.

Strange.

http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml

The Woman in my GPS

I didn't believe there was a real person in my GPS either until recently when we were on a newly opened section of US 15 that we know about but Hildegarde (Geography Genius) Himmelwassen didn't. She recalculated repeatedly trying to get us back on the right road, assuming that we were driving 60 MPH over farmland. After frequent recalculations, she finally had enough: "I don't know why I bother with you stupid idiots. You never take my advice anyway. I have had it with you. I'm outta here. You are on your own, since you think you know more than I do anyway. So long, suckers."

Yep, there's a real person in there.

http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml

Obama is a Radical, An Extremist

According to a headline in the morning paper, President Obama stood before the graduating class at Notre Dame and urged us to have (gasp!) "open minds on abortion." The American people open minded on abortion? Come on, Mr. President, get real, this is planet earth, this is America.

The next thing you know he will be suggesting that we be reasonable about gun control!

http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml

Ethics at the Boundary Line: Torture

Immanuel Kant distinguished between perfect and imperfect duties. The former are universally obligatory, i. e., allow no exceptions under any circumstances. The latter may have exceptions in some cases or alternative ways of fulfilling it?

Does the rule "never torture" define a perfect duty? Is it a moral absolute? Or is it sometimes morally permissible?

Here we enter the realm of "borderline situations " (Helmut Thielicke, Karl Jaspers) in which the usual rules and norms do not provide clear guidance but require a difficult situational decision in which no choice leaves us at ease.

In this context, one can argue that the rule against torture should not be made an absolute. Few moral principles are. There may be rare occasions in which morality may permit extraordinary means, including torture. This could be argued on both deontological and teleological grounds.

Opponents maintain that no such events occur in real life (the ticking bomb scenario) or are so rare as not to justify any exception to the prohibition against torture. Moreover, even if such emergencies justify torture in that immediate extreme circumstance, one might reason that on the whole the damage to the rule of law and to the global image of the country might still forbid it. Hence on balance it may be better to have an absolute rule that is never violated though it may be costly in some instances, though how costly would make a difference. I tend to fall into this camp.

Nevertheless, the ambiguities, contingencies, and uncertainties surrounding this question create a troubling space in which reasonable people may disagree.

http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml

What is it all About?

When somebody says, "Its not about A, its about B," I usually find it to be the case that it is also about A. Example: Speaking of rape, its not about sex, its about violence. I say it is also about sex. When you hear, its not about the money but about X, check it out; chances are it is also about the money.
http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml

Use and Abuse of Rights Language

These days anything that anybody thinks we need or want is called a right to it. Rights language is overused to the point it loses its power. I won't even try to list all the "rights" that have been claimed in recent years by somebody.

This is a complicated issue, and I do not claim to have mastered the subject either historically or philosophically. But at least the following distinctions might bring some clarity and precision to what in our national conversation is an unbounded surfeit of loose, if not anarchical, talk.

At least three categories come to mind: natural, constitutional, and legal.

Natural Rights are claims we have by virtue of being human. This list would be short and include the fundamentals: life, equality, liberty, justice for all, and the pursuit of happiness. A natural right cannot be established or taken away by civil law. It can only be recognized and protected. We have rights that are "endowed by God" or nature.

Constitutional and legal rights arise by virtue of being a member of a particular society. The former are grounded in the Constitution as determined by the Supreme Court. The latter are legislative enactments not in conflict with the Constitution.

The order of argument be be as follows:
1. There is a need or desire for which legal provision and protection should be given for the good of individuals and society.

2. The need or desire is either Constitutionally required or permitted.

3. If not Constitutionally required or permitted, it should be because it is rooted in something fundamental in our human nature and essential for our fulfillment as individuals and as a community.

Conversation should begin at 1 and proceed to 2 and 3 only when necessary. For example, adequate health care for all can initially argued for on 1. Hence, instead of speaking of a right to health care, it would be better to say that we have a need for health care and a just claim on available resources that should be given legal status for the good of society. The kinds of health care that should be provided have to be negotiated in terms of what a particular society can offer and is able to afford. Universal health care can be argued for on the basis of need, justice, and the good of individuals and society. If one wants to claim health care as a right, then it needs to stated whether this is a natural or constitutional right. Otherwise, it is loose talk that means no more than 1 anyway.

Marriage requires a different formulation. It does not involve costly resources and availability but is a matter of granting legality to certain forms of relationships along with certain formalizing rituals. It is permissible, thought not necessary, to claim that we have a right to form unions with a partner for purposes of reproduction, companionship, and mutual love based on our sexuality that is part of the nature we were born with. All three factors are equal, and reproduction is not a sine qua non.

Moreover, marriage in the primary sense refers to a certain nature and quality of relationship between the partners. Legality is a socially useful way of recognizing and protecting the relationship. This was the basis on which I declared my son and his partner married regardless of what the laws of Ohio say. It would be sufficient to argue-- apart from any natural right--that we have a need and a desire to form such unions. Therefore, governments should recognize and protect such unions legally. (I have previously argued that arguments from nature and natural law are no more effective than any other, since no argument is persuasive for anybody except those who are persuadable by it. These days it is certainly not profitable to "hold these truths to be self-evident." http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/law.htm)

The forms of marriage are a matter for each society to determine based on what works based on justice and the good of individuals and society. Gay marriage can be justified on this basis. Polygamy is different in that it violates justice, since if some men have more than one wife, other men and lesbians can have no wife. But if polygamy is permitted, then polyandry should also.

Should older men be able to marry more than one older woman, since they greatly outnumber men? I see no objection in principle, but would it work satisfactorily in our society and benefit the partners without doing harm to society? I don't know, in some cases it might, but if a ninety-eight-year-old man can marry a twenty-year-old woman, then polygamy for older people is worth debating. Since there is no outcry --or tolerance--for polygamy or polyandry, at the moment it is a debate about principles.

This gets complicated, of course, but it would be better to make an effort to sort it all out rather than to dilute rights language by such overuse and ungrounded rhetoric that it becomes practically meaningless.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right

http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml

An Appeal You Will Never Hear on a Public Radio Pledge Drive

How refreshing it would be to hear the following on the frequent pledge drives for public radio:

"OK, let's get down to brass tacks here, cut to the chase. All you deadbeats and cheaters out there who listen to public radio but never give a dime to support it: either turn to another station, or send us some money. Got that you shameless freeloaders, you low-down scoundrels and thieves. Call now or go away. Thank you."

My purpose is not to shame the freeloaders but to express the frustration of those of us who make our modest contributions every year on schedule without being asked. Our pledge drive is going on now, and I am weary the same old platitudes, inane observations, and the endless repetition of the obvious. It all reminds me of too many sermons I've heard and of statements by the Pope on his foreign trips urging everyone to be nice to each other and just get along.

http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml

My How Times Have Changed

Twenty-five years ago neither you nor I would have had no idea what the following meant: RAM, email, URL, http://, ftp, cyberspace, HTML, CPU, computer virus, Trojan, or worm, Security Suite, PC, Mac, burn a CD, www, spam, malware, DVD, HDTV, gigabyte, blog, texting, sexting, YouTube, blogging, etc., etc., etc., and so forth.

And I have not yet mentioned my favorite: Google! Now I google frequently nearly everyday.

My how times have changed.

http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml

Prosecuting Authorizers of Torture

I am ambivalent about whether members of the Bush Administration who authorized torture should be prosecuted.

Bruce Fein makes a powerful case for just that on the principle that torture violates treaty obligations and US law as well. We are a nation of laws, and lawbreakers should be held accountable for the sake of national integrity and to show the world who we are.

Yet troubling questions arise. Is he saying that if we openly renounced our treaty obligations and changed our laws, torture would be OK? I don't know. But his repeated emphasis on the centrality of law makes me wonder if he has gone too far in absolutizing law as a final referent.

In any case, I would assert that there is a higher principle than law, namely, morality, which is the ultimate justification of law, though not necessarily the only one. I am not sure Fein would disagree. I do oppose those who say that policy differences should not be the occasion of criminal prosecution. Nonsense! If laws have been broken, more than policy disputes is involved.

Setting all this in a larger context may be instructive. It may relativise a narrow focus on the primacy of law. Consider the use of drones by the US in recent days to bomb Pakistani targets. More to the point is the fire bombing of Dresden and of Tokyo in WWII. Many tens of thousands of civilians were killed. Surely these were acts of terror against non-combatants, whatever military targets might have been involved. We have not yet mentioned Hiroshima or Nagasaki where we became the only nation to this day to use nuclear weapons.

And the Nuremberg Trials? Were they in accordance with law? Or did the law emerge along with the proceedings so as to be ex post facto? Prosecution of the Allies was forbidden for any similar acts, thus becoming what the critics called "victors justice."

All of these are exceedingly complex and controversial. issues. That is exactly my point. It is too simple, I think, to demand prosecution of the Bush torture authorizers as a violation of law as the sole justifying principle.

I am inclined to think that, on the whole, it is preferable to denounce torture, renounce its future use, and take steps to see that it does not happen again. To be fair, prosecution would have to include Cheney and Bush, and this would severely divide the country in a time of economic crisis at home and grave threats abroad. Pragmatically, in the presence of so much ambiguity, complexity, and contradiction at the edge of morality, which course of action would be relatively better for the nation and the world? I conclude that it is more important to give attention to these enormous and challenging problems than to get involved in past acts.

But Bruce Fein makes a powerful case.

http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml

Quasi-Acerbic Oddities for Today

Yogi Berra famously said, "It ain't over til its over." But in the current Minnesota senatorial election, even when its over, it ain't over.

Miss California Carrie Prejean has achieved notoriety by stating her convictions against same-sex marriage. Someone who parades before millions of people as nearly naked as she did -- and that with technologically enhanced boobs -- for the purpose of creating admiration among males and envy among females should not uncritically be regarded as a moral authority. Now we learn that she had earlier posed topless and allegedly lied about it to pageant officials. Selah.

The more often you go to church, the more likely you are to approve of torture in some circumstances.

http://pewforum.org/docs/?DocID=156

Somehow it did not seem strange that CNN found a "red light district" in Lahore, Pakistan.

http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml

Eschatological Consequences of Phone Mazes

I am a theologian, and I can guarantee you that people who design complex automated telephone programs used by banks, insurance companies, governments, and many other bureaucracies will spend the first 10,00 years after their deaths trying to call a complicated automated 911 system while their pants are on fired. The same fate will befall the executives who mandate the use of these demonic artifices.

Today I had to call my insurance company. They had an elaborate robot-directed telephone maze in which I had to answer questions, give information, and state my problem. The automaton, of course, never understands. After two calls, I finally confused the robotic voice sufficiently to provoke a transfer to a real human being.

I spoke to a nice lady who promptly faxed the the form I needed, and all ended well. I said to her, "You know, of course, that all your customers hate the telephone maze they have to endure before they get to you." She replied, "Oh yes, we know!"

Later, I found some golden plates under a rock in my back yard on which there were words written in a strange language. I was able to translate the writing in a vision provoked by putting roasted peanuts in my Coke Zero. It was then and there that the eschatological consequence of designing and ordering the use of these satanic phone mazes was revealed to me. I merely pass the information on to you.

http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml

When Bureaucracies Get Crazy

Max Weber provides the classic understanding of modern bureaucracy. As an 'ideal type' bureaucracy is characterized by a hierarchical division of labor directed by clear mandates impersonally applied, staffed by full-time, life-time professionals. The aim is to bring rationality and efficiency into complex organizations by reducing as many transactions as possible to routines governed by explicit rules. He recognized that actual bureaucracies could be dysfunctional. Later critics have suggested that they can really screw things up sometimes, e. g. Robert K. Merton and Michael Crozier.
http://lilt.ilstu.edu/rrpope/rrpopepwd/articles/bureacracy2.html

We all have had experiences of how the "red tape" we encounter can be anything but rational and efficient. My worst came about like this. In 1961 I bought a car in Georgia with a loan from my hometown bank, then shortly after moved to Pennsylvania and in 1964 moved to Delaware with the loan paid. I went through the routines of getting my Delaware license but was thwarted because Delaware rules insist that the loan must be marked "paid" on the outside, because that is the way it is done in Pennsylvania. I had every legal document the state of Georgia provides to show that the car was fully mine with no lien, but it was not marked "paid" on the outside. I appealed to the supervisor, but he merely restated that rule and refused to grant me a license, although he admitted that I had a legal and lien-free title, but rules are rules.

I had to send the loan document back to my hometown Georgia bank, explain my problem, request that it be marked "paid" on the outside. The banker kindly did and now in accordance with Pennsylvania practice and Delaware rules for cars coming from Pennsylvania, I got my license.

This was neither rational nor efficient, but with no provision for legitimate exceptions, it became a nightmare of frustration, not to mention extra work for me, the banker, and the Delaware license bureau organized on bureaucratic principles.

Selah!

http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml

Nevada As Vast Solar Panel

I propose that the entire state of Nevada be made into a vast solar panel as a source of alternative energy. Just think of how much energy could be produced by this mostly desolate wasteland.

Nevada's only contributions to society have to do with prostitution, gambling, drinking, and entertainment, and we have enough of those already without this largely desert expanse of barren territory.

Residents who voluntarily chose to live there should be forced to become citizens of Utah for at least five years. They deserve it, and it would improve both states. Those who were sent there by others can transfer wherever they please.

My next blog will demonstrate that Idaho does not exist and never has. It is a gigantic illusion created by the ancestors of the Wizard of Oz using smoke and mirrors aided and abetted by a multitude of hypnotized co-conspirators.

http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml

Free and Unfettered? Nah, Just Acting According to Type

In my mini-systematic theology I identified myself as "a skeptic, a relativist, and a pragmatist." On the Myers-Briggs inventory of personality types, I am an INTJ (although pretty close on the T F scale, but totally I). In a book describing the sixteen types (Keirsey, Please Understand Me), I read that INTJ's are skeptical, relativistic, and pragmatic. Hmmm. In a previous blog I noted that I voted as my demographic location plus zip code would indicate. Hmmmm. Seems like I am behaving according to type.

So you think you are the "Master of your fate, Captain of your soul (William Ernest Henley)?" Nah! I bet that, just like me, your typical ways of thinking, feeling, relating to nature and other people, and preferences in life, love, and work are all in accordance with your type.

Given the details of your demographic location, your Myers-Briggs scores, and your zip code, knowledgeable analysts could discern enough about your predispositions, temperament, and the likely way you vote to give you the impression that someone has been following your around and peeping into your mental and emotional. processes. I refer here to primary ways of perceiving the world and relating to it and other people characteristic of your dominant type, not the specific content of your mind and life peculiar to you.

Masters of our fate, Captains of our souls, free to choose as we choose to choose? Nah, we just all think, decide and feel according to type.

The professor in me insists that I point out that there are numerous locations between each of the four polarities of the Myers-Briggs inventory, creating many variations. Hence, the total number of types is quite large, but our outer and inner lives are expressive of our dominant and secondary formations. Any notion of human freedom that does not recognize these restrictions on our capacity for choice is inadequate. Freedom means self-determination not absence of determination.
http://frontiernet.net/~kenc/freedom.htm

http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/beliefs.htm#Modernism

See:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-Briggs_Type_Indicator

http://www.personalitypage.com/portraits.html

David West Keirsey, Please Understand Me.

Or just do some googling.

How Do Jokes Get Started?

One day he wins the lottery, two days later he meets the love of his life. Some guys are so lucky.
http://content3.clipmarks.com/image_cache/merrie/512/9C174855-492F-4D6A-BFF1-E4A6157E7BCE.jpg

Nearly every day I receive jokes from one or more sources, often in retaliation for something I sent them. They range from the squeaky clean to the ones not repeated in polite company. They are often about sex or other topics that regrettably frequently involve unfavorable stereotypes of women, especially blonds. Over a lifetime I must have heard or read thousands, yea, tens of thousands. But how do these funny stories gets started?

A little googling yielded no helpful results, except for a professor who is quoted as saying the obvious, i. e., that it is nearly impossible to trace the origin of a particular funny story.

My guess is that many start as one liners. Somebody says something funny in some circumstance. It gets repeated, catches on, and is gradually elaborated and revised as it goes. Eventually it reaches canonical form and is more or less retold verbatim, with memory lapses and surges of creativity endlessly refining it.

Some are doubtless created by the deliberate efforts of people with a comic spirit. Some genres with particular subject matter may originate collectively when two or more people try to add to a type, e. g., "Yo Mama" or "Little Debbie" stories, fanatical golfers, a guy walks into a bar, etc. In my rural Georgia childhood I heard a number of scatological stories from the “Ike and Mike” series. A joke is a favorite way for one group to make fun of another regarded as inferior or to show the superiority of ones own.

Examples: How do you lubricate a Volkswagen? You run over an Italian?

How do you tell the bride at a Polish wedding? She's the one with the clean polo shirt.

Here are some I came across today that illustrate various genres:

A little girl goes to the barber shop with her father. While her dad gets his hair cut, she stands right next to the barber chair, eating a Hostess snack cake. The barber says to her, "You know, sweetheart, you're gonna get hair on your Twinkie." "I know," she replies. "I'm gonna get tits too."

A husband and wife were having dinner at a very fine restaurant when this absolutely stunning young woman comes over to their table, gives the husband a big open mouthed kiss, then says she'll see him later and walks away. The wife glares at her husband and says, "Who the hell was that?"
"Oh," replies the husband, "she's my mistress."
"Well, that's the last straw," says the wife. "I've had enough, I want a divorce!"
"I can understand that," replies her husband, "but remember, if we get a divorce it will mean no more shopping trips to Paris, no more wintering in Barbados, no more summers in Tuscany, no more Lexus in the garage and no more yacht club. But the decision is yours."
Just then, a mutual friend enters the restaurant with a gorgeous babe on his arm. "Who's that woman with Jim?" asks the wife.
"That's his mistress," says her husband.
"Ours is prettier," she replies.

My favorite fanatical golfer story: One Saturday morning a wife reluctantly agreed for her husband to take the car and go golfing – but only with the solemn promise that he would return by 1:00 PM so she could have the car. By 3:30 PM when he finally got back, she was livid with anger at having to miss an important engagement. She was ready to excoriate him when she noticed he looked so weary and so terribly downcast that her mood changed.
“Honey, what’s the matter?”
“Oh, it was terrible,” he said, "Just horrific.”
“What happened,” she asked anxiously.
“Well, everything went fine until the fourth hole when Charlie dropped dead.”
“Oh, honey, that must have been awful for you.”
“I’ll say, from then on it was hit the ball, drag Charlie, hit the ball, drag Charlie.”

A global search for the best joke in the world elicited many thousands of entries from a large number of countries who voted for their favorite. The winner:

Two hunters from New Jersey go into the woods. One collapses and the other rings for help telling the operator he thinks his friend is dead. She asks if he is sure. There is a gun shot. When he comes back on the line, he says, "OK, now what?"

OK, but I liked the winner in the UK better: A woman gets on a bus with a baby in her arms. The bus driver says, "That is the ugliest baby I ever saw. Ugh!
Very angry she goes to the back of the bus, takes a seat and says to the man next to her."That driver just insulted me."
"Well," he says, "you just go right back up there and tell him what you think. Go on, I'll hold your monkey for you."

I wonder how they all got started.

The Obsoleteness of Some Classical Dualisms

Christian theology inherited a set of dualities from the Bible that have been the source of mischief and of irresolvable problems.

1. The first -- and fundamental one--is the sharp distinction between the saved and the lost. This can be traced to apocalyptic thought in which at the Endtime a final judgment will separate the sheep from the goats, roughly -- though not universally or without qualifications -- translatable into Israel and its enemies. In the New Testament this dualism is spiritualized and universalized and functions without regard to nation, race, or ethnicity but still divides the human race into two distinct categories. You are fundamentally either in or out; you go to heaven or to hell (Matthew 25).

2. The second is between salvation by grace or by works as determining whether you are to inherit the Kingdom or not, i. e., be a sheep or a goat. However grace and works are related and whether grace goes to those divinely chosen (Calvin) or who freely accept proffered grace (Arminius) and however the two might be combined in the total picture, the fundamental distinction between the saved and the lost is not abrogated here and hereafter-- with rare exceptions (Origen, e. g.).

3. The third is between justification and sanctification -- closely related to but not identical with grace and works. Justification is absolute; you either are or are not justified-- saved or lost--whether by grace or works or some combination. Sanctification is a matter of degree. You can be in a perpetual paradox -- justified and yet a sinner, no matter how good your works get (Luther), or you can move part way (Calvin) or ideally totally toward perfection (Wesley), with most reserving total sanctification for the life beyond.

Brevity compels me to assume that readers can spell out the major positions that been taken and the names of theologians who developed them over the centuries. History discloses a complex variety that would take volumes to detail and that cannot be represented accurately in every respect in a few words. (The professor is leaving an escape hatch for himself.)

The problem with all these dualities is that the complexity and variety of human experience defy the precision they seek. There is no way the spiritual and moral multifariousness of actual life in real people can be fit into the classical theological categories designed for the purpose without vitiating them. In fact they were not developed inductively by reasoning from experience. Rather, in classical theology they were constructed from the exegesis of texts and by using the vocabulary that arose over the centuries and applied to experience, although experience certainly entered into their original formation and were tested through the ages by experiential references, though the inherited tradition provided the fundamental referent points in deciding among options.

Let us admit these categories with their dualities do not function operationally in many churches these days, especially those in the mainstream of non-fundamentalist, non-creedal ones. Liberal professional theologians give vary degrees of attention to them in their constructive work, and the everlasting distinction between the saved and the lost has been generally abandoned, along with the notion of a never-ending hell for the wicked. For some, belief in the reality of life beyond death is itself optional. Even when the classical categories are employed, it often seems it is more out of respect for tradition rather than as essential tools of thought.

Why, then, do I bother? Good question! I guess because the professional in me likes to practice a little in retirement mode.

The alternative to classical categories is some form of holistic thinking which employs more organic models using biological analogies like health. I propose that the physical, moral, and spiritual dimensions of health in their unity, distinction, and interdependence are manifested in "infinite variety" (Shakespeare). The Hebrew notion of shalom meaning "completeness, wholeness, health, peace, welfare, safety, soundness, tranquility, prosperity, perfectness, fullness, rest, harmony, the absence of agitation or discord" (Strong's Concordance 7965) might be a good place to start.

This would produce a continuum from the least moral and spiritually fit human being to the most healthy, e. g., as we would get with physical health. While there are certainly enormous differences between human beings with respect to their relationship to God and neighbor, any bright line between the saved and the lost would be arbitrary and of limited utility.

Well, you can take it from there.

Cry, no Saab -- and Other Oddities

Sob, Sob, Sob. Saab is gone.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/23/world/europe/23saab.html?hp

National Garlic Day is the 19th of April, which is Stress Awareness Month. Keeping up with all this is so000000 stressful. And wouldn't eating garlic tend to increase stress for those around you? I worry about these things.

Martin Feldstein in The Washington Post criticizing Obama's proposal to reduce slightly the charitable deduction on high-income folks:

"While no one makes a charitable contribution to get a tax deduction, the deductibility of charitable gifts reduces the cost of giving and therefore increases the amount that individuals give."

While there is not necessarily a logical contradiction here, it does make an empirical assumption, which does not necessarily follow, i. e., the conclusion may or may not be true.