“What You Ought to Know About Intelligent Design”
May 4th 2008
Blog entry deleted: see here.
Is This Not Also Bullying?
May 3rd 2008
Homosexual activists rudely shouted down an academic lecture, because they didn’t agree. That’s no more impressive than the bullies here.
And my wife just reminded me how similar this is to P.Z. Myers on this phone call. Is there a pattern here?
Andrew Johnston and YouTube
May 2nd 2008
He’s big–really big–on YouTube right now: 13-year-old Andrew Johnston, on Britain’s Got Talent. Here’s one of the clips:
Simon liked his singing–a lot. (So do I.) He said in the introduction that he had been bullied for his singing. Well, the comments on YouTube are right in line with that. They’re piling on with profanity, all because he sings high and he sings well, and maybe because he doesn’t carry himself with obvious confidence.
Maybe by the time you read this YouTube will have done something to stop it from coming the way it has been today. I hope so. There’s serious profanity in at least 20% of the comments now, and other forms of ridicule in many others.
Our kids have been bullied at about that age. I won’t go into the details; suffice it to say that we’ve had opportunity to get to know their schools’ administrations very, very well. In some cases they’ve handled it well, and it has improved. I won’t speak of the contrasting situation we also faced. I will say that seeing Andrew succeed this way has given us real joy.
But what about the way he’s been treated, at school and on YouTube? Why do people do this? Why do people find it attractive to cuss out a teenager? What’s the motivation? What’s the payoff?
Zombies: The Movie
May 2nd 2008
Paul, frequent commenter here, sent me this link by email: Overcoming Bias: Zombies: The Movie. Some excerpts:
DOCTOR: David! David Chalmers! Can you hear me?
CHALMERS: Yes.
NURSE: It’s no use, doctor.
CHALMERS: I’m perfectly fine. I’ve been introspecting on my consciousness, and I can’t detect any difference. I know I would be expected to say that, but -
The DOCTOR turns away from the glass screen in horror.
DOCTOR: His words, they… they don’t mean anything.
…
OFFICER 1: State your business here.
MAN: Is this where you’re keeping David Chalmers?
OFFICER 2: What’s it to you? You a friend of his?
MAN: Can’t say I am. But even zombies have rights.
OFFICER 1: All right, buddy, let’s see your qualia.
MAN: I don’t have any.
Paul is right–if you’ve read anything on mind and brain, this is hilarious!
Jesus: Full of Grace and Truth
May 2nd 2008
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.–John 1:14
Jesus–referred to here as “the Word”–came with glory reflecting his Father in heaven. Part of that reflection was in the grace and truth he expressed. Henry Cloud (previously referenced here) was the one who showed me how these work together, through his book Changes That Heal.
There is a productive, fruitful dynamic tension between grace and truth. Truth is the standard; grace is more relationship and freedom oriented. They are complementary, though, not contradictory.
Jesus lived out truth first by being true, by his utter integrity. He spoke truth in confrontation, he spoke truth in teaching, and he lived what he spoke. He lived out truth by setting the standard and living up to it. He is (as the verse quoted above hints) the Word, the expression of God, and a true representation of God’s character.
Truth in at least one sense is a hard, unyielding kind of thing. You can’t get it to change its mind, nor can you persuade it to be something other than what it is. Reality is what it is. Cloud clarifies* the importance of facing reality for what it is, including
- The truth about ourselves: our strengths, weaknesses, successes, failures, opportunities, and limitations.
- The truth about the world, that it is what it is and we can’t magically change it.
- The truth about God, that he is Creator and King, and has a claim on us
To dwell on the obvious, truth is a good thing. It gives solidity to reality. But it can also produce pain when we collide with it–especially when the truth we slam into is the truth of our own inadequacies and failures.
Grace is relationship-oriented. It opens the door for forgiveness, for acceptance in spite of faults. It is what can soften the blows of reality and truth. Yet it cannot stand without truth; it would be like trying to erect a skyscraper out of jellyfish skeletons.
It would not be quite right to say Jesus balanced the two. Better to say he expressed them both fully. One great example is his extended encounter with the woman at the well in John 4. He pointed out her sins quite frankly. She must have been embarrassed. Actually, though, before that point she must have been somewhat confused at his willingness even to talk to her. There were cultural and racial barriers in that day that normally would have prevented such a conversation even from beginning. Thus Jesus demonstrated his orientation toward caring relationship, even while he was insisting on dealing with the realities of her life. By the end of their conversation she understood that he was the one who could free her from her sin, and could show her (and her people) how to worship God truly.
Grace and truth were both expressed on the cross: sin had to be paid for, and it was; but he took our payment upon himself.
I have two very quick applications to draw from this. First, we ought to express grace and truth in our relationships with each other. That means recognizing the truth about ourselves, and being open to what others have to tell us about it. It’s often easy to hide from our own realities. It also means helping others see what is true and deal with it squarely. At the same time, grace impels us to remember that we’re all in the same condition: we need help, we need love, we need forgiveness; sometimes we just need to be given a break!
Especially if I have a difficult issue to work through, I’m going to look for counsel from someone who lives out both grace and truth: truth so I can see the realities I’m dealing with, and grace to help me with the walk through them.
Second application: thank God for his truth! What kind of world would it be without some solidity to it? And thank him for his grace, too, for we who cannot meet God’s true and just standards on our own must rely on his grace in order to have any hope at all.
*Oxymoron intended 
Do We Really Know It’s True?
May 1st 2008
I gave this talk at Seaford Baptist Church on Wednesday, April 23, 2008. Some portions have been edited out because they’re not applicable to a wider audience.
Option-Click (Mac) or Right-Click (Mac or PC) to Download mp3, or listen directly online:
Jesus: Fulfiller of Scripture
April 30th 2008
It all revolves around one man: Jesus Christ. Either he was the greatest person of history, the unique Son of God, or he is nothing at all to us today. What kind of man was he really?
We’ll have to take this one topic at a time, starting with this startling claim:
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.”
Had he not been able to say that, Jesus would have stood in quite precarious position. The Law of which he spoke includes this:
If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, Let us go after other gods, which you have not known, and let us serve them, you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For the Lord your God is testing you, to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul…. But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has taught rebellion against the Lord your God…. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.
Jesus was a prophet giving signs and wonders. If he had been turning the people away from their God, he would have stood condemned for it. Indeed, he was killed on account of his claims.
Let’s back up a moment, though, and consider just that one statement of his, that he had come to fulfill the Law and the Prophets, what Christians refer to as the Old Testament. Judaism in Jesus’ day was thoroughly imbued with these writings, along with a considerable body of rabbinical commentary. The Jews of the time were as monotheistic as any culture in history. Several hundred years prior, they had suffered exile for their idolatry and chasing after pagan Gods. The exile cured them: they never fell into sin of that sort again. Still, they knew their Scriptures said it would be hard to follow their God; that they would have to fall on his mercy, for they could not claim any personal righteousness before him.
In the midst of this milieu, then, Jesus says he has come to fulfill the Law and the Prophets. He meant it in two senses. First, that he would follow their commands fully; second, that he would complete them.
The audacity of the claim is astonishing. He said he would live the way no one had lived–not Moses, not Joseph, not Daniel, not Esther, not any of the best examples of Hebrew saints. Maybe you would like to try this: walk up to any strongly religious person and say that you expect to perfectly live out their religion’s tenets. See what kind of reaction you get! The crowds who heard him “were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes.”
Jesus’ fulfilling of the Law and Prophets is explained most fully in the New Testament book of Hebrews. There had been an elaborate sacrificial system in the Hebrew religion. Animals were slaughtered in huge numbers daily for the sins of the people. Hebrews says all of this was a foreshadowing of Christ. When he died on the cross, his death was sufficient to cover what virtually infinite numbers of animals could not–the guilt of all the people. He finished the sacrifices, by his one sufficient sacrifice.
There was yet another sense in which Jesus fulfilled the Law and the Prophets: he literally fulfilled prophecy. The two most striking sources were Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53, both of which describe his crucifixion; but there were hundreds more besides. (I’ve made
It was an incredibly audacious claim that he made. Who could say such a thing? In the context of the day, it was more than unthinkable, and it was unthinkable still for decades following, which is one reason I can’t give much credence to claims that early Christians invented sayings like these.
So what can we conclude about Jesus from this one statement? He was wrong or he was right. If he was wrong, he would have surely been found out. Trust me–I had a blowup in the office this morning myself–it’s hard to pretend you’re perfect when you’re around people for very long. Yet the people who knew him best were his most ardent followers. Certainly this speaks to the truth of Christianity.
Darwin-Nazi Link: Fundamentally Wrongheaded?
April 29th 2008
A few days ago Tony Hoffman suggested,
Expelled’s charge and the constant revival of this aspersion on this website — that Darwin leads to Hitler — seems fundamentally wrongheaded….
Tom, you keep saying that although you concede that there is no philosophical link from Darwin to Hitler there is in fact a historical one. While I agree with you, I have no idea what your point is in raising it….
It’s a good question. Besides having had about half a dozen deadlines land on me since then, I’ve had to take time to give it some serious thought. Now that I have some time again, what, indeed, is the point of all this?
I hope Tony recognizes I didn’t start this discussion. It was brought up by a movie that’s proving to be fairly popular, as documentaries go. There were some who objected that the Darwin-Hitler link was an ID proponents’ fabrication. I’ve weighed in to respond to that, but I didn’t start it.
Also, if one reviews what I’ve actually posted on this topic, I think “constant revival of this aspersion” is overstated. I wrote one post calling for understanding on why this is such a sensitive issue. I hope an approach of that sort isn’t considered off limits. Other than that, I’ve posted just one link to an article on another website, and two other sentences. Of course there has also been discussion, fueled by participants on all sides of the issue.
But whether or not I’m not to blame as Tony apparently thinks I am, that doesn’t address his real question: why would anybody expend any effort on this at all? Isn’t it all a complete red herring, a distraction from genuine issues? I don’t think so.
First, we ought to learn from history. That ought to be relatively uncontroversial. If the German scientists made a mistake interpreting Darwin, then for heaven’s sake, let’s not forget what they did, and make the same kinds of mistakes all over again! I see potential for it even in our enlightened 21st century. Haeckel’s biggest error was dehumanizing some races of humanity. Peter Singer and PETA are doing the same for the whole human race. For Ingrid Newkirk of PETA, “a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy.” For Singer, we are guilty of “speciesism” if we hold humans to be of more value than animals. This is Haeckel’s error writ large.
Second, it’s not quite true that there is no philosophical link from Darwin to Hitler. There are two at least two valid connections between them.
A. There is an ethical consequence to Darwinism. It is not, as was supposed at the time, that it leads to a moral requirement that we “advance the species.” The connection is this: naturalistic Darwinism, if taken to be the sole explanation for all of life,* erases all ethical requirements. It is specifically the naturalism–closely related to atheism–that is the serious problem in all non-theistic versions of evolution (which I think answers Point 1 in Tony’s comment).
I’ve never seen a good refutation or even rebuttal for this. Paul stated the issue quite well two and a half years ago, long before the current debate began:
Just to be clear, I think the Holocaust was wrong. From my culture’s morality, from many cultures’ morality, but not from Hitler’s. I would fight against it no less.
That’s a hole big enough to drive a Panzer division through. Paul would “fight against it,” and for that I commend him; yet for him, that’s all he has. The only ultimate moral decider is power:
A relativistic moral law is made when a group of people (family, tribe, culture, country, etc.) decide to do so. There is no absolute or objective foundation for doing so: as I’ve said before, it is merely a question of power what laws are made…. When differing moral cultures clash, it’s up to power to decide the difference. Doesn’t look pretty, but that’s the way it is, assuming there’s no God.
Fighting is all anyone can do. There’s no recourse to any higher ethic. If Hitler had won, his power would have decided the difference between the differing moral cultures. Now, lest anyone think I’m picking on Paul, I think he’s right, based on his assumptions. I think he gets it. “That’s the way it is, assuming there’s no God,” says Paul, quite rightly; and that’s an assumption that squares up quite nicely with naturalistic, unguided evolution.
B. There is an ontological implication in Darwinism: humans are the same kind of thing as animals. Hitler applied this selectively, to be sure, but he applied it with great effect. He packed up hordes of people on trains like cattle, took them to the slaughtering plant, and used their parts as raw materials for industry. Yes–they wove gunny sacks out of Jewish hair. You can see unused remains of it still warehoused at Dachau. This, I believe, is why we abhor Hitler so much more than other great murderers like Stalin or Mao: they all killed; but only Hitler so thoroughly dehumanized. Darwinism dehumanizes in a different way. Hitler treated humans like animals; Darwinism says that’s what we are.
Third, ideas matter. I suppose we could trace all kinds of historical linkages to the Holocaust. In fact, I’ve actually heard people say this, even taking it to ridiculous extremes: “if you’re going to say Darwin was responsible, then so were the people who invented shower heads. It couldn’t have happened without them, either!” The difference is in ideas and their consequences. Darwinism–the naturalistic version–is not ethically neutral. It is not lacking in ethical implications. True, it doesn’t prescribe an ethic–it just applies a kind of metaphorical poison gas to any overarching, culture-transcending ethic a nation might turn to, in deciding whether to stand with or against a would-be tyrant like Hitler.
Fourth, contrary to Tony’s point 2, influencers certainly can be blamed for the actions of others that follow. They can be blamed to the extent that others did harm while following them:
- Doing actions the influencers recommended, taught, or prescribed, or
- Doing actions for which the influencers opened an ideological or ethical door, which would not otherwise have been opened.
Darwin was responsible in the second sense. This is the sense in which Berlinski (in Expelled), and Weikart (in his book on this topic) said, “Darwinism was not a sufficient condition for Hitler’s atrocities, but it was a necessary condition.” Without Darwinism, I believe, Germany would have resisted Hitler. It was not the only necessary link leading up to Nazism, but it was one of them.
*This is the sense in which I am speaking of “Darwinism” throughout this article: naturalistic evolution by means of random variation and natural selection, unguided by any intelligence. I recognize there are other versions of evolutionary theory.
Study Suggests Math Teachers Scrap Balls and Slices - New York Times
April 26th 2008
This reminds me of so many other untested beliefs. Parents and teachers have been of the opinion lately that students will understand math better using real-world objects to illustrate abstract concepts. Research now suggests this is wrong.
“The motivation behind this research was to examine a very widespread belief about the teaching of mathematics, namely that teaching students multiple concrete examples will benefit learning,” said Jennifer A. Kaminski, a research scientist at the Center for Cognitive Science at Ohio State. “It was really just that, a belief.”
Dr. Kaminski and her colleagues Vladimir M. Sloutsky and Andrew F. Heckler did something relatively rare in education research: they performed a randomized, controlled experiment. Their results appear in Friday’s issue of the journal Science.
[From Study Suggests Math Teachers Scrap Balls and Slices - New York Times]
I don’t have an axe to grind regarding how math gets taught. I’m just intrigued that they actually tested the theory. It reminds me of other theories that have clear and testable sociological implications. Wouldn’t it be nice if somebody actually did research to these to see if these are true:
- Intelligent Design is a science-stopper: if you can say “God did it,” you’ll give up doing research in the natural world.
- Raising children as Christians is child abuse.
But wait a moment: there already is research on that second one.
Do you have any other similar examples of ideas that need sociological research?