Breakup Songs

Because a few recent songs focusing on the end of a relationship are just quality products. The music videos are below the fold/jump/whateveritscalled. (warning: language. For real. In the second song, mostly, but the song's just no good without them.)

Mechanics and Mystics, Less Seriously

Everything I Know I Learned From Sesame Street (apparently). Check out this video of a Mechanic and a Mystic interpreting a large blue circle. I'll let you guess which one is which.

For the Mechanic who loves working in the kitchen, here's a cutting board specially tuned to the mechanic's mindset.

Our New Computer Overlords

Three links on how computers will replace our white-collar labor force long before robots steal our blue-collar jobs.

The first comes from Paul Krugman:

Anyway, I decided to write the piece around a conceit: that information technology would end up reducing, not increasing, the demand for highly educated workers, because a lot of what highly educated workers do could actually be replaced by sophisticated information processing — indeed, replaced more easily than a lot of manual labor.

[...] In my mind this raises several questions. One is whether emphasizing education — even aside from the fact that the big rise in inequality has taken place among the highly educated — is, in effect, fighting the last war. Another is how we have a decent society if and when even highly educated workers can’t command a middle-class income.

The second also comes from Paul Krugman, and I particularly like it for this table:

"This is real, and it calls some of our favorite platitudes into question," Krugman says.

Brad DeLong, on the other hand, has an excellent post in which economics and history triumph over cynicism (and yes, it's a lot like intellect and romance over brute force and cynicism):

We have already gone through the great transformation by which the general business of life--growing and processing our food, building our shelter, weaving our clothes, and telling ourselves stories for information and entertainment--has been extroardinarily [sic], comprehensively automated. And yet we have found things to do.

 Either way, I'd say this is the best argument yet for the long term viability of a career in the humanities!

Life-Saving Immorality?

Your taxpayer dollars at work.

Brad DeLong thinks that taxing people in order to prevent an asteroid from destroying the human race is entirely appropriate and moral. He quotes Bob Murphy, on the other hand, as disagreeing:

[T]here is a general moral prohibition against violating another person's rights.... Volokh's... point should be obvious: Just because an asteroid threatens to destroy all human life, that alone is not sufficient to justify violating people's rights. [...] The reason DeLong finds Volokh's views "insane" is that Volokh has elevated his precious political principles to such a height that they trump the survival of the human race. What an ideologue!

DeLong summarily rejects this sort of thinking, summarizing his view as follows:

[...] the sabbath was made for humanity; humanity was not made for the sabbath.

Commentor Daniel Kuehn has a lot to say in response to this position, and particularly to the logic of the position:

If you start where they do - axiomatically defining what a "right" is and defining "immorality" as being the violation of that right - then both the Volokh and Murphy version of the argument follows naturally.

The problem is not the logic itself - that logic is simple enough. The problem is their decision to apply that logic to this circumstance. Deductive logic is a tool - we have long since passed the point where we can claim that it deserves any deeper epistemological priority. [...]  Logic is not a tool for them, as most careful thinkers know it should be. For them it is a path, not to truth contingent on assumptions [I would prefer to refer to this as consistent reasoning or logical validity - N], but to some deeper absolute truth. [...] So to expand on your concluding thought, deductive logic is a tool for humanity, and not the other way around.

Tad Brennan points out that, far from being a primarily political debate, the conflict here is between purely deontological ethics and purely consequentialist ethics, and that the latter lends itself to some problems, as well:

If you eschew lexically-ordered side-constraints, then you have a very pure form of consequentialism. And that's not a bad thing! Some of my best friends espouse pure consequentialism! 

But pure consequentialism can generate some pretty repellent hypotheticals of its own (catalogued by Bernard Williams and others: false conviction of the innocent; harvesting organs from the unwilling; torture of children; etc. etc.).

When people recoil from the consequences of pure consequentialism and consider adopting categorical prohibitions on, e.g., the torture of children, this does not seem to me ipso facto insane.

Finding the right balance of ethical views for the Christian is never as simple and easy as it seems, which is why Christian maturity is a big deal. But this is a circumstance when, again, I don't think Christianity came come down on the side of moral libertarianism.

PS - For those looking for a quick summary of deontology vs. consequentialism in terms we can all understand, may I suggest Mark White, aka The Comics Professor, on the morality of Captain America, Iron Man, and Spiderman!

Japanese Earthquake-Tsunami Links

One week after the fact, I don't have a lot to say about the disaster, other than it is terrible. Please be praying for the people in Sendai and areas even closer to the epicenter.

I do, however, have some summary information I have been following.

Here is an amazing visual before and after comparison.

Ilan Noy provides a way to think about the economic impact of a disaster.

James Hamilton expands on this discussion of the economic impact, including some links of his own.

Will Wilkinson offers his summary of the economic disaster literature.

Christopher Beam on the lack of looting.

Bill McBride has several links on the nuclear concerns.

Robin  Hanson argues for a counter-intuitive response to the nuclear dangers.

Laura Freschi wants you to think carefully about your aid donations.

Finally, here's a brief video showing some of the impact of the Tsunami:

Talking about Sex

(The title alone should really boost my pageviews, right?)

Actually, I don't have much to say, but Ross Douthat and Matthew Schmitz do.

Here's Douthat:

Did the social trends of the last 50 years bring about “unprecedented gender equality”? Absolutely. Did they bring about “unprecedented personal fulfillment”? Well … for some people they did. But it’s very easy to find indicators that paint a more complicated picture. [...]

The crucial question, to my mind, is whether all of the social changes that swept America in the 1960s and the 1970s are a package deal. [...] Many progressives and feminists have committed themselves to an absolute defense of everything that changed during the sexual revolution, out of a fear that one concession will cost women every gain.

And here's Schmitz:

the failure of American men to compete academically with their female peers has created a gender imbalance that leaves women at a disadvantage in the sexual marketplace. It is a particularly bitter irony that the societal neglect of the young American male has now become a significant threat to the happiness and well-being of the young American female. If we are to “take back the night,” we may have to first recapture a compelling vision of masculinity that makes education and achievement attractive to a lost generation of young men.

[...]Indeed, our current preoccupation with keeping sex sanitary, salutary, and unencumbered by anything resembling a moral judgment has led to a narrow focus on preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, and an effective denial of the regret and depression that follow many sexual encounters. Facing up to the psychological problems associated with casual sex (which are far more common among women) will require the medical profession to decide whether it is possible to withhold judgment without denying necessary care.

Both articles are well worth reading.

Hell or Bell?

I am referring, of course, to the forthcoming book Love Wins by pastor Rob Bell of Mars Hill Bible Church. As something of a follow up to a previous post which generated a lively discussion, I thought I'd link to a couple of articles on the Christian doctrine of hell and the people who believe it.

The first article, written by Eric Reitan, is on the controversy surrounding Rob Bell:

Justin Taylor, vice president of editorial at Crossway, quickly posted a fierce condemnation—based solely on advance material. “It is unspeakably sad,” writes Taylor, “when those called to be ministers of the Word distort the gospel and deceive the people of God with false doctrine.”

The main point of the article isn't so much whether Bell is right or wrong, as we don't even know his actual argument yet. Rather, it is about how we react to those who disagree with us about admittedly Very Important Things.

One of the more conservative people in the audience (we’ll call him Jim) said rather forcefully that Jesus only saves those who explicitly ask Him to be their Lord and Savior. When I said I disagreed with that view, Jim replied, “Then you disagree with God.”[...]

This disposition of humility does not become fanaticism, however, until it is paired with arrogance: the refusal to recognize that their beliefs about God’s word could be wrong. The fanatic treats a challenge to their own beliefs as if it were a challenge to the word of God.

Of course, the article does deal with some of the substance of the rejection of universalism, making a point I tried to in my previous post:

Can you really preach biblical inerrancy and dismiss universalism? What, then, do you do with John 12:32 where Jesus says, “But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself”? What do you do with Romans 5:18 (“Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men”)? What about Romans 11:32 (“For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all”)? Or I Corinthians 15:22 (“For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive”)? Or I Corinthians 15: 28? Or Colossians 1:19-20? Or Lamentations 3:31-32?  

Presumably, Piper and Taylor have to say that when the Bible says “all,” it doesn’t really mean “all.” The plain meaning of these passages has to be rejected, some strained interpretation offered, in order to reconcile them with the hell-centric passages they favor (and yes, there is a litany of such passages as well).

Which is to say, taking the Bible as Truth is a much more complex process than we care to admit. Either we accept that some passages apparently contradict each other, and our finite minds don't know how to fully reconcile them, or we have to pick and choose which words to take at closer to face value than others. There are better and worse ways to do the latter, but if we are to build a systematic theology out of Scripture, it has to be done.

The second article is by Tim Keller of Redeemer Pres (PCA) in New York City. Keller offers his defense of the centrality of the doctrine of hell to Christianity:

The doctrine of hell is crucial-without it we can't understand our complete dependence on God, the character and danger of even the smallest sins, and the true scope of the costly love of Jesus.[...]

We must come to grips with the fact that Jesus said more about hell than Daniel, Isaiah, Paul, John, Peter put together. Before we dismiss this, we have to realize we are saying to Jesus, the pre-eminent teacher of love and grace in history, "I am less barbaric than you, Jesus--I am more compassionate and wiser than you." Surely that should give us pause! Indeed, upon reflection, it is because of the doctrine of judgment and hell that Jesus' proclamations of grace and love are so astounding.

Now, as I pointed out with reference to universalism of Carlton Pearson, the real argument isn't whether Hell in the sense of a place of divine punishment for sins exists. The meaningful argument is whether or not the duration of a persons existence there is perpetual. To this, Keller says

Hell is therefore a prison in which the doors are first locked from the inside by us and therefore are locked from the outside by God (Luke 16:26.) Every indication is that those doors continue to stay forever barred from the inside.

I suppose Keller doesn't see the word "all" in the passages cited in the other article as indications the doors do not stay barred forever. Carlton Pearson disagrees.

I find myself agreeing with both articles. I believe hell is real, and while I think there is significant merit to thinking of the unregenerate life on earth as a foretaste of hell (just as life with the Holy Spirit is a foretaste of heaven), I believe the main thrust of Scripture is that hell is real, terrible, and permanent. However, I'm not convince failure to assert the last adjective of that sentence disqualifies you from God's Kingdom (Did the thief on the cross understand the permanence of hell?). I think it is a virtue to be willing to listen to those who name the name of Christ, assert the trustworthiness of His Word, and disagree on this point.

The folly of what Eric Reitan calls fanaticism (and most of the world refers to these days as fundamentalism) comes from treating everything we think is true as a fundamental. Scripture is amazingly brief in the specific things it tells us to believe that we might be saved. Yes, I believe there are direct implications of those core beliefs. Most of you know I have no shortage of opinions on spiritual matters. But the point is, what I think is a direct implication is not the same thing as "God said so." "Confess that Jesus is Lord, and believe that God raised him from the dead" is not negotiable. But the more areas where I am willing and able to be wrong without losing faith in that, the more teachable I will be. Doesn't mean I have to be blown about; as I said, I'm not convinced by Pearson or what little I've read of Bell. But it means I listen. To do otherwise is, in my view, a failure to put the true fundamentals in their rightful place. It's to believe in what my campus minister used to call "Jesus Plus" something.

There are many idols out there for us to follow. One of them says that divine punishment doesn't exist, or doesn't ultimately matter. It ignores the long history of God's people, and the teachings of wise leaders of the Church. Another says my view of divine punishment is the only one that could ever be true, and everyone else is trying to trick you out of God's arms. It adheres to the words of wise humans as tightly as it adheres to the words of the Creator of the Universe.

I hope we can all do our best to avoid "Jesus Plus."

Keep those comments coming, everyone, I'm totally listening!

A Summary of Mystic Thinking?

Story-telling encourages context-dependent thinking, although not necessarily in [a precise] manner.

Slightly modified from Marginal Revolution; I think saying story-telling tends to be more inaccurate than argument is, itself, inaccurate (or at least imprecise!).

This brings up all sorts of thoughts for me. Is the political left more accepting of Mystics than the political right? Is there a connection between left-wing politics, mystical thinking, and the stronghold of liberal intellectualism that is the humanities (at least, that's what we're always told about the humanities)?

And for the record, no, context-dependent / narrative thinking is not the same as sloppy thinking. As Joel has argued before, it's probably better suited to different kinds of questions than precise / mathematical thinking is. Mystics are those who are better at context-dependent, narrative thinking and tend to think the questions it is suited for are the most important ones. Mechanics are much better at pure logical and mathematical thinking, and tend to downplay the importance of questions where mechanical thinking doesn't cut it.

And I'll re-emphasize, once again, that most of how God chooses to communicate with us is through narrative, metaphor, and other context-dependent modes of thinking rather than through logical constructs and syllogistic arguments. I find it hard not to believe that the imprecision is intentional. I am also convinced that most people (and by extension most students these days) lean more toward mystic than mechanic, but the opposite is true for professors. This matters a lot for how we teach our students, a fact I continually have to remind myself of, and hopefully won't forget during my teaching presentation tomorrow.

Obituary

For those who don't know, my grandmother passed away last Tuesday evening of pancreatic cancer.  The funeral was this past Thursday.  I had the chance to say goodbye over the phone about half an hour before she died. She was surrounded by family members, and true to form, she waited until everyone was with her and safe to pass on; five minutes after the last person arrived she took her last breath. For those interested, here is the obituary.

Martha Patricia Hutcheson was born on October 16, 1919 in Dormont, PA to parents James Parks Hutcheson and Lucy Leota (Denning) Hutcheson. Martha attended schools and was a graduate of Bethel High School in 1937 in Bethel, Pa. She then enrolled in business school and worked in her father's office for five years. As she worked along side her father over these years, she saved up enough money to pursue her passion for flying, and became a true pioneer in women's aviation. In 1943 Martha helped to train pilots for the Army Air Corps for World War II. Following the war, Martha continued to instruct pilots who were training under the G.I.Bill. One of these pupils was Aaron Wise, whom she married in January of 1947. To this union, four children were born. Martha was the quintessential home maker, making each and every holiday, birthday, and occasion into a very special event for all the family to enjoy and remember. The family recalls her Thanksgiving dinners, the stockings at Christmas, and the joy her grandchildren brought her. Also, the many dresses, costumes, and last minute sewing projects that she so skillfully made. Martha enjoyed a strong faith and loved hosting a ladies bible study. After 52 years of marriage, her loving husband Aaron passed away in 1999. Martha is survived by her children, [...] Nine grandchildren, Three Great Grandchildren, and a sister [...].