I'm Christian, unless you're gay--an article

Have a look at this article that a friend posted a link to on Facebook:

I'm Christian, unless you're gay.

Also have a look at the powerful responses that the writer links to at the end of the article.

The odd time that I've written about homosexuality here, I've typically tried to speak out in defense of gay people who are mistreated. But thinking back quite a few years, I did, on occasion, say some things that would've been quite hurtful to gay people. I can picture one occasion, probably in junior high school, when I told someone who'd just said something anti-gay, "I'm homophobic and proud of it." In elementary school, I'd like to think I was a nice and accepting person, but I occasionally joined in making fun of the least popular kids. And based on Facebook, at least one of those people turned out to be gay.

If you heard me say hurtful things like these, I'm sorry. I'd like to think I've treated gays and other mistreated people reasonably well most of the time, but I know there have been exceptions. So once again, I'm sorry. And I want to assure you, if you're gay and you feel like you can't tell most people, if you tell me, you won't lose a friend like that guy in the article did.

No more Facebook blogging

So Facebook recently removed their feature that imports people's blog posts onto their Facebook profiles. I had been using that feature, but I was actually considering removing it.

For one thing, it meant that I'd have two separate comment threads on each post--one on Facebook and one on the blog itself. The Facebook thread got more comments, but it would've been nice to keep them unified.

Also, I think I might get a bit more personal here if it's not being broadcast to everyone I know on Facebook. Sure, the blog is technically more public than my Facebook profile, but unlike Facebook, the blog doesn't announce everything I write to everyone I know who happens to log into Facebook. Now my thoughts will--in theory--only be read by people who want to read them, so that might make me feel more free to write what I want. We'll see.

And Blogger allows anonymous comments, so you can easily leave comments without a Google membership. If you have any trouble with that feature, try to let me know if you have a way of contacting me. But I just tried it, and it let me leave an anonymous comment.

Adaptations of hymns

Lots of Christian rock bands have adapted old hymns into rock songs, but there are some mainstream bands that have done that too. Two come to mind from the last few years, but I'm sure there are more.

The first example is based on the spiritual "Roll Jordan Roll." Here's one performance of it. Alexisonfire did an adaptation of it with different music but similar lyrics (although I'm not sure if they wrote the verses) called "The Northern." Here is the music video.

And then as a contrast, there's a Shaker song called "Simple Gifts." Here's a choir performing it. And then Weezer came along and adapted it into a rock song, loosely based on the original tune. But they didn't retain any of the lyrics. They didn't even write lyrics in the spirit of the original song. Instead of a song celebrating humility and simplicity, they adapted it into one of the most awesomely arrogant songs of all time. I can only hope they were joking. Here it is: The Greatest Man That Ever Lived (Variations on a Shaker Hymn).

(That video reminds me, ski season starts soon!)

What is it about these hymns that inspire rock singers--who don't claim to be Christians, as far as I know--to adapt them?

Gods you can comprehend

John, the disciple Jesus loved, ended his first letter with this line: “Children, be on your guard against false gods.” In other words, steer clear of any god you can comprehend. Abba’s love cannot be comprehended. I’ll say it again: Abba’s love cannot be comprehended.

--Brennan Manning

No voices in my head

God may or may not have told me to link to this:

No Voices in My Head by Bill MacKinnon

9/11 conspiracy theories

"I have a rule of thumb when it comes to conspiracy theories. If the theory involves aliens or government competence - such as keeping a secret for years - I don't believe the story"
--Scott Adams (not talking about 9/11)

The Globe and Mail has a page on their website where readers can comment about how the 9/11 attacks changed their world. Reading through several of the responses, I'm surprised how many people believe the various conspiracy theories about those attacks. In case you're wondering what the conspiracy theories are, or what the counter-arguments to the conspiracy theories are, check out this BBC news article. I don't know nearly enough about this stuff to debate it, but I'm inclined to believe the official reports. I find it easy enough to believe that government incompetence and communication problems made the disaster worse than it could have been otherwise, and that the government produced faulty intelligence reports in order to justify invading Iraq, but I find it hard to believe that the government orchestrated the attacks.

Looking back on Black Friday

The song "Tornado '87" by The Rural Alberta Advantage has been popular on the radio lately. It's about the tornado that hit Edmonton on July 31, 1987, known locally as Black Friday. It's the 24th anniversary of the tornado and that song got me thinking back to that day...

I was five years old at the time. My family had recently moved from north-central Edmonton to the Mill Woods area in south Edmonton. I was fairly young at the time so I'm sure some of my memories of that day have become exaggerated or fuzzy, but I'll try to recount it.

My mom took my brother and sister and I to the playground that morning. It was a hot day, and the clouds looked yellowish. I don't remember this, but my parents told me this part.

Later at home, storm clouds rolled in. They got so dark, it looked like night outside. I think I had to be reminded that it was still the afternoon. There was a thunderstorm, and somehow (either by radio, phone, or TV) we heard that a tornado had touched down. I had never heard of a tornado before. My parents explained what it was and what to do if one came near the house--go to the basement. I remember being scared. After all, I was a five-year-old kid who just learned that wind can get so strong it can destroy a house and kill people. (I'd probably heard the story of the Wizard of Oz by that time, but maybe the story didn't make me realize how bad tornadoes really are.)

The tornado didn't come anywhere near our house but it did hit the other end of Mill Woods. After the storm let up, my dad went out for a drive. He may have been bringing some things to donate to victims of the tornado, or maybe he just wanted to survey the damage, but if that's the case I'm pretty sure he made some donations later. The rest of us stayed inside. I was scared to go outside, and I think I was scared for my dad too, but by then I'm sure he knew the tornado was nowhere near our house. I remember him coming back in the house with a hailstone he found in the yard. I think it was close to the size of a baseball, but maybe my memory is exaggerated. (Everything seems bigger to young kids.)

Another day my family went for a drive to see some of the damage near the edge of the city. All I remember was seeing one of those large metal power poles lying in a crumpled heap. That tornado was powerful.

According to Wikipedia, mayor Laurence Decore said the city's response to the tornado showed that we are a "city of champions." Later, that became Edmonton's official slogan. (That same year the Oilers won the Stanley Cup and the Eskimos won the Grey Cup, so the slogan may have also referred to those champions, and that seems to be what most people think of now.)

My family was fortunate. The worst thing that happened to us was damaged shingles, and insurance covered that. Some people lost their lives or the lives of loved ones. But tragedies like these can bring out the best in a community. This photo (with a rainbow in the background--the colouring is kind of weird) shows a sculpture in Hermitage Park in east Edmonton, called "Pillar of Love," made in memory of that tornado. It shows five people linked together, all supporting each other, but the base doesn't consist of their legs. Instead, their bodies all merge into one pillar, "unmovable and steadfast," in the words of the sculptor.

Lost on Yamnuska

On the Canada Day weekend, I went camping in Kananaskis with a group of friends. On the Saturday, several people went for a long, tough hike, but a few of us decided to go for something slightly shorter and easier. Not necessarily easy, but we wanted to have supper at a decent time and one person (Sacha) wanted to get back to Edmonton that evening. So, on the advice of some of the people doing the longer hike, six of us went to climb Mount Yamnuska (also known as Mount John Laurie).

There are basically three different ways that a person can hike this mountain. They can hike part way up (maybe up past the treeline, maybe to the first part where they can see down both sides of the mountain). They can hike all the way up to the summit and back down the same route. Or they can hike to the summit and take an alternate route down, which is shorter but involves some scree slopes (which would be very difficult to climb up). We planned to go the third way, and that was our undoing.

We started off hiking uphill through a forest and eventually got above the treeline. It's a beautiful area, and the hike gets more interesting once it goes above the treeline. We passed some people rock climbing using ropes and continued up the non-cliff side of the mountain. It's a long, narrow mountain, so we got to a place where we could see down both sides of the mountain and had a 270° panoramic view well before we got to the actual summit.

Continuing from there, there's a lot of rock to climb, but nothing that a person would need ropes for, except at one place where there's a narrow ledge to walk along. There's a cable permanently fastened above the ledge to hang on to.

Finally, we got to the summit.

By then we were all pretty low on water, but we were expecting a quick descent down the scree slopes and back to the parking lot. After hanging around the summit for a little while, we continued along the trail that started down the back side of the mountain toward a scree slope.

As we made our way down the slope, my wife Cathy was the slowest one, so I slowed down so I wouldn't get too far ahead of her. Eventually we got down to where two more people, Erin and Beth, were waiting for us. They said Nick and Sacha had gone ahead so that Sacha could get home faster. So we continued down the slope looking for a clear path. We thought we should probably turn right sometime, since we'd have to climb back up to get to the front of the mountain if we turned left. No clear trails emerged, but we found some reasonably clear routes that sort of resembled trails. Around that time, we met another couple that was hiking the same route.

We continued through the woods for over an hour with the people we just met, and we could see that we hadn't got all that far along the mountain. We hadn't even found a real trail. If anything, there was less of a trail here. It was going to take a while to get around to the front. I was the only one of the four of us who had a cell phone there. I pulled it out of the bag and turned it on, but we were barely in range so I couldn't make a call. Cathy suggested moving to higher ground so we could get a better view of our surroundings. So we headed uphill. There were more short plants in that direction, so our walking got slower. We started to wonder how long this would take to get to our cars. Cell phone service improved, so I phoned a friend who was hiking the other trail. He was back in cell phone range by this time, so he answered the phone. He'd done this trail before, but when I described where we were, he had no idea where we should go. I told him that we couldn't find any trails, and just in case he didn't hear from us by 7 or 8 pm, he should call for help. We knew where we were; we just weren't sure how long it would take to get out. Fortunately the weather was good so we weren't cold. We were getting thirsty (we were out of water), but fortunately the weather wasn't sweltering hot either.

As we got to higher ground, we could see the ridge that juts out that side of the mountain. One of the people who was lost with us suggested that we climb the ridge. We should be able to see the highway and maybe even the trail from there. So we headed for the ridge, and there was less vegetation along the way, so the going got easier. Along the way up, Cathy and the other person we were lost with realized they went to high school together. Small world!

As we climbed, we wondered about Nick and Sacha. Maybe they had found the correct trail and got to the parking lot way before us. If Sacha went home already, Nick would be waiting for us with no car keys and no cell phone, wondering where we are. Or maybe they were lost too. Maybe they were having even more trouble finding their way out.

At the top of the ridge, we found the trail. I called our friend to say we found the trail. It still took us over an hour to get down to the parking lot. Nick was waiting there at the parking lot for us. He and Sacha got there about 15 minutes before us, and Sacha had already left. The two of them had been lost too, and they encountered one other person back there who was also lost.

So three different groups or individuals got lost independently, around the same time, that we know of. How many people get lost back there on a typical day? They really need to mark the trail better. But we got a good story out of the poorly marked trail.

We found out from our friends that we should've turned left off the scree slope at some point, rather than continuing all the way down. Keep this in mind if you're ever hiking there. Or just go back the way you came from once you get to the summit. Or don't even go all the way to the summit.

Thinking back to Taiwan

It's been a few months since I visited Taiwan and China with my wife Cathy, and I'm finally going to write about it. Today I'm just writing about the Taiwan portion. (Technically Taiwan is internationally recognized as part of China. In fact, even the Taiwanese government considers Taiwan part of China, at least officially. They consider themselves the legitimate government of all of China, although they don't really pursue that claim anymore. And in reality, Taiwan essentially functions as an independent country.)

Cathy went to Taiwan before me to do a med school elective. When I got there, we met up at the airport and traveled to southern Taiwan to the Siang Yuan organic farm. We set up this visit through WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms). We spent about a week and a half there, which is kind of short for a WWOOF visit, but it was hard to fit anything longer into our schedule.

We did this because I've been interested in trying something completely different from my usual engineering work, and kind of getting back to basics--producing food being such an important part of meeting our basic needs. I've done some volunteering with churches and non-profit organizations in foreign countries before, but even that work wasn't as focused on basic needs. This was also a chance to connect with people in a foreign culture in a non-religious context. (Not that there's anything wrong with connecting in a religious context; I just don't want to do that exclusively.) Although I was more interested in this than Cathy was, she still joined me for this experience.

We weren't sure what to expect our hosts to be like, but it turned out that they were very friendly and welcoming. I had made sure we went to a farm where the hosts speak English, so I was able to communicate with them. They spoke Mandarin better than English, so Cathy had an easier time communicating with them than I did, but most of the time we all spoke English. They were a middle-class family. Both the man and the woman were semi-retired. They had taken over the farm and made it organic in recent years. One of them had been an engineer, and he said running the farm was much better for his health. They grow a variety of vegetables like cabbage, rice, some kind of squash, onions, tomatoes, and probably a few things that I forgot.

The work itself wasn't particularly fun and exciting, but I wasn't expecting it to be. We spent a few days planting cabbage, and most of the rest of the time weeding around onions and squash plants. Occasionally we'd help our hosts with certain other tasks too. Riveting, isn't it? But what stood out to me, especially the first couple of days, was the stress relief. Even though I got sore doing all that bending over, it was such a stress relief to sit there, doing simple work, listening to the birds (wild birds and other people's chickens), enjoying the fresh air, and having long conversations with Cathy.

We went into town (about a ten-minute walk away) regularly to get some exercise, or buy various things, or just for something to do. The nearby town had a traditional market with fresh fruit, vegetables, meat, and some homemade foods for sale at little booths. At night they had a night market, which mostly sold various interesting cooked foods. (Taiwan is known for its stinky tofu, so we tried some of that.) We had meals with our hosts, and one time we cooked a meal for them.

Although my experience there was short, and I'm sure not all of the farmers who are part of WWOOF are as awesome as our hosts, I'd have to say WWOOF is a great way to gain experience with growing food and living a simpler life, and it can be a great cultural exchange (unless you do it close to home). It's also very inexpensive, since you work in exchange for room and board. I like how unstructured it is too. A person can spend anywhere from about 10 days to several months on a farm--you basically set up whatever works for you and your host; the WWOOF organization just gives you information about potential hosts.

After our time on the farm, we also spent a couple of days in Kenting National Park on the southern tip of Taiwan. It's a beautiful area, but fairly touristy. In March when we were there it wasn't peak tourist season, and wasn't quite beach weather yet. (We spent a short time at the beach, but got a bit cold from the wind.) I think my favourite part of Kenting was the forest recreation area, which has a bunch of trails winding through forests, botanical gardens, and a few small lit-up caves. We even saw some wild monkeys there. (I think they were Formosan macaques.)

And then we went to China...

Church

Christian talk show host Drew Marshall once said, "The sign of a good church is how many ugly people there are."

With that in mind, read this post: Blessed are the Un-Cool

End of the world, end of the movement?

So the rapture is supposed to occur tomorrow, in which all true believers in Jesus will be taken up to heaven. And the world will end on October 21. Um. Yeah.

So what happens when (not if) this prediction turns out to be wrong? Will the movement predicting this fizzle? Or will it find some way to explain away the bad prediction? A sensible person might think the movement will fizzle, but other movements that have had failed end-of-world / second coming predictions have survived. The Seventh-day Adventist Church grew out of a movement that predicted that Jesus would return on October 22, 1844. And now they're a somewhat-mainstream Protestant church. The Jehovah's Witnesses seem to have made somewhat more vague predictions, saying God's kingdom would be fully established on earth in October 1914, and suggesting that Christ's thousand-year reign might start in late 1975 or soon after.

Both of these movements lost members after these failed predictions, but the movements are still alive and well.

Two days from now, I want to see what wecanknow.com says. Will this movement find a way to survive?

A couple of points about the election

Recently I've said some things that are critical of Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party, and a bit against Michael Ignatieff and the Liberal Party.  I haven't really talked about the other parties either, but I have my issues with them too.  But today I'm not going to be critical of any politician in particular; I just want to make a couple of points.

First of all, I don't believe politics can really solve the problems in our society.  It can do a lot of good and a lot of bad, but it can't truly fix things.  If violence, oppression, other crime, and inequality are going to go away, better laws and government programs can help, but ultimately it takes an attitude change on everyone's part.  If we all just put our own interests first, no amount of rules or government programs can fix these problems.  Do you really want police and politicians who only care about their own interests?  That's a recipe for corruption.

Mentioning corruption brings me to my second point.  When I was in China with my wife recently, I heard a few stories about corruption.  High-up officials will routinely "negotiate" discounts in restaurants after eating and getting the bill, and if the restaurant staff refuse, government officials could find "health violations" in the restaurant and shut it down.  A beautiful tree in a park, covered in flowers, disappeared one day.  One of my wife's relatives commented that only a government official could get away with stealing like that.  I'm sure there are far worse examples than these.  These stories of corruption make me appreciate democracy more.  Democracy doesn't make government corruption impossible, and as I said in my first point, it can't really solve our problems.  But it gives everyday people like you and me the ability to do something about government corruption.  You may debate whether it gives us enough of a way to eliminate corruption, but at least it's something.  So if you're a Canadian citizen, please vote tomorrow.

It's not just about policy

I've finally started looking at the party platforms for Canada's big political parties.  I wouldn't really consider myself conservative or liberal; I'm kind of middle of the road, and maybe totally out there on a few issues.  (For example, I think I'd like to shrink the economy.  Without sacrificing jobs or significantly reducing economic freedom, of course.  But that's a topic for another day.)  I don't know about you, but I find it hard to know which policies are good ideas.  For example, both the Conservatives and Liberals are proposing improved benefits for people caring for sick family members.  The Liberal plan seems to provide more, but then that could make it harder to eliminate the deficit.  So which approach is better?

Some policy ideas could be good if they're implemented right, bad if they're implemented badly.  And the party platforms go into very little detail.

So when I'm judging parties' policies, I think I should base my opinion more on the few issues that I'm more familiar with than the ones I'm not so familiar with.  But beyond that, there are some pretty important other factors.  So here are some things I'm thinking about, including some criteria I'm using to judge policies:

• Leadership skill - Can the leader get the team working together effectively?  Do they make smart decisions when faced with unforeseen issues like recessions, wars, disasters, or smaller day-to-day issues?
• Integrity - How much corruption goes on under their leadership?  Do they keep their promises?  (I think I'm actually more concerned with corruption than with keeping campaign promises.  For one thing, unforeseen circumstances can make keeping a promise a harmful course of action.)
• How much of a history of fear-mongering do they have? It's hard to know if the stuff they're afraid of now is legitimate or not, but we can look back at their past records.  For example, when those boats from Sri Lanka arrived in Canada full of refugees a while back, did they find evidence that any of them were terrorists as the government suspected?
• Are their policy priorities in line with my values?  It's hard to evaluate how they plan to act on their values, but its nice to know if their principles are similar to mine.
• Are the policies that I understand best based on evidence of what works, rather than just ideology or impressing voters?

I'd like to give a couple of examples on that last one.  The Liberals want to cancel the planned corporate tax reduction.  They think the tax reduction would reduce revenue by $5-6 billion per year.  The Conservatives claim that some experts say canceling the tax reduction would cost many jobs.  (I'm not sure if there are experts speaking out in favour of the Liberals' plan.)  Overall, I'm not sure where I stand on the tax reduction, but I do believe the loss of revenue would be less than the Liberals predict.

On the other side, many critics think the Conservatives' "get tough on crime" plan will actually make Canada more dangerous.  Here's an article from February critical of the idea, and here's an article that cites some statistics from the US suggesting that this is a bad idea.  Even if some of the Conservatives' other plans actually do something to address the root issues behind crime, their plan to build more jails and toughen sentences could undo some or all of those improvements.  Maybe a few of their "tough on crime" measures are good ideas, but by and large, I'm not optimistic.  And sometimes the opposition has supported these measures.

So do I vote for the devil I know or one of the devils I don't know?  Or do I vote for a party with no realistic chance of forming a government in the hope that voices outside the political establishment will gain a stronger voice?

I'm pretty sure I won't be voting for the devil I know.  But which alternative will I pick?

How I sometimes feel about politics

Corrupt, you're corrupt,
and Bring corruption to all that you touch.

Hold, you’ll behold,
And beholden for all that you’ve done.

And Spell, cast a spell,
Cast a spell on the country you run.

And risk, you will risk,
You will risk all their lives and their souls.

And burn, you will burn,
You will burn in hell, yeah you’ll burn in hell.
You’ll burn in hell, yeah you’ll burn in hell for your sins.

And our freedom's consuming itself,
What we've become is contrary to what we want
Take a bow.

Death, you bring death and destruction to all that you touch.

Pay, you must pay
You must pay for your crimes against the earth.

Hex, feed the hex
Feed the hex on the country you love

And Beg, you will beg
You will beg for their lives and their souls.

Yeah,
Burn, you will burn,
You will burn in hell, yeah you’ll burn in hell,
You’ll burn in hell, yeah you’ll burn in hell,
Burn in hell, yeah you'll burn in hell for your sins.

 --Muse, Take a Bow

I'm not aiming this song at one particular person, but here's just one example of why I sometimes feel this way.  Canada's government (which could get defeated in the upcoming election, but probably won't be) has proposed detaining many desperate refugees without evidence of crimes.  (There's a good critique of it here.)  I wonder what our evangelical Christian prime minister thinks about the Bible verse that says "Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner" (Exodus 22:21) and other similar verses.  Maybe he picks and chooses which parts of the Bible to apply.  But wait, evangelicals don't simply pick and choose.  They have legitimate reasons for saying certain parts of the Bible don't apply now.  I wonder why that verse doesn't apply.

I'm being tough on the Conservatives right now, but I've got issues with the other parties too.  Hopefully I'll write about a bit of that before the election.

Sort of an explanation

Some of you might be wondering why I posted something in late February entitled "Making me a better person?"  I know one friend of mine was wondering.  Maybe I can shed a bit of light on the question.

I'm not sure if I can actually give a coherent answer to why I posted that.  Do I agree with the quote?  At least partially, but I hesitate to give it a full endorsement.  A simple explanation for posting it would be that it just resonated with me.  But if you want a more complicated answer, I'll give it a try.

The start of the quote I posted may have resonated with me because it's speaking against those who tend to reduce Christianity to a self-help, self-improvement system.  "Follow these principles and your life will be great."  It doesn't work.  But that's not really what the quote was about.

I think the rest of the quote resonated with me because it is an interesting way of articulating the mystery that the God who demands our complete devotion also loves us unimaginably much and offers to stop keeping score.  I don't know if the quote makes this mystery any less mysterious though.  The person who wrote that quote doesn't explain how people can "die" to themselves and give God control of their lives without caring about doing good things.  I don't know if that's a glaring omission or if he wants to leave that for everyone to wrestle with.  That question can take a lifetime of wrestling.  My friend said Christians "walk a fine line" between legalism and worldliness.  It probably looks that way, and sometimes we live like it is that way.  Really, it shouldn't be a fine line.  We should be excellent at both grace and good deeds.  We can go far away from both legalism and worldliness.  But this is part of that question that can take a lifetime of wrestling.  I sure haven't figured it out.  But I've seen glimpses of how good it can be to live unselfishly, to do what is good, to be free from guilt from the times we mess up, yet not use that freedom as an excuse to do bad things.  Maybe in this sense, Christianity can actually have many of the same advantages that my friend gave for atheism.  (She does make it sound good, doesn't she?)  The unseen deity has actually offered to stop "watching and judging our every thought, action, desire, and decision in order to determine our fate after death."  We can be compassionate because we believe in equal rights for the people around us, not just because we were told to.

Some of my friend's criticisms of Christianity are fair criticisms in my opinion.  When people say, "It happened for a reason," when terrible things happen, that bothers me.  When people use Christianity as an excuse to show hatred (while of course refusing to call it hatred), that makes me angry.  As for a few of the rules my friend mentioned, I'm not entirely sure if some of them are actually from God, but I do believe that if they are, God must have a reason for them.  It bothers me when people manufacture reasons for these rules though.

So I hope this makes some semblance of sense.  I started writing it a while back, then got writer's block, was busy with other stuff, and then finally came back and finished it.

The work fart

Hypothetical situation:

You share an office at work with one other person.  Your office mate is out of the room, but you don't know how long he'll be gone.  Maybe he went down the hall to ask someone a question and he'll be back any minute.  Maybe he's in a long meeting or even went to another building.  But you've got some gas building up and you'd like to let it out.  Your last fart was fairly stinky so you'd prefer not to let it out if your office mate is about to return.

What do you do?  How hard do you try to hold it in?  How long be for you give in and let it loose?

China and the Republic of China

We recently returned from a trip to Taiwan and China.  Or as the governments of those countries might prefer us to say: we recently returned from a trip to China.  (The Chinese government claims Taiwan is part of China.  Officially, the Taiwan government--also known as the Republic of China--seems to claim this too, but claims that the Taiwan government is the legitimate government of all of China.  But the Republic of China doesn't seem to pursue this claim anymore.)

We had a wide variety of experiences.  We helped out on an organic farm in southern Taiwan.  We visited the beaches of Hainan, an island in southern China.  We visited my wife's relatives in a few different cities.  We biked in Chinese traffic (a bit scary).  We saw the mini terra cotta army in Xuzhou (not to be confused with the full-size terra cotta army in Xi'an, which we didn't see).  And near the end, we saw a few of the Beijing area's big attractions like the Great Wall and the Forbidden City.

I'll try to write more about a couple of specific parts of the trip another time, but this is all for now.

Making me a better person?

"Jesus didn’t come to make me a better person. He didn’t come to improve me, make me more moral, or help me to be 'a good witness.' He came so that I could die with him, and then experience his resurrection with him. Nothing else matters. Nothing. The only thing that can be raised from the dead is that which has died."

This comes from a post called "Jail Break" at internetmonk.com

Why I think Darwin was right, and why it matters in some ways

Years ago, I was pretty sure the theory of evolution is wrong. Not the idea of small genetic changes from generation to generation--everybody believes that--but the idea that all living things on earth evolved from a common ancestor. It's what I was taught at home, at church, and by Christian friends. Some people seemed to have some good scientific arguments against evolution too.

But through my university years that gradually changed and by the time I was done, I was pretty sure that Darwin was actually right. Recently I was involved in a few conversations with other Christians about evolution, and there was a brief but heated discussion on the topic on my Facebook wall. Reactions to this vary; people can be hostile, respectfully disagreeing, unsure what they think, or agreeing. Quite often, if they disagree with me, I feel like they don't really understand why I would hold this opinion or why I would make a point of bringing it up, even if they are respectful. So I'd like to explain a bit of this here.

(For the sake of convenience, I'm using the word "creationism" here to mean any belief that God created the various species separately, not from a common ancestor. So I'm including old earth and young earth beliefs in this, and I'm excluding evolutionary creation beliefs, even though some people who believe that like to be called "evolutionary creationists.")

Looking back to my high school years, I was interested in scientific arguments against evolution. The arguments seemed pretty good, and the biology textbooks didn't do a good job arguing against them. They argued against ~18th century creationism, not 20th century creationism. The textbooks generally said something like, "People used to think this because the Bible said so, but more recent scientific discoveries have proven otherwise." But when Christians pointed out flaws in these scientific discoveries, it was easy to think the Bible (a literal interpretation of it) was actually right.

Later, mostly after high school, I began finding out about flaws in the anti-evolutionary arguments that I had heard. I'm no biologist, and I don't want to make this post extremely long, so I'm not going to get into specifics. But if you're interested in an example, check out the Wikipedia article on irreducible complexity. And I find it a lot easier to trust a biologist on biological science than to trust a pastor or other church leader on that. No disrespect intended to pastors and church leaders (their work can be very important); biology just isn't their area of expertise.

For someone who believes in a God who intervenes in the world, how can you tell when a naturalistic explanation is better than "God did it"? It seems to me that most of the arguments against evolution seem to be "God-of-the-gaps" arguments, i.e. God fills the gaps that currently exist in scientific theories. Considering the past track record of "God-of-the-gaps" arguments (such as claiming God pushes the planets in their unusual paths across the sky), theories that exclude God seem more credible, even if they do have some gaps. And while creationists could explain many genetic similarities between different species by similarities in function and structure, not common ancestry, there are some similarities that seem to hint that common ancestry is a better explanation. For example, most animals and plants make their own vitamin C. But some, including humans and some primates, have a defect in one of the genes involved in this. It's the same defect between humans and primates. To me, this seems like a strong hint at common ancestry.

I also failed to see evidence of the blinding bias that creationists accused evolutionary scientists of having. Creationists said those scientists just didn't want to be responsible to God, so they looked for any explanation for life that would exclude God. Some creationists said these scientists were so blinded by their biases that they didn't realize how much uncertainty there is in science. The evolutionary biologists were suppressing scientific debate.

The more I look into this, the more I think it's the creationists who have the blinding bias. I've heard of many more examples of creationists understating the evidence for evolution than of evolutionary scientists overstating it. And scientists do seem to understand the uncertainty in science, which I'll address later.

As I learned about ways that Christians have tried to reconcile evolutionary theory with scripture, I found that their ideas seemed to work. I'm no theologian, so I can't say for sure what interpretations of scripture are best, but it seems like even expert theologians disagree on how to interpret scripture. I do believe that it's appropriate to use science as a guide to interpreting scripture. Actually, I don't believe the Bible is infallible. Very good, but not infallible. (Some people believe in both evolution and the infallibility of scripture, so don't let my view on that scare you off if you do believe scripture is infallible. In general, they believe it's the message of scripture that's infallible, not the science and history.) I do greatly appreciate the biblical creation story and what it says about God and us; I just don't think it's literal history. When it comes to the origin of sin, I think the amount of evil in the world makes it's quite clear that we all have a sinful nature; I don't think it's so important whether it came from a talking snake and a forbidden fruit or not.

Over the years, I've also come to appreciate uncertainty more. Some Christians speak of the uncertainty in science like scientists aren't aware of it, and like uncertainty is a bad thing. Some also greatly exaggerate this uncertainty, as if scientists are always contradicting themselves. Based on a lot of the scientific things I read, scientists are well aware of the uncertainty in their field. Some may have an overly inflated view of their own work, but by and large, I see an appreciation for uncertainty. Uncertainty doesn't have to be paralyzing--people don't have to be completely certain to take action; we can take action based on what we're reasonably sure of. And there seems to be enough evidence to be mostly certain about evolution.

I find it much more intellectually satisfying to be able to believe the conclusions of the majority of scientists. I visited Uganda after I graduated from university in 2006. While there, our group visited Queen Elizabeth National Park. In a visitors' centre, I read about how the first humans may have evolved near there. It felt freeing to be able to read this without having to think of arguments against it. Evolution was no longer a threat to my faith in God, and I didn't have to try to come up with arguments against what I was reading. I prefer to think about the relationship between science and faith in a way that Peter Rollins suggests:

When thinking through issues to do with morality, religion, the world, and social action, people can introduce and employ the richest thoughts of the various intellectual disciplines, because the truth that Christianity affirms does not impact these discussions in terms of content but rather in terms of approach, demanding that the conclusions we come to bring liberation and healing.

(I wrote more about the book that this quote came from here.)

So if it doesn't matter to the Christian faith whether we share a common ancestor with all other living things or not, why make a big deal about this? There are many voices in Christianity, such as Answers in Genesis, saying it does matter. If someone is drawn toward Christianity but thinks the evidence for evolution is really good, this message could drive them away. Or the same kind of situation can push Christians to leave the faith (this could have been me). There are also a lot of Christians who think evolution is wrong but acknowledge that it really doesn't matter. While I'm glad they acknowledge that it doesn't matter, it seems like much of the time disbelief in evolution is the only opinion expressed in Christian groups. This can send an unintended message that a person must reject evolution to be a Christian. I want to make sure people know that finding freedom in Christ doesn't mean giving up intellectual freedom.

If you're interested in more scientific arguments for evolution and ideas on reconciling evolution with the Christian faith, check out BioLogos. The "Faith" section of "The Questions" includes some articles on the theological issues.

I don't want to appear too negative toward my family, church, and other Christian friends though. The vast majority of those people are loving, caring people, and many of them do appreciate my tendency to question things. Some of them are big questioners too.

Concerns to do with Wikileaks

I guess we haven't been hearing as much about Wikileaks in the news lately, but I'd like to comment. My overall opinion of that organization is mixed, but I am concerned about some of the response to their activities. Before I get to my main point, I'd like to briefly summarize some points that I've heard on different sides of the issue:

• Whistleblowers are doing society a favour when they expose government or corporate wrongdoing, not when they're revealing other confidential information. (For example, if my employer covered up an environmental incident, I would be protected if I blew the whistle. But if I revealed confidential financial data or details of their proprietary technology, I could be fired and maybe even sued.) These diplomatic cables that Wikileaks revealed are mostly confidential conversations between officials, not evidence of wrongdoing.
  
• In the past, Wikileaks has exposed some evidence of government wrongdoing, such as a video of American soldiers killing Iraqi civilians and journalists.
• When the media publishes confidential information, it's normally the source that gets punished (if the source can be found), not the media outlet.

My big concern about how authorities are treating Wikileaks is this: their simplest means of raising money are being cut off without proof in court that their activities are illegal. Mastercard, Visa, and Paypal all cut off Wikileaks from accepting donations by credit card, supposedly because the money was being used for illegal activities. While I agree that these companies shouldn't be facilitating illegal activities, the legal status of Wikileaks is murky. Their guilt has not been proven in court. What would you think if you got fired from your job and your bank account got suspended because someone from the government told your employer and your bank that you were doing something illegal, but you never had a chance to defend yourself in court? What's happening to Wikileaks seems similar to me.

Mastercard, Visa, and Paypal are for-profit corporations that collectively control a very large portion of the world's electronic financial transactions. I am concerned about the level of control that Mastercard and Visa in particular have over the world's financial transactions, but that's a topic for another day. But when most of your communication is online and your potential income comes from donations from around the world, you're crippled if these three companies refuse to deal with you. These companies shouldn't be allowed to cut organizations off like this without due process.

(Sources: I got some information here from Wikipedia.)