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?
Tuesday, April 05, 2011
Friday, April 01, 2011
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.
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.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
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
This comes from a post called "Jail Break" at internetmonk.com
Monday, February 21, 2011
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:
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.
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.
Saturday, January 08, 2011
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:
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.)
- 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.
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.)
Thursday, December 02, 2010
Give them a smack
Before you read any further, check out this comic.
This comic is about having a positive attitude, but it reminded me of the idea of having faith. If you've ever been an evangelical Christian, and maybe even if you never were, I'm sure you've at least heard about people telling sick people, "If you just have enough faith, God will heal you," or maybe it's happened to you. The implication being, "If you don't get better, it's your own fault." That's where I see a parallel with this comic. I don't think most evangelicals do this, but it varies from church to church, and it happens enough that I'm sure a lot of people have been made to feel bad because of it.
We can affect our own attitudes, and we can affect our level of faith, but there are limits. And just as a positive attitude won't heal every disease, having faith in God usually doesn't result in obvious miracles. So if someone is telling you that you need to have more faith to deal with your problems (illness, depression, financial issues, relationship issues, etc.), and if that makes you feel even worse, tell them to go away. Or give them a finger. Or give them a smack. (My friend's friend's blog has some helpful tips on doing this. Directions are near the bottom of the right sidebar.) Maybe that will help you feel better. But I won't ask you to have faith that this will make you feel better. :)
I trust that God is good. I don't trust that God will act in the ways people tell me he will.
This comic is about having a positive attitude, but it reminded me of the idea of having faith. If you've ever been an evangelical Christian, and maybe even if you never were, I'm sure you've at least heard about people telling sick people, "If you just have enough faith, God will heal you," or maybe it's happened to you. The implication being, "If you don't get better, it's your own fault." That's where I see a parallel with this comic. I don't think most evangelicals do this, but it varies from church to church, and it happens enough that I'm sure a lot of people have been made to feel bad because of it.
We can affect our own attitudes, and we can affect our level of faith, but there are limits. And just as a positive attitude won't heal every disease, having faith in God usually doesn't result in obvious miracles. So if someone is telling you that you need to have more faith to deal with your problems (illness, depression, financial issues, relationship issues, etc.), and if that makes you feel even worse, tell them to go away. Or give them a finger. Or give them a smack. (My friend's friend's blog has some helpful tips on doing this. Directions are near the bottom of the right sidebar.) Maybe that will help you feel better. But I won't ask you to have faith that this will make you feel better. :)
I trust that God is good. I don't trust that God will act in the ways people tell me he will.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
First Tuesday of Advent
I could have called this "First Sunday of Advent" if I'd posted it a couple days ago. Oh well. I've posted these song lyrics before, but here they are again:
O come, O come Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here,
Until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel!
O come, O come Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here,
Until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel!
O Come Thou Dayspring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here.
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death's dark shadows put to flight.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel!
O come, Thou Wisdom from on high,
And order all things, far and nigh;
To us the path of knowledge show,
And cause us in her ways to go.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel!
O come desire of nations, bind
All peoples in one heart and mind;
Bid envy, strife, and quarrels cease;
Fill the whole world with heaven's peace.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel!
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