Vaccinophobia

I'm going to opine about the anti-vaccination movement. I'm not a virologist or infectious-disease specialist. I'm just speaking as a layman. 

What accounts to the anti-vaccination movement? Off-hand, I can think of two reasons. Maybe there are more:

i) There's a well-earned distrust of gov't. Public health officials routinely make pro forma statements about how something is safe, how something is under control, not because that's the case, but because they think it's their duty to quell or forestall "mass hysteria." As a result, the public discounts their assurances.

In addition, I think the prestige of science has suffered from the politicization of science, viz. alarmist claims about global warming. 

ii) I think mass vaccination is a victim of its own success. Because it's been so effective in eliminating certain pandemics or epidemics which used to be commonplace, the threat has receded from public consciousness. For many people, the danger of an epidemic or pandemic is just an abstraction. Many people are crisis-driven. They don't take precautions. Unless they experience something, it isn't real to them.

iii) Measles might not sound that alarming, yet it's a major killer of children in the Third World. Moreover, that statistic is misleading. Absent vaccination, the figure of childhood deaths from measles would be far higher. 

iv) Is it just happenstance that the drastic reduction in some epidemics or pandemics coincided with mass vaccination? Is it just happenstance that outbreaks or epidemics occur in areas where there is no mass vaccination? Although one may rightly be skeptical of what public health officials say, don't the statistics speak for themselves? 

v) Unless I'm mistaken, there's no anti-vaccination movement within the medical community. Don't physicians have their own children vaccinated? They wouldn't continue to do that unless they thought it was a wise precaution. To be sure, you can have groupthink in medical science. My point, though, is that this isn't like public health officials saying things they don't believe. 

vi) Vaccination is not risk-free. A statistical fraction of vaccinated individuals will react badly to vaccination. So it's a cost/benefit assessment. Do the general benefits outweigh the occasional risks? To my knowledge, mass vaccination has been overwhelmingly beneficial to public health and safety. 

vii) Finally, although some critics might dismiss the anti-vaccination movement as another expression of the Christian lunatic fringe, it's demographically diverse. There've been anti-vacination movements in Sweden, Japan, and West Germany. Hardly hotbeds of Christian fundamentalism. In addition:

Who is choosing not to vaccinate? The answer is surprising. The area with the most cases of whooping cough in California is Los Angeles County, and no group within that county has lower immunization rates than residents living between Malibu and Marina Del Rey, home to some of the wealthiest and most exclusive suburbs in the country. At the Kabbalah Children's Academy in Beverly Hills, 57% of children are unvaccinated. At the Waldorf Early Childhood Center in Santa Monica, it's 68%, according to the Hollywood Reporter's analysis of public-health data. 

These are the kind of immunization rates that can be found in Chad or South Sudan. But parents in Beverly Hills and Santa Monica see vaccines as unnatural—something that conflicts with their healthy lifestyle. And they have no problem finding fringe pediatricians willing to cater to their irrational beliefs. 

http://online.wsj.com/articles/paul-a-offit-the-anti-vaccination-epidemic-1411598408

Jonathan Cahn's Case Against Jesus' Birth On December 25

Steve Hays recently wrote a post about Jonathan Cahn's argument against a December 25 date for the birth of Jesus. You can read an article about Cahn's view here. And here's what I wrote in an email on the subject:

Is the freedom/determinism dilemma a false dilemma?

Don Page recently made a striking claim:

And what’s more, many worlds may even take care of freewill. Page doesn’t actually believe we have freewill, because he feels we live in a reality in which God determines everything, so it is impossible for humans to act independently. But in the many-worlds interpretation every possible action is actually taken. “It doesn’t mean that it’s fixed that I do one particular course of action. In the multiverse, I’m doing all of them,” says Page.

http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=7219

i) This is very stimulating. On the face of it, his position dissolves the perennial dilemma between determinism and freedom of choice. For on this model, all our choices are determined (indeed, divinely determined), yet we have radical freedom of opportunity inasmuch as we do in fact act on all these alternate possibilities.

ii) It's not quite clear to me how he gets divine determinism out of this. Perhaps he means God indirectly determines everything by initiating and/or instantiating the multiverse.

iii) I'm not clear if he's operating with a Tegmark model of the multiverse in which every possibility is realized. Not every conceivable world is worthwhile.

iii) In principle, God could selectively create parallel worlds which exemplify alternate possibilities. God doesn't require the apparatus of quantum mechanics to create a multiverse. He could do that ex nihilo. So that doesn't require God to instantiate every alternate possibility. It leaves room for divine discretion. Some possible worlds have no redeeming value. Some possible worlds have heretical scenarios (e.g. Christ sinning).

iv) Even if the multiverse does not exist, his argument, if successful, demonstrates that the traditional dilemma between freedom and determinism is a false dilemma in principle. The argument requires a suppressed premise to generate the dilemma: only one possibility can be instantiated at any given time.

v) Yet another objection is that the freedom to do otherwise (i.e. the principle of alternate possibilities) typically means the freedom to do otherwise given the same history, not alternate histories. However, that's ambiguous. It's the same past. The same history up to the decision point. But from thereon it branches off into different futures. So we need to distinguish between alternate history in the sense of a different past or a different future. Does "history" refer to the entire timeline? Or different stages–with forking paths?

vi) Yet another objection is that his argument is vitiated by equivocation. Am I the same person as my counterparts in parallel worlds? Or does that violate personal identity? Here's one way of expressing the objection: "Do you think an exact duplicate of me, sitting next to me, is me? If not, why think that the duplicate existing in another physical universe would be me?"

That, however, raises mereological issues. If spatial distinction is incompatible with numerical identity, is temporal distinction incompatible with numerical identity? Am I the same person today that I was yesterday?

One counterargument is that diachronic identity is univocal because the earlier and later stages of my existence are causally linked. But if that's a necessary condition for personal identity, then that rules out counterfactual identity. My counterparts in abstract possible worlds aren't causally linked. It's a timeless state.

If there's a problem with equivocity, I don't think it begins at the level of causally/spatiotemporally isolated individuals. I don't think instantiating alternate scenarios introduces equivocity into a hitherto univocal relation. If there is a problem, the problem lies upstream, not downstream.

vii) Seems to me the ultimate question is whether God can have a univocal concept of alternate courses of action about the same agent. When God thinks about a driver crashing or just missing a crash, is God's concept about the same driver in both cases? If so, how does God objectifying or transferring his abstract idea to a (concrete/physical) parallel universe situation become equivocal?

Returning to the question: "Do you think an exact duplicate of me, sitting next to me, is me?" I'd say those are two different instances of one and the same exemplary idea.

The exemplar is God's idea of an individual. A possible person is God's constitutive idea of that individual. That's what a person is considered as a possible person, in distinction to an actual person.

As I see it, God is like a novelist. He has a complete idea of every person. I suppose a Classical Arminian might say the same thing, but he doesn't mean what I mean by a complete idea. He means God knows everything about a person.

No doubt that's true as far as it goes, but I'm using "complete idea" in a constitutive sense, like how a novelist's idea of a character is what makes him the character that he is. God's complete concept is variegated. It's the same idea insofar as the content of the exemplary idea is the abstract template for its concrete instances. However, God does not instantiate the entire content of the exemplary idea, for the content of the idea includes alternate courses of action.

They are two different instances of the same exemplary idea. By "exemplary idea," I mean God's complete concept of the individual, including "alternate endings". God can (and does) imagine "alternate endings." God's imagination is infinite.

BTW, here's a useful exposition of possible worlds from a Reformed philosopher:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2011/12/my-predestination-is-all-freewill.html

Reducing abortion

i) This post is in reference to "abolitionists" who regard any prolife legislation that falls short of demanding total prohibition as a moral compromise. In context, I'm referring to a situation in which a Christian lawmaker proposes less sweeping legislation because that's all that will pass in Congress or a state legislature–with a veto proof margin, if necessary.

ii) Are laws that merely reduce abortion, or aim to reduce abortion, morally compromised? On the face of it, the answer is no. I daresay there's hardly any law that eliminates the crime it prohibits. What lawmaker expects his law to eradicate the crime in question? Although he might wish that to be the case, the law is not a failure if merely reduces rather than eliminates the crime it bans.

Take laws against murder. Outlawing murder don't eliminate murder. Rather, their function is twofold: (a) to deter murder, and (b) to punish murder when it occurs. A law against murder isn't morally compromised because it merely reduces the rate of murder. That's all the law can do. It can't prevent people from committing murder. 

To say that laws which merely reduce the incidence of abortion are morally compromised is to say that any law which merely reduces the incidence of some crime is morally compromised. But if that's where we set the bar, then we should abolish every law. 

iii) Moreover, there are situations in which it's permissible to allow wrongdoing which you could prevent. Take D.U.I. Drunk drivers are dangerous and culpable. It's wrong to endanger pedestrians, cyclists, and other drivers by driving under the influence. That's why it's against the law.

Consequently, some police think that justifies random checkpoints. By setting up random checkpoints, they nab some drunk drivers. That's a way of enforcing the law. A way of making the law more effective. 

Yet random checkpoints are very controversial because they treat every driver as a suspect, without probable cause. You can support D.U.I laws, but oppose random checkpoints. There are tradeoffs in a free society. Even if a police state is safer (which is disputable), freedom is a value, too. All things being equal, there's the right to be left alone.

iv) I'd also like to make a point about abortion exceptions. Are these a moral compromise? As I've already pointed out, it's not morally compromising if a lawmaker fails to do more than he was able to do.

But there's another distinction. There are Christians who think the rape/incest/life-of-the-mother exceptions are principled exception. Not just concessions to political reality, but something that laws against abortion ought to exempt. Likewise, there are Christians who reject the rape/incest exception, but think the life-of-the-mother is a morally permissible exception in its own right. That's not an exception to get the bill passed and signed into law. Rather, that exception should be in the bill even if there were the votes to ban abortion in toto.

Now, you can disagree with them. I myself disagree with them. But you can't attack it because it's pragmatic, for proponents who take this view don't justify it on pragmatic grounds. Rather, they regard this as a matter of principle. Therefore, you have to attack the principle. But that's a different argument.

v) Finally, there's a difference between what we think is wrong, and what we should outlaw. I think abortion to save the life of the mother is wrong. That doesn't mean I necessary think it should be outlawed. It's dubious to think we should legislate every hard case in ethics. Sometime we have to give individuals the freedom to be wrong. Are you going to punish someone for making a tough call? 

To take a comparison: suppose you have a family member on life support who's been declared brain dead. If you take him off life support, he may die. Indeed, that's the likely outcome. And, for all you know, it's possible that he will miraculously regain consciousness in 5 years. 

Pulling the plug (in that situation) is an agonizing decision. Suppose I think it's wrong for you to pull the plug (in that situation). Does that mean I should criminalize your decision? Even if you made the wrong call, should that be a felony? 

It isn't our responsibility to craft laws that achieve perfect justice in this life. We couldn't achieve that objective even if we tried. Ultimately, the day of judgment will right the scales of justice. The basic function of law is to establish a moral floor, not a moral ceiling. 

Snakebite

I will put enmity between you and the woman,
    and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
    and you shall bruise his heel.”

(Gen 3:15).

i) This is, of course, a very famous passage. One interpretive issue is to explore the picturesque metaphor. The meaning of the word that's translated "bruised" in the ESV is disputed. It's a very rare word in Biblical usage, and its other two occurrences aren't very clarifying. 

Given the Hebrew parallelism, some scholars argue that it should be rendered the same way in both clauses. That might well be the case.

On the other hand, it's possible that the Hebrew word has more than one sense, and trades on that fact so that it carries a different, and appropriate, nuance, in each clause. 

ii) However, the interpretation doesn't necessary turn on how we define that one word. Even if we had no idea what it meant, the overall word picture supplies the gist of the meaning. The reader is expected to visualize the snake hurting the man and the man hurting the snake. What are the likely scenarios?

iii) There are roughly two kinds of snakes: venomous and nonvenomous. 

There are roughly two kinds of nonvenomous snakes: those harmless to man and those dangerous to man. 

iv) Clearly, the passages envisions a snake that's dangerous to man. So that rules out innocuous, nonvenomous species–leaving either venomous snakes or large constrictors. 

Nonvenomous snakes dangerous to man are large constrictors. Constrictors bite, though not to envenomate, but to get a lock on the victim, so that they can then encoil the victim. However, I don't think that's a likely candidate for this passage:

a) To my knowledge, Jews in OT times would be unfamiliar with large constrictors. 

b) The image of biting a man's heel, or a man stomping on a snake's head, seems less congruous in the case of a large constrictor. 

c) Keep in mind, too, that the original audience for Genesis consisted of emancipated slaves from Egypt who wandered in the Sinai. They'd be familiar with black cobras, Egyptian cobras, carpet vipers, and sand vipers. 

v) Assuming it's a venomous snake, I think there are roughly two possible scenarios in view:

a) The snake strikes the man's heel and the man strikes the snake with a long stick. 

b) The snake strikes the man's heel and the man stomps on the snake.

Trying to kill a snake with a long stick is the smart way to dispatch a snake. The stick keeps you out of striking range. 

However, if it's the stick rather than the heel that does the damage, then it's unclear why the passage mentions the heel. Reference to the heel naturally conjures up the image of stepping on a snake. And that's a common way of getting bitten. As a rule, trying to kill a venomous snake by crushing its head with your foot would be a good way of getting bitten.

So, if the imagery is consistent, this isn't a case of attacking the snake, but inadvertently stepping on it. And one is bitten in the process of stepping on it. Stepping on it injures both the snake and the man. Action and reaction. The snake doesn't necessarily die instantly. And even dead snakes can reflexively envenomate you.

I assume your back must be turned to a snake (or at least be sideways) for the snake to bite your heel. If you're facing a snake, it can't bite you in the heel. 

Likewise, if you're facing a snake, and it's either attacking or defending itself, I think it would strike higher than the heel. 

So it seems to me that the imagery suggests accidentally stepping on a snake. A one-time event. 

Again, there's the danger of overinterpreting the implied imagery. 

It's easy to step on venomous snakes, both because they are often nocturnal, so you can't see them at night, and because their skin is camouflaged, so that you can't see them in daylight. So perhaps the intended image is of a man who steps on the head of a snake. Although that's fatal to the snake, when the man lifts his foot, the dying snake, or dead snake, reflexively bites the raised heel, that's just above or ahead of the snake. At this point the snake is inches behind (or below) his foot, but within striking distance.

It's possible that this analysis carries the imagery too far. Perhaps it was never meant to be that precise. But then again, perhaps the reader is expected to envision the complete scene which that image provokes. And, indeed, I assume the original audience had enough experience with snakes, personally or by word-of-mouth, that they'd have a vivid mental image of the encounter. 

vi) It's often said that a head injury is fatal whereas a "bruised heel" is not life-threatening. But a bite from a venomous snake (unless it's a dry bite) is usually fatal. The more so given the toxicity of the venomous species known to the original audience, and the absence of antivenom. 

vii) Although it would be risky to press the imagery, it's literally true that what Jesus suffered wasn't merely harmful, but deadly. Metaphorically speaking, he died of snakebite. 

Strictly speaking, Satan can't be killed. To be killed, you must be alive. But angels aren't living organisms in the biological sense. They can't die. 

Yet they can suffer. Not only is it possible to suffer psychologically, but if human experience is any analogy, mental states can include simulated physical pain. You can feel pain in a nightmare. 

Death can be an escape from physical pain. Ironically, Satan's natural immunity to death or physical injury leaves him vulnerable to far more fearful, punitive suffering. 

viii) I take for granted that Gen 3:15 is prophetic and messianic. That's not just a question of treating the passage in isolation, but tracking that unfolding motif in the rest of the Pentateuch. 

St. Peter's rudderless barque

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/print?id=26779237

Marian prayers

Lydia McGrew said...

A couple of illustrations. Here are a couple of very ancient prayers to the Virgin Mary:

We fly to thy patronage,
O holy Mother of God;
despise not our petitions in our necessities,
but deliver us always from all dangers,
O glorious and blessed Virgin. Amen.
3rd Century; Oldest Known Prayer to Mary

Loving Mother of the Redeemer,
Gate of heaven, star of the sea,
Assist your people
who have fallen yet strive to rise again,
To the wonderment of nature you bore your Creator,
yet remained a virgin after as before,
You who received Gabriel's joyful greeting,
have pity on us, poor sinners.
Ancient Liturgy of the Hours Prayer\

Many, many more examples could be found. One would _never_ speak of asking for the prayers of a friend on earth, however godly, in those terms.

Imagine that Jones is a very godly man and that Smith is his less godly Christian friend. Smith has some problems in his life. One would never say to Smith, "Fly to Jones for refuge and ask him to deliver you from all dangers" meaning by that, "Ask Jones to pray for you." It wouldn't matter how great a person Jones was, how great a Christian, how much the passage in James could be presumed to apply to Jones. To talk about Jones in those terms would be to treat him as a superbeing or a magician, not just an especially godly man.

And all the more so if you were telling the person to do this by mental prayer, which God would convey to Jones in the form of some sort of supernaturally aided ESP.

If one asserts that the saints' knowledge of our prayers is made possible by divine miracle rather than being due to a natural power, but if all liturgical practice encourages people to *take it as a given* that they can speak from anywhere on earth to Mary or the other saints and be heard, then the term "miracle" is irrelevant to the impression given. This is a "miracle" that is always done by God and can be taken for granted in practice to be in force--they will hear your prayers. The effect of all of this is, unfortunately, very much what I felt bound to assert in the main post. I speak here as someone who once was more sympathetic to prayers for the saints.

IMO it would be better for Catholic apologists to bite the bullet. Instead of telling Protestants that it's just like asking a godly friend for prayers, which feels like a bait and switch in light of actual Catholic practice (not just of ignorant Catholics, but uniform and church-endorsed Catholic practice), it would be better just to say outright: There is an admittedly thin but bright line in Catholic theology between what we do w.r.t. the saints and worship. You Protestants should just get over your squeamishness over the thinness of that line, rely on its brightness, and cross the Tiber.

http://lydiaswebpage.blogspot.com/2014/11/for-all-saints-and-all-souls-speak-of.html?showComment=1415199778955#c357230309474796733

An interview with Nancy Writebol

"Risk Is Right, Says Ebola Survivor and Missionary Nancy Writebol"

Grace Alone, Faith Alone, Christ Alone

For anyone who'd like a brief and excellent overview of the theological issues that the Reformation was all about, this is it: Grace Alone, Faith Alone, Christ Alone, from a recent Reformation Day conference.

More audio here.

Facing death with dignity

The stark reality is that Maynard did not "die with dignity." As Trent Horn points out, dying with dignity is about how you face death, not about how you die. Choosing an early death is not dying with dignity because death, itself, is undignified. It is our enemy, which is why Christ had to come and conquer it. With Christ, death is not final. There will come a time when all the dead will be resurrected, and this is the time that we, as Christians, can look to for hope. Maynard taking her own life prematurely was not dying on her own terms, because she was already dying. Her choice to commit suicide was merely preventing death from dealing the final blow. 

http://lti-blog.blogspot.com/2014/11/my-thoughts-on-brittany-maynards.html 

This objection is often coupled with the idea that losing control of one’s bodily or mental functions is “undignified,” while taking some pills to peacefully pass away is a “dignified” way to die. But this is insulting. It implies that those who choose the consequences of dying naturally are “undignified.” 

Other people will say that the “dignity” in dying comes from the fact that the person is able to choose how they die, regardless of what choice they make. But dying in a dignified manner relates to how one confronts death, not the manner in which one dies or chooses to die. History recounts many situations of individuals who were forced to endure degrading deaths but faced those deaths in a dignified way. 

Dying with dignity means receiving compassionate care, no matter what stage of the dying process a person is going through. Directly ending one’s life has nothing to do with having dignity at the moment of death. 

http://www.strangenotions.com/on-the-so-called-choice-in-dying/

Mitigating evil

One problem I have with AHA is how they frame the issues. Here's a case in point:

http://blog.abolishhumanabortion.com/2014/04/christian-this-was-written-for-you.html

i) It begins with a malicious, idiosyncratic interpretation of laws designed to restrict abortion. Take parental consent. AHA acts as if a parental consent law means it's morally okay for parents to consent to their minor's abortion.

a) That, however, is not the motivation of the lawmaker. That's a malicious interpretation of his motivation. His intention is to restrict abortion. This is one way of doing that. 

b) Parental consent laws don't empower parents to consent to their minor's abortion. If an underage daughter has a parent or parents who support her abortion, then a parental consent law is superfluous in that case. Absent the parental consent law, she is free to undergo the abortion anyway. With or without a parental consent law, she can abort her baby.

c) Rather, parental consent laws empower parents to refuse to authorize "an abortion provider" to perform that procedure on their underage daughter. Some parents will take advantage of that law, thereby reducing the number of abortions. 

As a rule, a doctor who performs a medical procedure on a minor without the consent of a parent or legal guardian is subject to legal and professional sanctions. He can be prosecuted. He can lose his medical license. So it's a disincentive.

d) Not only does the objection rest on a malicious and idiosyncratic interpretation of the lawmaker's motivation, but it then imputes that interpretation to Americans in general who supposedly form their views regarding the morality of abortion on the state of the law. Does AHA have any scientific opinion polling data to substantiate the claim that that's how Americans form their views about the morality of abortion? 

On the one hand, prolifers who lobby for restrictive legislation don't base their moral views on the state of the law. Rather, because they think abortion is (at least in most cases) wrong, they think the law should reflect that prior moral assessment. They lobby to change laws to make them more restrictive. 

On the other hand, proponents of abortion-on-demand resent legal restrictions on abortion. They don't think partial birth abortion is wrong because it's illegal. To the contrary, they think it should be allowed, despite its illegality. They oppose legal restrictions. They lobby for their repeal. 

So neither side of the abortion debate is taking its cues regarding the morality of abortion from the legality (or illegality) of abortion. Rather, both sides begin with antecedent views regarding the morally licit or illicit status of abortion, then agitate for laws that reflect that prior position. 

e) Finally, it's malicious as well as illogical to stipulate that the scope of legal restrictions implies that only legally forbidden abortions are morally wrong whereas legally permitted abortions are morally permissive. That's willfully obtuse.

Legal restrictions reflect what is politically feasible. Abortion restrictions would be more expansive if prolife lawmakers had the votes. 

ii) The article also complains about abortion restrictions based on code violations, viz. mandating medically qualified practitioners. 

This objection goes to a contradiction in abolitionist philosophy. What's the objective? To save babies or make a statement?

Code violations are like getting Al Capone on tax evasion. It's an indirect way of achieving a goal. Sometimes the direct approach is preferable because it's politically feasible. You have to be ingenious. 

If that saves the lives of babies, why does AHA oppose it? Because they think it "sends the wrong message"? 

So what's the priority? Should more babies die so that we can send the right message?

If it's a choice between reducing abortion and making a statement, which takes precedence? And what's the value of "the message" if it comes at the cast of innocent lives? 

At least to judge by some of their representatives, AHA seems to have an all-or-nothing policy. Oppose laws that save if such laws (allegedly) send the wrong message. Better to let more babies die unless and until we can pass laws that send the right message. 

The result is a prohibitive policy in theory, but a permissive policy in practice. We are so uncompromising in theory that we will support a very permissive policy in practice–by opposing restrictive legislation–unless and until, at some indeterminate date in the future, we can achieve a total ban on abortion. All-or-nothing: therefore nothing. 

iii) AHA tries to discredit the mainstream prolife movement by pointing out the limited success of its efforts. However, it's not a failure to achieve less than you are able to achieve. 

iv) AHA is an odd combination of optimism and defeatism, idealism and cynicism. On the one hand it points to the stymied efforts of the prolife movement. On the other hand, its alternative vision a Pollyannaish belief that they can do so much better. But if you can't achieve lesser goals, what makes you think you can achieve far greater goals? If even modest efforts to restrict abortion are so difficult to secure, what makes a far more ambitious agenda more attainable? 

v) A basic problem with their contemptuous attitude towards mainsteam prolife activism is that abolitionists have no fallback in case their agenda can't deliver the goods. 

Today's "uncompromising" abolitionist can easily become tomorrow's bitter do-nothing. Unrealistic idealism invites cynical disillusionment. Activists often drop out of social movements after their hopes are dashed. 

It's easy to suffer from prolife burnout if your expectations are excessive. Having set the bar so high, and been so disdainful of mainsteam prolife activism, abolitionists have nothing to fall back on. To go back to garden-variety prolife activism would be too much of a comedown. 

It's fine to push the envelop, but part of fidelity is to live with frustration. Sometimes the best we can do is to mitigate evil. But that's a noble and necessary effort. 

The date of Christmas

A friend of mine drew my attention to a Jonathan Cahn article about the "true" date of Christmas. 

People like him don't even grasp the issue. The traditional date to celebrate the birth of Christmas does't have to be the actual date of his birth. 

Since we don't know his actual DOB, if we're going to celebrate his birth, the day or date will be conventional. It's about the date we celebrate his birth, not the date of his birth. Christmas is when we commemorate his birth, not when he was born. That's a simple distinction. The timing concerns something we do to honor his birth, not something that happened to him. 

Same thing with Easter. The date of Easter (a movable feast) isn't based on determining the date of the Resurrection. These are liturgical dates. 

Commemoration is an event, and what you commemorate is an event. The timing of the former needn't match the timing of the latter. What you celebrate and when you celebrate are two different things.

Christmas commemorates his birth, not the day of his birth. A celebration of his birth, not his birthdate.

It's not the day that's significant, but the person. Not when he was born, but who was born. 

Now, there are Puritans who object to holidays in principle. But that's a different argument. 

The Necessity of Revelation: “A Controversy Between Philosophers And Theologians”

Quoted from Muller (quoting John Duns Scotus, [1266-1308]):

After listing arguments against the necessity of revelation drawn from Avicenna and Aristotle and arguments in favor of its necessity from Scripture, Scotus notes:

In this question we see a controversy between philosophers and theologians. While the philosophers hold to the perfection of nature and deny supernatural perfection, the theologians truly understand the defect of nature, and the necessity of grace and supernatural perfection.

Muller, R. A. (2003). Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: The Rise and Development of Reformed Orthodoxy; Volume 2: The Cognitive Foundation of Theology (2nd ed., p. 48). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic.

River valleys

1. Which comes first–the river or the valley (ravine, canyon)? I'm not a geologist or hydrologist, but I believe this can happen in at least one of two different ways. Here's a conventional explanation of one process:

The true creator of a canyon is water, primarily in the form of a river. Over millions of years, water has scoured and cut away layer upon layer of rock, lowering a canyon's floor and widening its walls.
Others have been carved through multiple layers of igneous rock, which is formed by the cooling and hardening of magma, melted rock material from within Earth, and metamorphic rock, whose texture or composition has been changed by extreme heat and pressure.
Slot canyons are cut and scoured by rushing water in the form of flash floods. A flash flood is a flood that occurs after a period of heavy rain, usually within six hours of the rain event. In arid environments where there is little soil to absorb the rain, water quickly runs downhill, gathering volume and speed as it goes. When it runs over the canyon, it descends in a wall of water that blasts through the canyon, eroding the walls and floor. As quickly as the water appears, it disappears, leaving the canyon dry and slightly changed until the next flood.
Water is a natural force of erosion everywhere on Earth. Surging over a landscape, water will pick up and transport as much material from the surface as it can carry. Aided by gravity and steep slopes, rushing water can carry increasingly larger and heavier objects, including boulders as large as cars. If a river and its surroundings have been elevated from their original position by natural forces within the planet, that river will seek to return to its natural level as quickly as possible. Finding the least resistant path, a river will cut through rock layers. Lowering its floor little by little, the river will take millions of years to carve through the surrounding rock before it reaches the level it seeks. In the process, it creates a canyon.
The rivers that created the canyons on the Colorado Plateau and elsewhere did so because rivers have a natural tendency to reach a base level. This refers to the point at which the river reaches the elevation of the large body of water, such a lake or ocean, into which it drains. Aided by gravity, a river will downcut or erode its channel deeper and deeper in order to reach the level of its final destination as quickly as possible. The larger the difference in height between the river and its destination, the greater the erosive or cutting force of the river.
Rivers erode because they have the ability to pick up sediments (loose rock fragments) and transport them to a new location. The size of the material that can be transported depends on the velocity, or speed, of the river. A fast-moving river carries more sediment and larger material than a slow-moving one. As it is carried along, the sediment acts as an abrasive, scouring and eating away at the banks and bed of the river. The river then picks up this newly eroded material, which, in turn, helps the river cut even deeper into its channel.
If a river cuts through resistant rock, such as granite, its channel and the canyon it creates will be narrow and deep. If it cuts through weaker material, such as clay or sandstone, its channel and its accompanying canyon will be wide. When cutting through soft rock, a river can undercut its banks, removing a soft layer of material while a harder layer remains above, forming an overhang. The overhang continues to grow as material beneath it is eroded away by the river until the overhang can no longer be supported and collapses into the river. Repeated undercutting can lead to landslides and slumps, creating a V-shaped canyon.
http://www.scienceclarified.com/landforms/Basins-to-Dunes/Canyon.html

i) How long this naturally takes depends on a variety of factors. How hard or soft the layers are. The volume and rate of runoff. 

ii) I'm also guessing that lava flows can rapidly create river channels. 

2. On this model, the river comes first. The valley (ravine, canyon) is the result of erosion from runoff. 

But I assume the principle can operate in reverse. If there's a preexisting valley (ravine, canyon), then that's the route that runoff will take. That will channel or funnel runoff. On that model, the valley (ravine, canyon) comes first. The river course is the result of that preexisting topography. 

3. In principle, these can be complementary dynamics. Preexisting topography might create a natural drainage outlet for runoff. Conversely, runoff will deepen and widen the drainage outlet.

4. This has potential implications for young-earth creationism. Can you tell, just by looking at a river valley, which came first–the river or the valley. What was the mechanism? 

5. Young-earth creationism has two different explanations:

i) Flood geology attributes some canyons to a global deluge. 

ii) However, young-earth creationism can also attribute some valleys, ravines, canyons, &c. to mature creation. God made the world with a preexisting topography of some sort. That could include built-in drainage outlets for runoff.

iii) It may be difficult to sort out which is which this far down the pike. Is an extant valley (ravine, canyon) the result of mature creation, Noah's flood, or normal processes? For instance, I assume a volcanic eruption or massive earthquake might create new river channels. Likewise, a depression that's the result of mature creation will widen and deepen over time due to continuous erosion. Or so I imagine. I'm no expert. 

Of course, there's the complication of conventional dating methods. 

The Pope and “The Paragraph”

https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/pope-ordered-rejected-paragraph-on-homosexuality-retained-in-final-synod-do

HT: Kevin Johnson

The “Ecumenical” Council of Ephesus (431 AD) and a “Great Schism” that was greater than the Roman Catholic/Eastern Orthodox split of 1054

There is a claim that "the church was unified under the pope until 1054". But there was a "schism" centuries earlier than that, which is a far larger and messier divide than the 1054 schism between the Roman and Orthodox churches. It makes a lie of the "unified under the pope" claims of today's Roman Catholic apologists.

In fact, if you consider that "the papacy" didn't even come fully "developed" until Leo I (461 AD) -- and that it's still "developing" now under "Pope Francis", you've got the "unified Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox church under the pope" from say 461 AD - 1054 AD.

The churches in Asia, "the churches of the east", which had no idea that there was a "Petrine ministry" for many centuries, had as much of a claim to "apostolic succession" as did any of the European churches, and which grew far larger than any of the churches in Europe, before being snuffed out by Islam -- not in the 6th or 7th centuries, but the 12th and 13th centuries, likely a response to (a) the Mongol invasions (which were favorable to Christianity), and (b) the Crusades. (Not saying there were no massacres prior to the Crusades. But the Crusades exacerbated a bad situation).

Concentric Bible interpretation

http://theologicalsushi.blogspot.com/2014/09/what-does-it-mean-to-have-bible.html

Is preterism heresy?

http://theologicalsushi.blogspot.com/2014/09/is-preterism-heresy.html

"I don't want a choice to die"

http://www.nationalreview.com/node/392092/print

"Learning" from the Driscoll debacle

In the wake of the Mars Hill meltdown, you have Christian pundits who tell us what we can "learn" from the debacle. The takeaway lessons from that debacle.

I'd just point out that this way of framing the issue is presumptuous and prejudicial. It casts readers in the role of dupes who were taken in by Driscoll, and now have some hard lessons to learn from their disillusioning experience. He betrayed their faith in him. 

No doubt there are some former fans of Driscoll who fit the bill. There are, however, Christians who never cared for him in the first place. In addition, there are Christians who appreciated the good he did, especially before he began to go off the rails. But it was never unconditional support. It was the same implicitly qualified support for any minister who's doing good at the time. It always made allowance for weaknesses. And it was always provisional. Always subject to retraction.