Good Omens

Apparently some Christians have started a petition to cancel the tv show Good Omens:

1. I presume these Christians who started a petition to cancel Good Omens are well-intentioned. However, the petition is counterproductive if its aim is to get people not to notice let alone watch the show. If anything, this is going to drum up more viewers.

2. Good Omens is based on a book of the same name written by secular atheists or agnostics Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, though dedicated to "the memory of G. K. Chesterton" with tongue firmly planted in cheek. Both the book and the show are satire. Mostly satire against Catholicism (and/or high church Anglicanism), which is worth satirizing in many respects.

3. However, even as satire against Christianity in general, Good Omens doesn't get Christianity right enough to accurately skewer Christianity. The most obvious example is Good Omens pits good and evil, heaven and hell, and God and the devil against one another as if Christianity is a dualistic religion. Hence, even as satire Good Omens misses its mark if its mark is Christianity. Why get worked up over a work that so widely misses its target?

4. Perhaps some non-Christians believe Christianity truly is what the show depicts Christianity to be. If so, I presume they're most likely naive or ill-informed. I don't know that there's much that can be done for the naive. However, it's a different story for the ill-informed. That is, it's not necessarily a good idea to push to cancel the show, but I would think it's a good idea to use the show as a jumping off point to inform people about true Christianity.

5. It seems to me Good Omens is in the satirical tradition of Horace rather than Juvenal. It's lightly humorous satire that doesn't take itself too seriously. It's absurd by design. I suspect these Christians calling for the show's cancellation are mistaking Good Omens for Juvenalian satire.

6. Not to mention, in our political and sociocultural context (i.e. the US), the push to cancel a show because it doesn't agree with one's beliefs or values smacks of censorship or something like it. Of course, Christians in America would be opposed if secularists tried to petition to ban the Bible or Christian literature - or perhaps even a satirical work against atheism or evolution.

7. In any case, I think a better response might be to laugh off Good Omens as ridiculous fare rather than entertaining it in such a serious or sober manner as to call for its cancellation. After all, Gaiman himself has laughed off the petition, with the assumption that the petition is taking the show more seriously than he is. If the show's creator doesn't take his own show seriously, then why should Christians?

Sometimes a light surprises

"Sometimes a Light Surprises: The Treasured Gift of a Troubled Soul" (Paxson Jeancake).

Some might be interested in Paxson and Allison Jeancake's rendition of William Cowper's hymn too.

The in-gathering

To my knowledge, the in-gathering is associated with messianic Judaism. The in-gathering is the antithetical counterpart to the diaspora. Messianic Jews believe God will regather Jews, or at least messianic Jews, who over the course of the millennia were scattered to the four winds by exile, war, pogroms, deportation, the Shoah, and so forth. They will return to their ancestral homeland in Israel. 

There is, however, a sense in which the in-gathering has a more expansive scope. Because human beings are brought into existence by other human beings, we are widely separated from each other in time (as well as space). We come into being at different times during the course of history. The human race is spread out in lineal stages. Ancestors and descendants. Most human generations are far removed from one another in point of origin. 

Add to that human mortality, and most generations lived and died in isolation from other generations. We are strangers to each other, like long-lost brothers. So the concept of the diaspora extends to the human race generally. The generational chain constitutes a chronological diaspora. A diaspora in time as well as place.  

The resurrection of the just will be a large-scale in-gathering. Not only will there be a reunion of Christians who knew each other in this life, but a reunion of all God's people across the ages. 

The future of A.I.

I notice some tech execs making casual claims about A.I as if strong A.I is a reality, but to my knowledge that goal remains as elusive as ever. For instance:

Shor: Computer proofs really haven't undermined the concept of traditional mathematical proofs, at least not yet (although in 1993, some mathematicians were certainly afraid that they would). There are at least two reasons mathematicians look for proofs:

a) to ensure that the things they claim are actually true,

b) to gain more understanding into mathematics.

Computer proofs are generally satisfactory for the first reason above, but very few of them, if any, provide us any real understanding. There are certainly lots of computer-aided proofs now, where computers have helped in performing long calculations without error, or with elaborate case analyses.  But coming up with most mathematical proofs requires actual understanding of the underlying mathematics, and computers don't have that today. So computers can help mathematicians who understand the underlying mathematics by performing infeasibly long calculations and case analyses, but although they have been very useful for these purposes, most of the time they cannot come up with proofs by themselves.

It's possible that sometime far in the future, mathematics will be dominated by incomprehensible computer proofs. This might lead to “The End of Mathematics,” or at least of mathematics as carried out by human mathematicians. But we're nowhere near that point.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/quantum-computing-for-english-majors/

What do Planned Parenthood and Islam have in common?

Non-Muslim enablers of Islam frequently defend Islam by claiming that most Muslims aren't terrorists. There are problems with that defense. For one thing, many Muslims who aren't terrorists support terrorism. In addition, the social pathologies of Islam are hardly limited to terrorism. Consider honor killings, virulent misogyny, the rape culture, female genital mutilation, pedophilia and pederasty, widespread anal sex, &c.

However, let's draw a comparison. Planned Parenthood defends itself by claiming that only 3% of its services are abortion services. That's a parallel to the defense of Islam. 

Of course, even if we grant that stat, critics of Planned Parenthood don't think the 97% of non-abortion services offsets committing massive moral atrocities every year.  From a Christian perspective, be consistent. Don't use an argument in support of Islam that you'd never use in support of Planned Parenthood. 

Collective hallucination

I recently had an impromptu debate on Facebook about idealism. This seems to be an academic fad in some chic Christian circles. Here's my side of the exchange:

Take people who are horribly burned in a fire. They die after days in indescribable pain. According to idealism, they suffer just as if they were burned in a fire even though there wasn't a real fire to burn real flesh and real nerves. They suffer the unbearable effects of a chemical reaction even though that's an illusion. There was no chemical cause and effect. How is that not utterly gratuitous? Indeed, malevolent?

"Besides that, why should whether the suffering is gratuitous, malevolent, etc. depend on whether the the physical is reducible to the mental or not?"

On a nonidealist view, natural evils are (generally) a necessary but unintended consequence of natural processes. There's a value in a world of physical cause and effect. The same fire that's useful for warmth, illumination, and cooking may also burn living flesh. But the fire doesn't aim to burn living flesh. The fire is unintelligent. 

In idealism, by contrast, the relation between fire and burning alive is arbitrary. The victim suffers as if there's a chemical reaction that burns protoplasm, but there's no natural or intrinsic reason for that result. There's is no chemical reaction, there is no protoplasm in contact with the chemical composition of fire. So it lacks the justification of a natural law theodicy. I'm not saying that's an adequate theodicy all by itself. But there's a fundamental moral difference between the two positions. 

Yes, Leibniz has a theodicy, but I'm not discussing the problem of evil in general. Rather, I'm drawing attention to how natural evil poses a special problem for idealism, over and above the standard objection. Idealism aggravates the problem of natural evil.

Satirical apologetics

The immediate occasion for this post is James White's attack on the Muhammad's Boom-Boom Room video. I've commented on White's professed philosophy of apologetic engagement in detail. I'll try not to repeat myself. 

1. Is it wrong to ridicule something that really is ridiculous? If we treat something that's ridiculous as if it's not ridiculous, we misrepresent it. Truth and honesty require us to treat things the way they are. 

Does White think it's wrong to mock drag queens at public libraries who are grooming little boys? Take White's statement that:

I've sadly spoken to many Muslims. All they knew of the Christian response to their beliefs was either ignorance or mockery. And they were shocked when they discovered there were Christians who knew what they believed and were able to interact with them on a respectful basis and not just simply mock them…I lament the attitude Christians have towards the Muslim people.

Let's swap out Muslims and swap in drag queens:

I've sadly spoken to many drag queens. All they knew of the Christian response to their beliefs was either ignorance or mockery. And they were shocked when they discovered there were Christians who knew what they believed and were able to interact with them on a respectful basis and not just simply mock them…I lament the attitude Christians have towards the predatory drag queens at public libraries and gay pride parades.

Maybe I missed it, but has White every spoken up on behalf of drag queens the way he speaks up on behalf of Muslims? He bandies the word "consistency", but in my experience he carves out an exception for Muslims that's conspicuously absent in his treatment of other groups he disapproves of. He doesn't pander to members of the LGBT "community" the way he panders to Muslims. 

2. There are different kinds of satire, viz. Horatian, Juvenalian, Menippean. Does White regard all forms of satire as unacceptable in Christian apologetics? 

3. People may not realize how absurd their position is until you show them how absurd it is. They must be made to see it. And that can have an impact that dry analysis does not.

UFO sightings

It looks like UFO sightings spike on the 4th of July.

It's tempting to think that's because people mistake fireworks for UFOs. That'd be a hasty conclusion to draw.

I suspect the truth is aliens love to party and Earth on the 4th is lit.

In any case, Mulder and Scully will have to investigate.

David Fincher films

For better or worse, I think I've seen most of David Fincher's films. Below are my notes or briefs on Fincher's films (in chronological order).

A few preliminary observations and comments before the main event:

1. In general, I wouldn't necessarily recommend Christians watch his films. That might risk cultivating the opposite mindset to Phil 4:8. And there are likely better ways to spend your time. However, if you've already seen his films, then this post might be useful.

2. Philosophically, Fincher's films reek of nihilism. Perhaps anarchism too. At least there seems to be a rebellious "punk" streak.

3. As a director, I think Fincher's film-making reflects superb technical craftsmanship. However, Fincher's films often come across as cold and impersonal.

4. A consistent theme in most of Fincher's films is there's more than meets the eye when we look at people. There may be a surface beauty that's rotten to the core. This in turn reflects a biblical truth: "For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart" (1 Sam 16:7).

5. These are my interpretations. Others might have better interpretations.

Go to the seaside

Martyn Lloyd-Jones (July 1927):

People complain about the dwindling congregations and how the churches are going down. Why are people ceasing to attend places of worship? Why is it, that last Sunday night I noticed that, while the places of worship in Cardiff were only sparsely attended, the trains coming from Porthcawl and other seaside places were packed out. Why did these people spend their day at the seaside and other in places rather than in the house of God worshipping? Well, the answer is perfectly plain. They obviously prefer to be at the seaside and feel that they get more benefit there than in their chapels and churches. Now it is no use our arguing with people like that, it is no use our telling them that they really do not get greater benefit there, because they honestly believe they do.

...What I feel like saying to these trippers is this: If you honestly believe (and remember it is your responsibility) that you derive greater benefit by spending your day in the country than you do by attending a place of worship, well then, go to the country. Don't come here if you honestly feel that you could do better elsewhere. Unless you feel that something is being offered and given to you here which no other institution can offer or equal, well then, in the name of Heaven, go out into the country or to the seaside. The church of Christ is a church of believers, an association of people banded together by a common belief and a common love. You don't believe? Well, above all, do not pretend that you do, go to the country and the seaside. All I ask of you is, be consistent. When someone dies in your family, do not come to ask the church in which you do not believe to come to bury him. Go to the seaside for consolation.

(Murray, Iain H. The Life of Martyn Lloyd-Jones 1899-1981, pp 90-91)

Experiencing God

Experience of God is impossible. From a philosophical point of view, if God is a transcendent spirit, he can’t be the object of experience in the way other things can be the objects of experience. We experience things by the activity of discriminating — colour changes, the table ends, a sound gets louder, and so on — but, in God, there’s nothing to discriminate: all is everlastingly the same.

That doesn’t mean that nothing can be said about God. People are saying things all the time — but not on the basis of experience. People who see visions are not really seeing God, in my view. A revelation by God is not the same as an experience of God. The Sermon on the Mount was a kind of revelation to the people who heard it, but they experienced Jesus, not the divine Spirit.

https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2018/14-december/features/interviews/interview-anthony-kenny-philosopher

1. There's a grain of truth to this, but the comparison is profoundly misleading. It's true that if God is timeless and spaceless, then he can't be experienced directly. 

2. The claim that we experience things by discrimination is interesting. I don't know if that's an accurate generalization. But suppose it is. The fact that God is always the same doesn't mean we always experience God the same way, for we never experience the entirety of God, but only minute samples (as it were). 

3. In addition, we don't experience other minds directly. Rather, we experience other minds via their embodiments. We experience them through the medium of the five senses. But except in cases of telepathy, we never have immediate access to their minds. And even if mind-reading is possible, that seems to be just a sample. Even though human minds, unlike God, exist in time (but not in space), what we experience is at least one step removed from other minds. Personality as expressed through embodiment. 

4. Furthermore, we can experience people through their effects. We experience an artist through his art, a musician through his music, a poet through his poetry, a dramatist through his plays, a novelist through his stories, a moviemaker through his films. In fact, interviewing a creative artist in person may  be a letdown because he already put the best of himself into his artwork. 

5. Finally, we experience the physical world indirectly. That's filtered through an intricate sensory processing system. 

So the roundabout way we experience God is hardly unique to God, but characteristic of human  experience in general.  

Biological relativity

A paper (2011) from Denis Noble, a secular scientist who dissents from neo-Darwinism:

A theory of biological relativity: no privileged level of causation

Abstract

Must higher level biological processes always be derivable from lower level data and mechanisms, as assumed by the idea that an organism is completely defined by its genome? Or are higher level properties necessarily also causes of lower level behaviour, involving actions and interactions both ways? This article uses modelling of the heart, and its experimental basis, to show that downward causation is necessary and that this form of causation can be represented as the influences of initial and boundary conditions on the solutions of the differential equations used to represent the lower level processes. These insights are then generalized. A priori, there is no privileged level of causation. The relations between this form of ‘biological relativity’ and forms of relativity in physics are discussed. Biological relativity can be seen as an extension of the relativity principle by avoiding the assumption that there is a privileged scale at which biological functions are determined.

Anthony Kenny on the pros and cons of Catholicism

Here's a stimulating lecture by agnostic philosopher and ex-priest Anthony Kenny. I don't agree with everything he says, but he's a much more probing thinker than Bishop Barron, and it's instructive to compare Kenny's analysis with all the lightweight Catholic apologists, converts, and reverts:

N.B. The subtitles are hilariously inaccurate.

Abuse of papal altar boys

Goes from bad to worse:

https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/new-vigano-testimony-vatican-covered-up-allegations-of-sexual-abuse-of-popes-altar-boys

Growing As A Christian

I want to expand on something Steve recently wrote about preventing the diminishing of our faith over time. I'll mention some of the things I've been doing, which may be helpful to other people.

You ought to start with your relationship with God (Matthew 22:37-38). How you view God will shape the rest of your life. I don't know of anybody who's done better work on these issues in our generation than John Piper. I've often recommended his work, especially his book Desiring God.

Several years ago, I began reading a couple of pages from the church fathers each day. I got the idea from William Lane Craig. I'd been reading the church fathers for many years before that, but sporadically rather than as a daily pattern. You don't have to read the church fathers. You could read some other source, but I'd recommend reading sources prior to our generation (more on that below).

Around the same time, I began keeping a record of God's providence in my life, a practice I heard Gary Habermas recommend. The record I keep includes answered prayers, coincidence miracles, and other events that seem to be paranormal. I don't keep a record of everything, but I try to at least write down many examples of what I experience in these contexts.

Set significant objectives, not just trivial things like losing weight or getting a promotion at a trivial job you work. Instead of waiting for other people to do something that's been neglected in apologetics, evangelism, missions, the local church, or some other important context, do it yourself. If there's an issue in philosophy, history, science, or some other field that you've struggled with or have seen other people have problems with, do the work yourself rather than looking for somebody else to do it. Even if you're just working at one portion of a multifaceted problem, that's better than doing nothing. There should be contexts in your life in which you're breaking important new ground or doing significant work to popularize things that are in desperate need of popularizing. Take the time, money, imagination, and other resources that people typically waste on the American Dream or some equivalent and use them to pursue a Christian dream instead. Read Ephesians 3, with its references to "the unfathomable riches of Christ" (verse 8) and how God does "far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think" (verse 20). Then consider the implications of what Ephesians 4:1 says about walking in a manner worthy of your calling.

The last three recommendations above address the past (reading the church fathers or other sources of past generations), present (keeping a record of God's providence in your life), and future (setting objectives). And there's some overlap among them. They also cover a large variety of groups and contexts (people in the past, what's happening in your life, future generations). If you do things like what I've recommended above, you'll be covering a lot of ground. It expands your view of and appreciation of life. It gives you additional motivation to persevere, for the benefit of other people. The next recommendation I'll make here is one that connects these things. Don't limit your prayers to what people typically recommend. Pray for past generations. Pray for future generations. Pray about apologetic issues. Set aside time to pray for particular individuals, groups, issues, and situations beyond what you're typically told to pray for. There are Biblical parameters that our prayers need to stay within. But people often retain an immature view of prayer that they received early in their Christian life, without developing it much over time, and that's one of the reasons why they don't mature much as Christians.

And you need to grow intellectually. Here's a post I wrote about the subject earlier this year, which discusses the importance of apologetics and addresses a lot of misconceptions and objections related to the role of the mind in the Christian life.

Van Til on common ground

In this post I'm going to outline my understanding of Van Til on common ground. This is occasioned by Fesko's new book, which I haven't read. I have been reading Dr. Anderson's serial review. I won't document my interpretation by quoting Van Til. I'm not that invested. I'm going to rely on memory. I will also be adding some of my own refinements. 

1. Antithesis/common ground

In Van Til's analysis, there's a tension between antithesis and common ground. The tension isn't internal to Van Til's analysis. Rather, it reflects the instability of non-Christian thought. 

2. Metaphysical common ground

If Christianity is true, then reality is Christian. The non-Christian exists in a Christian reality. Not a Christian culture, but reality in toto. His physical environment as well as his mind. 

At the metaphysical level, the degree of common ground between Christian and non-Christian is total. The non-Christian cannot escape reality. He can deny elements of reality, but since there's no alternative to reality, his flight from reality will always be parasitic on the very reality he labors to overthrow. There is no metaphysical antithesis whatsoever.  

3. Hypothetical antithesis

i) To the extent that the non-Christian is epistemologically self-conscious, his goal will be to provide a systematic alternative to the Christian worldview. The aim will be zero common ground between Christianity and the non-Christian alternative. His position will be developed in conscious opposition to Christian theism. However, that's subject to various caveats. 

ii) Because there's only one reality, if that reality is Christian, then it's impossible for the non-Christian, however ingenious and indefatigable, to develop a thoroughgoing alternative to reality. So the effort to devise a consistent alternative to Christian theism is doomed to fail. It will always fall short of the goal. 

To cast it this in Calvinistic terms, the non-Christian lives in a divinely-defined reality. There are no random events. By virtue of predestination and providence, everything has a purpose. Everything happens for a reason. Moreover, God is the source of possibilities and necessities as well as actualities. There can be no wholesale point of contrast. 

So there's a certain paradox or dilemma in the antithetical relationship between Christian theism and non-Christian alternatives. The non-Christian program cannot succeed. There is no other reality to fall back on. The construction materials derive from Christian reality. All the resources at the disposal of the non-Christian are ultimately Christian in origin. I don't mean historically, but metaphysically. 

iii) We need to distinguish between non-Christian views that originated independently of Christianity (e.g. ancient Greco-Roman atheism, Buddhist atheism) and non-Christian views that evolved in reaction to Christianity (e.g. Renaissance/Enlightenment atheism). 

On the one hand, the antithesis between Christianity and modern Western atheism may be more extreme because Christian theism is the default foil. 

On the other hand, the antithesis between Christianity and modern Western atheism may be less pronounced in some respects than pre-Christian atheism because modern Western atheism is ironically influenced by Christianity in a way that pre-Christian atheism wasn't. For instance, Buddhism didn't target Christianity but Hinduism. 

In a sense, the outlook of Buddhist atheism is more foreign to Christianity than modern Western atheism inasmuch as Buddhist atheism originated without any reference to Christianity. 

iv) It's my impression that Roman Catholicism is the default foil for Renaissance/Enlightenment atheism. That's the primary target. But if, like Van Til, you regard Roman Catholicism as a highly defective representative of Christianity, then that adulterates the antithesis. In a sense, atheists were right to oppose Catholicism, although they opposed the good as well as the bad in Roman Catholicism. And their alternative was bad.

By the same token, the foil for Buddhism and Greco-Roman atheism is pagan polytheism. Once again, that adulterates the antithesis. They were right to oppose pagan polytheism. The problem lies with their alternative. 

4. Practical epistemological antithesis

i) Most non-Christians are pretty thoughtless. They're not attempting to construct a wholesale alternative to Christianity. 

ii) Due to common grace, non-Christians often retain some common ground with Christians. That varies from one individual to the next as well as from one society to the next. 

Fisking Fesko

https://www.proginosko.com/2019/07/reforming-apologetics-common-notions/

White makes right

I just watched the section of James White's Dividing Line where he talks about David Wood and Vocab Malone's satirical series "Muhammad's Boom Boom Room". White begins his remarks about Wood and Vocab's series shortly after 1 hour 16 minutes and ends around 1 hour 24 minutes. Respectfully:

The Libertarian/Conservative Argument for Breaking up Big Tech

Muhammed meets Satan