Were the Crusades justified?

On Facebook I responded to two critics of the Crusades:

Actually, I think the First Crusade was justified, to repel Muslim military invasion. However, the Crusades quickly went off the rails, and were ruthlessly conducted.

i) Although Urban II called upon the Franks to wage a counteroffensive against Muslim aggression, it's not as if "the church" led the military campaign. The pope, cardinals, bishops, and priests weren't combatants, although there was a military order of monks (Templars). 

All Urban II could do was urge the "civil ruling authorities" to repel Muslim invasion. Are you saying religious leaders should never give civilian leaders advice?

ii) Muslims were killing and enslaving Catholics. Didn't a medieval pope have a right to urge civilian authorities to protect Catholics? I'm not Catholic, but I'm just discussing the issue in terms of how the table was set in the middle ages.

iii) Where's the line between "the church" and civilians? Almost all civilians in the Western Roman empire were Catholic. 

iv) There is a tradition the men of the cloth should never take up arms. Do you agree with that? If a violent man storms into a Sunday school and threatens to kill the children, doesn't the pastor have duty to prevent a massacre by using lethal force, if necessary, to ward off the assailant? 

v) The appeal to Rom 13 is fallacious. To say civil authorities have a role in military action doesn't say anything about the role of the church one way or the other.

vi) There are multiple justifications given for the Crusades. We don't have to accept the justifications offered by Urban II to say the Crusades were justifiable in principle as an act of self-defense. We're not bound by Urban II's rationale. We can have independent reasons for believing it was necessary to repel Muslim military aggression.

vii) I agree with your larger point that Europeans make a basic mistake when they treat Roman Catholicism as their default representative of Christianity.

Why I'm a Christian

At approximately 51 mins., John Lennox tells a moving story:

Storm Area 51

As many know, there's a movement to storm Area 51.

Many Americans demand to know what the government has been hiding all these years. Specifically, many Americans wish to see the alien bodies and alien technology that the government has kept under wraps. Americans have the right to know! The truth is out in there...somewhere!

It'd also be nice to know whether JFK, Elvis, and 2Pac are still alive. And how they escaped from the clutches of Bubba Ho-tep.

However, the US Air Force has issued a stern warning:

What started as a tongue-in-cheek plan by UFO enthusiasts to storm a notoriously secretive U.S. Air Force base to “see them aliens” has turned into a national security issue. The U.S. Air Force has now offered a word of caution to the more than half a million people who said they would be attending the Facebook event "Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All of Us" in September: "[Area 51] is an open training range for the U.S. Air Force, and we would discourage anyone from trying to come into the area where we train American armed forces," spokeswoman Laura McAndrews told The Washington Post. "The U.S. Air Force always stands ready to protect America and its assets.” Despite the warning, users are still posting memes theorizing the best way to break into the top-secret facility on the event page, where organizers said, "If we Naruto run, we can move faster than their bullets."

There's likewise evidence the organizers are in collusion with the Russians due to identical strategies in war: send more people than bullets.

A key problem for people who wish to storm Area 51 is that the US military possesses the Active Denial System (ADS) which emits a non-lethal "heat ray" against targets:

However, I believe there's a perfectly simple and relatively inexpensive way to foil the ADS: people merely need to make sure to cover their entire bodies with body armor consisting of aluminum foil because aluminum foil can deflect these emissions from the ADS. For maximal protection, people should fashion this aluminum foil into the shape of a hat.

Ps 139 and the image of God

It's common for Christian ethicists and theologians to ground human rights and dignity in the image of God. And it's true that the image of God is something that sets man apart from other creatures. There are, however, problems with making that category the locus of human rights and dignity. For one thing, Genesis never defines the image of God, and it's not entirely clear what that refers to. Minimally it seems to mean that man is God's representative on earth. But that's a rather thin basis for human rights. 

One reason the image of God is made the go-to locus of human rights and dignity is that most ethicists and theologians don't try to define it exegetically. Instead, they begin with philosophical anthropology, and define the imago Dei by reference to distinguishing traits identified by philosophical anthropology, like reason and freewill.

Another problem with centering human rights and dignity on the imago Dei is that it leads to the neglected of better, richer prooftexts. The locus classicus for human dignity ought to be Ps 139, not the image of God. This is not to say the image of God doesn't figure in an overall account of human dignity, but overemphasis on that category, which is typically defined in terms extraneous to Scripture, sidelines Ps 139. But that's a much firmer basis for grounding human rights and dignity, instead of the rather elusive and slender category of the imago Dei. 

Schreiner on Revelation

Fred Zaspel at Books at a Glance has a good interview with Thomas Schreiner on Revelation.

Also, some might enjoy the Tom Schreiner and Greg Beale series "Unraveling Revelation".

Did God command genocide?

@RandalRauser

Genocide is the act of attempting to destroy a specific racial, cultural, and/religious identity. 

8:36 AM - 12 Jul 2019

Aaron Taylor

So would ordering all the Amalekites to be killed be classified as a call for genocide?

@RandalRauser

Yes. That's an instance of genocide by legal definition, as is the destruction of the tribes in Deuteronomy 20.

10:14 AM - 12 Jul 2019

i) Of course, somebody can always define a word a certain way, then say something in Scripture falls under that definition. That, however, says nothing about Scripture but how the word was defined. You could redefine "banana" to mean "God," then say that Christians worship a banana. 

ii) It's not as if we're required to submit to someone's tendentious or stipulative definition of "genocide". I didn't vote on that. I reserve the right to disregard tendentious definitions. You're not entitled to make me accept your definitions. 

iii) The definition is equivocal because the same word is used to denote three different concepts. It would be clearer to use a different word for each concept. 

iv) It becomes a loaded question. As defined, God commanded genocide in one respect but not another. Yet the word itself doesn't draw those distinctions–it's the same word for all three concepts. It is therefore inaccurate, even if you accept that definition, to say God commanded genocide–inasmuch as the definition is only partially true in regard to Scripture. The definition bundles together three different concepts. But it would be inaccurate to affirm the semantic bundle in regard to Scripture.

v) In addition, it means the odious connotations of one concept tar a different concept by association. Even assuming that it's intrinsically wrong to destroy a specific racial identity, there are situations where attempting to destroy a specific cultural or religious identity is praiseworthy. Take religions or cultures that practice human sacrifice, child sacrifice, torturing war captives, burning widows, honor killings, gang rape, sodomy, pederasty, female genital mutilation, &c. It isn't wrong to destroy those cultural and/or religious markers. To the contrary, their destruction makes the world a better place. 

vi) Notice that the definition doesn't say "violently" or "forcibly" destroy. But that would mean an intellectual critique of a specific cultural or religious identity is genocidal. That the attempt to discredit ideas through rational analysis is "genocide", even though there's nothing coercive about that exercise. 

vii) Suppose (voluntary) interracial mating became the norm. That would destroy specific racial identities. That might not be the intent, but it would have that side-effect. Does that mean interracial mating is genocidal? 

"Daddy wounds"

Driscoll's interview is getting some buzz:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKnSBxFqVXM&t=3s

Among other things, he says:

Reformed theology is, I have a dad who is powerful, he is in charge, he is non-relational, he lives far away, and don't make him mad because he can get angry really fast and hurt you…So almost every theological group within Christianity is somehow a rejection or projection of their earthly father, and the problem is they're starting with their earthly father and looking up; they're not starting with their heavenly father and looking down and judging their earthly fathers. I've gone so far as to say I think the whole young restless and Reformed movement…I don't hold to the five-points of Calvinism, I think it's garbage, because it's not biblical...God is father, but he's distant, he's mean, he's cruel, he's non-relational, he's far away. That's their view of their earthly father. So they may pick dead mentors–Spurgeon, Calvin, Luther–these are little boys with father wounds who are looking for spiritual fathers, so they picked dead guys who are not gonna actually get to know them or correct them. And then they join networks run by other young men so that they can all be brothers [because] there's no fathers, and they love, love, love Jesus because they love the story where the son is the hero because they're the sons with father wounds…the reason Jesus saves you is to get you to your dad. 

1. There's a grain of truth to some of what he says, but that's distorted by the way he combines it with Joseph Campbell, pop psychobabble, and hasty generalizations. His analysis is absurdly simplistic. 

Leftspeak

1. I like how liberals and progressives frequently try to tar conservative social media and other projects as "far right", "alt right", and so on when they start up. By that logic, liberals and progressives should describe tech giants like Google, Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia, and the like, or even smaller but influential outfits like the supposedly politically neutral but really liberal Snopes, as "far left" and "alt left" for having members like AOC and Bernie Sanders as well as members sympathetic to Antifa and other extremists.

2. Also, liberals and progressives often attempt to co-opt language for their political ends. For example, when it comes to radicalism on the right, liberals and progressives tend to associate the terminology with the "right" as in "far right", "alt right", and so on. However, when it comes to radicalism among liberals and progressives, liberals and progressives tend to disassociate the terminology with their own side such as in Antifa's case. This makes Antifa seem like some "other" even though Antifa could easily be characterized as part of the left.

3. Not to suggest conservatives are perfectly innocent in that regard, but in general conservatives do try to draw distinctions. Such as between liberals and progressives as well as the left.

4. Anyway, it's all part and parcel of what George Orwell discussed in his works. Like "Politics and the English Language". Like the satirically brilliant appendix of 1984: "The Principles of Newspeak".

Cruz grills Google

I think it's great Ted Cruz is taking the fight to Google:

What is section 230?

The key issue here is section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA). The issue is over the distinction between a content provider vs. a content publisher. Put simply, a content publisher can edit or alter content, whereas a content provider is supposed to be neutral on content and not be involved in altering content in any way.

Google claims to be a content provider

Currently Google is legally regarded as a content provider under section 230, not a content publisher. As a content provider, Google enjoys certain legal immunities. For example, Google can't be liable for racism if their content is in fact racist because Google is a provider that doesn't have a hand in the content.

Google is really a content publisher

That's been shown by these documents and recordings from Project Veritas. If Google is a publisher, then Google will no longer enjoy legal immunities under section 230. Instead, Google could be liable for their content. Google could be open to law suits from multiple parties. These law suits could cripple Google.

Of course, this is exactly what Google wishes to avoid. Hence Google claims to be a neutral content provider, not a content publisher.

In fact, I suspect that's precisely why Google sent a mid-level executive (Maggie Stanphill) rather than a senior executive to be grilled by Cruz (where's Jen Gennai?!). What's more, Google sent a "user experience" director. That's a position that requires little (if any) technical knowledge about computer science and the like. If Google had sent someone with more knowledge or connections than this woman, then there could be more serious repercussions for Google.

However, in light of the documents and recordings from Project Veritas, Google deserves to have their section 230 immunities revoked.

What is Project Veritas?

Basically it's a muckracker organization that was founded by conservative James O'Keefe (B.A., philosophy, Rutgers University). Its purpose is to investigate and expose corruption in high places. You might know them for their work exposing Planned Parenthood selling aborted baby parts as well as their ACORN sting. And now Project Veritas' work against tech giants like Google.

Of course, no surprise, liberals and progressives hate Project Veritas as well as James O'Keefe. Ironically, liberals and progressives have long advertised themselves as the consummate muckrackers and whistleblowers. Too bad liberals don't appreciate it when conservatives do the same against corrupt liberal organizations and institutions.

In addition, what's O'Keefe doing that's in principle different from (say) the progressive filmmaker Michael Moore? As far as I can tell, the main differences are twofold. First, O'Keefe's work is factually-based in a way Moore's work is not. Moore heavily edited his films in order to spin them in favor of his liberal or progressive views whereas O'Keefe attempts to show the unvarnished truth. He attempts to show videos and audio recordings straight from the horse's mouth as it were. Second, Moore sometimes tries to hide behind satire, but Project Veritas' work isn't satirical but real.

More broadly, there are plenty of liberals or progressives who have used similar tactics against conservatives (e.g. pretending to be someone they're not, doxxing their opponents). However I don't see liberals or progressives decrying what their fellow liberals or progressives have done or are doing.

It seems to me liberals and progressives disagree with Project Veritas primarily due to political ideology and not Project Veritas' muckracking and whistleblowing work and exposes. By contrast, it seems to me many if not most conservatives disagree (even vehemently) with the political ideology of hacktavists like Julian Assange and Ed Snowden, but thees same conservatives still appreciate at least some of the good work that WikiLeaks has done.

Some conservatives disagree with Project Veritas' ethics. These conservatives believe Project Veritas uses unethical means to investigate and expose organizations like Planned Parenthood. That gets us into another debate. Personally, I don't necessarily see a problem with using unethical tactics (depending on the tactics) to expose crimes that can't be exposed otherwise.

All that said, I'm not suggesting I always agree with Project Veritas.

Cruz's showmanship

I'm sure Cruz knew he was dealing with an ignorant mid-level executive rather than a more knowledgeable senior executive. I'm sure Cruz knew this woman wouldn't be liable for much. Nevertheless Cruz grilled her. Cruz turned the hearing into something of a show.

Some might take issue with Cruz for doing this, but I don't have a problem with it. I don't think Cruz's goal was to make this woman answer for all of Google's crimes here and now or anything along those lines. (Not that he would've objected if that turned out to be the case!) Rather I think Cruz's goal was to inform the public about Google and other tech giants' strong political biases against conservatives (among other things) and thereby turn the tide against these tech giants. In short, it's political theater, but I don't think all political theater is unethical. Sometimes it helps to drum up public support for a worthy cause.

The God of Abraham, Isaac, and open theism

On Facebook I got into an impromptu debate about open theism. It started out in response to a question about the binding of Isaac, but quickly developed into a discussion about open theism:

Hays

1. It was a counterfactual command, but to be a test, God couldn't let Abraham in on the secret.

2. To be a test of faith, it has to be something Abraham values. 

3. The ordeal is ultimately for the benefit of the reader. In a sense, the reader knows how the story ends before Abraham does. It gives the reader insight into God's trustworthiness, even when–or especially when, he makes apparently unreasonable demands. 

4. There are parallels between the ordeal of Abraham and the ordeal of Job.

Ben

The text suggests that the test/ordeal was for the benefit of God, to see whether Abraham feared Him and would be obedient to his command.

11 But the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven, and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” 12 He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.

Hays

If you're an open theist. Is that your position?

Ben

Texts like this which suggest God learns lead me to lean in that direction.

Why are bright guys suckered by Catholicism?

There are some very smart converts to Catholicism (as well as some very smart cradle Catholics). What's the appeal? If Catholicism is gravely mistaken, why can't they see through it? In my observation, there are at least four factors–which doesn't mean every bright convert exemplifies all four motivations:

1. Catholicism has a very rich, wide-ranging intellectual and artistic heritage that's naturally appealing to the religious-minded intelligentsia.

2. Many Catholic intellectuals are Thomists. Thomism presents a much less inviting target for atheists than a Bible-centered faith. Thomism is abstract and abstruse. Most atheists know nothing or next to nothing about Thomism, so they have no line of attack. If, by contrast, you have a Bible-centered faith, that instantly gives them hundreds of openings since there's a cottage industry of stock objections to Scripture.

3. Catholicism requires converts to make fewer accommodations to unfashionable beliefs. Take the facile way Bishop Barron relegates "problem passages" in the OT to pious fiction or allegory. They can leave "embarrassing" beliefs behind while retaining "respectable" beliefs they share in common with their secular counterparts. A Bible-centered faith doesn't have the same loopholes. It must stand and fight. 

4. Finally, if you're smart enough, you can defend almost anything, and you may revel the challenge. Here I think there's an element of divine irony or divine justice. High IQ confers a completive advantage, but that's offset by the fact that it can also be a snare or a source of self-deception. The temptation to flex his ingenuity plays to his intellectual pride. Coming up with clever, erudite defenses of Roman Catholicism is an opportunity to indulge in self-flattering showmanship. I hasten to add that it's by no means confined to Catholicism. There's a special kind of folly that bright guys are prey to. Their strength is their weakness. 

Someone might object that there's a certain tension between #4 and #'s 2-3. However, I think all these motivations are observable. People can be inconsistent. Psychology isn't logicality. Moreover, as I said at the outset, a convert doesn't have to check all four boxes. 

Brave new world

Thanks to Steve for pointing out "The drugging of the American boy". Some off the cuff comments for now:

The deniable Darwin

By the way, this is David Berlinksi's third interview with Peter Robinson at Uncommon Knowledge. His previous interviews are "Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions" (2011) and "David Berlinski on Science, Philosophy, and Society" (2014).

Determined to Come Most Freely

https://www.proginosko.com/2019/07/determined-to-come-most-freely/

Clean hands!

NeverTrumper: I didn't push the old lady in front of the oncoming bus: I just didn't pull her out of the way. Therefore my hands are clean. 

(I'm referring to NeverTrumpers heading into the 2020 election, not 2016 primary voters)

Catholic cessationism

Both sides of the Catholic intramural debate are half-right and half-wrong. RadTrad/sedevacantists are right to point out that modern Catholicism has reversed itself on "settled" Catholic dogma and ethics. It's just not consistent over time.

But RadTrad/sedevacantists are like Catholic cessationists who wish to freeze revelation with Trent and antimodernist popes (making allowance for the Marian apparition du jour). Yet many Catholic dogmas/doctrines and moral positions have nothing to justify them over and above raw ecclesiastical fiat. If ecclesiastical authority warrants Trent, then it doesn't stop with Trent. You can't accept the product but reject the source. 

The Incoherence of LGBT

https://www.proginosko.com/2019/07/the-incoherence-of-lgbt/

How Transgender Ideology Has Infiltrated Pediatrics and Produced Large-Scale Child Abuse

https://www.intellectualtakeout.org/article/im-pediatrician-how-transgender-ideology-has-infiltrated-my-field-and-produced-large-scale

Translating the Bible

There are different Bible translation philosophies. These go by different labels. For instance:

Major Bible translations typically reflect one of three general philosophies: formal equivalence, functional equivalence, and optimal equivalence. Formal equivalence is called a word-for-word translation and attempts to translate the Bible as literally as possible, keeping the sentence structure and idioms intact if possible. The NASB and KJV are representatives of this camp. Functional equivalence is typically referred to as a thought-for-thought translation. This is an attempt to translate the text so it has the same effect on the current reader as it had on the ancient reader. The NLT exemplifies this theory. Optimal equivalence falls between the former approaches by balancing the tension between accuracy and ease of reading. While striving for precision in translation, it also seeks clarity to the modern day reader. The ESV leans toward the formal equivalent translation philosophy. The NIV tries to balance these approaches and may lean toward a functional equivalence theory. The HCSB is an optimal equivalence translation.

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/translation-philosophy-three-views/

Here's an approach I haven't seen discussed (which doesn't mean it hasn't been discussed). Suppose I'm translating the Bible into English. (I'm using English as an illustration because that's my mother tongue, but the approach I'm suggesting is applicable to receptor languages in general.) I'd ask myself, if Ezekiel, Jeremiah, St. Paul, or a Psalmist was a native English speaker, how would he express himself in idiomatic English? If he wasn't speaking or writing in Greek or Hebrew, if English was the original language, how would he speak or write in English? Instead of treating Greek or Hebrew as the original, and rendering that into a receptor language, suppose we imaginatively put Bible writers in a time machine and transport them to our own time and place. What words would they use? Rather than viewing the process in terms of translation from one language to another, we might switch that around by viewing the process as if the Bible writer was, in fact, speaking in our own language. If, say, he was a 20C American. Put yourself in that mindset. 

Now, what I just said is deceptively simple. There are complications to that hypothetical. There are different periods in English usage, so the answer would vary depending on whether we recast the Bible writer as a 17C English speaker, or 18C, 19C, 20C, 21C English speaker. Likewise, if even I confine myself to American examples, there's literary English, working-class English, Black English, Southern English, colloquial English, and so on. So the choice of English might depend on the target reader instead of a generic English translation.

If I was translating Ecclesiastes, the Psalter, or poetic sections in Isaiah, I'd use literary English. At the opposite extreme, if I was translating Ezk 18 & 23, I'd use street English or slang. Because that's how Ezekiel would talk if he was speaking English.  

Keep in mind that Bible translations never replace the original. We always have the Greek and Hebrew text to refer back to, as the theological benchmark. 

Hard truths

http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2019/07/speaking-what-you-take-to-be-hard.html