*Best Of*: November 2003 Archives

James 1:17-18

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.

Heavenly Father,

Thank you for such a warm and beautiful day. It's been a long year, but we're almost to the end of it and you've shown yourself faithful every step of the way, in every detail of my life.

Thank you for my family, and that my brother can be home with us over Thanksgiving. Please take care of my dad and step-mom who are up in Reno now, and thanks for letting them buy a house and find a place they really like. Thanks for my mom and step-dad here in Los Angeles, all my brothers, even though they're frustrating sometimes. Thank you for our health and happiness, and all the good circumstances you've blessed my family with. Please comfort my grandmother in this holiday times for the first year she's facing them without my grandfather. Work in the lives of my family to bring them to a saving knowledge of your son.

Thank you for my job and my ability to go to school, help me to work hard and honestly in everything I do, and to make the most of every opportunity you give me. Thank you for all the success you've given me, none of which would have been possible if I was working under my own power. Thank you for giving me tenacity and determination, and a modicum of wisdom. Help me to be wise and generous, caring, compassionate, gentle, kind, and humble in spirit. I have nothing to boast about, because every good thing I have is a gift from you. Use it all to glorify yourself.

Thank you for my amazing church family, who have always been there for me even when my real family hasn't. Thank you for my friends, my small group, my pastor, and all the people I serve with. There's nothing more enjoyable than serving you with people I love, and it's a great blessing to be a member of Venice Baptist Church. Give our leadership wisdom and humility, and keep us from making any decisions or pursuing any course of action other than according to your will. Thank you for all the wonderful kids and college students I get to work with. Thank you for all the wise advisors you've given me to keep me on the right path. Help our church to be a blessing to our community, to those in every kind of need, spiritual and material. Show your love for the world through us.

Thank you for my country, and all the tremendous blessings that come from being an American. Thank you for all the people who make the country possible, from the soldiers to the politicians, all working as ministers of your common grace to the world. Thank you for our President Bush, all our Senators and Representatives, the Governor and Legislature of California, the Mayor and Councilmen of Hawthorne, and everyone who labors to make the country run smoothly. Give them all wisdom and self-control, show yourself to them and make your will clear; give them to courage to do what's right. Protect our soldiers all over the world, and give them peace of mind and comfort even when they're in danger. Comfort their families as well, and give them courage. Use all these people to preserve the peace, and restore it, and to punish evildoers and protect the weak and the innocent.

Lord, I know that my innermost desires are evil and destructive, thank you for lifting me out of the pit of my own sin and depravity. Thank you for sending your son Jesus Christ to live and die as a sacrifice, to pay the penalty for my sins. Thank you for reconciling this sinner to you, for adopting me and making me your son. Thank you for loving me even when I hated you, and for calling me to be your own. Thank you for your Holy Spirit who lives within me and seals me, who sanctifies me and empowers me to do your will. Thank you for your word the Bible that teaches me, guides me, and corrects me. Thank you for the glorious hope you've given me that surpasses all earthly troubles, the knowledge and security that even when this world passes away, your love for me will never pass away. Thank you that nothing I do can ever make you love me less, and thank you that I don't have to work to earn your love, and that nothing I do can make you love me more. Give me the strength and humility to serve you all my days. Forgive my rebellion, my pride, my impatience and selfishness. Give me the power to overcome my base desires and to be an example of Christ's love to the world. Protect me and preserve me, use me however you will but never leave me. I am yours, bought with a price and redeemed from slavery to eternal freedom; no words of thanks will ever be enough to profess my love for you.

Psalm 30

1 I will exalt you, O LORD ,
for you lifted me out of the depths
and did not let my enemies gloat over me.
2 O LORD my God, I called to you for help
and you healed me.
3 O LORD , you brought me up from the grave;
you spared me from going down into the pit.

4 Sing to the LORD , you saints of his;
praise his holy name.
5 For his anger lasts only a moment,
but his favor lasts a lifetime;
weeping may remain for a night,
but rejoicing comes in the morning.

6 When I felt secure, I said,
"I will never be shaken."
7 O LORD , when you favored me,
you made my mountain stand firm;
but when you hid your face,
I was dismayed.

8 To you, O LORD , I called;
to the Lord I cried for mercy:
9 "What gain is there in my destruction,
in my going down into the pit?
Will the dust praise you?
Will it proclaim your faithfulness?
10 Hear, O LORD , and be merciful to me;
O LORD , be my help."

11 You turned my wailing into dancing;
you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy,
12 that my heart may sing to you and not be silent.
O LORD my God, I will give you thanks forever.

I've seen the question tossed around before, and James Taranto says the following, in the context of quoting President Bush:

Last week in Britain, a reporter asked President Bush if "Muslims worship the same Almighty" that he does. Bush replied: "I do say that freedom is the Almighty's gift to every person. I also condition it by saying freedom is not America's gift to the world. It's much greater than that, of course. And I believe we worship the same god." The Washington Post reports that the president's ecumenism prompted a kerfuffle among evangelical Christians. ...

Bush is right. Christianity, Islam and Judaism are all monotheistic religions, united in the belief in a single God. (Muslims often call God by the Arab name Allah, but then so do Arabic-speaking Christians and Jews.) The three religions conceive of God differently, and Muslims and Jews do not share the Christian belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ. A Christian may well believe that Islam's conception of God is wrong, but if you believe in only one God, it makes no logical sense to describe a fellow monotheist as worshipping a "different" God.

To an unbeliever, that may be a perfectly satisfactory answer -- since he wouldn't believe in any God, the details are inconsequential. It's true that as a monotheist I believe there is only one God, but it doesn't follow that anyone else who is also a monotheist worships the same God I do; the alternative is that they don't worship God at all, but rather a construct of their own imagination. For example, someone who woships a rock or a tree and claims it is the one and only "god" may also be a monotheist, but the characteristics of their "god" are entirely different from the characteristics of mine; we may both be monotheists, but at least one of us is wrong in believing that our god is the one and only.

Similarly with Muslims and Christians. Both are monotheists, but the two concepts of "god" are so completely divergent that they cannot both be true, and both "gods" cannot exist as conceived. At least one of the religions is wrong (and both think it's the other guys', whereas unbelievers think it's both).

Typically, only unbelievers (and functional unbelievers) are willing to make the claim that Jehovah and Allah are "the same". Why? Because they don't believe in either, and it's convenient and "enlightened" to lump everyone together. Why quibble about differences between two imaginary beings?

More:
In the next day's Best of the Web, Mr. Taranto continues:

A Bush supporter's conception of Bush's "constitutional makeup" is utterly at odds with that of a Bush hater. Not all conceptions about Bush are equally true; Paul Krugman, for example, is totally wrongheaded, while this column generally is the model of verity. But whether Krugman is writing about him or we are, George W. Bush is the same man.

By the same token, to say that all monotheistic religions worship the same God is not to say that they are all equally valid. Indeed, since Christianity and Islam make competing claims about the nature of God, it would be logically incoherent to argue that both are true. Yet to say that they worship the same God does not contradict either religion's claim to be the one true faith. As to which religion is true, that is beyond the scope of this column.

Mr. Taranto is still not seeing the big picture, because he isn't recognizing what Christians and Muslims see to be fundamental attributes of their gods.

To carry my rock-god and tree-god example further, if I believe that some specific rock is the only god, and you believe some specific tree is the only god, it's meaningless to say that we both believe in the same "god" just becuase we both believe there's only one. If you're right, then the rock I believe is god is really just a rock and my god doesn't exist; I'm so fundamentally wrong about tree-god's nature that I'm worshipping something entirely different, something that isn't real.

The belief that there is only one god is one fundamental characteristic of that god, but not the only fundamental characteristic.

Update:
The Muslim claim that they worship the "God of Abraham" is fallacious; the origin of the Muslim religion can be seen in its modern symbolism: Allah was originally the fertility-/moon-god of Muhammad's tribe, and Islam carries the crescent moon symbol even still. In my (limited) experience, most Muslims are not aware of this aspect of their history, but it is pretty well supported by official Islamic historical records.

Update 2:
Donald Sensing gives more details, with all of which I concur. ["with all of which I concur"? ick -- Ed.]

I have no idea whether or not this pseudononymous account is true, but GeekPress links to a story by a self-proclaimed mafia programmer who sets up and runs illegal book-making operations in New York City. The narrative is interesting, but what stood out most to me was near the end:

The fact remains that I could be pulling in $150,000 as a programmer on the open market. But I make a third of that. So why am I risking a prison sentence or the potential of a lifetime in witness protection for a job that doesn't make me all that rich? Simple: When you start making a lot of money, you get noticed by the biggest bullies on the block - the cops and the IRS - and I don't want that. I like living below the radar. I sublet a friend's apartment and pay his utility bills with money orders that I purchase at the post office or at one of those check-cashing storefronts. Because I get paid entirely in cash, I don't fork over any taxes. When you get right down to it, I'm an idealist. I don't condone the actions of the US government. By refusing to pay taxes, I withhold my financial support. And, truth be told, I like mobsters. They're more willing to accept you at face value. They aren't hung up on college degrees, or where you live, or how many criminal convictions you have.

The police and the IRS are, in a sense, the big dogs on the block, and this final paragraphs illustrates that they're performing their jobs adequately. Contrary to popular belief, the purpose of law enforcement isn't to completely eliminate crime -- it's to make crime unprofitable, in the aggregate. People such as "Simson Garfinkel" may still break laws due to "principle", but that's because their sense of profit is non-standard; the satisfaction they get from breaking the law is more "profitable" to them than the money they're sacrificing. Most people, however, are in it for the money, whatever it happens to be.

When society outlaws some behavior, it attempts to increase the transaction costs of that behavior and thus render it unprofitable. The purpose of law enforcement is to make the cost of breaking the law times the chance of getting caught and convicted higher than the benefit of breaking the law times the chance of getting away with it. That an illegal bookmaking operation is forced to give better odds than can be found in legitimate gambling (according to the story), and that the operator makes less money than his skills would otherwise earn, is a testament to the effectiveness of law enforcement.

Similarly, consider the War on [Some] Drugs, which props up street prices for chemicals that are relatively cheap and easy to manufacture, and thus arguably reduce their consumption. That's the theory anyway, and as long as prices are kept high enough it'll work. Obviously there are other factors involved in this form of prohibition, and as with any law society needs to weigh the costs and benefits of the law itself (but that's a different issue).

On the other hand, think about the enforcement of traffic laws. Because of the way they're enforced, it's obvious that most traffic laws are designed more as a source of revenue than for the protection of the public. For example, the vast majority of drivers decide that the benefits of speeding outweigh the costs of getting caught; almost everyone speeds. The explanation for this is pretty simple: everyone sees their time as valuable and not-to-be-wasted driving more slowly than necessary, and everyone knows there's only a miniscule chance of being caught in any particular instance. Thus, laws against speeding are ineffective and disrespected, and everyone knows it. The only reason they're kept around is to provide revenue for cities -- in a sense, they're an arbitrary, randomly collected tax. For this reason, I think speeding laws are unjust. If society really thinks it's important for people not to speed, we need to vote to increase the penalties enough so that the laws will be effective, even with sparse enforcement. For example, if the penalty for speeding was spending a year in jail, I expect speeding would be reduced dramatically.

Of course, this will never happen because no one thinks speeding is a big enough problem to punish effectively. We live in a democracy, where social right and wrong are defined (generally) by the will of the majority. If the majority doesn't believe speeding is worth discouraging effectively, and speeding laws are widely ignored and disrespected, there's no moral compulsion to obey them -- because the laws themselves are unjust. I believe we have a moral duty to drive safely, but the more restrictive legalistic details depend on the form of government any particular individual happens to live with.

In contrast, consider illegal book-making. According to the story, accepting 5 illegal bets in a single day is a felony, punishable by up to 3 years in prison. That level of punishment (times the level of enforcement) apparently leads to such ventures being unprofitable, which in turn indicates that society takes the crime seriously. Therefore, we have a obligation to obey the otherwise morally neutral restriction of our freedom (not that I think it's a great restriction).

Jacob Levy asks an interesting question which I'd like to involve myself in only tangentially.

Suppose that a state legislature forbade recognition of, or even (on the model of the polygamy statutes) criminalized, marriages between persons at least one of whom was known to be infertile. Suppose that it did so for the stated purpose of affirming the societal commitment to marriage's cerntral function as the primary site of childrearing.

Would such a statute be constitutional (under the federal or most state constitutions), according to the jurisprudential theories of those most strongly opposed to the Massachusetts case?

(All spelling/grammar mistakes are his.)

Rather than address the legal issue (or the gay-marriage issue), I'd like to disagree with anyone who believes that the primary purpose of marriage is to have children. That's a commonly-held conservative/Christian position (apparently), but I think it's absurd. For one thing, the first mention of marriage in the Bible says nothing about children whatsoever.

Genesis 2:18-25

18 The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him."
19 Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field.
But for Adam no suitable helper was found. 21 So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.
23 The man said,

"This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called 'woman,'
for she was taken out of man."

24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.
25 The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

I find it difficult for any Christian to argue that marriage is all about having kids.

What's a family? A family is a husband and wife. You don't need children to be a "family" -- a husband and wife are a family all on their own. Children are great, and get added into the family later, but the primary and most important familial relationship is that between the husband and wife. In all cases their first loyalty should be to each other, not to their parents, not to their children, not to their siblings.

Husbands and wives should always be in public agreement on every issue, all the time. That doesn't mean that there won't ever be internal disagreement and discussion, but a unified public front should always be presented to all outsiders, with no exceptions. "Outsiders" include children and other family members, as well as friends, and everyone else. Each partner should subordinate all their other earthly relationships to their marriage.

If the purpose of marriage isn't children, what is it? Well, the passage above makes it pretty clear: the purpose of marriage is provide helpers to assist each other in serving God.

The Bible talks a lot about faith, and hundreds of books have been written on the subject. The results of this survey might prompt someone to ask: how can I be sure that my faith is genuine? That's a good question, and God gives us a good answer.

Faith is more than mere knowledge, and more than plain belief. For example, I may know that a chair is going to hold me up were I to sit in it, and I may say I believe that it will -- but if refuse to sit down I don't have faith. Faith is putting our belief and knowledge into action.

Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.

Faith is not built entirely on logic, reason, and facts. You can't prove it; on the contrary, once something is proven there's no need for faith. Logic, reason, and facts can be important for confirming our faith, and reinforcing what we believe, but in the end they alone will be insufficient if we want to know God. Our limited, human minds are incapable of comprehending God in his full glory, and to bridge the gap between partial knowledge and full certainty requires faith.

How do we know, then, if we've got genuine faith?

I John 5:1-5 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well. This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.

This is love for God: to obey his commands. Obedience is hard, because in our sinful state we often don't agree with what God wants us to do. We may not understand the purposes behind his commands or what he's trying to accomplish in our lives and the lives of people around us.

When I think of faith, I always remember an incident with one of my little brothers. He was 4 years old at the time, and wanted to play with a set of shears I was using to cut cardboard. They were sharp and spring-loaded, and far too dangerous for a child to play with, so I told him no. He cried like you wouldn't believe, because he really wanted to play with those shears. I knew it wasn't a good idea, but he simply couldn't understand it. The analogy is obvious: we're the little children, and sometimes God's plan for us is quite different than our own. Do we throw a fit, like spiritual infants, or do we obey what God our father has commanded us?

It's easy to obey when someone tells us to do something we want to do; the real test of love is obeying God when he tells us to do something we don't want to do. Do we have faith that God's way is better than ours? Do we trust him to lead us in the right path? Or do we rebel and do our own thing? God gave us that option when he gave us free will, but when we disobey God we're basically saying that we know better than he does what's good for our lives, and we tell him to get lost.

James 2:14-18 What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”

Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.

Such faith isn't faith at all -- it's just words. Real faith is an action (just like real love, incidentally). Faith isn't something you feel, faith is something you do.

A startling number of "born-again Christians" apparently hold heretical beliefs.

All told, 81% of Americans firmly believe in some type of life after death, with 9% considering it a possibility and only 10% believing that death brings utter finality, the survey found. And while 43% of respondents said that Christianity is their passport to glory, 15% say that they will get to heaven because they "have tried to obey the 10 Commandments." Another 15% expect to gain admittance because "they are basically a good person." Among the others, 6% believe that God is letting everyone in, no matter what.

Verily, this optimistic and expansive spirit is prevalent among born-again Christians. Earlier Barna surveys found that 26% of born-agains believe it doesn't matter what faith a person has because religions teach pretty much the same thing. Its recent survey found that 50% believe a life of "good works" will get you through the Pearly Gates. "Many committed born-again Christians believe that people have multiple options for gaining entry to Heaven," explains firm president George Barna. "They are saying, in essence, 'Personally, I am trusting Jesus Christ as my means of gaining God's permanent favor and a place in heaven--but someone else could get to heaven based upon living an exemplary life.'"

Besides rejecting the notion that Christianity is the only way to heaven, a large portion of born-agains (35%) do not believe that Jesus experienced a physical resurrection, according to Barna surveys. A majority (52%) reject the existence of the Holy Spirit as a living entity, and 45% deny Satan's existence. In the meantime, 33% accept the concept of same-sex unions, 10% believe in reincarnation and 29% think it's possible to communicate with the dead, a belief shared by a third of the population, which is very good news for the séance industry, if not for the keepers of the orthodox flame.

What does Jesus say on the matter?

John 14:6
  Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

Luke 13:22-30
  Then Jesus went through the towns and villages, teaching as he made his way to Jerusalem. Someone asked him, "Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?"
  He said to them, "Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to. Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, 'Sir, open the door for us.'
  "But he will answer, 'I don't know you or where you come from.'
  "Then you will say, 'We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.'
  "But he will reply, 'I don't know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers!'
  "There will be weeping there, and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown out. People will come from east and west and north and south, and will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God. Indeed there are those who are last who will be first, and first who will be last."

Update:
Dean Esmay says this is why he renounced Christianity, and I respond here.

Lileks has a lengthy Matrix 3 review up (in which he blasts Harry Knowles, of AICN fame), and he describes something many people noted about the series: it tries very hard to build a secular spirituality, but falls amazingly flat without any concept of God.

I took away something else from the Matrix trilogy: it is a product of deeply confused people. They want it all. They want individualism and community; they want secularism and transcendence; they want the purity of committed love and the licentious fun of an S&M club; they want peace and the thrill of violence; they want God, but they want to design him on their own screens with their own programs by their own terms for their own needs, and having defined the divine on their own terms, they bristle when anyone suggests they have simply built a room with a mirror and flattering lighting. All three Matrix movies, seen in total, ache for a God. But they can’t quite go all the way. They’re like three movies about circular flat meat patties that can never quite bring themselves to say the word “hamburger.”

One of the best ways to view the Matrix trilogy is to deconstruct it (argh) and examine what it really says about our culture. As Lileks describes, every note it strikes is philisophically discordant, and every morale pontification is conflicted and contradictory.

I haven't seen number 3, but the orgy scene in number 2 stands out particularly. Zion is the philisophical culmination of secular culture, with free, crazy sex, but Neo and Trinity don't partake -- instead they go off on their own and ick up the screen for 5 minutes. It's as if the writers really wanted an orgy, but then decided that a bilateral love scene would be more fulfilling... for some reason. Why?

As Lileks asks, why did the humans bother fighting the robots, rather than submit to the Matrix? What could they hope to accomplish, other than to eventually, after hundreds of years, raise their civilization back up to the level they could instantly experience in the machines' simulated world? There's an innate understanding that humans shouldn't be the slaves of robots, but within the mythos of the movie, why not? If there's some fundamental human dignity at stake, what's the source? Why struggle, fight, and die, just so your kids can be more miserable? What's wrong with living in a pleasant illusion?

The movies don't answer that question other than with some hand-waving, because they simply can't -- and modern secularism don't have an answer either. Survival of the fittest and evolution are praised academically, but no one wants to carry them to their logical extremes. Why bother helping the Iraqis, rather than just nuking them and taking their oil? They're obviously less fit than we are, and eliminating them would be good for the species. Doubly true for Afghanistan, since they don't even have oil. Nukes are cleap, compared to soldiers.

Why worry about healthcare for the poor? If they can't compete, let 'em die. Instead of an expensive medical system, we could form a Corpse Patrol to keep the dead bodies off the street. Abortion? Who cares! If a fetus can't fend for itself, too bad. Same for the handicapped, the insane, and so forth. Why try rehabilitating criminals? Just shoot them. Sure, some might be innocent, but on average we'll improve the population by weeding out as many deviants as possible.

All of these ideas are ludicrous, of course, but try to explain why from a secular standpoint. Social contract? Do you think society would fall apart if we let all the poor die? Nonsense, that was the policy of civilization for thousands of years. Besides, as long as it would be economically valuable to have a supply of poor people, capitalism would work to preserve them without the need for government intervention. (If you comment, please make sure your secular argument isn't simply a variation on the "social contract" idea.)

The point is that without God -- without some supernatural imposition of value from the outside -- a human is instrinsically worth nothing beyond his usefulness. And useless humans are therefore worth nothing. Most people (except extreme environmentalists) reject these conclusions, but with little rational basis. As Lileks said, we want the benefits of God, but we want to create him ourselves, to suit our purposes. We want to "discover" what "'God' means to me" and such. But a human-created God cannot reciprocally give value to his creator, and any philosophy built on such a construct will ring entirely hollow.