School started this week, so I’ve been swamped and unable to blog. I hope to get back to my regular inconsistency again this week. I’m really trying for 3-4 posts a week. We’ll see how it goes.
Anyway, it’s Sunday again, and time for your second installment of my Sunday Songs for Skeptics. This one comes from my high school days. I didn’t get it when I listened to it then (Honestly, that’s the case with most of the music I listened to back then. As long as I could head-bang to it, I didn’t care what it said. I’m glad I hung on to the CDs–I would have missed some gems). Anyway, this song, “Forgiven” by Alanis Morissette rails against her Catholic upbringing and seeks to expose some of the egregious contradictions in her faith. Here are a few of my favorite lines:
“I confessed my darkest deeds to an envious man.”
“My brothers, they never went blind for what they did.” (a reference to the former Catholic teaching that masturbation causes blindness)
“In the name of the Father, the skeptic, and the Son, I have one more stupid question.”
“We all needed something to cling to, so we did.” (The true appeal of religion to most people, imo)
Well, without further ado, here it is. Enjoy!
More posts to come this week…I promise (well, I hope!).
I’ve wanted to do a music day on the blog, and I thought I’d start by sharing some of my favorite songs for religious skeptics like me to enjoy. I thought that Sundays would be the best day for my “Songs for Skeptics” posts, so here’s the first: Kansas’s “Dust in the Wind.”
I posted this at Connor’s Conundrums (I had sworn off commenting over there, but I digress) in response to a comment that Connor made on this post. You can read the context over there if you’d like. The blockquoted text is Connor’s; the rest is my response:
In a democracy, yes. In a republic, no.
This statement actually hurts your argument. In a republic, a straight majority cannot subvert the law (ie. the Constitution), nor use its will to take away the rights of the minority. We learn this in high school civics. It’s the old argument majority rules vs. minority rights. In the case of California, the majority spoke, declaring that marriage should be defined as being between a man and a woman. The people in charge of protecting the constitutional rights of the minority (ie. the courts) stepped in and proclaimed the declaration of the majority to be unconstitutional and therefore not lawful. That is how a republic operates. If we were a true democracy, very, very few states would ever allow homosexuals to marry; however, since we are not, and the rights of the minority need to be protected in a constitutional republic, more and more state courts will be deciding the matter.
Notice also that the courts aren’t “legislating from the bench” as has been claimed often by opponents of gay marriage and abortion. They only act when a law is passed and the constitutionality of that law is challenged. Ergo, a law banning abortion is challenged in the court, and the court proclaims it unconstitutional based on its interpretation of the constitution. It didn’t legalize abortion by judicial fiat; it said that laws that ban abortion are unconstitutional. Don’t like it? Change the constitution with a vote (which, in most cases, requires some sort of “super” majority, keeping the “mobocracy” of majority rules from stripping the rights of the minority).
If Prop. 8 succeeds, then the court will be charged with upholding the new, amended constitution instead of the old one, and will be impotent in making any change to that proclamation. Thank God (metaphorically, of course ) that it won’t succeed.
Other than that little beef, I’ve found this conversation stimulating and fairly well argued from both sides.
Earlier this summer, I found the book Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen on Audible and downloaded it. I normally use Audible for non-fiction books on politics, philosophy, or history since I would normally not pick those types of books up to read, but am very happy to listen to them while I drive, walk, or work in my classroom. I never download novels to listen to because I would much rather read them.
So, when I saw Allen’s book on Audible, I thought that it might be a good one for me to download and listen to (since it’s definitely not one that I would pick up and read); however, I was skeptical because I have listened to and read many books on personal management, and none of them have inspired me to take control of my life and organize all my junk. I was pleasantly surprised by Allen’s common sense approach.
Being an enormously unorganized person, I’m always trying little things to trick myself into being even a little more on top of things. I’ve owned 2 different Palm Pilots in the last 4 years, and have used them with varying degrees of succcess; however, it seems that when the newness of the toy wears off, so does the efficacy of the system. Since Allen’s methodology doesn’t require any specific equipment, it’s not as likely to lose its impact as the toy becomes less fun.
Now, to the nitty gritty. The reason Allen’s approach works so well for me is because it is flexible. It doesn’t use daily “to do” lists or artificial systems of priorities. What it does is gives you a place to catalogue all of your committments where you will refer back to them when you can actually perform the actions needed to fulfill them. You have actions to do at the computer while you’re at your computer, actions to do at school while you’re at school, your Walmart shopping list while you’re at Walmart, etc. It breaks projects (defined by Allen as anything you’re responsible for that will take more than one action to complete) down into action steps (the next physical step required to move the project forward) and context (where do you need to be to complete the action). I can’t think of anything more simple and straight forward.
Since my work gives me a 3-month break in the summer, I have used the time to slowly integrate the GTD system into my life. I have sorted through all of my stuff from my desk at home, to the garage, to my storage unit in Price, and finally to my classroom. I have captured all the committments that I have into one place, creating context-specific “next actions lists” to allow me to make progress on all of them. I’ve learned how to use my Palm Pilot effectively to help me make moment-to-moment decisions about what I’m doing and–perhaps more importantly–what I’m not doing. I’ve never felt so in control of my life.
I’ve always thought that organization stifles creativity, and I think that’s why I’ve fought it for so many years, but as I’ve integrated GTD into my life and routine, I’ve found that the opposite is true. I have more time to create and produce things that have been on my mind for a long time. I’ve written some music this summer, started a couple of major writing projects, began the process of applying for graduate school, and prepared for the coming school year better than I ever have before. All of this while working part time and pausing to have a baby. It’s amazing.
I would encourage anyone to pick up Allen’s book. It is well worth the time to read.
In my first post on this blog, I reviewed the novel Towing Jehovah by James Morrow. That novel quickly became my favorite novel ever (a distinction that I don’t bestow easily); however, I was anxious to read the other two novels in the trilogy: Blameless in Abaddon and The Eternal Footman. That being said, much of my enthusiasm for reading the novels moved down my priorities list with the birth of my son a few weeks ago, so I’m just now finishing book two of the trilogy. This is my review.
The theme of the novel, written around the trial of God for crimes against humanity, can be summed up with two separate passage. The first, spoken to the man defending God–Lovett–by the “Idea of Yeshua” (you’ll have to read the book to understand that fully), talks about how God should be worshipped:
Theodicy’s a sucker’s game, Professor. When Yahweh was operational, humanity’s obligation wasn’t to worship Him, for chrissakes. It was to celebrate His creativity and stand forevermore against His malice. And anybody such as yourself, anybody who sought to shoehorn an omnibenevolent God into the same universe as Auschwitz…that person, Dr. Gregory Francis Lovett–that person did the Devil’s work for him (page 391).
The other, spoken to Martin Candle–the novel’s protagonist who puts God on trial for crimes against humanity–again by the “Idea of Yeshua” deals with dwelling on the negative aspects in the world. Truth be told, I needed to read this three years ago; I’ve come to peace with it now:
In your own way, you’re as sorry a phenomenon as Lovett here. Bitterness is not a philosophy, friend. Outrage is not an ethic. Stop counting corpses and reach a truce with the universe, or you’ll be stuck on the dung heap forever (page 392).
These two passages come after Lovett and Candle grapple in the Hague over the problem of evil and the possible solutions for it. For those unfamiliar with the problem of evil, it basically says:
An all powerful, all knowing, and all good God would prevent evil.
Evil exists.
Therefore, God, as defined above, does not exist.
Lovett, the defender of God (who, indisputably, does exist in the novel because He fell from heaven into the ocean in Towing Jehovah), offers several possible explanations for this contradiction:
“The Hidden Harmony” Defense: Candle calls this the “father knows best” defense. It says that we can’t know what God knows, so evil is His way of balancing the universe in a sort of “harmony.”
“The Eschatological” Defense: Candle calls this “the Disneyland” defense. It says that no matter what we endure in this life, we will be rewarded in the afterlife; therefore, evil is just a time to pass before our entrance into paradise. Lawrence, the ram sacrificed by Abraham in lieu of his son Isaac, dismantles this defense with this deft analogy:
A father doesn’t have the right to sexually molest his children throughout the winter simply because he intends to take them to Disneyland in the spring (page 172).
“The Disciplinary” Defense: this defense says that evil is all a retribution or “punishment” for human sin. Like John Hagee (an endorsment McCain was happy with–I had to make that point ) who suggested that Hurricane Katrina was a punishment for the sins of New Orleans. I don’t think there’s a lot of need to refute this ridiculous claim. People with a brain can see the flaws.
“The Ontological” Defense: Candle calls this “The Swiss Cheese” defense. It says that a fully functional, dynamic universe must ipso facto have flaws. These flaws are the cause of evil in the world. Candle struggles to find a solution for this one, and he doesn’t solve it until the end, which I won’t give away.
This novel does an excellent job of explaining the basic tenets of theodicy in a way that is accessible and fun to read. Morrow’s trenchant wit bleeds through the story like God’s massive hemmorage through the streets of the Netharlands (oops, that’s a spoiler!), and in his biting satire, he takes on the religious apologists and the skeptics just as he did in Towing Jehovah. Overall, I’m not quite sure what to say about this novel except that I enjoyed it immensly and learned a lot. I can’t say that its as good as its predecessor, but it’s close. Definitely worth the time to explore.
I haven’t said much about the gay marriage debate that is raging in California and within the Mormon church. While I’m very interested in the debate, I’ve tried to stay out of it as much as possible so as not to offend my family with my pro-gay-marriage stance. In private, I’ve had interesting conversations with my mom, my brother-in-law, and my wife about the issue, but I haven’t blogged about it, until today.
I recently read this post at the Good Reason blog and was alerted to the diatribe by prominent Mormon author Orson Scott Card on the subject of gay marriage. Until I read this piece, the only thing that I knew about Card was that he was the LDS author of the novel Ender’s Game, which I haven’t read. Many people had suggested that I teach Ender’s Game in my class, suggesting that it was not only entertaining, but thematically strong. Since I try to always teach some contemporary authors in my classroom to offset the dead old white guys (DOWGS) that usually get taught, teaching Card’s novel seemed appealing. Of course, since I haven’t read it, and won’t be able to before school starts, I wouldn’t have taught it this year.
Now, after reading Card’s article, I can guarantee that I won’t teach it ever.
The article begins with the most ridiculous thesis on the subject that I have ever read:
The first and greatest threat from court decisions in California and Massachusetts, giving legal recognition to “gay marriage,” is that it marks the end of democracy in America.
The end of democracy? Really?
He tries to make the point that judges shouldn’t be the ones making laws for the rest of us, and that since judges in California overturned the vote of the people to restrict gay marriage, that democracy is dead. On the surface, it almost sounds like a rational argument, but it’s not.
I’ve heard many people on the right side of the political spectrum use the argument that “America is a republic, not a democracy.” This statement is true. We are a constitutional republic, not a true democracy. But what does that mean? It means that the will of the majority cannot subvert the rights of the minority. It’s funny that in any argument involving minority rights, the term democracy is used by the opponents of the rights, but when it’s the minority arguing, they suddenly remember that we live in a republic.
That being said, Card’s thesis falls on its face. The court’s overturning of a law, passed by the majority, in order to protect the rights of the minority is exactly what is supposed to happen. The court didn’t “make” a law; it overturned an unconstitutional one. They do it all the time. If they didn’t, the right to bare arms that is guaranteed in th 2nd amendment would’ve been obliterated years ago, but the court has done its job and protected that right as well.
Since Card’s thesis is false and proves only that he needs a civics lesson, the rest of the article is bunk. For a discussion of it, read Daniel’s piece at Good Reason. It is excellent.
I took this picture from my front yard yesterday as the sky cleared after a small storm dumped some rain on the Waterpocket Fold. This wonderful sight only happens a couple of times a year, and this is the first time I’ve gotten a picture of it. There are more pictures here.
If an angel ever visited me, I’m sure that it would look something like this:
Today is Pioneer Day, and I thought a lot about our country and the state of Utah. I don’t think that I’m able to adequately describe what my feelings about the direction that our nation is taking, so instead I want to post a few of my favorite songs about America that do a pretty good job of describing my feelings.
The first is called “American Prayer,” written by Bono and performed by Bono and Beyoncé at the 46664 concert a few years ago. I watched them perform it that night on TV, and fell in love with this song.
The next one is Paul Simon’s “American Tune.” Simon and Garfunkel had broken up before Paul wrote this song, but they performed it together on their “Old Friends” tour. When I saw them in Salt Lake, Art introduced this song by saying that it was amazing how a song written 30 years ago was so current that it could have been written last week. Art was right, and the song is better with his airy tenor added to the mix.
The next song is Sara Thomsen’s “Is It For Freedom?”. An absolutely fantastic song that asks if our wars around the world are for freedom or for “comfort and convenience.”
One of my favorite modern-day song writers is Jack Johnson, who takes on the ridiculously bad, sensationalized American media in “Good People.”
And, finally what is probably the greatest protest song ever written, Bob Dylan’s “Blowing in the Wind.”
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