The Sun's strange quietness

Would solar lull snuff climate action? (NYT)

Sun’s strange lull explained (2009!) (Space.com)

Should kids be allowed to buy violent video games?

In a 7-2 decision which followed no well-established ideological lines, the Supreme Court this week upheld lower courts in striking down the California law barring the sale of violent video games to minors. As always, the questions here come in two broad categories. First, was this law a good one? Second, was this law a Constitutional one? Since I do not play any of the modern video games, I am a bit out of my depth here, and so I’ll be looking for expert commentary from those of you more familiar with the games at issue in this case.

Resources:
Read the opinion
Justices reject video game ban for children (NYT)
Supreme Court strikes video game ban (Fox News)
Supremes have ruled, now games have a duty (NYT)
It’s perverse, but it’s also pretend (NYT)

CC--Christianese 24d: Glory/Glorify (part 4 of 5)

--As we have noticed, we glorify God when we proclaim His deeds and when we embody His transformative power in our own lives.
--But this raises a rather devious possibility. Wouldn’t we do well to glorify God if we perhaps could exaggerate or even lie about good things He has done and if we could on our own power live lives even more exemplary than whatever He has empowered us to live?
--See, it’s all fine and well that God has done some good things, but maybe we should claim more than that as a way of making Him look even better? And it seems that God at least permits if not actively causes some bad things that don’t seem to glorify Him all that well, so shouldn’t we perhaps hide or pass over those? Especially the Bible, with all sorts of difficult things, invites us maybe to ignore or avoid such embarrassments.
--And if this is true of the things we tell others about God or His Book, isn’t it just as true in the way we live our lives? I mean it sounds nice to let God’s Spirit transform my heart and behavior, but who has time for that? In the meanwhile, people are looking at me and seeing that I don’t live up to my own standards. So perhaps I should step in and make up the difference by my own effort. And what about my residual sins and flaws? Shouldn’t I cover those over so that no one will see what a splotchy job God is doing to tidy me up? Wouldn’t that glorify God better?
--The same for my marriage. The same for my church. The same for my children. The same for my health and wealth and ideas and everything else. Don’t I best serve God by seeming to be the perfect advertisement? That’s very appealing to the lost, right?
--Well, obviously, there are three big problems with this all-too-common way of thinking. And I’ll explain about them tomorrow.

Workplace dress codes

Are we really this ungrateful for the opportunity to earn a living with the capital someone else has invested in us?

Wacky Wednesday--God is a narcissist

Note: Before reading the following arguments, please understand that they are not what I believe. On Wednesdays, I deliberately argue for wrong ideas, challenging my listeners to call and defend the obvious right answer, which is usually far harder than one would expect. This is a summary of what Wacky Andrew will be arguing, not a representation of what real Andrew believes.

--He constantly demands worship.
--He is constantly bragging of His accomplishments and proclaiming His own greatness.
--Nothing you do is ever good enough for Him, but everything He does is supposed to be perfect.
--He is deathly terrified of competition from anyone else for your affections, something He dares to call a virtue of jealousy.
--He even tells us that our whole purpose in existing (and indeed all of existence!) is to glorify Him and make Him look good.
--He wants you to always be pondering your own sinfulness
--Everything that goes wrong is claimed as your own fault
--You are supposed to love Him unquestioningly even when everything He does seems harmful and counterproductive
--You aren’t supposed to question Him or His choices
--Wants us to obey Him without question in every last detail.

Resources
Echo and Narcissus
Narcissism (Wikipedia)

CC--Christianese 24c: Glory/Glorify (part 3 of 4)

--Glorify is a simple word which simply means to bring credit or honor (glory) to someone who deserves it, to make them look good, so to speak.
--Naturally, there are two main ways to glorify someone: First, by pointing to and proclaiming what is already truly great about them. Second, by doing good things yourself and then letting people know that you only did it because of that other person.
--So, you might have a mentor and then either you could describe his greatness and accomplishments to others or you could show that he imparted greatness to you in your own accomplishments.
--Since our purpose in life is to Glorify God, we do this by both telling people what is amazing and true of Him and by showing them how He has transformed us by the things we do in His service as His people.
--On the one hand, God is “out there” in the things He has done and is doing in history and today. When we share these things with people, we bring glory (honor, credit, reputation, esteem) to God.
--But if the greatest single thing God ever did was the Gospel, and the proof of this is what it does in us as God comes to indwell us, then our own lives become a living example of the glory of God as the Holy Spirit lives us and brings His own light to shine forth through our lives to others.
--If we say we love God, and we show such a life, we glorify Him, fulfilling our purpose in existing. If we fail to do this yet claim to be His, we sinfully bring disrepute and dishonor (or deglorify Him, so to speak) to other people, much as if we refuse to give Him credit for things He has done.
--Our duty, then is to continually tell the truth about God and to show that it is true in us by letting God act through us Himself.
--That’s what it means to glorify God.

The Looming Tower

I’m reading “The Looming Tower” by Lawrence Wright, and today I’m sharing some of the insights gained from this fantastically informative book on the history of Islamic terrorism, Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.

Should Christians circumcise their sons?

As you have probably heard, the city of San Francisco has put a proposition on their November ballots that would ban infant circumcision in the city. This would surely be struck down by the courts as being unconstitutional, given the longstanding religious practice of many groups. But it does present an interesting opportunity to ask the question of whether Christians should be circumcising their infant boys. Does circumcision contribute to salvation in any way? Are Christians obligated to practice it to be fully pleasing to God? Jesus was circumcised, after all, wasn’t He? We’ll talk about it.

Bible References: Genesis 1710-14, Exodus 4:24-26, Deut 10:12-22, Jer 4:4, 1 Sam 17:26, 1 Sam 18:24-28, Acts 11:17, Acts 15:1-31, Acts 16:1-5, 1 Cor 7:17-20, Gal 2:1-5, Gal 5:1-11, Gal 6:11-16, Eph 2:11, Col 2:9-13, Phil 3:1-3

Circumcision (Wikipedia)
Female genital cutting (Wikipeia)
Should Christians practice circumcision? (Got Questions)
Should a Christian be circumcised? (Hebrew 4 Christians)
Circumcision and the Christian parent (No Harm)

CC--Christianese 24b: Glory/Glorify (part 2 of 4)

--As I explained yesterday, the Glory of God isn’t merely all His various perfect attributes or excellences, it is the very significance or weight of God.
--And whenever one encounters His Glory as it really is, it produces far more than a mere impulse to worship that which is so much better than you are. It has a demolishing effect, reducing your own opinion of yourself so dramatically that you feel worthless and insignificant in His presence. When you meet your favorite athlete, you are in awe of his superiority. When you meet God, you are devastated.
--This sudden existential catastrophe comes from having vastly underestimated God’s Glory and from having simultaneously vastly overestimated your own. Even though we all know God is more than we are of everything, we still all suffer from the erroneous tendency to put Him and us on the same scale or into the same category even to be compared to each other.
--It’s as if you had the ability to blow up a firecracker, and so you find yourself about to enter the presence of God thinking that He has the ability to blow up a stick of dynamite or even a bundle of sticks. So you anticipate standing back a few hundred feet just to be safe, only to discover that God’s Glory is on the order of a 100 megaton nuclear explosion, the sort of thing for which 200 feet makes no difference at all.
--And being so unprepared for this level of distinction, you are completely ruined by it.
--That’s why whenever God’s Glory appears to people, whether in the Temple at Jerusalem or on Mount Sinai or on the Mount of Transfiguration, it is a crushing, overwhelming, terrifying, unraveling sort of experience.
--And even when other things are brought into this proximity, if they survive, they then become even so transformed by carrying just the residual effects of this encounter that the ordinary person can’t even tell the difference (like with Moses needing to wear a veil after Sinai or with John the author of Revelation wrongly thinking that “glorified” Christians are really God Himself), again like something that’s been irradiated by a nuclear explosion becomes a source of dangerous radiation.
--Glory, then is the aesthetic beauty, rational, moral, and relational perfection, historical reputation, and existential and metaphysical significance of God all combined together.

Drop-side cribs illegal to sell as of today.

New safety standards on drop-side cribs (Consumer Affairs)

Parents debate drop-side cribs after recalls (MSNBC)

CPSC issues warning on cribs (CPSC)

Is the drop-side crib ban a legal taking? (Overlawyered)

Ethics: Does Blood Kinship Matter?

Just as we were ending a show recently, someone called to ask a question about the relationship between natural or biological parenting and adoption. The brunt of the question was whether there is anything “more real” about blood relationships than about those made voluntarily and legally. Knowing that we were out of time, I avoided the question because the implications are significant and because it warrants a much more extended treatment. So tonight on the show, I thought we could talk through the question and try to figure out whether parent/child relationships are entirely a matter of what we do (meaning that adoptive and biological are the same, depending for their status on behavior) or if there is also some component of natural or blood connection (meaning that there is some fundamental difference between adoptive and biological parents based on essence or ontology).

CC--Christianese 24a: Glory/Glorify (part 1 of 4)

--The word glory has a pretty simple meaning, glory is the characteristic of being excellent or outstanding in some quality. We might say that the sunset was glorious or that the recital was glorious or that the glory for the victory went to some key agent in the activity.
--Naturally, since God is the perfect Being, He is uniquely excellent in every way possible. Thus, the glory of God is simply His perfection or wonderfulness as shown through His character and actions.
--But to say it this way understates the importance of the concept.
--We know from the Bible that when people came into proximity or contact with God’s Glory, they were always affected by it tremendously. And the primary way they responded was with a sense of not only their own badness or worthlessness (being very much not excellent, one might say), but also of their own insignificance.
--They weren’t just full of admiration for some high-performing individual they finally got to meet in person. They were undone, even ruined by the encounter.
--You see, one way of talking about Glory is as the catch-all for goodness. But God isn’t merely a very good being, He is Being itself. And so, His very essence or nature is significance itself, what modern authors (following C.S. Lewis) refer to as having weight or gravity (a word which nicely captures both seriousness and weight. God matters more than anything else, to such a degree that God is “mattering” itself. Nothing matters apart from Him (both in the sense of existing as matter and in having significance).
--Thus, the Glory of God is the sense that if we are like planets or small particles in space, He is not merely the Sun but the grandest and most impressive sun possible.

Responding to NBC’s “Under God” omission.

NBC Apologizes for pledge gaffe (Wash Post)

Christian groups demand explanation from NBC (CP)

NBC tribute cuts “Under God” from pledge (ACLJ)

ACLJ and thousands send protest letter to NBC (ACLJ)

Manhattan Declaration accepts the apology (MD)

Catholic Register chastises MD (NCR)

Manhattan Declaration response (MD)

CC--Christianese 23c: Blasphemy (part 3 of 3)

--Do phrases like “Oh my God!” and “Oh God!” constitute blasphemy?
--Before we can answer that, let’s start with something easier. Is it blasphemous to even utter the name of God?
--For some people, Jews in particular, blasphemy would include even using the name of God (Yahweh or Jehovah) out loud, possibly even using the substitute term “God” itself. And this is why you’ll notice in some Jewish literature the construction “G-d” or some oblique referent like “Ha-Shem” which means “The Name.”
--The reason for this is that humans can almost never be pure enough to say God’s name without dishonoring and profaning it. So, rather than taking that risk, they simply don’t say it at all.
--For Christians, however, merely uttering God or any of God’s names or titles (Elohim, Yahweh, Jesus, Adonai, etc.) isn’t considered blasphemous precisely because He permits us as His children to say His names.
--But if one utters the names disrespectfully or irreverently, that is handling God’s name improperly or vainly. And the most common form of this is cursing which uses God’s Name to express dissatisfaction as a swear.
--The reason this particular form of cursing is blasphemy is easily seen by the fact that one could express the same content with any of a number of alternate and truly profane terms relating to bodily functions. Thus, the blasphemy comes from equating God’s Name with such vulgarities by substitution.
--But is “Oh, my God!” in this category? Well, it depends on who is saying it and how they do so.
--If a Christian says this as an appeal to God in a moment of great significance, it’s honoring God. If a non-believer says it as a form of semi-sarcastic tsk-tsk, such trivializing is at least semi-blasphemous. In other words, the expression in itself isn’t blasphemous so much as the tone of voice, the context, and the question of whether it serves to bring honor and weight to God’s name or the opposite. Also, precisely because Christians have a more familiar and informal relationship with God as His children, we are generally more liberal about references to Him, at least when made by our fellow family members.

Obama blames technology for unemployment

President Obama’s profound but tragically common misunderstanding of the relationship between technology, jobs, and prosperity.

Obama vs the ATMs, why technology doesn’t destroy jobs (WSJ)

Current Events

Arabs and Democracy (Journal of Democracy)
Literacy rates in Arab States (UNESCO)
Senegal, Islam, Democracy, Sexy (European blog)
Defend Muslims, defend America (NYT)
Rand and Rubio (NYT)
FCC restricts its own power (WSJ)
Obama vs ATMs, why technology doesn’t destroy jobs (WSJ)
Global warming and global governance (Forbes)
Yasmin, Yaz blamed for two teen deaths (AP)
Obama accelerates withdrawl timeline (NYT)
Timeline: major events in Afghanistan war (NYT)
Troop levels in Afghanistan/Iraq graph (NYT)

CC--Christianese 23b: Blasphemy (part 2 of 3)

--As we discussed yesterday, blasphemy is any use of language to dishonor or defame God. And the reason it’s so awful is in part because God is so deserving of honor and respect and in part because language is such a unique and precious divine gift give to express this glory. Hence using that gift to attack the Giver is a supreme perversion.
--Thus, the most serious forms of blasphemy would involve willful and deliberate verbal defamations of God.
--For example, someone who denounces God or reviles Him would be engaging in blasphemy. This might entail saying God is not good or that He does not exist, or that he is not Almighty or something of this sort.
--But someone who claims God has done something terrible or who denies the glorious things He has done would also be engaged in blasphemy. And since the single greatest thing God has done in human history is the Gospel, that means that denying the Gospel or its goodness or that God did it out of love for us by denying the Resurrection or the Deity of Christ, etc. would all be forms of blasphemy.
--Equally, many of the things said by the Westboro Cult are blasphemous precisely because they bring disrepute upon God falsely attributing to Him evil things. When people who claim to be acting in God’s Name or on His behalf say what is contrary to His Nature, they blaspheme Him by sullying His reputation.
--In short, anything which lies about God or makes Him sound less worthy than He is would be blasphemy. Detracting from or denying His due weight, reputation, acclaim, or praise.
--And this raises the question of whether phrases like “Oh, my God!” constitute blasphemy. I’ll answer that tomorrow.

Clara Luper (May 3, 1923 – June 8, 2011)

Clara Luper, schoolteacher, civil rights activist, and leader of the first nationally recognized anti-segregation sit-in in Oklahoma City 1958, recently died June 8. In 1972 she ran unsuccessfully for election to the United States Senate. When asked by the press if she, a black woman, could represent white people, she responded: “Of course, I can represent white people, black people, red people, yellow people, brown people, and polka dot people. You see, I have lived long enough to know that people are people.”

An interview with Clara Luper
Wikipedia page on Clara Luper

Wacky Wednesday--Laziness Is A Virtue

Note: Before reading the following arguments, please understand that they are not what I believe. On Wednesdays, I deliberately argue for wrong ideas, challenging my listeners to call and defend the obvious right answer, which is usually far harder than one would expect. This is a summary of what Wacky Andrew will be arguing, not a representation of what real Andrew believes.

--Laziness isn’t a character condition it’s the discernment that something isn’t important.
--Far from being boring, idleness offers a creative time for dreams, thoughts and conversations that is to be relished and fostered.
--Through leisure, the mind is free to wander and invent. My best ideas have come from times of relaxation and reflection. You can’t rush good philosophy.
--Our fast paced life prevents us from hearing God, who moves at a much slower pace.
--Work interferes with family time, to the acknowledged detriment of many families.
--Over-productive people are insufferably active, demanding, and unhappy. They can’t rest in the peace of God, and they don’t know how to be still and are personally insecure about their worth and identity unless producing
--We work so that we can have better things that we can’t enjoy because we’re supposed to be working so that we can have better things that we can’t enjoy because we’re supposed to be working so that we can have better things that we can’t enjoy because…
--If it doesn’t generate income, our American culture treats it as irrelevant. This means that art, poetry, dance, beholding nature, and loads of other very healthy things for your soul get lost in the competition for income.
--We have put such a premium on work as meaningful that loads of women leave their true calling as mothers to go find fulfillment in the market economy.
--Think of the first question we always want to know about someone: what does he DO? As in, is he productive or is he a bum? And think of how odd it would be for someone to say, “I do nothing of that sort.” Oh, you mean you’re unemployed? No, I’m not seeking a job. I don’t play that game.
--There was no toil in Eden. It was after the fall that man was cursed to work. Shouldn’t we be redeemed from the curse?
--In heaven, we won’t do work. Heaven will look a lot more like lounging at the beach than it will look like working at the mill.
--Be still and know that I am God presupposes that you can stand being still.
--God will provide, the lilies don’t toil or turn, you can’t add one cubit to your stature, God knows your needs. Matthew 6:24-34
--Consider the case study of Martha and Mary!
--It’s extremely odd to say on the one hand that you can’t earn heaven but to then turn around and say it’s a grave moral sin to not be working and productive!
--“Labor-saving” technology by definition means “laziness-enabling” technology.

Resources:
Laziness Quotes
Bible Verses About Laziness at InTouch.org
In Defense Of Laziness by Hal Cranmer at Mises.org
In Praise Of Idleness by Bertrand Russell
Quitting The Paint Factory: On The Virtues Of Idleness by Mark Slouka
Idling: Why It's Important Not To Be Busy All The Time by Mortimer J. Adler
The Ideas Of Work And Leisure (5 parts, click on link at end to continue) by Mortimer J. Adler
How To Be Idle book by Tom Hodgkinson
An Interview With Tom Hodgkinson (Katie Renz, MotherJones.com)
American Idle: It Takes Hard Work To Master (Craig Wilson, USA Today)
Selling The Work Ethic book by Sharon Beder
Protestant Work Ethic defined at Wikipedia
History Of The Work Ethic by Roger B. Hill
The Myth Of Laziness book (about underachieving students) by Mel Levine

CC--Christianese 23a: Blasphemy (part 1 of 2)

--Blasphemy is one of those words that a lot of people use (perhaps most often in jest with a stern tone of voice mocking someone who might use it seriously), but still have trouble defining with any degree of precision.
--In general, blasphemy is dishonoring God with language, thereby denying Him His justly deserved reputation as God the Perfect Being. Blasphemy is anti-God slander when spoken or anti-God libel when printed.
--Since God not only is the giver of language but even the embodiment of language (“The Word was with God and the Word was God,” John 1), such a violation of language is particularly acute. Moreover, since one of the key unique attributes God shares with man is the capacity for language, turning this common glory mechanism into a form of debasement is a true perversion. We should be bringing honor and prestige and weight to God with His gift of language, and not the opposite.
--And that’s the point of the Third Commandment: “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.” Precisely because God is the greatest Good in the universe, and our language is a fundamental way in which we express this to Him and about Him to others, misuse of language in this way is contrary to the very purpose of our lives and all of Creation.
--That’s why blasphemy is such a serious crime.
--And understanding the seriousness of blasphemy, we have to be very careful that we don’t trivialize it in the way we define it, for instance by saying that minor inadvertent profanities are full-fledged examples of it.