Why Are There Atheists?

Have been reviewing my Kindle bookmarks just now.  Don't remember underlining this but in a short booklet on Thomas Aquinas this jumped out at me.

Thomas Aquinas in 50 Pages: A Layman's Quick Guide to Thomism (Taylor Marshall)
- Highlight Loc. 484-85 | Added on Friday, October 30, 2015, 12:15 PM

Usually, atheists or heretics are what they are because of scandal and moral scruples, not because of logical failures.

Have forgotten the context for this.  I recall in the early part of one of Brian McLaren's books, I think Generous Orthodoxy, he says that many of the liberal christians he has met are former fundamentalists or conservatives who've been through bad experiences.

Owen Barfield, C. S. Lewis and the Purpose of Argument

Somewhere I've read that C. S. Lewis is the closest thing that Evangelical Christians have to a Saint. In the past year I've been studying an interesting person who was a very close friend of his by the name of Owen Barfield.  They were so very close that Lewis mentioned Barfield in the dedication to his book, The Allegory of Love (1936) as the 'wisest and best of my unofficial teachers'.  Later Lewis dedicated the first Narnian chronicle to Lucy, Barfield's adopted daughter.  A short web search can easily be found describing this, such as here.

I first read Barfield's Saving Appearances: A Study in Idolatry earlier in the year.  It was difficult to understand.  I even read it again a few months later.  In order to proceed, I decided upon Re-Weaving the Rainbow:  The Thought of Owen Barfield.  This collection of essays has been a help.  A variety of topics are discussed.  Yesterday the thought below jumped out at me.  It is lifted from my Kindle.

Re-Weaving the Rainbow: The Thought of Owen Barfield (David Lavery)
- Highlight Loc. 7447-48 | Added on Saturday, January 02, 2016, 11:27 PM

Barfield doubts that he changed Lewis more than Lewis changed him. But of one thing he is certain and on this he and Lewis would be in agreement: "In our arguments we always, both of us, were arguing for truth not for victory, and arguing for truth, not for comfort."

If I understand properly, this quote originally comes from the book "Owen Barfield on C. S. Lewis".  

My Thoughts on the End of Protestantism Articles

A response to Jay's post on the End of Protestantism which was inspired by a First Things Article that suggests a  move to Reformational Catholicism.

I think it is a good thing to acknowledge and learn from the wealth of Christian history prior to the Reformation.  The recently deceased Phyllis Tickle was of the opinion that Christendom undergoes a big change every 500 years.  The Reformation commenced about 500 years ago, The previous period began with the Great Schism between Catholic and Orthodox.  And roughly 500 years before that was the time of Pope Gregory the Great whose actions and import she describes in her books.  Of course this all began 500 years earlier with the life of Christ.  These periods are accompanied by changes in society.  In Pope Gregory's time it was the fall of the Roman Empire and changes in travel and communication and other structural changes of life then.  Of course, the Reformation was made possible by the invention of the printing press.  When the form of communication changes, the nature of human consciousness changes.  We live in such a time.  We are transitioning from a print culture to digital culture.  With this change comes new ways of looking at the Bible and religion.  It is good and necessary that we mine riches from the past.  And thanks to easy digital access to the writings of earlier Christian thinkers and contemporary students of them, we can.  But we should also look to the future and the changes that are in process and coming.  Our younger cohorts are not convinced by the word formulas lifted from a seemingly common sense reading of the Bible.  I say seemingly because one cannot read the Bible text by oneself.  One's community is sitting on the shoulder guiding the effort.  It is an exciting time to see all of this unfolding and the new styles of Christianity being born.

Don't Be Such A Scientist

I recently finished Randy Olson's book, Don't Be Such A Scientist.  After establishing himself as a scientist by teaching, doing field research, and publishing;  he decided to change his calling and make films.  Quite an odd progression it seems to me.  He desired to make documentaries that called on his science expertise. In order to pursue his new career he took acting classes.  The experience helped convey to him what stirs an audience.   He claims some of the very personality characteristics that help a person be a good scientist are a hindrance to science communication.  It is one reason much of the public has problems with understanding and being convinced by scientists in regard to climate change.

He says scientists are typically "handicapped by a blind obsession with truth."  They do not care much how something is said or by whom it is said as long as it meets scientific rigor.  However, the public is more likely to believe someone if they are likeable and good at telling a story.  They much show passion, emotion, and humor.

It is a difficult problem.  When I've read or see in the news about research and developments with which I'm familiar, I find simplifications and minor inaccuracies.  It has been awhile and specifics have left me, so I cannot think of an example.

I saw myself in his characterizations.

Do other planets have their own Christ?

Came across this post this evening an an Anglican web site:  Do other planets have their own Christ?

I've been thinking about this for many years.  Thought I'd blogged on it earlier but cannot find which post.  I recall one day in late 1998 when at a gymnastics event in Colorado telling my son's coach that I thought it was quite possible that other planets with sentient life may have their own version of the Christ.  They may have their own versions of Buddhism, Zen, and Mohammed too.  Perhaps not identical in every way but similar in function and characteristics.  Why do I feel this way?

Somewhere I read that the ability to fly had evolved at least three times on this planet.  First it was some insects that developed this capability.  Next, it was certain dinosaurs that did so and we now know them as birds.  Lastly, bats, which are mammals, were able to take to the sky.  Thus, it seems that any environment with animal creatures will have the potential for some of them to develop flight capability.

Judging from evolutionary history on our planet, certain things are inevitable.  Evolutionary nitches will be filled.  Pack animals develop societies.  This leads to development of tribes for the especially sentient ones.

If intelligent beings exist on other planets, why would not they develop language?  If so, then why would they not develop religions?  Would they not eventually develop agriculture?  Would they not also have world empires?  Oppression of smaller nations and peoples?  Rich and Poor?  Would they not do so many of the things that we do?  Would their religions not also be similar to ours, broadly speaking?

I think so and that is why I believe there must be a Cosmic Christ archetype.

Todays Interesting Quote

This is lifted from my Kindle clippings from a book I've been savoring.  The context is not given but I think it stands on its own, properly diagnosing what I've seen too often in my life.

Embracing a Beautiful God: Tenth Anniversary Edition (Patricia Adams Farmer)
- Highlight Loc. 1663-69 | Added on Wednesday, October 21, 2015, 05:50 AM

I think God must suffer because of our need to be right.  Stone-cold “rightness” at the expense of relationships may indeed be for fundamentalists in religion or for egoists in academia.  But that kind of righteousness has no place in Beauty’s sphere.  Beauty is strong enough and big enough to handle contrasts and conflicts in its hugeness.  Beauty is flexible and forgiving and puts love above all things. Watching Lucy and Ethel reminds me that Beauty is always on the side of forgiveness, mercy, and friendship.  It also reminds me that life is short. So make up . . . before the bell rings.

==========

Everything is Music to Walt Whitman and Me

This from Walt Whitman.  I feel the same way.  When a door slams and the phone rings at the same time, it is music, as John Cage once said.  When I'm in a factory.  When I'm at the center of a city waiting for a train or bus.  Anywhere and everywhere, the sounds coming to me are music.

When you read this, read it slowly, think and imagine each sound.  Sound is LIFE.

I think I will do nothing for a long time but listen, And accrue what I hear into myself . . . . and let sounds contribute toward me. I hear the bravuras of birds . . . . the bustle of growing wheat . . . . gossip of flames . . . . clack of sticks cooking my meals. I hear the sound of the human voice . . . . a sound I love, I hear all sounds as they are tuned to their uses . . . . sounds of the city and sounds out of the city . . . . sounds of the day and night; Talkative young ones to those that like them . . . . the recitative of fish-pedlars and fruit-pedlars . . . . the loud laugh of workpeople at their meals, The angry base of disjointed friendship . . . . the faint tones of the sick, The judge with hands tight to the desk, his shaky lips pronouncing a death-sentence, The heave’e’yo of stevedores unlading ships by the wharves . . . . the refrain of the anchor-lifters; The ring of alarm-bells . . . . the cry of fire . . . . the whirr of swift-streaking engines and hose-carts with premonitory tinkles and colored lights, The steam-whistle . . . . the solid roll of the train of approaching cars; The slow-march played at night at the head of the association, They go to guard some corpse . . . . the flag-tops are draped with black muslin. I hear the violincello or man’s heart’s complaint, And hear the keyed cornet or else the echo of sunset. I hear the chorus . . . . it is a grand-opera . . . . this indeed is music! A tenor large and fresh as the creation fills me, The orbic flex of his mouth is pouring and filling me full. I hear the trained soprano . . . . she convulses me like the climax of my love-grip; The orchestra whirls me wider than Uranus flies, It wrenches unnamable ardors from my breast, It throbs me to gulps of the farthest down horror,

Leaves Of Grass: The First Edition of 1855 + The Death Bed Edition of 1892 (Walt Whitman)
- Highlight Loc. 706-20 | Added on Wednesday, September 30, 2015, 01:26 AM

Unexpected Cure Covers Don't Worry, Be Happy

My nephew Rob Shaver and singing partner, both cancer survivors sing for patients in San Antonio.

"Your Doctor says you blood counts low, you won't be singin in a Broadway Show.  Don't Worry Be Happy!"

They call themselves Unexpected Cure.

A Conversation has a Spirit of Its Own

Am working through Merold Westphal's Whose Community? Which Interpretation? Half way through he is discussing Gadamer.  I'll lift this quote from Westphal with an embedded quote from Truth and Method by G.

...when conversation takes place willingly and humbly, the partners "are far less the leaders of it than the led . . . All this shows that a conversation has a spirit of its own (TM 383/385)"

It seems to me that is how good conversation should be.

Laudato Si

This is the first encyclical I've ever read. For me it was moving and characterized by great depth. Pope Francis did not discuss climate change in detail, only used those two words a few times. He described that the larger problem is how we treat the earth. And, that how we do that affects us all. He does not prescribe solutions but asserts that a variety of possible proposals may be effective for achieving solutions. Here is a significant snippet which I think summarizes his approach and which I like. 

"Everything is related, and we human beings are united as brothers and sisters on a wonderful pilgrimage, woven together by the love God has for each of his creatures and which also unites us in fond affection with brother sun, sister moon, brother river and mother earth."

Laudato Si --Praise Be to You: On Care for Our Common Home

barnesandnoble.com

Regarding "10 Books You Pretend To Have Read"

  Nice list here titled "10 Books You Pretend To Have Read (And Why You Should Probably Read Them)."  Link here at io9.   I did indeed read Gravity’s Rainbow.  It was my crowning achievement of 1976.  It would be another thirty years before I would learn that it was something called postmodern. Read Foundation as a teenager in 1968 and the Dune series I believe in 1978.  Finally, I’ve read 1984 several times.   I stopped reading SciFi around age thirty.  Just lost interest in it.  I’m thinking perhaps the next one on the list that sounds the best for me would be Infinite Jest.  I resolve to read that by end of 2016.  Several other commitments are in line first.  I wish Isaac Asimov, the author of Foundation,  was better remembered and appreciated than he seems to be.  I would venture that many of us who chose science and engineering in the fifties and sixties were heavily influenced by him.  Not only his science fiction but other things such as commentaries on Shakespeare and the Bible were helpful to me.  I don’t know which book it was but one day in a bookstore when I was in my late teens I read a good chunk of one concerning evolution.  His account of evolution and how different animals are designed for their environments and situations helped me move away from the anti-evolution reflex of my religious heritage.  Lastly, it seems to me that the development of the internet matches to an amazing degree his short story about the future which is titled “The Last Question.”   He wrote it in 1956! 

Emerging Measurements Co

           Emerging Measurements Co



Been working on my company's web page.

Some Quotes from "On the Mystery" by Catherine Keller

Just finished reading On the Mystery: Discerning Divinity in Process by Catherine Keller. Here are some pithy quotes that I feel captured something meaningful I want to remember.

Faith is not settled belief but living process. It is the very edge and opening of life in process. To live is to step with trust into the next moment: into the unpredictable. from Prologue

But, of course, the Bible virtually never gives any abstract definition of God.      One of the (two) times it seems to, it announces: “God is love” (1 John 4: 16). Does this suggest some changeless and dispassionate paternal entity? Or rather a mystery of infinite relationship? p16

We are indelibly marked by our past. We cannot escape the process of being influenced and of influencing. But we may exercise creative freedom within it. p22

we do not exist outside of our relationships. We become who we are only in relation: we are network creatures. p32

The universe in its persistent becoming is richer than all our dreamings. —STUART KAUFFMAN  quoted on p45.*  

 *It comes from Kauffman's Investigations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 139

Krakow Poland April 24, 2015

Krakow  Poland  April 24, 2015

An in depth and meaningful tour.  The NATO meeting in Rzeszow ended on Thursday the 23rd.  Early the next day I took the bus to Krakow.  Was just there for a fraction of a day and already very tired. I hit the market and made a circuit then headed to St Mary's church where a friend said walking tours began. Jakub was standing by himself holding his sign. When asked, he said he was doing the Jewish tour in English at 11 am. It was 10:30 and initially I thought I'd rather do the Old City tour first. But I thought of a question for him concerning the significance of the dragon. His answer showed me not only that he knew the facts, but that he knew how to present and articulate more than superficial details. Our conversation continued and it was clear to me that he was a person of depth and insight. I was hooked. The tour, it was 2 1/2 hours, did not disappoint. His knowledge was wide ranging and he conveyed it with humor, where appropriate, and poignancy. I highly recommend and would do it again. Jakub is not Jewish but clearly has much affection for his subject.  

Several weeks later I was in Huntsville, AL and visited with one of my colleagues who was also in Poland and stayed a week later than I.  After hearing me tell the above, she said she and her husband had the same tour a week later and with the same guide.  She said that Jakub has a PhD is Sociology and his dissertation topic concerned the story of the Jewish people in Poland.  

 Fortunately, Krakow escaped significant destruction during WWII. Thus the central part of town with its ancient buildings and churches survived. This is a photo of one side of the Grand Market. Read more about it here: http://www.krakow-info.com/rynek.htm — in Kraków, Poland.

Beautiful horses gave some people very pleasant rides around the square.

"Krakow's Cloth Hall, the Renaissance monument of commerce. The world's arguably oldest shopping mall has been in business in the middle of Krakow's central Grand Square (Rynek Glowny) for 700 years. Circa 1300 a roof was put over two rows of stalls to form the first Sukiennice building – Cloth Hall – where the textile trade used to go on. It was extended into an imposing Gothic structure 108 meter long and eight meter wide in the second half of the 14th century. " Lifted the above paragraph from this url: http://www.krakow-info.com/1clothall.htm

St. Mary's Cathedral, the brown building and tallest in this scene. Just to the right of it is where I saw a guy holding a sign for Free Walking Tours of Kracow. I asked him which tour he was leading. He said the Jewish Tour and we would start out at the square and then head to the Jewish quarter, then the Ghetto - from where most were taken to the camps, and ending up at the site of Schindler's factory. Initially I was not sure if I wanted to do that one. But after some discussion it was clear he was a man of depth and insight and I was hooked. http://freewalkingtour.com/jewish-krakow-free-walking-tour,city,1.html

If I remember correctly, this was the synagogue of Moses Isserles, also known as Rema. He was a renown interpreter and his writings unified and ending up being a guide to nearly all Sephardic and Ashkenazic Jewish people. He lived from 1520 to 1572. You may recall the prohibition against working on the Sabbath. But what about starting a fire on the Sabbath? It does not get that cold in Jerusalem. Snows once a century. But not being able to light a fire in Poland in winter could lead to mortal danger. He helped resolve such questions. A better explanation than I can give is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses_Isserles

This narrow street is in the movie Schindler's List. He claimed the reality did not involve such a pleasant place.

We pass over the Vistula River bridge on our way to the Jewish Ghetto.

And here we are. In the background are some of the actual buildings into which Jewish families were crammed. They found that they did not have room for their larger furniture items like couches and desks. They kept the chairs. When the war was over and the Jews were gone, there remained an amazing number of chairs. This plaza is a memorial to these people, 90% of whom were killed

Finally, a Journey to Poland

This nine year old in 1959 knew little geography. My world was Central Oklahoma, Southeast Michigan and Northeast Arkansas.    I think it was Christmas of that year that my Mom gave me a book The Silver Sword. It was here that I learned of a country called Poland. Oh to be young again when every little datum was an instance for wonder. I was fascinated even by the name Poland and people called Polish.  The story concerns a Polish family from Warsaw that was separated early in the  WWII conflict when the father and mother were taken  away. That left three children to survive on their own, ages 12, 9, and 5. They do survive and all are reunited after the war. So, from that age, I had an interest in and a special place in my heart for the Polish. Any time someone in books or media of Polish heritage, whether Jewish or not, was mentioned, in the back of my mind, it called back the memory of the book. 

Finally, after all these years, my work sent me to Poland. I was there Sunday May 18 to Saturday May 25. Landed in Krakow, from there a nice two hour bus ride brought me to Rzeszow Poland.   

I was there to attend a NATO Symposium and present two papers.  Stayed at the Bristol Hotel at the central market square of the town (of about 175,000 people).  The hotel was spacious and nice.  The food was good and quite inexpensive.  On Wednesday afternoon I had time to explore the town square and take pictures.  

Rzeszow Town Square

 Stayed at the Bristol Hotel seen here from where I'm standing in the middle of the square.

Statue of 

Tadeusz Kościuszko

I'm half way around the world and yet the center of the town has a statue to an American Revolutionary War patriot and friend of Thomas Jefferson.  He is a Polish hero as well.