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"I Can't Relate to This Professor"

I hear this often from students.

Does having five kids help me relate to my students?  Does it make me a better teacher?  Sometimes it helps me relate.  But should it?  Must it?

On John 1:3 and Many Questionable Translations

*UPDATE*  

John 1:3-4New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4 in him was life,[a] and the life was the light of all people.

The NIV translates John 1:3 as follows: "Through Him [the Word] all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made."

Almost all translations translate John 1:3 like the NIV.  One of C.S. Lewis's predecessors, George MacDonald, challenges that translation and bases an entire sermon on a divergent translation here.

Look again at the second independent clause, particularly "nothing was made that has been made."  What does the "that has been made" add to the sentence?  Nothing of substance!  It's oxymoronic (and perhaps plain moronic) to say that nothing has been made that has been made, since all things that have been made are all and only the things that have been made!

As MacDonald would have it, we should translate verses 3 and 4 as follows:

"All things were made through Him and without Him was not one thing made. [Stop]  That which was made in Him was life, and the life was the light of men."

According to MacDonald, such a translation has much theological significance. Is MacDonald's principle of charity at work justifiable?  Should we prefer a translation which--all other things being equal--has a better theological upshot and is more linguistically felicitous?  I say, yes.

"This" is not a Post

Is My Six-Year-Old Son Getting Smarter or Dumber?

Me: Son, let me ask you this: Are you getting smarter or dumber watching cartoons for SO LONG today?!

Sam:  Dumber.

Bootleggers and Baptists in Arkansas

The economic theory of "Bootleggers and Baptists" is alive and well in Arkansas with the proposed amendment allowing dry counties to go wet on the ballot.  Obviously in a state like Arkansas there are mixed opinions since this is a big amendment for a small state.  In fact, the Washington Post just reported on it.

“This fight has made for some unusual alliances,” said Brian Richardson, chairman of the Citizens for Locals Rights, which opposes the amendment. “The package stores and religious moral objectors — they’re certainly strange bedfellows.”

For the economic theory of Bootleggers and Baptists see this short video:

Girls Who Are Boys Who Like Boys to Be Girls

The previous post brought to mind the following song from my generation.  One of the main ideas in the song is that what truly matters is being (and doing) what (or who) you love--period.

I love good satire, so I choose to think of this song as satirical.  [Warning: Don't watch in front of kids or your grandma]

Boys and Girls, by Blur
Street's like a jungle
So call the police
Following the herd
Down to Greece
On holiday 
Love in the 90's
Is paranoid
On sunny beaches
Take your chances looking for

[Chorus]
Girls who are boys
Who like boys to be girls
Who do boys like they're girls
Who do girls like they're boys
Always should be someone you really love

On the PGA President's Firing for Calling a Man a Little Girl

Karen Crouse writing for the New York Times:

When [ex-PGA President Ted] Bishop chose to disparage one man, the English golfer Ian Poulter, on Twitter by calling him a “little girl,” he effectively demeaned all women, including his own two daughters and granddaughter.

Golf Channel: Ted Bishops Legacy Forever Altered With Tweet

Read that article title again.  Someone's entire legacy changed by a Tweet.  That must've been some Tweet!

Ted Bishop on his infamous Tweet:

It took Bishop 90 minutes, after checking his phone and seeing reaction from what he had said, to realize he was in trouble.

"Someone had labeled me a sexist and I knew immediately I had a huge problem," said Bishop.

Bishop obviously knows the PC Thought Police drill.  Say something offensive to the "tolerant" PC crowd, get labeled a sexist, racist, homophobe, and so forth and prepare to be destroyed.

So what did Ted Bishop say, exactly?

Are Do-It-Yourself Projects In Decline Because Today's Men Aren't MEN?

According to the article here, more men can't (or won't) do the basic repairs around the house that men of the past once did.  The author avers that perhaps this is due to there being fewer masculine men.  (See Jo Metrosexual to the right looking at his abs in the mirror as he...vacuums).

None of this is true, however, of this man writing this blog post.

Excerpt:

Yet, undeniably, today’s 20- and 30-somethings don’t seem to possess your traditional “dad skills”. The dismal fact that a mere five per cent of 18-24s would attempt to unblock a sink doesn’t bode well for humanity – unless you’re a plumber.[For SHAME!]

Men [have been] clamouring over themselves to be seen as anything but sexist.

But as we lost our rough edges and took on more of what had traditionally been regarded as female roles, no one really stopped to question whether equality for women came with a cost for masculinity. If everything overtly “masculine” is dismissed as sexist, what’s left of men is, arguably, sexless.

You see this behavioural androgyny everywhere, from the increasingly corporate and sterile football terraces to the Croc-wearing househusband on the school run.

In an age where we’re expected to Hoover, iron, change nappies, make a woman climax for four hours like Sting and cook like Jamie Oliver, old-fashioned pursuits like DIY have become quaint, self-indulgent and almost shameful.

The result is that many modern men are more like our mothers than our fathers, while the opposite is true for women, who are increasingly wearing the trousers.

Obama Is a Republican

This has got to be one of the stupider things I've read in a while from The American Conservative (sic).  Thankfully Scott Lemieux sets the record straight so I won't feel the need to do likewise. Obama is a moderate-liberal Democrat.  Below is an excerpt which highlights the track record:

Social issues As if he knows how weak the argument is, Bartlett’s discussion of Obama and same-sex marriage is perfunctory: “Simply stating public support for gay marriage would seem to have been a no-brainer for Obama, but it took him two long years to speak out on the subject and only after being pressured to do so.” Well, first of all, this still puts him to the left of most Republicans. But even so prior to explicitly supporting same-sex marriage, he opposed Prop 8, he signed legislation repealing DADT, and he refused to defend DOMA. These are not “Republican” positions. 

Does Science Disprove Free Will?

According to this author the answer is a resounding "NO."  I just finished Alfred Mele's most recent book on the issue.  It's written for a popular audience and is very clear & well written.  For $10-15 the book is probably overpriced given that it consists in a mere 95 pages.  But it's a fun a little read if you want to quickly get up to speed on some of the recent scientific work which has been alleged to debunk freedom of the will.  Daniel Dennett gives it his endorsement--for what it's worth, which probably ain't much.

Proverb

Do not visit your neighbor's house too often, or he will become weary of you and hate you (Proverbs 25:17)

A Puzzle About (Biblical) Interpretation

Context, context, context.  It is said that to know the meaning of a verse in the Bible, one has to know the surrounding context.  One has to know the meaning of the immediate context (the several verses before and after the one in question) and the broader context (e.g. the book it is written in, etc.)

How, then, does interpretation ever get started?  For simplicity sake let's reduce the Bible to three books and each book to four verses (the numbers don't matter to see the puzzle--and let's suppose that each verse is a single sentence).  Suppose we focus on the first book and verses 1, 2, 3, and 4 (which, we're supposing, are all of the verses).  In order to understand the meaning of 1, we must understand the meaning of at least verse 2 (and perhaps verses 3 and 4).  But to understand the meaning of 2, one must understand the meaning of at least 3 (and presumably 1 as well).  But to understand the meaning of 3 we must understand 2 and 4.  But to understand 4....  And thus we have a potentially vicious hermeneutical circle. It won't help to appeal to our understanding of books two and three since the same problem applies to each of the books as well.  To understand the meaning of anything it seems that one must already understand the meaning of everything.

Now Playing

I was at this particular concert. If you listen to the first few minutes closely you can hear me.

Floyd's final album is coming out on November 7th.  I will own a copy.  After all, I have all their albums.  Too bad that Rick Wright died and they probably won't go on tour again.  Best concert I've ever been to, and I've seen Dylan three times and Pearl Jam twice.

Beard (the verb)

Beards are wonderful.  "Beard," too is wonderful, and it comes in not only noun form but also as a verb. What follows are a few definitions given in the OED followed by brief commentary.

1. To become bearded, get a beard. 

As in "Lewis, King of Hungary, was said to have bearded at age fifteen."

 2. To chip or plane away the edge of (timber) to a required shape.

As in "That bearded brute of a beastly-man climbed the tree with his bare hands and bearded the top of it into the bust of Brutus!"

 3. To brush or rub with the beard.

As in "Some of the young men were romping with the young girls and bearding their rosy faces" or "Daddy bearded me when we were wrestling."

And my all-time favorite:

Much Ado About Beards

Below is another good beard quotation I came across today thanks to MT.  Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing gets to a classic, female dilemma regarding the beard.

73% of Females at Occidental College Sexually Assaulted

If true, send your kids to the Orient, not the Occident.

Another close look at the 1 in 4/5 statistics that I talked about previously.

Of Course NPR is Liberal

It's (partly) government funded!  How many people working for NPR do you think believe that the federal government should not tax people to pay for national, public broadcasting?

*UPDATE*  I forgot to mention that NPR pairs David Brooks with liberal, E.J. Dionne, as their political commentators.  So their go-to Republican is pro-choice, insists on gay marriage, is a mild fiscal conservative, and the author of the A Moderate Manifesto. 

Anselm's Ontological Argument for God's Existence Reconstructed

Anslem's Ontological Argument in Proslogion 2 is one of the most fascinating ontological arguments.  Moreover, I think it is one of the most fascinating arguments, period.  The very short of it is that if you have the idea of God, you're committed to a contradiction if you believe that God only exists in your mind and not in extra-mental reality.  The key to the argument--the most controversial assumption, I think, is that there are two modes of being--being-in-the-mind and being-in-reality.  For Anselm, a property may be had-in-reality or may be had-in-thought.  Pegasus--the winged horse--has-in-thought the property of being a horse.  If Pegasus existed outside of thought, Pegasus would have the property had-in-reality of being a horse.  Alas, Pegasus does not have the latter property.  I said that this modal assumption is controversial, nonetheless, it seems to me plausible.

Below is my reconstruction of Lynne Rudder Baker and Gareth Matthews' very interesting 2010 The Review of Metaphysics article, "Anselm's Argument Reconsidered," explicating and defending Anselm's argument:

Conservative and Liberal Media Outlets: On Trusting the Media

The Pew Research Center has some interesting charts on the news media.  Here are a couple followed by a bit of commentary on what it might mean to trust a media outlet and how to tell if a reporter is liberal or conservative.

Science, Magic, and a Wee Bit of Epistemology from Plato's Meno

6-year-old Sam in the tub with baby-bath bubbles accumulating....

Sam: Dad, why does the water [coming out of the spigot] pop the bubbles [beneath it]?

Me: I don't know exactly.  But you should ask a chemist if you want to know.

Sam: Oh.  But how do you know a chemist knows if YOU don't know why water pops the bubbles???

Me: Good question.  Even though I don't know all that chemists know, I know WHAT THEY DO.

Sam: Oh.  They must know about magic.

Me: Most everything is magic if you think about it.

Marketing and Advertising

Ebola and Political Authority

My sense from listening to the news on the Ebola crisis is that many of those from the liberal side in the media (i.e. most of the mainstream media) have the view that the proper end of the U.S. political authorities is to promote global welfare. For instance, it just seems obvious to some that the President should be at least as concerned with the plight of those in Sierra Leone if not more so than with U.S. citizens, such that it's unthinkable that he temporarily block flights of persons from certain countries or of persons exposed to Ebola.  It seems obvious to some that it is wrong to give experimental medications first to U.S. citizens and secondarily to non-U.S. citizens (or perhaps not at all due to their experimental nature, lack of proper consent, etc.)  Some of the background assumptions, here, seem at best utilitarian, at worst Marxist.

How the Protestant Reformation Got Started

The following is from records of people recalling what Martin Luther said around his dinner table:

Luther: "Tomorrow I have to lecture on the drunkenness of Noah [Gen. 9:20-27], so I should drink enough this evening to be able to talk about that wickedness as one who knows by experience."

Dr. Cordatus [his guest]: "By no means; you ought to do the opposite!"

To this Luther responded, "One must make the best of the vices that are peculiar to each land.  The Bohemians gorge themselves, the Wends [Slavic settlers in Saxony] steal, the Germans swill without stopping.  How would you outdo a German, dear Cordatus, except by making him drunk---especially a German who doesn't love music and women?"

Led Zeppelin Style: An Open Message to Pope Francis & Future Synod Members

Be a ROCK and not to roll.

Transgender "Men" in a Women's College

This story is NOT from the Onion! It is a true story.  Wellesley College is a well-known elite(ist) college.  (Didn't Hillary Clinton go there?)  So what happens when a woman enters the school but then later identifies as a man?  And what happens when "Timothy" runs for the office of "multicultural affairs coordinator" against several other women "of color"?  Excerpt:

Racism and Sexism are Insidious

Syme from the film, "1984"

Liberals are racism and sexism bloodhounds.  They are constantly on the move, nose to the ground, catching whiffs and barking up a tree.  Racism and sexism are everywhere.  A few examples and then two 1984 quotations below:

"Hooligan" "Bugger" "Eskimo" "Peanut Gallery" all racist.

Saying "you guys" to a group that includes both men and women is sexist.  One poor student confesses,

“I don’t consciously do it, but I’ll say ‘You guys!’ or ‘We should do something together, guys!’ and I don’t even consciously...like, usually I'm addressing a group of all girls,” a Macalester College student said in a video in August.

As a professor explains:

Homofascism Watch

Gordon College is given one year by its regional accreditation agency to review its stance which includes homosexual sexual acts among forbidden sexual practices.  I expect to see more of this.
One wonders if discriminating against pre-marital sex is also at odds with the accreditation agencies anti-discrimination policy.  One also wonders if discrimination against conservatives and religion is against the policy.  One wonders.  At some point, Christians--and thinking people more generally--will wise up to the fact that accreditation agencies have long outlived any usefulness they once had.  Scrap 'em. If you want to know what sort of education a university is offering, see for yourself.

In other news, the city of Houston has issued subpoenas demanding a group of pastors turn over any sermons dealing with homosexuality, gender identity or Annise Parker, the city’s first openly lesbian mayor. And those ministers who fail to comply could be held in contempt of court.

It cannot be repeated enough: "It is not enough to obey Big Brother.  You must love him."  You must think what he thinks. You must believe what he believes.  You must do the will of Big Brother.

The War Against Men

I have no opinion about the guilt or innocence of the police officer in the Ferguson shooting.  I have not seen enough evidence to have even a remotely well-informed opinion.  (And you probably haven't seen enough evidence either).

But one issue that the Ferguson incident raises is that a troubling number of men are killed by police officers.  For every 21 black males shot by police, 1 white male is shot.  But did you know that for every 11 women that are killed by police, the police kill 415 men.  That is 1 woman for every 37 males.  Is this a case of institutionalized misandry?  I think the answer is obvious.      ThatT

Why the Left Will Not Admit the Threat of Radical Islam

Mav-Phil

Why the Left Will Not Admit the Threat of Radical Islam

My philo cronies and I were discussing this over Sunday breakfast.  Why don't leftists -- who obviously do not share the characteristic values and beliefs of Islamists -- grant what is spectacularly obvious to everyone else, namely, that radical Islam poses a grave threat to what we in the West cherish as civilization, which includes commitments to free speech, open inquiry, separation of church and state, freedom of religion, freedom to reject religion, and so on?   Why do leftists either deny the threat or downplay its gravity?

Here is a quickly-composed  list of ten related reasons based on my own thinking and reading and on the contributions of my table mates Peter Lupu and Mike Valle.  A work in progress.  The reasons are not necessarily in the order of importance.  

Ferguson's Unasked Questions

Is there a record of white power structures suppressing the black vote in Ferguson?  What evidence is there that blacks are disproportionately, unjustly discriminated against in traffic stops in Ferguson?  Other questions here.

Generalizing from Ferguson, here is a fact that is not in dispute: far more blacks are killed by police officers than whites in the U.S.  According to ProPublica 21 black males are killed by police to every 1 white male killed.  It cannot be doubted that there are a troubling number of young blacks killed by police officers.  Of course, we also know that blacks commit crimes at a disproportionately greater percentage than other racial groups, so some or all of the data could be explained by that troubling fact.

Is police officer racism the main explanation as the mass media has determined well in advance of the evidence?  Probably not if that same ProPublica article is correct and able to be generalized.  Black police officers kill a higher percentage of blacks than they kill whites.  And white officers kill a greater percentage of whites than they kill blacks.

Who is killing all those black men and boys?Mostly white officers. [Of course, since 63% of the U.S. is white compared to 14% black.  There are more white officers.]  But in hundreds of instances, black officers, too. Black officers account for a little more than 10 percent of all fatal police shootings. Of those they kill, though, 78 percent were black.
White officers, given their great numbers in so many of the country’s police departments, are well represented in all categories of police killings. White officers killed 91 percent of the whites who died at the hands of police. And they were responsible for 68 percent of the people of color killed. Those people of color represented 46 percent of all those killed by white officers.

Greater Threat to World Peace: Isis or the U.S.?

Brian Leiter:

Of course the United States is a bigger threat to world peace...

...than the ISIS crazies.  Is this really a serious question?

Brian Leiter's blog--the most popular philosophy blog on the internet (until Daily Nous takes that spot, which I predict will happen within the next couple years due to Leiter's serial incompetence)--is valuable primarily for statements like this, exposing the lunacy of the elitist left.  

I wonder just how many people will be clamoring to get into the Great Satan this year, and how many will be clamoring to enter the Middle East?  I have a guess.

Are all Wrongs Wrongings?

It seems to me plausible that all wrong actions are the wrongings of someone or something.  To wrong someone or something is not to live up to the demands of the worth of that thing or individual.  Disrespect is a good example of a wronging, but disrespecting is certainly not the only way that one can wrong another.  Disrespecting someone--in the immoral instance--is failing to treat the person as having the appropriate worth.  A murderer, as well, is failing to acknowledge the worth of someone.  So the worth of individuals (and perhaps other things) is central to ethics (or should be!).  In contrast, if Utilitarianism is true then there are no wrongings, since the only goods on the Utilitarian view are goods which can be maximized such as subjective, desiderative states like pleasure.  There are right actions and wrong actions, but there's no place in the theory for wrongings or the violating of natural rights.  (There are legal rights for utilitarians but not natural or inherent rights).

Roe vs. Wade All Over Again?

In light of the recent Supreme Court decision not to take up federal appeals court decisions overturning state laws defining marriage as between a man and a woman, it is suggested here that the proper response is twofold:

1. States should start passing robust religious protection laws. We have already seen religious protections being chipped away.  See for instance my discussion here and here.
2. State governors and other individuals should begin exercising civil disobedience.

I would add a third and fourth:
3. People should read the Constitution for themselves.  It was written for the people, not for lawyers.  And there is clearly no right of gay "marriage" therein.
4. Make the case for federalism again and again.  In an increasingly polarized nation, federalism may be the only way of maintaining a semblance of unity among diversity.

It could well, be, however, that if and when an appeals court rules in the other direction, the Supreme Court will have to take up the issue.  And instead of yanking the CHOICE away from the states, they'll do the right thing and INTERPRET the Constitution.

Monash Love

Malea: "I can't wait for Mr. Monash to get here!  I can't wait!"

Sam: "I know what he looks like!  I know Mr. Monash.  I know what he looks like!"

Everyone: "What DOES he look like, Samuel??"

Sam: "He looks like...He looks like...."

Me: "What DOES  he look like???"

Sam: "He looks like...................."

Everyone: "What does he look like????"

Sam: "He looks like...He looks like................."I've seen him.  I know what he looks like."

[Pause]

Avalee: "I know what he looks like.  He looks like Iron Man from The Avengers."

Me: "HAHHHHAHAHHAHAHAA."

The Greatest Natural Theologian Alive

...was just at my alma mater, Purdue.  That's according to Dale Tuggy. Here is his post with links to the conference:

In September of 2014 I was privileged to attend a conference in honor of the greatest living natural theologian. For the uninitiated, this is what “natural theology” is (also here). The initiated hold Swinburne in awe because of his writings.  Richard Swinburne has produced an unparalleled string of carefully argued, in many cases ground-breaking books in philosophy of religion and in analytic theology (see the links below).

Many “big guns” of philosophy of religion came out to present at the conference, and to a person they related how Swinburne had inspired them to think deeply and carefully about various philosophical and theological issues. For my part, his The Christian God was the book that inspired and provoked me to look deeply into the issue of the Trinity. Professor Swinburne has a manly way of taking a stand on hard issues, fashion be damned. You may agree or disagree, but you will think.

Comedian Aziz Ansari: Everyone Should Say That They Are Feminists

Check this clip out from Letterman.  The feminism equals political egalitarianism meme is trending.  Feminism is trendy.  If you want to be part of the pop culture, political, university establishment you must say that you are a feminist.  Those poor, poor ignorant (or misogynistic) people who did not clap when asked who in the audience were feminists.  What were they thinking?

"It is not enough that you obey Big Brother.  You must love him."

If feminism=egalitarianism, then by parity of reasoning, masculinism=egalitarianism.  But then by the transitivity of identity, feminism=masculinism.  So if someone asks you if you're a feminist, and you're an egalitarian, just say "Yes, I'm a masculinist" for they are the very same thing.

Now Playing

Bob

Best Westerns

NO. Not Best Westerns.  Best Westerns.  Top Five:

#1

"All right, I'm coming out.  Any man out there, I'm gonna shoot him.  Any sumbitch takes a shot at me, I'm not only gonna kill him, I'm gonna kill his wife, all his friends, and burn his damn house down." 

Education and Accreditation Jargon Generator

Give it a try! It's fun!

Here are a few that I cranked out:

We will leverage interdisciplinary critical thinking for our 21st Century learners.

We will deploy outcome-based multiple intelligences through cognitive disequilibrium.

We will benchmark standards-based alignment in authentic, real-world scenarios.

We will cultivate mission-critical ESLR's with synergistic effects.

For my dim view of accreditation and outcomes-assessment see here.

Young Earth Creationism vs. Old Earth Theistic Evolution and God as Deceiver

There seem to me at least two ways in which people have been (and continue to be) deceived if either Young Earth Creationism or Old Earth Theistic Evolution is true.

Against Old Earth Theistic Evolutionists:  (1) If the Earth is 5+billion years old and humans have existed for millions of years then many people have been deceived about the book of Genesis.  In addition, (2) many people have been deceived about the history of the universe.  On the Young Earth Creationist view, the universe is roughly 6000 years old, there was an original pair of humans from which all other humans have descended, etc.  But that's all false if OETE is true.

Against Young Earth Creationists, the same problems hold: (1) Many people are deceived about the proper interpretation of Genesis and the implications of various statements in Genesis.  (2) Many people today are deceived about the history of the universe.

A non-believer might then turn this line of thinking into a dilemma:
1. If Young Earth Creationism is true, then God has allowed there to be massive deception.
2. If Old Earth Theistic Evolution is true, then God has allowed there to be massive deception.
3. If God exists, then probably either Young Earth Creationism or Old Earth Theistic Evolution is true.
4. If there were a God, God would not allow for massive deception.
5. Thus probably God does not exist.

Does God Care About the Outcome of Sporting Events?

Oxford philosopher Brian Leftow tackles that question: (incidentally, my pastor when I was at an ECC church in Lafayette, IN was good buddies with Leftow):

More Fatherly Advice

The more inept you appear in raising young boys, the more your older girls will raise them for you (and that's probably better for everyone, all things considered).

Steelers NLF Jerseys

I knew there was a reason God put me in Arkansas. Now I know WHY!  (I always sort of thought AR was the WV of the South.  Either that or the PA!)
HT: TH

More Philosophy Sayings

Here.

• We have to be realistic about how realistic we can be.
• The unlived life is not worth examining.
• The statue and the clay, one, and yet not one.
• Act so as to make the world the way you ought to want it to be.
• Those who can, do; those who can't, teach.  I teach ethics.
• Coercive paternalism: it's not as bad as it sounds.
• A Philosopher is someone who worries that what works in practice will not work in theory.

College Student Myths, Complaints, and Excuses

I was reminded of this recently.  It's been floating around the internet for a while but I think it originated here.
HT: AH

This Course Covered Too Much Material...

Great! You got your money's worth! At over $100 a credit, you should complain about not getting a lot of information. If you take a three credit course and get $200 worth of information, you have a right to complain. If you get $500 worth, you got a bargain.

The Expected Grade Just for Coming to Class is a B

This belief seems to be making the rounds in some college circles. The expected grade for just coming to class and not doing anything else is a D or an F. The average grade is supposed to be C although grade inflation is a perennial problem.

Unlike Lake Wobegon, all the children in the real world are not above average.

How Am I Doing In Class?

You're failing.

If you don't know the class material well enough to assess your own progress, and you don't know enough math to estimate your grade given your progress to date, you're failing.

You may luck out and get something higher than an F, but as theologians say, don't confuse mercy with merit.