One of horsemen of the apocalypse.

This picture by Sam Van Olffen makes a perfect one:


"Cry havoc, and let loose the dogs of war!"

Mark Horne's Link to Ron Paul's warning that could...

maybe lead to the last entry (q.v.).
Let's not start.

This from my brother's blog

勉強日本: On the subject of Atrocities:
Let's Hope it doesn't happen again.

W: LP: LG: FD: BK

Tonight our literary group is meeting to begin our trip through this last major novel by Dostoevsky. For plot synopsis, criticism, and pithy comments, (I freely admit) one can easily do a google search for some brilliant blogs, columns, articles, etc. I am only going to make comment on passages that have some interesting bearing on various topics. Perhaps after our discussion I will gain some insights to share. I am deliberately not doing a search on what others are writing on this book as I want to go into the experience without preconception. (BTW we are using the newer Pevear/Volokhonsky translation, my edition being ISBN-13# 978-0-374-52837-9).

Anyway...

Toward the beginning of the book we have the following passage about an elder (a secondary character introduced near the beginning):

"For Alyosha there was no question of why they loved him so much, why they prostrated before him and wept so tenderly just at the sight of his face. Oh, how well he understood that for the humble soul of the simple Russian, worn out by toil and grief, and, above all, by everlasting injustice and everlasting sin*, his own and the world's, there is no stronger need and consolation than to find some holy thing or person, to fall down before him and venerate him: 'Though with us there is sin, unrighteousness, and temptation, still, all the same, there is on earth, in such and such a place, somewhere, someone holy and exalted; he has the truth; he knows the truth; so the truth does not die on earth, and therefore someday it will come to us and will reign over all the earth, as has been promised**.' Alyosha knew that this was precisely how the people felt and even reasoned; he understood it; and that the elder Zosima was precisely that very saint, that keeper of God's truth in the eyes of the people--this he himself did not doubt at all, any more than did those weeping peasants and their sick women who held out their children to the elder. The conviction that the elder, after death, would bring remarkable glory to the monastery, reigned in Alyosha's soul perhaps even more strongly than in anyone else's in the monastery. And generally of late a certain deep, flaming inner rapture burned more and more strongly in his heart. He was not at all troubled that the elder, after all, stood solitary before him: 'No matter, he is holy, in his heart there is the secret of renewal for all, the power that will finally establish the truth on earth, and all will be holy and will love one another, and there will be neither rich nor poor, neither exalted nor humiliated, but all will be like the children of God, and the true kingdom of Christ will come.' That was the dream in Alyosha's heart."

Two things: The dream of lasting peace and equity is universal and can only come as the kingdom of Christ arises in human hearts (a true Christian-ness, not the counterfeits that occur in every generation). The other point is that if elders of churches lived such exemplary lives as this fictional character is made out to be, the kingdom of Christ would grow in many hearts and lives. With reformed lives come reformed families from which reformed societies arise--this is what is dreamed about among the Christian community, not brutal subjection that unbelievers think that we advocate (or that can be seen whenever Islamo-fascists get the upper hand). Well, faith is...

*Romans 8:22=For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.
**The hope: Hebrews 11:1=Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Personal Update: Janie arrived home safely

Now that the princess is home in our castle, alles ist gute.

Social Philosophy: Politics again

Thanks to Mark Horne for this comment on today's economics. He makes some good points and I agree because my idea of capitalism is more favorable to small business over and against monolithic megacorporations who feel (and maybe know?) that they are above the laws and will of the people of the nations where they do business.

LtbWS: The Fumbler is learning html.

I have yet to figure out how to cause a link such that an audio file just streams automatically when the link is clicked.

Also, later I'm going to try to build a full-fledged web-page whereby as a page is viewed, an audio file automatically plays.

The good thing is that at this time in computer history, there are available many different pre-made software solutions. Perhaps if I find web-page development enjoyable, I can make an extra study of this topic (and of course pass on my experience here on the blog).

Song Lyrics: Redemption Song by Bob Marley

{Note the link below:}

Redemption Song

Old pirates, yes, they rob I;
Sold I to the merchant ships,
Minutes after they took I
From the bottomless pit.
But my hand was made strong
By the Hand of the Almighty.
We forward* in this generation
Triumphantly.
Wont you help to sing
These songs of freedom? -
cause all I ever have:
Redemption songs;
Redemption songs.

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery**;
None but ourselves can free our minds.
Have no fear for atomic energy,
cause none of them can stop the time.
How long shall they kill our prophets,
While we stand aside and look? ooh!
Some say its just a part of it:
We've got to fulfill de book.

Wont you help to sing
These songs of freedom? -
cause all I ever have:
Redemption songs;
Redemption songs;
Redemption songs.
---
/guitar break/
---
Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery**;
None but ourselves can free our mind.
Wo! have no fear for atomic energy,
cause none of them-a can-a stop-a the time.
How long shall they kill our prophets,
While we stand aside and look?
Yes, some say its just a part of it:
We've got to fulfill de book.
Wont you help to sing
Dese songs of freedom? -
cause all I ever had:
Redemption songs -
All I ever had:
Redemption songs:
These songs of freedom,
Songs of freedom.

*Should this word be "flowered" (as in prospered or come to fruition)?
**For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he...Prov.23:7a

Since Janie is coming back...

from Anchorage AK on Friday, I thought I would post this picture I've had from one of the Airports up there:



And speaking of cold environments, we have ice on Mars:

To Answer concern for the poor

Proverb 22:9 (ESV)

"Whoever has a bountiful eye will be blessed, for he shares his bread with the poor."

As Americans, we tend to often feel guilty about our own prosperity when we look at what people in the "two thirds world" have (or better, don't have). I like Peter Leithart's commentary on this proverb:

"Part of having a “good” or “clear” eye is generosity, as this verse makes clear (and as Jesus also makes clear in talking about alms-giving). One with a good eye is one who casts a kind eye on the needy and poor. Solomon says, as Jesus does, that God repays generosity to the poor. Those with good eyes will be blessed.

It is significant that the Proverb says that the man with a good eye gives “from” his bread, or as the NASB says “some of his bread.” That might sound less than fully generous: Why doesn’t he give it all away? Is Solomon endorsing a residual selfishness? I think instead we should view this as a description of hospitality. What happens to the rest of the bread? The man with a good eye consumes it, but consumes it along with the poor. The picture is of a man eating bread, confronted by a poor man, who gives part of his bread to the poor man. Hospitality, not unilateral dispossession, is the biblical ideal. Those who have should give to those who don’t have, but they give in such a way that they share the goods together. To put it another way, the economic reality of charity is part of the larger “social” reality of fellowship. The Table (like Jesus’ table during His lifetime) is the model."
End of Quote (emphasis mine).

Personal Update & Political Commentary

I've been busy cleaning my study and reorganizing my Shiite, so I've been offline for a few days. I'll post a picture later.

Meanwhile:


And here a picture to go with the following humorous account of an election in one of the episodic chapters of Charles Dickens' book, "The Pickwick Papers". I'll quote the passage here:

"It appears, then, that the Eatanswill people, like the people of many other small towns, considered themselves of the utmost and most mighty importance, and that every man in Eatanswill, conscious of the weight that attached to his example, felt himself bound to unite, heart and soul, with one of the two great parties that divided the town--the Blues and the Buffs. Now the Blues lost no opportunity of opposing the Buffs, and the Buffs lost no opportunity of opposing the Blues; and the consequence was, that whenever the Buffs and Blues met together at public meeting, Town-Hall, fair, or market, disputes and high words arose between them. With these dissensions it is almost superfluous to say that everything in Eatanswill was made a party question. If the Buffs proposed to new skylight the market-place, the Blues got up public meetings, and denounced the proceeding; if the Blues proposed the erection of an additional pump in the High Street, the Buffs rose as one man and stood aghast at the enormity. There were Blue shops and Buff shops, Blue inns, and Buff inns;--there was a Blue aisle and a Buff aisle, in the very church itself.
Of course it was essentially and indispensably necessary that each of these powerful parties should have its chosen organ and representative: and, accordingly, there were two newspapers in the town--the Eatanswill Gazette and the Eatanswill Independent; the former advocating Blue principles, and the latter conducted on grounds decidedly Buff. Fine newspapers they were. Such leading articles, and such spirited attacks!--"Our worthless contemporary, the Gazette"--"That disgraceful and dastardly journal, the Independent"--"That false and scurrilous print, the Independent"--"That vile and slanderous calumniator, the Gazette"; these, and other spirit-stirring denunciations were strewn plentifully over the columns of each, in every number, and excited feelings of the most intense delight and indignation in the bosoms of the townspeople."

End of Quote

This is the perfect universal metaphor of America's mindless political system. "Don't look behind the curtain"

Peter Leithart again:

"The way to political authority is not compromise, but faithfulness."

Cosmos: My Tesla Power Receiver

Oh how I wish I could sit under the teaching of Leithart

Since God has called me (a rash being) into a life of patience, I must be content to merely fulfill my current calling as Electrician and wait until or if God will permit me to study full time without regard to employment for money.

I would immediately move to easy driving distance of New St. Andrews and the church where Peter Leithart teaches and preaches. Even if I am no genius (and I most definitely am not), I would seriously study all of Theology, Philosophy (especially Natural Philosophy), and History that my average brain and short life-span could handle.

To illustrate how fun it would be to learn in the Leithart environment let me here quote a number of his entries in the last week or so:

Science: Real time
__________________

KG Denbigh wrote in 1981 that physics treats time as a simple continuum: “It knows of no means of picking out a unique moment, the now or the present. The t-coordinate is an undifferentiated continuum, and, if this coordinate is ‘taken for real’ as has been the tendency among many scientists and philosophers, the familiar distinction between past, present and future, so important in human affairs, comes to be regarded as a mere peculiarity of consciousness. It is as if every event along the coordinate is, in some sense, ‘equally real’ even those events which (to us) ‘have not yet happened.’ On this view of matter it is a function of consciousness that we ‘come across’ those events, experiencing the formality, as it has been said, of the events ‘taking place.’”

But of course, a time in which every time is equally present is fundamentally a-temporal, which is precisely what Newtonian absolute time is.

posted by Peter J. Leithart on Monday, June 16, 2008 at 4:23 pm
_______________________________________________________________

Science: Dance of life
______________________

Summarizing findings in physics and biology that should inform social science, Barbara Adam writes, “All organisms, from single cells to human beings and even ecosystems, display rhythmic behaviour. Rhythmicity is a universal phenomenon. Scientists conceptualise atoms as probability waves, molecules as vibrating structures, and organisms as symphonies. Living beings, they suggest, are permeated by rhythmic cycles which range from the very fast chemical and neuron oscillations, via the slower ones of heartbeat, respiration, menstruation, and reproduction to the very long range ones of climactic changes. Their activity and rest alternations, their cyclical exchanges and transformations, and their seasonal and diurnal sensitivity form nature’s silent pulse. Some of this rhythmicity constitutes the organisms unique identity; some relates to its life cycle; some binds the organism to the rhythms of the universe; and some functions as a physiological clock by which living beings ‘tell’ cosmic time.”

Adam uses this evidence to cleverly deconstruct the dualism of natural/social time that is a foundational structure of much social science. The notion that human rhythms respond to astronomical ones makes the point vividly: “All the varied cycles of physiological activity - temperature, blood pressure, respiration, pulse, haemoglobin and amino acid levels, hormone production, organ function, cell division - rise and fall within [circadian rhythms of light and darkness] and are synchronised into a cohesive temporal whole. The image of a symphony is frequently used to stress the complexity, the interdependence, and the fine-tuning involved. This bodily symphony, however, is not placed in isolation. It is performed in synchrony with all the earth’s other symphonies.”

Obviously, these rhythms are integrated with, adjusted and adapted to, suppressed by artificial organizations of time - whether technological (clock, bell, whistle, electric lights) or social (holiday, festival). And the various artificial forms of time-formation take their rise from, and symbolize, these natural rhythms.

posted by Peter J. Leithart on Monday, June 16, 2008 at 4:36 pm
_______________________________________________________________

Science: Replaceable parts
__________________________

Behind much of today’s biotechnology is the (Newtonian?) notion that living organisms are machine-like. And living organisms can look like machines in some respects. But they aren’t. Barbara Adam points out that the cells of our bodies are incessantly self-renewing - our limbs aren’t like gears that stay the same over time. Nor do the regularities of living organism meet the mechanical ideal of invariant repetition. Living organisms constantly balance decay and renewal, so that their stability is “fundamentally dynamic.” Very un-machine-like.

posted by Peter J. Leithart on Monday, June 16, 2008 at 4:42 pm
_______________________________________________________________

History: Freud and the Steam Engine
___________________________________

Barbara Adam points out that the leading metaphors for nature in the seventeenth and eighteenth century were mechanical. Creation was a clock. By the nineteenth century, though, steam technology had taken over the European imagination, and metaphors of “letting off steam” and “safety valve” were applied to social and psychological realities, not least by Freud.

Perhaps: No steam, no Freud.

posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, June 17, 2008 at 6:09 am
________________________________________________________________

Science: Sentient plants
________________________

R. Fischer says, “The relativity of our reference point can be demonstrated by taking a moving picture of a plant at one frame a minute and then speeding it up to thirty frames a second. The plant will appear to behave like an animal, clearly perceiving stimuli and reacting to them. Why, then, do we call it unconscious? To organisms which react 1800 times as quickly as we react, we might appear to be unconscious. They would in fact be justified in calling us unconscious, since we would not normally be conscious of their behavior.”

posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, June 17, 2008 at 6:13 am
________________________________________________________________

History: January 1
__________________

Norbert Elias (An Essay on Time) writes that “for a long time . . . there were, even within one and the same state, traditional local diversities with regard to the beginning of a year, and thus to its end. As far as one can see, it was Charles IX, king of France, who, after some discussion, decided in 1563 to impose on French society a uniform date for the beginning of the year, setting it at 1 January. His edict, put into practice in 1566, broke with a more or less official tradition which linked the beginnings of the year to the Easter festival. Accordingly, the year 1566, beginning on 14 April and ending on 31 December, had only eight months and 17 days. . . . At the time this change aroused strong opposition.”

posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, June 17, 2008 at 8:37 am
________________________________________________________________

Philosophy: Trained Ego
_______________________

Elias challenges the Cartesian method of doubt, arguing that Descartes scrums around to get beneath all he’s picked up and finds, at bottom, things he’s picked up: “he is supposed to penetrate in his meditation, all on his own, to a layer of his own intellect believed, in accordance with the unexamined dogma of the time, to be unlearned and independent of his own or anyone’s experience. In trying to do so he deploys an immense arsenal of learned knowledge, including learned concepts. What he encounters in his descent into the transcendental depths of his own thought and what he brings to light is, in other words, the very conceptual apparatus that has been passed on to him by others, that he uses on his ‘journey into the interior.’ That is, he interprets as unlearned property of his own thinking, and that of all others, concepts which are part of the establishes repertoire of the language and knowledge of his time - but certainly not of all times.” Then, he proceeds to universalize this trained ego as if it were human nature as such.

And, further: Descartes’s case was argued “in languages such as Latin and French and thought out with the help of the tradition of knowledge handed on to Descartes together with these languages. He thus derived from what he had learned from others the very means of discovering something ‘within himself’ which, as he saw it, did not come from ‘outside’ and could not, therefore, be a possible illusion. If, however, everything that is learned from others and is therefore an experience from ‘outside’ can be doubted as a possible illusion, may not the language which one has learned from others also be an illusion and the others from whom one has learned it, too? Descartes’ doubt, as one can see, did not go far enough. It came to a half precisely at the point where it might have jolted the philosopher’s axiomatic belief in the absolute independence and autonomy of ‘reason’ as the seemingly ultimate proof of his existence.”

Elias echoes Hamann’s critique of Kant here, perhaps unwittingly.

posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, June 17, 2008 at 9:00 am
________________________________________________________________

History: Masks and clocks
_________________________

Elias wryly comments that in urban societies the manufacture and use of clocks is similar to the use of masks in tribal cultures: “one knows they are made by people but they are experienced as if they represented an extra-human existence. Masks appear as embodiments of spirits. Clocks appear as embodiments of ‘time.’”

posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, June 17, 2008 at 2:08 pm
________________________________________________________________

Theology: Angels and progress
_____________________________

Thoughts from what Jim Jordan calls the “deep weird”:In Revelation, the angelic elders give up their crowns at the outset, and at the end of the book the saints are enthroned for a thousand years. Revelation depicts a transition from angelic to human government.

Angels, Scripture tells us, are somehow related to physical processes - winds and storms and so on.

What if the transition from angelic to human government of creation didn’t happen all at once? What if it’s still going on?

Maybe magic worked up to the sixteenth century because certain spheres of creation were still under angelic control, and humans had ways of accessing their powers; maybe medievals saw “fairies” (= angels) in the woods; maybe astrology had something to them for a time. Maybe the universe actually “worked” differently under angelic command than it does now.

Over time, more and more of creation is being handed to human beings. Once, we needed angels to send instantaneous messages across the globe. Now we can do it ourselves, and the angels kick back for a well-deserved rest. Once, we needed black or white magic (demons/angels) to levitate, but now O’Hara launches thousands into space every hour, and the market in flying broomsticks has accordingly collapsed.

Weber would be right: The world has been disenchanted. Perhaps that’s nothing to mourn. Perhaps that’s the way things ought to be.

posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, June 17, 2008 at 2:22 pm
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
End of Quote

Well, if you made it this far you can see the breathtaking scope of the man's contemplation. I used to speculate about many things like what Peter has written here except that Science Fiction authors at that time were what informed my interstellar flight of mind. This is delicious wondering about God's intricate universe (or would it be a multiverse due to the transcendent immensity of time?).

Thanks be to God for the glorious works He has wrought.

Novo Visum
Neue Ansicht

Copyright (until I can afford copyleft): A Point of Information

In addition to my commentary on my learning experiences with literature, occasional philosophical digression, and (some day soon again) exploration of Natural Philosophy (Science, Math, Computers, etc.), I will be posting stories that I am working on. So far the stories are only in fragmentary form but as I edit them I will update the posts. This means that if my audience (the one or two people in the universe that know of my existence on the web) will have to check back about once a month to see if the stories were changed.

I hope to become a writer of fiction, so until I am sure (after ten years+) that there is no hope for me in this endeavor, consider my writing copyrighted. This is important, because I once won runner-up in the Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts poetry contest for one of my poems and decades later some lines from my poem showed up in a band's lyrics (unless it was a strange coincidence).

So stay tuned...

W: LP: LG: FD: C & P

Thursday night on June 5, 2008, our literary group completed discussion of Fyodor Dostevsky's Crime & Punishment (Pevear/Volokonsky translation). My previous thoughts on this 1866 novel in this blog still apply, but I wanted to comment on a section from the epilogue of this book.

When Raskolnikov goes to Siberia for his eight year sentence, during his first year, he remains unrepentant. He finally breaks down and accepts redemption and is repentant, but during the mental crisis before he reaches this point, while he lies sick in the prison hospital, he has a dream or vision related in the story that bears quoting here:

"As he began to recover, he remembered his dreams from when he was still lying in feverish delirium. In his illness he had dreamed that the whole world was doomed to fall victim to some terrible, as yet unknown and unseen pestilence spreading to Europe from the depths of Asia. Everyone was to perish, except for certain, very few, chosen ones. Some new trichinae had appeared, microscopic creatures that lodged themselves in men's bodies. But these creatures were spirits, endowed with reason and will. Those who received them into themselves immediately became possessed and mad. But never, never had people considered themselves so intelligent and unshakeable in the truth as did these infected ones. Never had they thought their judgments, their scientific conclusions, their moral convictions and beliefs more unshakeable. Entire settlements, entire cities and nations would be infected and go mad. Everyone became anxious, and no one understood anyone else; each thought the truth was contained in himself alone, and suffered looking at others, beat his breast, wept, and wrung his hands. They did not know whom or how to judge, could not agree on what to regard as evil, what as good. They did not know whom to accuse, whom to vindicate. People killed each other in some sort of meaningless spite. They gathered into whole armies against each other, but, already on the march, the armies would suddenly begin destroying themselves, the ranks would break up, the soldiers would fall upon one another, stabbing and cutting, biting and eating one another. In the cities the bells rang all day long: everyone was being summoned, but no one knew who was summoning them or why, and everyone felt anxious. The most ordinary trades ceased, because everyone offered his own ideas, his own corrections, and no one could agree. Agriculture ceased. Here and there people would band together, agree among themselves to do something, swear never to part--but immediately begin something completely different from what they themselves had just suggested, begin accusing one another, fighting, stabbing. Fires broke out; famine broke out. Everyone and everything was perishing. The pestilence grew and spread further and further. Only a few people in the whole world could be saved; they were pure and chosen, destined to begin a new generation of people and a new life, to renew and purify the earth; but no one had seen these people anywhere, no one had heard their words or voices."

I quote this passage since it struck me as somehow prophetic. Besides also being a metaphoric description of all of human history, it is a more fitting description of the events of the twentieth century (think of WWI, The Russian Revolution, The rise of Fascism, WWII, etc.). The plague of sin in human history is indeed like the black death (perhaps alluded to in the second sentence of this quote), and its effects are not just the personal misery of individuals, but the ruin of the potential of all humanity. The solution to this pernicious blight on the universe is always going to be a redemption from it bought by our savior Jesus Christ. May God grant regeneration to the people of our nation and world in our 21st century.