The Profound Recession

When the 2008 housing bubble burst we started calling the economic fallout a ‘recession’. We used the term recession rather than depression because the last time we were in a big depression there were guys jumping out of windows and widespread woe and want in this country. We didn’t want to conjure a similar outcome with a slip of the tongue so we insisted that this time it was merely going to be a recession.


Well we are two years into this recession with things looking grimmer than ever. I just read an NPR article stating that we might be heading into a profound recession. Is there any economical distinction between a profound recession and a great depression? It makes me wonder if the next time our global economy is in the dumps that we will hesitate to call it a recession and revert back to the comfort of a great depression.


(I just realized that diction actually interested me for once)

IF - Phenomenon

A phenomenon is an observable occurrence while a noumenon "refers to an object of human inquiry, understanding or cognition."  Where exactly does the transfer between the material and immaterial occur?

Climate Change and Evolution, Stewardship and Responsibility

Materialist’s Foundational Position

Biology is meant to Adapt or Perish. While an individual organism or ecosystem can be fragile, life as a whole thrives on change. Climate has shifted radically in the past; with the extinction of species, the continuation of life as a whole, and the opportunity for new species. While this latest climate shift is manmade, man is not above the natural world (nothing is) so it becomes a natural consequence, just like every other climate shift in history.

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Materialist’s Actual Position

Man is responsible for the current change in climate. Since a radical change in climate will cause the destruction of species and some ecosystems, and because we cannot predict all the consequences of such a change; it is ultimately a bad thing. And because it is the result of our actions we are responsible for trying to stop it and mitigate its effects. (I don’t see this position to be entirely inconsistent, but rather it is consistent in a weaker way than the “foundational” position since it focuses on the fragility of life rather than the adaptability/resilience of life)

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Christian’s Foundational Position

God created man to steward life on the Earth. Man therefore has been given power and responsibility over the created biological order. Man is theoretically responsible for the current change in climate. Since a radical change in climate will cause the destruction of species and some ecosystems, and because we cannot predict all the consequences of such a change; it is ultimately a bad thing. And because life has been entrusted to us (and the climate shift might be the result of our actions) we are responsible for trying to stop it and mitigate its effects.

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Christian’s Actual Position

Since the Materialists are pushing an agenda of climate change, our position will obviously be opposed to it. Whether there is evidence out there or not, we will not look at it. Climate change is made up and not supported on scientific grounds (look it’s snowing). Oh and we forgot to mention that the measures that we need to take in order to reduce climate change are bad for business.

To be fair, none of these are realistic of the complexity of any individual’s actual views on the subject; I just thought that when reduced it was a nice example of how reactionary positions can lead to a denial of one’s original belief system foundations because the position of the opposition is not always entirely holistic itself. Put simply, reactionary positions tend to turn around and bite you in your philosophical ass.

Why is Our Top Categorical Distinction for Literature Between Fiction and Non-Fiction?

While the delineation between fiction and non-fiction exists, I don't think it's the most authoritative categorization of literature (or reality). I blame the Enlightenment.

Art as Incarnation

So after several revisions, I think my thoughts on art are clear enough to present to the public.

My initial assumption: Everything that is created has a Spirit behind it, every aspect of physical reality is incarnate. My definition of Spirit is incredibly broad in this context; it can refer to anything from individual’s will to physical laws.

Before I get into the definition of art, I will need to define Beauty (and prepare yourself for a roundabout definition). I find the ruggedness and dryness of the desert beautiful. This is personal taste and is subjective (there are plenty others who would disagree with me). But if I were the Sovereign Omnipotent Creator of the Universe my “personal taste” becomes objective in nature, it becomes Truth. Beauty is the taste of the one who is judging and it becomes an ethical standard (which can be subjective or objective).

Art and non-art are the two categories that all created things fall into. Beauty is the standard that separates them. The big problem with this system is that it ends up not being precise, exact, and mathematical because we have no way of accurately measuring and weighting the beauty contained within a created object. But just because it lacks preciseness doesn’t mean that automatically falls into the dreaded chasm of the subjective. The subjective/objective distinction is carried by what judge is used, and objective beauty ultimately comes from God as both the Creator and the Judge.

This understanding of art is helpful is several repects:
First, it establishes a context in which to view the existence of Beauty as a proof of the existence of God.

Second, it sheds light on the importance of the Incarnation.

Third, thought it is simple it can account for the myriad of objects that are labeled art by containing flexibility according to the taste of whatever is the judge while still maintaining an objective standard if using the right judge.

Fourth, it sheds light on man as a created, creative being (which allows for cool diagrams).

One thing I question is the relationship between the Spirit and the Form. From the top of the created order (God who has no creator) the Spirit must be the mover of the Form. But from somewhere in the middle of the created order it would seem that it is very possible for the Form to influence its Spirit. (Though there remains a normative hierarchy between the Spirit and Form because of the initial hierarchy from God.)

A New Calendar

I blame my continual decent into the mindset of an architect for this post (I never used to scrutinize a misalignment of an expansion joint and a window mullion). On this New Years day I was reflecting on our placement of the “new year” mark and was finding it to be disturbingly arbitrary. It didn’t make any sense outside of our traditional calendar saying this night is the new year. It is just close enough to the winter solstice to set off my architectural flags. This in turn set off a chain of thoughts cumulating in a complete redesign of the calendar. So here it is:

A couple of notes:

+Instead of random holidays that are not properly spaced there are four week long holidays. They roughly correspond to the major Jewish holidays and all end at an equinox or solstice (which provides a good measure of non arbitrariness). Christianity could then use them as celebration points throughout the year.

Spring Holiday= Celebration Holiday
Celebration of the Resurrection
(Passover/Easter)

Summer Holiday= Petition Holiday
Celebration of Grace
Jewish Shavot (Feasts of Weeks)

Fall Holiday= Gratitude Holiday
Celebration of Provision
Jewish Sukkot (Feast of Booths)

Winter Holiday= Repentance Holiday
Celebration of Justice
Jewish Yom Kippur

+With this calendar I am proposing a six day work week with shorter work hours on each of the days. (or you can just not have the week long holidays and make every 3rd month have an extra week)

7 hrs a day @ 6 days a week @ 48 weeks a year = 2016 work hours
compared with
8 hrs a day @ 5 days a week @ 52 weeks a year = 2080 work hours

+Each month has the same number of days, being 28. This means that every individual day of the month is always a certain day (ex: every 5th of every month is a Thursday). It also makes each month more in line with the lunar phases.

+Due to dividing the year into equal weeks, there is one day left to account for. I would put it right at the end of Spring holiday and call it something cool (celebration day will have to do for the moment). It would not be a day of the week. And to come full circle, it would be the start of the new year. The resurrection of Christ being the resurrection of the year.

+Just so you know I know: I don’t ever think a new calendar system will be implemented. This was just an exercise in the ideal. And think of all the people who have birthdays on days 29 to 31 who would be offended.

Praying for Augustine’s Conversion

If Augustine was right in suggesting that God created and is thus outside of time; can I pray for his conversion to Christianity in the same light as I pray for the conversion of Richard Dawkins? Meaning can I intercede for “past” events?



I asked this question to the group eating brunch at our house after church on Sunday. From that discussion (of which there were a variety of opinions) I came up with a range of consistent options that differ in how they view prayer* but keep the original proposition that the past and future the same:

A-If we view prayer as having no influence on God’s Will then we shouldn’t pray to change things in either the future or the past, but rather to see and be apart of God’s will no matter what happens or has happened.

B-If we view prayer as voicing our desires to God (the way in which we would like things to be, knowing that they might not correspond to God’s will due to our limited perspective); then we could voice desires for both the past and the future (no matter what the actual outcome of the past actually is).

C-If we view prayer as having the ability to change the outcome of things; then we pray for both past and future outcomes, but when praying for the past we pray for the way things actually happened (believing that we shaped the past just as we shaped the future).

I actually find a well rounded view of prayer through a combination of the above. “A” keeps us in perspective with God’s will, “B” deepens our relationship with God by strengthening our honesty with Him, and “C” lets us embrace our limited perspective and lets us pray with power and conviction concerning events (accordingly I think past prayers for C don’t work as well unless you slip into 4th dimensional thinking often).

Any thoughts or Scripture references that would support or correct the above train of thought?


*Note that I am just talking about the supplication part of prayer. Thanksgiving, adoration, and repentance are other important aspects of prayer not discussed here.

Bail Back In

I heard the finest (as well as sardonic) commentary on our country’s current turmoil on the radio yesterday. So I thought I would pass it along (you can also go listen to it read by the author by clicking here).

After the Bailout by Andrei Codrescu

I was sharpening my chain saw when they called me from Washington, D.C., to ask me how to fix the economy.

This request focused my thoughts, or the lack of 'em, to such a fine point, I gave my 14-inch Echo an edge it never had. Good enough for cutting half a cord at least, to keep the wood stove going through October. I love not paying the oil company a nickel. Except for the half-gallon of gas and the chain oil, but I'm fixin' to make the thing run on plum brandy. I've got a plum tree.

Ah, where were we? The economy, yes: $700 billion is more than enough money to buy every able-bodied American a chain saw, a solar-powered generator and a stake in a communal well and windmill. Also, red dirt and plum trees. That would probably only cost about $100 billion, and you can use the other $600 billion to buy everybody their house outright.

Now everybody can own their house and be green and self-sufficient, and can go back to whatever they were doing before the world ended: watching TV. Except for me. I was sharpening my chain saw.

So I go back to it, and I see a line of refugees coming up the road to move in with me. Oh my God, it's the '70s again. All my deadbeat friends — dead and alive — are being chased out of their homes and heaven for not owing any money. They are debt-free in a world that can't exist without interest rates. The dead are especially egregious in this regard; you can't squeeze even an extra penny out of them.

Oh, no, now that they are getting closer, I don't even think it's people from the '70s: It's people ... from the future!

It's worse than I thought: These are people independent from foreign oil, carrying solar-powered chain saws, full of American ingenuity. After the bailout, they owned their own homes, they didn't pay into a corporate energy grid, and they didn't worry about food because they grew it on the roof. They didn't drive, because they didn't have any jobs to drive to, and every garage in America was the site of an invention that was so darn beneficial nobody needed anything from the store.

Without worries about money, without a job, and with extra space in the garage to grow food and invent, these people forgot about the stock market, stopped borrowing money, even forgot how to shop — in short they stopped being American. These un-Americans got their exercise raking the compost instead of circling the mall; they home-schooled their children and were never again embarrassed that their kids knew more than they did. Heck, they were in heaven, the place where the pursuit of happiness leads to when you stop pursuing it.

Such self-sufficiency made the economy grind to a halt, so the government had to do something again: They called in the Army to chase everyone out of their self-contained greenhouses.

And now they are coming up the road to my place because I'm a poet, and I live in a compound defended by polygamist haikus.

"What did you do wrong?" I asked the first of the refugees to get over the palisades.

"Nothing," he said. "We just got out of debt and stopped watching TV! So the urge to buy things on credit disappeared. So they sent in the troops. First thing they did was to put a 40-inch plasma TV in every room and fixed it just so we couldn't turn it off. Just like in Orwell, only with much sharper images. They are calling this the Second Bailout, or the Bail Back In."

"At least the Second Amendment is safe," I said. "Nobody took away your guns, and the Founding Fathers didn't say anything about TV."

And with that, my chief haiku welcomed them thus:

make yourselves at home
you won't be bailed in or out again
you're safe in Second Life

Sustainability, the mature environmentalism

Any architect today knows about sustainability (specifically LEED). From our point of view it is how “green” buildings are. How much storm water run-off the building has, how reflective the roof is, how much of the insulation is made up of post consumer waste, how much day lighting is allowed, and the list goes on (and on). I am studying for the certification test right now and the binder is a couple of inches thick, chalked full of very boring material.

Going through the material, I have been pleasantly surprised that most of it is comprised of very practical, very smart issues that should be addressed when designing any building. It usually inserts an opportunity to think about buildings for their entire life and how their life and death better interact with the world around them.

I hate that ideas like environmentalism have been high jacked by extremists who at best worship the environment and at their worst hate man for ever existing. Contrasted, the philosophy of sustainability is as mature as environmentalism gets. It is about balancing our relationship with our environment through both understanding our impact on it and providing better conditions for both our lives and the environment. IMO Christianity should be jumping all over this new terminology of sustainability, but I am probably still in the minority when it comes to the church having anything to do with environmental issues.

Some Questions:

Does the idea of sustainability have any place of importance within the church? Not just passively but should we be actively putting time, energy, and recourses to understanding and maintaining our natural world?

As a church member what would your reaction be to hearing that your new church building was trying to be LEED certified? Would you think that the church is throwing money away, money that should be used to not incur debt, pay the pastor, or go to missions?

Determinism Conclusion

I went through all that trouble for two reasons.

First, to point out that this debate isn’t regulated to the realm of Seminary students. Einstein has probably had more influence on me being a Calvinist then Calvin. Theology is important, but I believe it on the same level as Science and Philosophy, that they all belong under the authority of Scripture.

Second, to show that within all fields of human study where you find them running into Determinism you find them running into paradox. I don’t hide behind the banner of things that are unknowable very often because it is a slippery slope; but I do hold that there are very specific thing to which human do not have the capacity to understand or reconcile with logic. This happens to be one of them. Unless you are comfortable holding a paradox in your mind, you will fall to one side or the other, between man’s perspective and God’s perspective. But believe me that I will not fault you for trying to disprove me on this.

Finally I can move on to other things like the fact that Prince Caspian has put out a movie poster:

Determinism (Part 1)

Philosophy

I start with philosophy not because it contains the most inherent truth but that it puts forth the groundwork in which I can start to expand into other more detailed areas. Philosophy from the beginning was plagued with a number of hard questions concerning how man was to relate to God, time, and his motivations as an individual. Even before western philosophy proper materialized, man was considering his place in this world. Fate was one of the earliest concepts of Determinism, in which the world was a chaotic place and the universe was dependent on the moods of fallible gods.

Philosophy would change that (and then change its mind); at least it would come in and give alternatives to a chaotic existence. Starting with Parmenides and Heraclitus, two of the earliest western thinkers to argue this subject, man began to ponder the essential nature of reality. Parmenides argued that change is an illusion, there is really no such thing as motion; while Heraclitus argued that change is the essential state of reality. Heraclitus took his view from the ever moving fire and water, that by observation life needed constant change. Parmenides argument would stem from logic, an internal observation, that rejected change as an illusion; a thought that would pop up as late as Einstein. The world’s ability to change will prove to be a reoccurring theme.

Plato introduced the universal and the particular, stating that the universal (the form) will determine the infinite individuals. He bridged the gap between the earlier philosophers by asserting that the universal doesn’t change while the particular does. This is a fantastic leap, for the gap between the two is a canyon that haunts philosophy (in all its forms) and it is this gap in which we find occurring between God and man. The universal/particular distinction is the backbone for understanding determinism in the contextual light of the changing world.

Thinking about Thinking

When I was a kid I used to associate colors with certain objects or ideas. For example, I always associated left with green and right with red. About a couple of months ago I found a name for this: Synesthesia. Apparently there are enough people in the world who do this that an entire branch cognitive science has sprung up to research it. Anyway, it’s a very broad term and usually fades as a person grows older (it has for me in any case) but it got me to thinking about how little we understand our own minds.

The mind is a marvel of human physiology; it contains memory, perception, emotion, personality, and control over the rest of the body. It is the link between the reality of ideas and the reality of the material flesh. It also continues to link Philosophy and Science (in the field of Psychology) despite modern man’s best attempts to separate everything. According to Descartes it is our relation both to our own existence and to the existence of God.

For a look at someone who is a living example of the potential that is contained within our heads, look over at Stephen Wiltshire’s site. Especially his drawings of Tokyo and Rome both completed all from memory after a short helicopter fly by over the city.