Botox 4 your Brain

Here is a new website that I would like to recommend:  “Neuroethics & Christian Thought,” http://www.Botox4TheBrain.com

Enjoy!

Q: What is wrong with the “American Patriot’s Bible”?

A: All of it.

What are they thinking?

If you bought it, burn it.

If you have not bought it yet, check some good advices from Michael Buttrey:

Buying The American Patriot’s Bible?

If you’ve heard about The American’s Patriot’s Bible and are wondering what the controversy is about and/or what you should do about it, I have a simple, three step plan:

1. Read Greg Boyd’s posts on the book: one, two, and especially three and four,

2. Read the publisher’s description of the book, then read some of its 82 widely divergent reviews at Amazon.com (feel free to rate them as helpful/unhelpful if you have an account),

3. Then, with the $26 you could have spent on the book, you can buy both Greg Boyd’s The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power Is Destroying the Church and Mark Noll and George Marsden’s The Search for Christian America, or you can get John Howard Yoder’s The Politics of Jesus and Stanley Hauerwas’ Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony bundled together.

Those prices are in US$ from amazon.com; in Canada, Boyd and Noll et al from Chapters will cost you $35, while you’ll have to get Yoder from Amazon.ca and Hauerwas from Regent’s bookstore for $41 all told. Still great value, though, compared to what you could have bought.

(After seeing his suggested reading list, I personally can’t wait to find and review a copy of Boyd’s new book, The Myth of a Christian Religion.)

Union with God: Luther turns Nyssa upside down!

Martin Luther’s and Gregory of Nyssa’s Understanding of “Union with God”

A Comparative Essay

Gregory of Nyssa (335 -394) and Martin Luther (1483 -1546) write about “union with God.” As a Christian realist, Nyssa uses Neo-Platonic categories to present the gospel and what it means to be united with God. As a Cappadocian, Eastern theologian and mystic, he influenced the doctrine of the Trinity, defended the integrity of the human nature of Christ, was known for allegory and the via negativa. As a figure of the Reformation, Luther reacted to one school of Nominalism. His novelty is that justification is a forensic imputation of Christ’s righteousness received by faith alone. He also desires to be united with God. However their views on “union with God” differ significantly. In From Glory to Glory and “The Freedom of a Christian,” even though Nyssa and Luther write about being united with God, they disagree regarding the meaning, the time, and the consequences of this union. For Nyssa, union with God is the telos of a progress of virtue towards the infinite and incomprehensible God. For Luther, union with Christ is a first step and assurance of one’s salvation by faith alone, as a consequence of a legal transaction. I compare what is union with God, how it happens, and what are its consequences.

Second Life: A flavor of Gnostisicm

This short documentary displays the influence of the virtual world in the lives of two married couples.

“Strangers in Paradise is the story of the lure, seduction and potential addiction of creating a ’second life’ online. Imagined lives in a virtual world, where users can make their dreams come true — what could possibly be wrong with that? For some, a lot. The fallout of a fictional virtual life can have far-reaching repercussions for their real lives.”

After watching this documentary, I felt that the gnostic idea of a life without flesh was recurrent here. One might think she can truly become herself by becoming what she always wanted. She incarnates her inner self into a virtual world. As I have mentioned in my last post, it might be appropriate to explore how I can use this new media the best (ethical) way, for fruitful purposes. One thing is certain, this virtual world has a tremendous influence on our world, as the documentary has shown: when two avatars decide to get married in the game, it might have consequences in the real life!

I highly recommend to watch the full episode here. (Caution: I think this is rated “R”).

Amusing Ourselves to Death -Part 2- Critique

Neil Postman is an extreme critic against television and its epistemology that differs from the typical typographic mind of modernity. In the first part, he successfully argues that the medium influences the message. However, this is no novelty: philosophy is better written in books than with emails, a dictionary of foreign words is easier produced on a book than a telegraph. Additionally, his analysis of the typographic mind of America seems extreme. Postman is blunt: before television America had the greatest mind, after television America has a shallow mind that just wants to be entertained. While the entertainment industry has undoubtedly shaped epistemology, it seems that more factors should be taken into consideration to analyze one’s mind. Logic and reading are only one aspect of intelligence. One can argue that visual, musical, environmental types of learning can be as good as other forms.  What seems to have changed might be people’s desire to be entertained more often than they used to be, because entertainment is everywhere. In the second part, it seems flabbergasting that a media theorist and cultural critic is unable to find anything positive about television. One might feel that he just dislikes any means of communication that differs from print (i.e. television, photography, telegraphy, smoke signals). It seems that Postman is nostalgic for modernity. He critiques postmodernity, where epistemology is more fragmented, and one’s mind is more visual than typographic.  However, to be fair to Postman, his analysis of how entertainment has affected public discourse is enlightening. It is indeed a new type of communication that has monopolized the public discourse, and one needs to be aware of the medium being used to communicate a message, because, as we know, the medium influences our epistemology.

Positively, the way he contrasts Huxley and Orwell’s fear of an oppressive society is fascinating. He states, “There are two ways the spirit of culture may be shriveled. In the first –the Orwellian –culture becomes a prison. In the second –the Huxleyan –culture becomes a burlesque” (155). It seems that those two opposite types of oppression could meet in their extremes. Especially when technological media has been so prosperous, it is easy to think of a society that would use the information and entertainment produced by this technological media to control and oppress its people, without them even being aware that their freedom has been taken away. Reading this book made me understand how the shift from modernity to postmodernity might have taken place within the media. Postman made me realize that to understand the media helps to understand how a society thinks and functions.

Negatively, I think that Postman gives the print too much credit. The print is not the only resource for one to improve her mind. Additionally, print has brought some negative consequences to the mind. One does not need to use and improve her ability to remember if she can always write down information. Postman needs to realize that books are not the primary way of communicating information now. Therefore, instead of rejecting this new media, it seems that I should explore how I could use it the best way I can for my purposes.

Amusing Ourselves to Death -Part 1- A Summary

In Amusing Ourselves to Death, Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, Neil Postman shows that Aldous Huxley’s fear in Brave New World has already begun in America of 1985. Entertainment has affected all public discourse, and people do not care if their communication has lost all meaning as long as they are being amused. Postman intends “to show that a great-media metaphor shift has taken place in America, with the result that the content of much of our public discourse has become dangerous nonsense” (16). He argues that the shift from print to television has affected the entire public discourse with the result that “we are people on the verge of amusing ourselves to death” (3).

The Problem of Evil -Why Should I Trust God?

The main point that Stackhouse argues in this book is that the Christian God who is all-good and all-powerful can be trusted in the midst of evil.

Part One raises problems related to God and evil. Stackhouse explains that a different understanding of God and evil changes the way the problem of evil is approached. He states that, “The central issue of God and evil . . . looks very different if one understands `God’ differently. It also looks very different if one understands `evil’ differently” (23). Stackhouse then expounds what “theists mean by evil” (29), distinguishing different types of evil. At the end of Part One, Stackhouse raises further problematic questions related to the problem of evil: Why do the guilty prosper? Why is there inconsistency regarding who get justice? Is there any meaning in life? Why is there any good at all?

Part Two tries to answer the questions raised in Part One. Stackhouse realizes that “we cannot know the answer to why God runs the world as God does, but we can know whether God can be trusted to do so in a way is good” (6). He starts explaining that evil can sometimes be used for a greater good. He goes on suggesting that this world is a good world after all, because it is suited to point towards redemption. This world “shows us our need, and provides opportunities to grow up into personal maturity” (154). Stackhouse gives “a partial theodicy that presented our world as the right sort of world for our actual condition” (145). However, Stackhouse does not give a complete theodicy. Stackhouse shifts the question to know if God can be trusted “in spite of evil, and in spite of our lack of a complete understanding of it” (99). Stackhouse’s conclusion is that God can be trusted in the midst of evil, because Christianity feels good, works, really happened, and makes sense in itself and of the world. Finally Stackhouse gives an epistemological defense of faith. He provides intellectual warrants to support faith in God. Stackhouse did answer the question raised in his book, arguing that, “Christianity . . . provides warrants for belief in an all-good, all-powerful God in the face of evil” (100).

Postmodernity & the Christian Story

If you wonder why would anyone still want to held to Christianity in a postmodern world, Bauckham gives you some good reasons.

Bible and Mission, which was originally a series of lectures in All Nations Christian College (2001), and in Ethiopia (2002), is a hermeneutic of the biblical narrative that shows how the Bible “embodies a kind of movement from the particular to the universal” (11).  It is not “an account of what the Bible says about mission or a biblical theology of mission” (11), but a book that seeks to encourage “those who feel a lack of confidence in the whole mission enterprise” (viii). Richard Bauckham argues that the biblical story, which moves from the particular towards the universal, is a metanarrative that could be an alternative to other metanarratives of which postmodern critics are suspicious. In Bauckham’s view, the biblical story is a non-coercive truth that accepts diversity and can be shared through non-oppressive witnessing.

Humble Apologetics, A Summary

The main point of Humble Apologetics is that apologetics must be done in a new way, which the author defines as the humble way, so that believers can “both defend and commend their religion without needlessly offending their neighbors and exacerbating the tensions of the global village” (xi). To be able to do that, the apologist needs to understand the challenges against faith in contemporary society. He also needs to understand what Christian conversion is. Finally he needs to be able to communicate his message.

A Redemptive Christian Ethics for Homosexuals

In Slaves, Women & Homosexuals, Webb suggests a redemptive Christian ethics. For him:

Creating a redemptive focus to our lives means that we love homosexual people as ourselves. It means that we treat them with the same kind of grace, respect, care and compassion with which we want to be treated. It means that we fight along side them against hateful action aimed at their community. It means all of the above, even if we do not agree with their sexual ethic.

Furthermore, Webb explains what a “multilevel ethics” is, using the story in Matthew 19:1-12. In this passage, while divorce was not God’s highest ethic, a certificate of divorce was given as protection, which was redemptive in this social context.

We should then seek what is redemptive in our current social context for our homosexual brothers and sisters. We can be encouraged when our homosexuals brothers and sisters are able to leave better lives, more peaceful lives with more human rights. And for this, we can stand with them.

So practically, Christians could encourage each other to grow in the ways of God even if on a scale from 1 to 1000 (1 being the ultimate sinner,  1000 Jesus), one only grow in her/his lifetime from 200 to 201.2, this is still a move closer to God. This might be a homosexual Christian who finds a celibate lifestyle impossible, “he or she should aim for an ‘optimum homosexual morality,’ developing a faithful, loving association with one other person. Though falling short of God’s ideal, this is ‘preferable to a life of sexual chaos.” Furthermore, this is the same for everyone,  not a special “treatment” for homosexuals.

Body, Soul, and Spirit

I have been working on an anthropological essay focusing on the nature of a person. Here is part of the introduction.

Recently the Catholic Church seems to have reinserted a tripartite notion of the human person (trichotomy) in their catechism.  Trichotomy is the doctrine that a person is composed of three “essential components” known as body, soul, and spirit.  This view is rejected by the majority of Protestant theologians, who want to emphasize the unity of the person.  Some major Protestant critics claim that trichotomy is Greek not Christian, that it breaks the unity of the person, that it is anti-intellectual, and even Gnostic. 

Why do Christians hate Homosexuals?

This paper is the result of some research made for a specific conversation. It seeks to answer the question, “Why do Christians hate homosexuals?” and attempts to reveal that even though some Christians have made mistakes in the way they have been (and sometimes still are) treating homosexuals, Christianity does not (and should not) hate homosexuals. Christianity might even be a good idea for a homosexual to consider. Here is the core of the paper.

Eternal punishment no more

Eternal punishment is not a clear Christian doctrine.

Here is a paper that engage with Augustine’s doctrine of eternal punishment in the City of God. I argue that Augustine fails to give a biblical anthropology for the final state of the wicked, because he assumes falsely that the body of the wicked will be raised from the dead and that the soul of the wicked is immortal, in order that they can suffer eternally. Therefore, conditionalism (the view that people outside of Christ will just cease to exist, and not suffer forever) seems to be a better view. For more, click the-final-state-of-those-without-christ