Hard Times

I recently finished Hard Times by Charles Dickens. It was a delight to read as Dickens makes fun of what I think is called Pragmatism. I found the book funny and insightful. My only complaint is that I did not see poetic justice. Yes, the bad guys lose or reform in the end, but those who are wronged are not righted. Despite this minor annoyance, the characters are rich and engaging.

Jorja

Our new Shih Tzu puppy.

Grass

Here is how the grass is progressing. Looks good to me. Might need to add some seed to fill in some holes, but it looks great.

I made a workbench. It's my first one. I may make some modifications, but it will work for my purposes. I am hoping to make some book shelves next.

Here is a spring shot of our backyard. That is our house in the distance. We are hoping to axe the tree in the near future to let more sun in and prevent it from falling on our house in the event of a windstorm.

These are some mushrooms I found in our yard. They have probably been mowed over by now, but I didn't hesitate to take a few pictures. Does anyone know if these are edible?

Happenings at Home

I have been planting grass. It works well to plant one area at a time so it does not become a time burden.


I have also sighted a few birds.






We had some visitors from the Dominican Republic last week. They were attending the Desiring God Children's Conference. Two spoke English quite well, and two hardly at all. We hope they enjoyed their stay.

New Job

Starting Monday, I will be working for DLR in Eden Prairie.

Heather is waitressing for the Macaroni Grill.

More to come...

Review of Melville

At long last I managed to finish Moby Dick, so now it is time for its review.

In short, I do not recommend this book unless if you are curious to know every facet of the anatomy of the sperm whale. It seems to me that Melville sandwiched his fascination for whales between a meager 200 pages of plot--making what could have been a quick read into a 724 page monster.

Now, don't get me wrong, the whale anatomy and details of the whaling business were interesting, to a point. But I would be lying if I did not confess that the quantity of those "informative" chapters caused me to lose interest in the book, made it hard to keep track of the plot, and made me lose my appetite and become nauseous during the graphic blubber-processing chapter. I give it 3 stars out of 10.

Turning now to the theological; the beginning of the book had an interesting portion that had very shady and heretical implications. The narrator, Ishmael, has made friends with a "pagan" harpooner named Queequeg. After Ishmael has once observed Queequeg worshipping his idols, he dialogs with himself concerning his own Christian duties in relation the the "pagan".

I was a good Christian; born and bred in the bosom of the infallible Presbyterian Church. How then could I unite with this wild idolator in worshipping his piece of wood? But what is worship? thought I. Do you suppose now, Ishmael, that the magnanimous God of heaven and earth--pagans and all included--can possibly be jealous of an insignificant bit of black wood? Impossible! But what is worship?--to do the will of God--that is worship. And what is the will of God?--to do to my fellow man what I would have my fellow man to do me--that is the will of God. Now, Queequeg is my fellow man. And what do I wish that this Queequeg would do to me? Why, unite with me in my particular Presbyterian form of worship. Consequently, I must then unite with him in his; ergo, I must turn idolator. So I kindled the shavings; helped prop up the innocent little idol; offered him burnt biscuit with Queequeq; salaamed before him twice or thrice; kissed his nose; and that done, we undressed and went to bed, at peace with our own consciences and all the world.

Yuck! The faulty reasoning makes my skin crawl.


I think I will try to finish Owen's Temptation & Sin before I go on to anything more. Having been spoiled by Victor Hugo and John Steinbeck, I think I need a break from fiction.

Orange

Ah, the joys of owning a house.

For example, this fall I raked leaves for 3 days nonstop. All of our earthly possesions are under one roof. We have a humongous south window in our living room. I am planning to plant a garden in our backyard (versus the garden-in-buckets strategy from previous years). No one lives either a floor above or below us. But, most importantly, I can paint the walls whichever color I please.

As you can see, orange was chosen for the kitchen. Why orange? Because it makes me happy. That is all. No one else to please--except John!


Now for the rest of the house . . .

Visitors

We had some visitors this weekend. And if any other friends want a place to stay as you visit Minneapolis, you are welcome.

Ambiguous

A word I learned in college is ambiguous.

Stem Cells and Humans

An answer to my question whether or not stem cells are equivalent to embryos:

A human embryo — precisely because it is a complete member of the human species — can develop towards maturity, given a suitable environment and adequate nutrition. The embryo possesses the genetic and epigenetic primordia and the active disposition for self-directed growth towards the next more-mature stage. But this is not true of a stem cell or even of a mass of stem cells. Like somatic cells that might be used in cloning, they possess merely a passive capacity to be subjected to various techniques of asexual reproduction and so become parts of a new human organism.

Silver bases his claim that “embryonic stem cells are equivalent to embryos” on the fact that mouse embryos can be generated from embryonic mouse stem cells and have all of their genetic makeup, and cell lineage, derived from those initial stem cells. A tetraploid embryo-like entity known, though controversially, as a tetraploid “embryo” (“tetraploid” meaning that the entity has four sets of chromosomes rather than the normal two sets) is developmentally defective, so it can give rise only to trophoblastic cells (precursors of the placenta and associated tissues) and not to the cells of the “embryo proper.” When combined with mouse ES cells (ones that have a normal number of chromosomes), these can produce a chimeric mouse in which the cell lineage of its placenta and associated tissues is derived from the tetraploid entity (or “embryo”), and the cell lineage of the mature embryo (the “embryo proper”) is derived from the ES cells. From this, Silver infers that ES cells can by themselves develop into the mature stage of the animal (see his book, p. 140) — “by themselves” in the sense that the DNA in all of the mature embryo’s cells is identical to that in the ES cells.

From National Review article by Patrick Lee & Robert P. George.

Excerpt From The Idiot

About dreams and reason:

These letters too were like a dream. Sometimes one dreams strange, impossible and incredible dreams; on awakening you remember them and are amazed at a strange fact. You remember first of all that your reason did not desert you throughout the dream; you remember even that you acted very cunningly and logically through all that long, long time, while you were surrounded by murderers who deceived you, hid their intentions, behaved amicably to you while they had a weapon in readiness, and were only waiting for some signal; you remember how cleverly you deceived them at last, hiding from them; then you guessed that they'd seen through your deception are were only pretending not to know where you were hidden; but you were sly then and decieved them again; all this you remember clearly. But how was it that you could at the same time reconcile your reason to the obvious absurdities and impossibilities with which your dream was overflowing? One of your murderers turned into a woman before your eyes, and the woman into a little, sly loathsome dwarf--and you accepted it all at once as an accomplished fact, almost without the slightest surprise, at the very time when, on another side, your reason was at its highest tension and showed extraordinary power, cunning, sagacity, and logic? And why, too, on waking up and fully returning to reality, do you feel almost every time, and sometimes with extraordinary intensity, that you have left something unexplained behind with the dream? You laugh at the absudities of your dream, and at the same time you feel that interwoven with those absurdities some thought lies hidden, and a thought that is real, somethings belonging to your actual life, something that exists and has always existed in your heart. It's as though something new, prophetic, that you were awaiting, has been told your in your dream. Your impression is vivid, it may be joyful or agonizing, but what it is, and what was said to you, you cannot understand or recall. (Dostoevsky p.415 2004 Fine Creative Media Inc.)

Homemade Shelves

They are stackable so as I make more, we can rearrange things as we see fit. My workmanship is not great, but this is my first shelving project.

Happy Belated New Year

I don't have a lot of interesting things to say today, but I thought I would proclaim what I've been up to these days.

We had a Christmas.





















I finally finished The Myth of Religious Neutrality, but I am afraid I am going to have to withold judgement until I can study it further. There were a few concepts I didn't understand and some arguments that I could not follow upon the first read.

I discovered that my Library offers the use of the Rosetta Stone - language learning program online. I am learning Spanish, but I could choose to learn Chinese, Japanese, Latin, French, German, Hebrew, Greek, Arabic, Farsi, Hindi, and more.

I am currently reading The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis and The Idiot by Dostoyevsky. I will soon be reading Biblical Theology by Gerhardus Vos (mostly so I can see what Nevada was fussing about a while ago.)

My cousin graciously lent me some DVD's produced by the Teaching company. I am watching the courses on String Theory, Particle Physics, and Argumentation.

Heather is reading Sin and Temptation (or is it Temptation and Sin?) by John Owen, Moby Dick by Herman Melville, Future Grace by John Piper, and Shadow of the Almighty by Elizabeth Elliot.

We are both in a Bible reading plan to go through the Bible in a year. We started in May, so even though we are over half way through, we are in Genesis, Acts, Psalms, and Matthew.

Heather has been sewing. She just finished embroidering a dress she bought in Nicaragua, and modifying it into a tunic length shirt.

We just had our picture taken for the church directory tonight.

As of now my picture is on our church's website. I am the one with glasses under the "worship" heading. So now my mother can rest knowing that her son does in fact attend church.

And here is an old picture of me having fun raking (from this fall)(Heather wanted to let you know that she did most of the raking)

Clouser on Heisenberg

I have, for the past few years, wondered if we cannot know the velocity and position of an electron because it has none, or if we just cannot measure both. Here is Clouser's take on it:

But the view Heisenberg held of the nature of atoms and other particles required him to take a very special interpretation of the uncertainty between the momentum and location of particles-one that has come to be known as the "Copenhagen interpretation." Since he was committed to the view that reality is mathematically calculable "in every detail," and since we cannot calculate both the position and momentum of a particle, Heisenberg said that particles must not have both speed and location. This means that any particle for which we choose to measure either momentum or location only ever had whichever one of those properties we chose to measure! That is, if we find a particle's velocity, then it never had location; while if we find its location, then it never had velocity.(Clouser 155)

From The Myth of Religious Neutrality - Revised edition.

Clouser is clearly stating that we cannot know the velocity and position of subatomic particles simply because we cannot measure it. Is this the reason for all the headaches? It seems too simple to me, and if Clouser is wrong-if there isn't some further evidence for particles having neither velocity nor position, he is greatly sacrificing his credibility. I think so enough to think that he wouldn't say what he said unless he had done his homework.

Flauvius Josephus

Josephus was a historian around the time of first century church. As he was not a believer, I suspect that his words about Christ may be sarcastic, but interesting nonetheless.

On Jesus:

Now, there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it is lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works-a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day. (Antiq. 18.3.3)

On John the Baptist:

Now, some of the Jews thought that the destruction of Herod's army came from God, and that very justly, as punishment of what he did against John, that was called the Baptist; for Herod slew him, who was a good man, and commanded the Jews to exercise virtue, both as to righteousness towards one another, and piety towards God, and so to come to baptism; for that the washing [with water] would be acceptable to him, if they made use of it, not in order to the putting away [or remission] of some sins [only], but for the purification of the body; supposing still that the soul was thoroughly purified beforehand by righteousness. Now, when [many] others came in crowds about him, for they were greatly move [or pleased] by hearing his words, Herod, who feared lest the great influence John had over the people might put it into his power and inclination to raise a rebellion (for they seemed ready to do anything he should advise), thought it best, by putting him to death, to prevent any mischief he might cause, and not bring himself into difficulties by sparing a man who might make him repent of ti when it should be to late. Accordingly he was sent a prisoner, out of Herod's suspicious temper, to Macherus, the castle I before mentioned, and was there put to death, Now the Jews had an opinion that the destruction of this army was sent as a punishment upon Herod, and a mark of God's displeasure against him. (Antiq. 18.5.2)

Excerpts from "The works of Josephus" translated by William Whiston. 1987 by Hendrickson Publisers, Inc.

Per Se

I just realized that I had the wrong understanding of the phrase "per se". I had assumed that it meant that the statement coming before it was true in a sense, but is not true in all senses. That was rather wrong. If this word is unfamiliar to you, it essentially means "intrinsically". While I was reading Roy Clouser's "The Myth of Religious Neutrality" I kept asking myself, "why does he keep saying "divine per se". Under my previous understanding, he would have only needed to say that once. Any subsequent uses of the word would be supurfluous. But since per se means intrinsically, it is clear that he uses the term to mean that which is divine of itself, and does not receive its divinity from something else. Because of this, he must use "per se" to distinguish between the two kinds of divinity.
To clarify Clouser's use of the term, he would speak of Christians as believing that God is divine per se, while other religions, like the ancient Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Norwegians, and Hindus would have something they regard as divine per se, distinct from "gods" they might consider divine.

I Finished Reading a Book

Called How to Read a Book. I highly recommend it.

Joe Carter writes on Gen-X

See X-Cons:The Conservative Mind of Generation X at the Evangelical Outpost. I can't say all of it is true of me, but it is very accurate. My favorite line is, "X-Cons believe that if liberals would only take a class on economics that they would see the light and repent of their collectivist ways." So true, so true...

On the Pope

Lee Harris writes an interesting article at the Weekly Standard about the Pope's recent lecture.

I don't like the Greek bent on it, but if that is what the Pope was talking about, then I think this article clears up a lot.

The Names of God

This is an interesting article about the names of God. Many of the Jehovah-[] names are about God, but they are not names of God. They are instead names of places and alters, or just statements describing God's character. The article is not long, so I commend it to you.