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November 03, 2008
Books : Books 2008/11/03
Current count of books pending to be read: 76
Read one, purchased none
Books finished this week:
The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Beliefby Francis S. Collins
Excellent book.
Francis Collins is a geneticist who invented the “positional cloning” technique for finding genes which allowed his team to discover the genes responsible for several diseases. These discoveries led him to be appointed director of the Human Genome Project from 1993 until this year (taking over from James Watson who started it in 1990).
Francis Collins is also a Christian.
This book is essentially his answer to the question “How can someone as smart as you believe in God?” It explains how he came to his faith and how he reconciles it and his equal belief in science (including evolution). It is well written, and his arguments are clearly presented. I strongly recommend this book.
Computer Games Played: Spore, Fallout 3
DVDs Watched: none
Next Book: The Lightness of Being
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
November 05, 2008
Thoughts : Change. . .
. . . in this case is good.
This year, early on, the presidential race was a tough decision for me. I actually have a great deal of respect for Senator McCain. He is someone who has shown a willingness to do the right thing even when it is not politically expedient. Unfortunately, my respect for 2008 Candidate McCain waned over the course of the campaign. The John McCain that ran in 2000 (the one who created the “straight talk express”) I would have voted for easily, no question; but as time went on I started to see more and more that the McCain who was running this year was a different person. It started to become clear to me that to win the Republican nomination, he had to compromise in too many ways to be the kind of man I would vote for.
The last straw for me was the selection of Governor Palin as his running mate. Presidents don’t personally make the majority of the decisions of their administration. Most of what any “President” does is actually done by their appointees, so one of the most important things to look at in any candidate is the kinds of people they surround themselves with. The selection of Governor Palin showed me that there was just too much of a risk that he would end up surrounded with more of the same kinds of people who surrounded George W. Bush, and I do not believe the United States can afford four more years of that.
And to be clear, I am not knocking Sarah Palin as a person. Were she a member of the church I go to (which is not inconceivable since I’ve attended churches similar to the one she goes to in Wasilla), I would probably get along with her quite well. But as a candidate, she stands for what I think are the worst elements of the current Republican Party.
And that is a sad thing for me to stay. I have been a registered Republican for most of the 30 years in which I have been eligible to vote; but the party has drifted too far away from the principles I had admired in it in the past for me to stay with the party any longer. I have no intention of becoming a Democrat – there is too much they stand for that I do not agree with – but I can no longer consider myself a Republican either. This election was not only a major transition for our nation; but also for me personally.
I’ve said a lot about why I couldn’t bring myself to vote for McCain. Lest you think my decision was only a “vote against” and not a “vote for”, let me say that I greatly admire Obama as a speaker. We have not had an orator in the oval office like him in many years. Now that may seem like a small thing; but his ability to inspire, to motivate, to encourage will serve our ailing, divided nation well over the next four years. Perhaps what we need most today is someone who can remind us all of the Dream that is America; and Obama may well be the best person to do that.
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
November 07, 2008
Observations : A Hidden Virtue of States Rights
A while back I had an interesting conversation with a friend and co-worker who was complaining about how every state in the United States had different laws covering a wide variety of subjects (rules of the road, taxes, voting, etc.). I started off giving the usual justifications (history, the fact that the United States is built on the assumption that the federal government has no authority beyond what we give it, etc.); but eventually came upon an interesting virtue of the system that I had never heard anyone propose – that the “States Rights” rule actually gives the federal government a diverse laboratory for testing government policies. By letting individual states try different solutions to problem like health care, tax policy, welfare, education, etc. the federal government can see the effect of various policies before trying them at the national level.
Want to know the effect of higher taxes? Look at the states that have higher taxes. Want to know how well certain solutions for health care work? Take a look at the states that are using them. Alternatively, want to know how to encourage innovation? Take a look at the policies in the states where a lot of innovation is taking place.
What’s interesting about this is that you can build a whole party platform around the idea. Have a party that is very supportive of trying new policies in individual states; but discourages other states from adopting them until they have been proven to work in at least one state. Then say that they will only adopt at the federal level those policies which have already been proven to work in a diverse set of states.
Now this doesn’t work for those things which only the federal government can do – basic monetary policy, military policy, etc.; but for many other areas of government this can be a quite useful way to both limit the federal government and to make sure what it does do works.
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
November 10, 2008
Books : Books 2008/11/10
Current count of books pending to be read: 75
Read two, purchased one
Books finished this week:
Lightness of Being: Mass, Ether, and the Unification of Forcesby Frank Wilczek
An interesting physics book by a Nobel Prize winner. The book is yet another survey of the current state of theoretical physics (I have read many of these); but takes a sufficiently different approach that it stays interesting and educational. The essential question of the book is – what is the origin of the property of matter known as “mass”? (Hence the pun of the book’s title.) While most physics books assume matter has mass (simply defining it as an essential property), this book asks the question “why?” and uses the examination of why matter behaves in the ways we associate with having mass to explore the current state of physics and to propose the author’s own approach to creating a grand unified theory. I very much appreciated the different perspective presented by the book, and it did allow me to see “the same old equations” in a new light.
The Lord of the Rings and Philosophy: One Book to Rule Them All
edited by Gregory Bassham and Eric Bronson
I’ve read several books from the “Popular Culture and Philosophy” series, and have almost universally enjoyed then. While they tend to be far more focused on philosophy and less on the popular culture (some of the essays barely use the popular culture material as an excuse to present philosophical ideas), they do to tend to be educational, and occasionally have been my first exposure to some of the minor historical philosophers. This book is no exception. Some of the essays are deep examinations of the philosophical questions raised by Tolkien’s works, while others use minor points in the stories as launching pads for philosophical digression. Either way, the points made are interesting and enjoyable.
Computer Games Played: Fallout 3
DVDs Watched: none
Next Book: TBD
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
November 12, 2008
Faith , Life , Thoughts : Thinking
There's a bunch of ideas for blog posts that have been rolling around in my mind, unfortunately none of them have come to fruition for me to post today. A bunch of them are likely to end up as a long series that will run several months (not unlike the church series I did last year), occasionally interrupted by interesting life events.
While it may change form by the time I start posting it, the basic theme of the series is: "the first ten lessons I would teach if I were starting a new church". Essentially what are the core concepts I would want everyone to be on the same page on if I was starting something new.
Now I have a fairly clear idea of several of the later lessons and could write them now; but the first few are proving to be more challenging that I had expected. Part of the issue is that I am less certain these days of how to explain exactly what Jesus did on The Cross than I once was.
For almost all my Christian walk, I have been part of churches that taught "substitutionary atonement" – essentially that Jesus paid the penalty for our sins when he died on the cross; and I can explain the whole of the Bible based on that theological perspective. In fact, I wasn't even aware that there were other non-heretical points of view.
However, this past year I have come to appreciate that people like C. S. Lewis and the whole of the Eastern/Orthodox church have a different way to explain Jesus' work on The Cross (referred to by some as "Christus Victor" theology). The effect is the same; but the emphasis is different, sometimes in subtle but perhaps important ways.
I am therefore loath to write up a description of the meaning of The Cross (which strikes me to be something I would want to establish early) until I either resolve this or have some way to explain things that provides a bridge between "substitutionary atonement" and "Christus Victor" (which is what I'd really like to do).
Anyway, since I had no post today, I thought I'd at least explain why I have no post today, and thus create a post.
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink
November 17, 2008
Books : Books 2008/11/17
Current count of books pending to be read: 73
Read two, purchased none
Books finished this week:
The Sacred Romance: Drawing Closer To The Heart Of Godby Brent Curtis and John Eldredge
I have written before about John Eldredge’s book “Epic” (and the excellent video that was made of him “performing” it). Epic provides an excellent study in the “greater story” we are all a part of in this world. “The Sacred Romance” is essentially a longer and more complete version of the same idea with more attention paid to why we often lose sight of God’s perspective on things.
Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold Story of English
by John McWhorter
John McWhorter is one of the linguistic writers that I consistently enjoy reading. He is both an entertaining writer (I started to annoy Anne with the number of times I started laughing while reading this book); and he has an interesting perspective on the English Language. He is also one of the linguists who believe a language is what is spoken and understood, not what the rules say it should be.
This book in specific is an examination of three key historical influences that made English Grammar (not vocabulary) what it is today. In the process of making his case for the grammatical influences of the Welsh, the Vikings, and (he believes) the Phoenicians on English, he also managed to grind a few axes he has with fellow linguists and their unwillingness to ask the question “Why?” Another great book.
Computer Games Played: Fallout 3
DVDs Watched: none
Next Book: TBD
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink
November 21, 2008
Books : Cat and Dog Theology
Cat and Dog Theology: Rethinking Our Relationship With Our Masterby Bob Sjogren and Gerald Robison
Anne as I saw the author of this book speak a couple weeks ago and enjoyed it enough that I bought one of his books. This is an “Every Christain should read it” book.
To quote from the book:
There’s a joke about cats and dogs that conveys their differences perfectly-A dog says, “You pet me, you feed me, you shelter me, you love me, you must be god!”
A cat says, “You pet me, you feed me, you shelter me, you love me, I must be god!”
The books is about how some Christians are like Cats – they act as if Christianity is about them and what God can do for them, while what God is looking for are Christians who are more like dogs who realize that Christianity is about God and how glorious He is. God is not our servant who exists to meet our needs. We are His servants who exist to bring glory to Him. Sometimes God is glorified by blessing people and sometimes God is glorified by people suffering and dying as martyrs and frequently God is glorified by situations in between the two extremes. What matters though is if God is glorified, not how comfortable we are.
This is a lesson I learned a while back – I exist to serve God in whatever way brings Him glory. This book however is one of the best presentations of the idea I have seen.
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
November 24, 2008
Books : Books 2008/11/24
Current count of books pending to be read: 73
Read two, purchased two
This is then the 52nd (and therefore final) weekly book post. I’ll give a brief recap Wednesday.
Books finished this week:
Cat and Dog Theology: Rethinking Our Relationship With Our Masterby Bob Sjogren and Gerald Robison
Short version – excellent book to remind Christians who is the servant and who is the Master.
Long version – see my previous review.
The Jesus I Never Knew
by Philip Yancey
Another book I had picked up, set aside, and now wish I had read it earlier.
The author sets about to cut through the “tame” Jesus that most Christians believe in – one that is a mix of cultural filters and hindsight – to examine Jesus as he is actually described in the gospels and how He would have been perceived at the time. In the process Yancey describes his own struggles with things like the Sermon on the Mount and the Ascension. The version of Jesus described here is much more like the one I have come to know than the one I see discussed from most pulpits.
Computer Games Played: Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria expansion
DVDs Watched: none
Next Book: TBD
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
November 26, 2008
Books , Life : A Year of Book Posts
A Year of Book Posts
As noted Monday, this week marks the 52ns and final weekly book post on this blog. It was an interesting experiment (and certainly one I benefited by); but as there seems little interest in it from my meager readership, I will pass on it for the future.
A quick summary of the year:
I started with 167 books waiting for me on my “to be read” shelves. Actually the situation could better be described as their “overflowing from my too be read shelves”, hence my intent to discipline myself on purchasing new books this year and see how far I could drive that number down.
Over the last year I have:
- read 110 books
- punted 11 books
- purchased 25 books
- borrowed 2 books
Leaving me with a count of 73 remaining (and yes, in the last few weeks I did consider making a final push to get that down to 67 so I would have reduced my initial number by an even hundred; but there were too many other things I also wanted to do).
So, what now?
First, as stated, I will discontinue the weekly posts. I will still post reviews of particularly significant books; but no longer list all of the books I have read. However, since I have found the collection of posts quite useful for me at times (being able to go back and figure out what book it was that had something I was remembering), I will maintain on my computer my own little diary of books read, including the running count of my backlog.
I had considered replacing the weekly book posts with a shortened diary post, simply listing books read, TV watched, movies seen, games played, etc.; and may in fact implement that at some point; but my current plan is to not do so immediately.
As to my smaller but still not small backlog of books, my goal remains to get it down to a single row of books on a single shelf (roughly 20-25 books). On the other hand, there are clearly books available now that I am far more interested in reading than the ones I currently have pending. My solution then is that until that goal is reached I will limit myself to purchasing in any month a number of books equal to half the number I read in the previous month. Thus on aggregate, half of the books I will be reading will be newly purchased and half will be from my backlog. At that rate, I should reach my goal sometime late next year.
I had also intended at this point to purchase an Amazon Kindle E-book reader for myself. I still want to buy a kindle; but plan to wait until after the new year to do so.
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
November 28, 2008
Life : 500 posts
This is my 500th post on this blog (comments are currently up to 650), and it is a good time to consider the “state of the blog”.
I have to admit I am a bit ambivalent about it right now. Certainly the rate of two new posts a week (excluding the book posts which are a bit artificial) which I have been on for several months (with a few misses) is a comfortable one for me – I seem to have that much to say on an ongoing basis without it feeling like a burden. What’s more, I have a whole collection of posts that are coming together in my mind which should keep me busy for a while.
On the other hand, comments are down, and it does feel sometime like I am talking to no one out there. Some of that, I am sure, is a consequence of the number of posts that have been on fairly mundane topics, like our move to SF. I’ll see if things change if I start posting on weightier matters again. However, there hasn’t been a new commenter in long time, and perhaps we are reaching the point where those few who have been a part of this blog have said everything they have to say to each other.
Nonetheless, I remain committed to maintaining this blog at a slow pace of 2-3 posts a week (Monday, Wednesday, Friday or Tuesday, Friday) at least through the end of the year. I will re-evaluate it again in January.
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
