A Laywer's Christmas Card

In Politically Correct Legalese

by Author Identity Requested

From us ("the wishors") to you ("hereinafter called the wishee"):

Please accept without obligation, explicit or implicit, our best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, politically correct, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral, celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion or secular practice of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions.

Please also accept, under aforesaid waiver of obligation on your part, our best wishes for a financially successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of this calendar year of the Common Era, but with due respect for the calendars of all cultures or sects, and for the race, creed, colour, age, physical ability, religious faith, choice of computer platform or dietary preference of the wishee.

By accepting this greeting you acknowledge that:

This greeting is subject to further clarification or withdrawal at the wishor's discretion.

This greeting is freely transferable provided that no alteration shall be made to the original greeting and that the proprietary rights of the wishor are acknowledged.

This greeting implies no warranty on the part of the wishors to fulfill these wishes, nor any ability of the wishors to do so, merely a beneficent hope on the part of the wishors that they in fact occur.

This greeting may not be enforceable in certain jurisdictions and/or the restrictions herein may not be binding upon certain wishees in certain jurisdictions and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wishors.

This greeting is warranted to perform as reasonably may be expected within the usual application of good tidings, for a period of one year or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first.

The wishor warrants this greeting only for the limited replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wishor.

Any references in this greeting to "the Lord", "Father Christmas", "Our Saviour", or any other festive figures, whether actual or fictitious, dead or alive, shall not imply any endorsement by or from them in respect of this greeting, and all proprietary rights in any referenced third party names and images are hereby acknowledged.

Sincerely,

Dewey, Cheetham, and Howe
Attorneys at Law

 This made the email rounds back in the day. It isn't from "Car Talk." We just liked the name of their law firm. Merry Everything, everyone!

Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?

Answers to one of Life's Great Questions

by Originator Identity Requested

Plato:
To seek the Good for the polity of poultry. — PS

Karl Marx:
It was a world-historical inevitability arising from the class struggle between those who labor at transportation and those who own the means of transportation. Sooner or later, some chicken or other was bound to start the revolution. — PS

Andersen Consultant:
Deregulation of the chicken's side of the road was threatening its dominant market position. The chicken was faced with significant challenges to create and develop the competencies required for the newly competitive market. Andersen Consulting, in a partnering relationship with the client, helped the chicken by rethinking its physical distribution strategy and implementation processes. Using the Poultry Integration Model (PIM), Andersen helped the chicken use its skills, methodologies, knowledge capital and experiences to align the chicken's people, processes and technology in support of its overall strategy within a Program Management framework. Andersen Consulting convened a diverse cross-spectrum of road analysts and best chickens along with Andersen consultants with deep skills in the transportation industry to engage in a two-day itinerary of meetings in order to leverage their personal knowledge capital, both tacit and explicit, and to enable them to synergize with each other in order to achieve the implicit goals of delivering and successfully architecting and implementing an enterprise-wide value framework across the continuum of poultry cross-median processes. The meeting was held in a park-like setting enabling and creating an impactful environment which was strategically based, industry-focused, and built upon a consistent, clear, and unified market message and aligned with the chicken's mission, vision, and core values. This was conducive towards the creation of a total business integration solution. Andersen Consulting helped the chicken change to become more successful.

Thomas de Torquemada:
Give me ten minutes with the chicken and I'll tell you everything you want to know.

Timothy Leary:
Because that's the only kind of trip the Establishment would let it take.

James Dean:
To lay it on the line.

Marlon Brando:
Because someone made it an offer it couldn't refuse.

Nietzsche:
Because if you gaze too long across the Road, the Road gazes also across you.

Oliver North:
Realizing that National Security was at stake, it went above the Rules of the Road.

Carl Jung:
The confluence of events in the cultural gestalt necessitated that individual chickens cross roads at this historical juncture, and therefore synchronicitously brought such occurrences into being.

Jean-Paul Sartre:
In order to act in good faith and be true to itself, the chicken found it necessary to cross the road.

Ludwig Wittgenstein:
The possibility of "crossing" was encoded into the objects "chicken" and "road," and circumstances came into being which caused the actualization of this potential occurrence.

Albert Einstein:
Whether the chicken crossed the road or the road crossed the chicken depends upon your frame of reference.

William Shakespeare:
In the great hand of God I stand, and so proclaim mine admiration. Had I beheld so bold a crossing of so great an highway, I had said fain would the chicken bestride the road like a colossus, but for that the road, trembling before its fowlness, did lurch behind the bird, producing the similitude of poultry in motion. — PS

Martin Luther:
Relying soley on Scripture, it did so soley for the Glory of God!

Buddha:
If you ask this question, you deny your own chicken-nature.

Salvador Dali:
The Fish.

Charles Darwin:
It was the logical next step after coming down from the trees.

Emily Dickinson:
Because it could not stop for death.

Ralph Waldo Emerson:
It didn't cross the road; it transcended it.

Johann Friedrich von Goethe:
The eternal hen-principle made it do it.

Ernest Hemingway:
To die. In the rain.

David Hume:
Out of custom and habit.

Saddam Hussein:
This was an unprovoked act of rebellion and we were quite justified in dropping 50 tons of nerve gas on it.

Jack Nicholson:
'cause it f.....g wanted to. That's the f.....g reason.

Ronald Reagan:
Because of its committment to the values that made this country great — freedom and personal responsibility. It was as if the chicken was saying, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear up this road!" — PS

John Sununu:
The Air Force was only too happy to provide the transportation, so quite understandably the chicken availed himself of the opportunity.

Sappho:
Due to the loveliness of the hen on the other side, more fair than all of Hellas' fine armies.

Henry David Thoreau:
To live deliberately ... and suck all the marrow out of life.

Mark Twain:
The news of its crossing has been greatly exaggerated.

Stephen Jay Gould:
It is possible that there is a sociobiological explanation for it, but we have been deluged in recent years with sociobiological stories despite the fact that we have little direct evidence about the genetics of behavior, and we do not know how to obtain it for the specific behaviors that figure most prominently in sociobiological speculation.

William Shatner:
To boldly go where no chicken has gone before.

Neil Armstrong:
That's one small step for a chicken... one giant leap for chicken-kind.

Machiavelli:
So that its subjects will view it with admiration, as a chicken which has the daring and courage to boldly cross the road, but also with fear, for whom among them has the strength to contend with such a paragon of avian virtue? In such a manner is the princely chicken's dominion maintained.

Hippocrates:
Because of an excess of phlegm in its pancreas.

William Dembski:
Note that the chicken crossed a considerable width of highway, which it could not have done in time to avoid being hit by a car if it had been wandering randomly. Obviously, the chicken had some sort of intelligent design. — PS

Johnny Rotten:
Because he was stapled to the ear of a punk rocker.

George W. Bush:
To pre-empt the danger gathering on the other side. — PS

Bill Maher:
"That's what's wrong with this country; a chicken can't cross the road without someone on the other side questioning why she crosses it!" — thanks to Andy Busch

Billy Graham:
"If you're a chicken here tonight, and you feel God calling you to cross the road, I want you to leave your side of the road and join me on the other side; counselors will be waiting for you." — thanks to Andy Busch

Larry the Cable Guy:
"Why did the chicken cross the road? Why, hell, so I could hit 'er with m'truck and bring 'er home fer supper! GIT-'ER-DONE!" — thanks to Andy Busch

Frequently Asked Questions

Do you worship a dog?

No. The Most churches play religion as a team sport, with God as their mascot instead of their Captain. We live our religion, with the Blind Chihuahua as our totem, and God as our co-pilot. (We think God wants us to pilot our own lives, but that God is always available to help. We first saw the phrase "God is my co-pilot" emblazoned on the back of a garbage truck that ran over a neighbor's dog in the 1960's.) The Blind Chihuahua reminds us that "now we see through a glass darkly." — 1 Cor 13:12

What do you mean by "The Courage to be Ridiculous before God?

Conservative churches emphasize that people have gone bad, liberal churches emphasize that people were created good. We emphasize that people are funny, and that God has a sense of humor. "The Courage to be Ridiculous before God" is part of what it takes to admit the truth about ourselves, namely that sometimes, even when we are at our most serious, we humans are just plain silly. This is a form of confession, made endurable, even enjoyable, by humor. It also pokes fun at Paul Tillich's book, The Courage to Be.

What about VCBC's other slogans and its Logo?

"We can't be right about everything we believe. Thank God, we don't have to be," is a re-statement of the mainstream Protestant tenet that the source of Salvation is God, not one's own efforts or opinions. Good works and good opinions are expressions of salvation, not a cause of it. So relax. You don't have to get is exactly right. Which is a good thing, because we humans can't get it exactly right. We are all like little Blind Chihuahuas.

"There is more to Religion than pleasing your Imaginary Friend," is a caution against the idolatry that contaminates belief. In so much of Religion, believers project elements of themselves and their cultures onto their concept of Divinity, and then, based on obedience to that projection, proceed to sin against themselves, their fellow humans, Nature, and God. We recommend a little humility before trying to do God's Service. As we said, we are all like little Blind Chihuahuas.
With that as preamble, the Blind Chihuahua is a totem that does not stand for God. It stands for us. For the evolution of our Logo's appearance, click here.

Is VCBC a real church?

VCBC is a collection of magnetized micro-domains on a hard disk spinning in a vault owned by our web service provider. At your request they are translated into voltage pulses and sent to your computer, which displays them on your screen as colored dots. What your eyes and brain do from there is your business. In other words, VCBC is all in your mind. If your mind is real, that's good enough for us. Right. Here's a serious answer.

Does VCBC have members?

Since every sentient being is a virtual Blind Chihuahua with respect to God (or Ultimate Reality), everyone is a member of The Virtual Church of the Blind Chihuahua. We find that VCBC members are usually:

1. In Denial. Most people are scandalized by VCBC, or would be if they knew about it. They deny that they are members, and we agree with them, so as to reduce church conflict. Since our opinions do not count, this makes them members.
2. In Virtual Reality. Many people like VCBC, or would if they knew about it. In one way or another, they acknowledge that when it comes to God (or Ultimate Reality), we are all like little Blind Chihuahuas, as we said above.
3. In Real Virtuality. Some people do things like recommending VCBC to their friends, giving us money, buying and wearing/displaying our stuff, or posting comments on our blog(s), or even contributing their creative works (in digital format) to our sites. They not only acknowledge their chihuahuahood, they celebrate it. BTW, we are seeking bi-lingual moderators so that we may offer our forum in more languages and provide translations of sites like this one.

Does VCBC have priests?

We have priests, pastors, bishops, metropolitans, popes, imams, yogis, monks, shamans, etc. Your religious credentials are as valid in VCBC as anywhere.

If VCBC is so inclusive, what's with all the Christian stuff?

This (the first, and so far the only) manifestation of VCBC is predominately Christian, because its maintenance person (aka the Pooper Scooper) is Christian. Other manifestations may predominately express other religions. (In the unlikely event that you wish to manifest VCBC in another language or religion, contact us and we'll work something out.) If this website's inclusion of the wisdom of other faiths seems in your eyes to water down its Christianity, try somewhere else. It's a big web and the standard stuff is easy to find.

Then what's the point?

We are all doing our best to be faithful to God according to our various religions. Unfortunately, that best needs help. Look at all the conflict in the world, much of which is about matters of belief. Rather than fight over religion, we want to help each other to be as honest as we possibly can to God, ourselves, each other, and our world. If you respond to this by changing your religion, don't blame us. We are not responsible for what you believe. What you believe is between you and God, even if you're an atheist. Since Fundamentalists think they are responsible for what you believe, which leads them to try to control what you believe, we believe they are legitimate targets for humor, as are we all.

How does VCBC define Christianity?

Lean and mean, like St. Paul: "I knew only Christ, and him crucified." We think that to be a Christian means to experience God through Christ. We believe that Christ was God experiencing life and death (at our hands) as an ordinary guy, and that Christ rose from the dead to lead us to eternal life. However, since those who focus exclusively on the life to come often neglect to care for those they meet in the here and now (think what a jerk Tolstoy was to his wife, for example) we tend to focus on the path immediately ahead of us. We trust God to take care of our ultimate destination.

Does VCBC maintain that the Bible is true?

We believe that every word in the Bible is as intended by God for us to receive, including all the contradictions, redactions, and factual errors which have been noted by the last two centuries of archaeological and literary-historical critical analysis of the Bible and extra-biblical texts. All of those little problems are puzzles for the reader that enhance the Bible's power to awaken the Light of Truth within you. They also serve as a sign that we should worship God, not our Scriptures.

What about the Scriptures of other religions?

God's Truth is infinite, and therefore cannot be confined to any finite string of words, no matter whose Scripture it is. God's Truth is everywhere. It leaks into the Scriptures of religions other than your own. It lives in your personal experience and in your heart. It is stamped into every aspect of the cosmos, and it cannot be confined even to that. And it is a living Truth, who seeks you. You cannot escape it forever.

What are VCBC's politics?

If the shape of the political spectrum can be compared to a dancer's butt, then we have been flatulated up from the center. We vociferously oppose both right-wing and left-wing fundamentalism in politics. We also support the appearance of "None of the Above" on every ballot for elective office.

Who's in charge of VCBC?

Since VCBC manifests itself only on the web, the maintenance person for this site, aka the Pooper Scooper, is in charge. He consults other people on matters of taste, style and content, but ultimately he gets the blame for what goes on here, because he controls the site and writes most of the material. When the time comes, he is counting on God to stop him dead in his tracks.

How long has this been going on?

VCBC was launched on 4 July 1996.

Is VCBC subversive?

Besides being a church, VCBC is also a miniscule conspiracy to help virtues like civility, honesty, kindness, and common sense achieve world domination, one mind at a time. Our weapons are humor and irony guided by faith and reason. We make no apologies, and take no prisoners. Resistance is futile.

Is the Blind Chihuahua theme a send-up of Shoko Asahara, the blind leader of the Aum Shinrikyo cult that released nerve gas into the Tokyo subway?

Absolutely not. The original Blind Chihuahua lived in Austin, Texas in the late 1970's. If we wanted to parody these folks, we would create a ficticious character called Shocko Assahola and run with it. However, since these people are extremely dangerous kooks, we decided to let sleeping dogs lie, as it were.

Is the Virtual Church of the Blind Chihuahua affiliated with any recognizable religious denomination?

This manifestation of VCBC is an unacknowledged, ecumenical boil on the bum of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Some have speculated that this is the ELCA's way of attempting to reproduce asexually. Others deny this, on grounds that it would elevate VCBC to the status of bastard child. Most believe that VCBC is a non-serious local infection of the ELCA body politic that will go away by itself.

Did you know there is Another VCBC?

Yup. They're a conservative Baptist congregation just down the road. If you don't like us, maybe you'll like them.

What's with the advertising? Are you just a bunch of capitalist tools?

Actually, Capitalism is one of our tools. We use it because the others don't make any money. If you think we go too far in trying to serve both God and mammon, try visiting The Church of Cash. In any case, our goal for ads, sales, and donations is to pay our web-hosting expenses. If we ever make more than that, we reserve the right to use it for whatever we wish, including but not limited to bicycle parts, books, chocolate and beer. Oh, maybe a nice dessert wine, or even a shrubbery.

Is the Virtual Church of the Blind Chihuahua affiliated in any way with Taco Bell?
 
No. Our Chihuahua appeared first, and ours always wears dark glasses, speaks without an accent, and has a penis. (Taco Bell's Chihuahua is a female cross-dresser.) The Blind Chihuahua displays his penis to honor those religionists who behave as if that organ were an antenna that lets the bearer hear directly from God. We suggest that they try another channel.

A Religion Reading List

We recommend reading from a variety of religious traditions to shake loose our prejudices gain a deeper understanding of our faith. Therefore we provide this list, to be read or not in the order that the spirit moves you.

Bible Translations

The New Oxford Annotated Study Bible, NRSV version. The best of Protestant scholarship in translation and footnotes. The KJV in modern idiom. Woody recommends using the HarperCollins Study Bible (another NRSV translation) alongside for its valuable reference material.

The New Jerusalem Bible, Regular Edition, 1985. The best of Catholic scholarship in translation and footnotes. Probably represents the Hebrew Bible more accurately than the NRSV or the KJV.

The Jewish Study Bible, JPS translation of the Masoretic text with scholarly annotations. Draws upon 2300 years of Jewish Bible translation and commentary, gives insights that you just don't get from the other translations listed here. This is more like the Bible that Jesus knew.

The Holy Bible, King James Version. The most beautiful translation when read aloud, the one we all quote from, but the one easiest to misunderstand. The English is that spoken just after Shakespeare's time.

The Message: New Testament, Psalms, and Proverbs, Eugene H. Peterson, ed. A vigorous paraphrase from the vernacular of the past into the vernacular of the present. Recommended by Woody. There are also Message paraphrases of the Old Testament.

Judeo-Christian

Man is not Alone: A Philosophy of Religion, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. The grounding of faith in existential awe and wonder. By far the best non-scriptural book on religion VCBC's site maintenance person has ever read.

God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. Written in 1955, a somewhat disappointing sequel to Man is Not Alone. Rather than a comprehensive philosophy of Judaism, it is a philosophy of fulfilling the mitzvot, the commandments, which is at the heart of observant Jewish religious life. While he makes a good case for being observant if you are a Jew, he shies away from dealing head-on with the Holocaust. He ignores the question of whether to resort to violence against evil, as well as perhaps the most urgent question posed by post-Holocaust Jews: "The personal, interfering God, who cares about what happens to me, died in the concentration camps," a relative once told me. Here Heschel is silent, and lets Hitler have his victory.

This is my God, Herman Wouk. Probably the best short introduction to Judaism in English. If you weren't raised Jewish, read this before delving into major works of Judaica, or before attending your first Seder.

Zohar Anotated and Explained, Daniel C. Matt. Brief and "lite" introduction to Kabbalist (Kabbalah is a branch of Jewish mysticism) thought in the Sefer ha Zohar (Book of Radiance) written by Moses de Leon, a Spanish Jew, around A.D. 1280. In Kabbalist thought (believed to have originated in 12th century Provence) the single God is envisioned as a dynamic interplay among 10 components or emanations called Sefirot. And you thought the triune God of Christianity was complicated.

Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale, Frederick Buechner. Pathos and humor in the Bible for those who didn't know it was there.

The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Defines the Christian ideal largely fallen short of in the 20th century.

Dynamics of Faith, Paul Tillich. Existentialist Christian definition of faith and its varieties. Tillich defines faith as a state of ultimate concern — whereas Heschel defines faith as a human response to God's concern for us. Read both and let the two tango.

The Courage to Be, Paul Tillich. Existentialist Christianity defined and explored. Too thick for most readers, but very worthwhile for others.

A History of Christian Thought, Paul Tillich. A readable history of how church dogma evolved. Marx and Hegel deserved his discussion of socialism and theology. Should perhaps be read alongside Paul Johnson's A History of Christianity.

Survival in Aushwitz, Primo Levi. What good men do to survive bad situations. No moral philosopher writing after 1960 deserves to be taken seriously if he or she has not read this book.

The Drowned and the Saved, Primo Levi. More thoughts on what good men do to survive bad situations. No moral philosopher writing after 1990 deserves to be taken seriously if he or she has not read this book. Should be required reading before assuming positions of spiritual leadership, such as the papacy.

The Eclipse of God, Martin Buber. What the modern age has done to religious consciousness, and why this need not (and must not) be.

Who Wrote the Bible, Richard Elliot Friedman. The JEDPR (Jahwist-Elohist-Deuteronomist-Priest-Redactor) theory of the history and politics surrounding the construction of the Pentateuch (the five books of Moses in the Old Testament) explained.

The Book of J, Harold Bloom and David Rosenberg. The J (Jahwist) part extracted and meditated upon. Bloom thinks J was a woman in King Solomon's court.

Who Tampered with the Bible, Patricia Eddy. The politics and history surrounding the construction of the New Testament. Eddy was a professional intelligence analyst, rather than a theologian, historian or a literary critic. However, the skills from her previous career serve her and the reader well in sleuthing out the various influences that came to bear on producing the NT canon.

The Apocryphal Old Testament, H. F. D. Sparks. The definitive collection and translation into English of writings from the Old Testament period that never made it into the Old Testament canon. Some of these works were known to and supported by early church Fathers, such as Origen, and others are referred to in canonical Old Testament passages. But they never won over most of their Jewish or Christian readers.

The Apocryphal New Testament, M. R. James, translator. The definitive collection and translation into English of writings about Jesus and the Apostles that never made it into the New Testament canon. Once you read a few of them, the reasons for their rejection will become clear. They simply convey no profound spiritual meaning that one might teach or preach from. They are uninspiring, and therefore presumably uninspired.

The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, Geza Vermes. Some of Jesus' statements in the NT seem to be targeted against or derivative from the beliefs and practices of the Essenes, an ascetic Jewish cult that left its literature in caves above Qumran. Vermes seems to provide the most authoritative translation into English.

The Nag Hammadi Library in English, James M. Robinson, editor. Translations of early pre-Christian and Christian Gnostic writings. Had the Gnostics survived, Christianity would be a lot more like Zen Buddhism that it is now. Notable is the "Gospel of Thomas," a non-narrative collection of sayings of Jesus.

The Talmud: Selected Writings, translated by Ben Zion Bokser. The fast track through the spirituality in the great written commentary by which Rabbinic Judaism emerged from the destruction of the ancient Temple Cult. Indicates cross-pollination of emerging modern Judaism and early Christianity.

Confessions, St. Augustine. Essential reading if you want to understand St. Paul, or anyone else who has had the "Born Again" experience. Lest however, you become too enamored of the Augustine, you might also check out City of God. Valuable for its insights into Sin, it also contains Augustine's arguments against the existence of the antipodes. More than any single person, Augustine was responsible for Western Civilization forgetting that the world is round.

People of the Lie: Hope for Healing Human Evil, M. Scott Peck. A psychiatrist's view of evil as a spiritual disease. Nice discussion of individual and group evil, including My Lai Massacre. See also The Road Less Travelled about psychoanalysis as a form of confession, and A World Waiting to Be Born: Civility Rediscovered, a practical guide to loving one's neighbors as oneself.

The Origin of Satan, Elaine Pagels. Development of the Christian idea of Satan as the early church struggled against its enemies. Nice account of how St. Augustine used politics and power to further his ideas. Pagels, a Princeton professor of Religion, is generally excellent. See also The Gnostic Gospels, and Adam, Eve, and the Serpent.

The Death of Satan, Andrew Delbanco. Development of the American idea of Satan, and its demise as America loses its moral compass. Beautifully written, yet very scholarly.

The American Religion, Harold Bloom & William Golding. A good companion/background volume to Delbanco's book.

Dirt, Greed and Sex: Sexual Ethics in the New Testament and their Implications for Today, William Countryman. Makes it clear that none of Jesus' contemporaries considered him to represent "Family Values."

The Sexuality of Jesus, William E. Phipps, 1996. An exploration of the tradition of celibacy, the Palestinian views of women & marriage, & the historical Jesus. Captivating remarks about the effects of the "celibate Jesus" myth upon the West. Recommended by Jonathan Hoyt Harwell.

A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, John P. Meier, in four volumes, with a fifth in progress. This is a massive review and commentary on the field of research into what we can know of the historical Jesus. Meier's careful and exhaustive scholarship make this currently the definitive introduction to Jesus research for both the scholar and the layman. For a review click here.

The Divine Comedy, Dante. The cosmology is way off, but the taxonomy of Sin and Salvation is unmatched. John Ciardi's translation is the most readable and poetic one generally accessible, although it departs rather widely in places from the original Italian. Jeremy Shomer's is breathtaking but hard to get.

Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis. An easy introduction to non-Fundamentalist Christianity for beginners.

The Great Divorce, C. S. Lewis. A "lite" 20th century revision of Dante's journey. Notable for its interpretation of lust as a perversion of the desire for God.

L'Attente de Dieu, Simone Weil. English translation Waiting for God. Recommended by Matthew Smith.

The Anti-Christ, Frederick Nietsche. A Lutheran pastor's son explains what is wrong with Christians. A must read for anyone who professes the faith.

The Age of Reason, Thomas Paine. Patriot, deist, and skeptic, Paine skewers the preposterous in popular Christian belief — e.g., why Milton's Paradise Lost is such a groaner.

The Myth of Sisyphus, Albert Camus. Famous French Existentialist demonstrates comvincingly that life without reference to God is absurd. Brilliant.

The Varieties of Religious Experience, William James. Explores the different ways Born Agains, Saints, and others say they have experienced God.

Sadhana: A Way to God, Anthony de Mello. Christian prayer exercises in Eastern form.

The Cloud of Unknowing, Anonymous. Advice from a Medieval Christian spiritual guide on how to meditate. A little book, but a great classic.

The Wounded Healer (a guide to personal ministry) and Life of the Beloved:Spiritual Living in a Secular World, by Henri Nouwen. Recommended by Woody.

Young Man Luther, Erik H. Erikson. A psychiatrist's insights into the personality of Martin Luther. One can gain an appreciation of how deeply Protestantism has been assimilated by its cultural milieu when one realizes that Martin Luther would never be accepted as a pastor in any contemporary Protestant church.

Martin — God's Court Jester: Luther in Retrospect, Eric W. Gritsch. A retrospective look at Luther's life and work, his "neuralgic heritage," and his theological legacy. Gritsch surveys Luther with eyes open to his positive and negative contributions to Christian life and thought, from his celebrated 95 theses to his anti-Semitism, from his doctrine of "salvation by Grace through Faith," and his assertion of the primacy of Scripture to his creation of a schism that has lasted more than five centuries.

The Book of Concord: Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, Theodore G. Tappert, ed. The foundational documents of the Reformation, this somewhat dry and lengthy collection of writings defines the original Protestant theology (to which VCBC's Pooper Scooper adheres).

Science and Religion: Historical and Contemporary Issues, Ian G. Barbour, a now retired professor of physics and of religion. Valuable for its history of the encounter between Christianity and Science during the last 300 years or so, but not for its version of Process Theology. For a review click here.

Quarks, Chaos, and Christianity, John Polkinghorne. Much shorter and more readable than Barbour's book above. Polkinghorne, a physicist turned priest, is more traditional in his thinking about God, and more personal in stating his beliefs than Barbour. In a phrase, less history, less philosophy, more faith. A good, short read.

The Language of God, Francis S. Collins. The head of the Human Genome Project and an Evangelical Christian, Collins lays out how he reconciles science and faith. After reviewing his evidence for Divine Providence in Nature, he lays out four options: Atheism/Agnosticism (when Science trumps Faith), Creationism (when Faith trumps Science), Intelligent Design (when Science needs Divine help), and his option, Biologos (Science and Faith in harmony).

The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver. A Baptist missionary takes his family in 1959 to a remote village in the then Belgian Congo. Recommended by Woody.

A Black Theology of Liberation, by James H. Cone. An oldie, but goodie. A sourcebook for the ideas that have informed politically black Christian rhetoric in America since the 1960s.

Born Again and Again and Again: A Bible-Based View of Reincarnation, by James A/ Reid, Sr. I haven't read this one yet, but Jim wrote and asked me to post it here. Reviews, anyone?

The Probability of God, by Stephen D. Unwin. Unwin uses Bayes' Rule to calculate the probability that God exists given one's prior beliefs about the Universe. He provides an enlightening discussion of probability and statistics, and the Anthropic Cosmological Principle along the way. It's not theologically deep, nor is it a "proof" of God's existence, but it is a way to calculate how consistent the idea of God is with a combination of other things that you either know or believe to be true.

Islamic and Sufic

The Holy Qur'an, translated with parallel Arabic text and footnotes by Maulana Muhammad Ali. The translation has a detectable modernist and Amadhi bias ("Namlites" should be rendered as "ants," for example). But the notes are useful to Westerners. Al-Qur'an, a contemporary translation by Ahmed Ali is much more readable, but lacks the copious notes. Another version with copious notes is The Holy Qur'an translated by S. V. Mir Ahmed Ali.

A Manual of Hadith, translated by Maulana Muhammad Ali. The early Muslims observed everything the Prophet did and said, and wrote them down. Here is a basic set that enables you to begin living a life in imitation of the Prophet.

The Way of the Sufi, Idries Shah. A glimpse into the mystical Zen-like tradition in Islam.

The Conference of the Birds, Fahrid ud-Din Attar. The Sufi version of The Cloud of Unknowing, i.e., the stages of prayer/meditation.

The Essential Rumi, translated by Colin Barks. Astounding, breathtaking, religious poetry. WOW!

Rubaiyat, Omar Khayyam. Idries Shah claims Omar was a Sufi. Read Edward Fitzgerald's classic translation and judge for yourself.

The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran. Sufism Lite, but very pretty.

Europe and Islam, Hichem Djait. The historical roots of the present culture clash.

The Battle for God, Karen Armstrong. The history of religious Fundamentalisms in Judaisim, Christianity, and Islam.

Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey (1982), by Nobel Laureate V. S. Naipaul. A glimpse inside Islamic societies from an outsider. See also his Beyond Belief: Islamic Excursions among the Converted Peoples (1999).

The Heart of Islam, by Seyyen Hossain Nasr. See also Forty Hadiths, by Imam An-Nawawi, Understanding Islam, by Frithjof Schuon, and Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources, by Martin Lings. Recommended by Ahmed Monib.

And now for the Dark Side. There are strong currents in modern Islam that tend toward paranoia and narcissism. Like a person with borderline personality disorder, those who are absorbed in these cultural currents make everyone else pay for their own problems. See "Li'l Johnnie's Jihad Page" for a list of links and readings in this area. Apologies to Muslims, if we offend here, but not all truths are pleasant.

Asian Religions (Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist)

The Three Pillars of Zen, Roshi Philip Kapleau. Your basic what is Zen, with first-hand accounts of Kensho, the initial Enlightenment experience.

Zen Buddhism, Daisetz T. Suziki. Your basic what is Zen, with a discussion of Zen and Japanese culture. Neglects to point out that Zen took hold in Japan because its emphasis on "suddenness" appealed to the Samurai.

Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, edited by Paul Reps. Early Zen writings and koans.

The Diamond Sutra, and the Sutra of Hui Neng translated by A. F. Price and Wong Mou-Lam. Just when you think you understand one, the other tells you to try again. The brilliant core of the Zen branch of Buddhism by its founder.

Bhagavad Gita As It Is, translation and commentary by His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. This is a ponderous rendition, intended for serious students and contemplatives, of a very short section of the much longer Mahabharata, that deals with the meaning of life, the universe, and everything. See also translations by Juan Mascaro, Barbara Stoller Miller, and Eknath Easwaran. It is well worth reading all three of these short translations.

Upanisads, translated by Patrick Olivelle. A very readable translations with helpful, but unobtrusive notes. The Upanishads were composed during the transition from the ancient ritualism of the Vedas to the era of epic Hindu poetry that produced the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Provides crucial background for understanding the imagery of the Bhagavad Gita.

The Rig Veda, 108 hyms selected, translated, and annotated by Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty. The key to the Upanisads, above. Since the Gita is most accessible to modern readers, I recommend starting with one of the shorter Gita translations, and then working backward through some of the Upanisads, and then trying some of the Vedic hymns. In this way ever more subtle shades of meaning unfold for the reader. Then go back to the ACBSP's Gita translation for a real good look.

Te-Tao Ching, Lao Tzu, translated by Robert G. Henricks. The best English translation. Right relations and right conduct, briefly stated.

I Ching, translated into German by Richard Wilhelm and thence into English by Cary F. Baynes, Princeton University Press. Not useful for predicting the future, but useful stimulating oneself to think more deeply about the present. More on Chinese concepts of right conduct and behavior.

Being Peace, Thich Nhat Hanh. Exactly what its title says.

The Tibetan Book of the Dead, translated by W. Y. Evans-Wentz. Very esoteric hard to read description of the after-life experience. To be compared with the Christian doctrine of the Resurrection the Body.

thoughts without a thinker: psychotherapy from a Buddhist perspective, Mark Epstein, MD. Explains Buddhism to psychotherapists and psychotherapy to Buddhists. A good cross-cultural translation book, like the Fritjof Capra's Tao of Physics which explains Taoism to physicists and physics to Taoists.

The Cosmic Revelation, Bede Griffiths. Another cross-cultural translation book. This one explains Vedic Hinduism and Christianity to each other. Good background reading for the Bhagavad Gita.

Ghandi's Truth, Erik H. Erikson. A psychiatrist's insights into the origins of militant non-violent confrontation.

Other Traditions

Black Elk Speaks, Black Elk and Richard Niemark. Native American religion from the mouth of a Ghost-Dancer. Perhaps someday Native Americans will help mend the hoop of our nation. Black Elk converted to Christianity later in his life.

The Epic of Gilgamesh, translated by N. K. Sandars. A Sumerian version of the Flood story that predates Genesis by hundreds of years. Beautiful account of friendship and the quest for eternal life.

The Transcendent Unity of Religions, by Frithjof Schuon. Recommended by Ahmed Monib.

Essential Sacred Writings from Around the World, by Mircea Eliade.

Aren't There Real Issues?

Apparently the American Media, both Right and Left, have decided that the weighty matters of foreign policy revolve either around Benghazi or Petraeus' penis.

Look. Benghazi was a screw-up, plain and simple. The Obama Administration got it wrong at first, because it politicizes intelligence information, as it politicizes everything. This is nothing new. Nearly all US presidents politicize intelligence, and therefore diminish their own ability to use intelligence effectively. The exceptions are Washington, Eisenhower, and Bush the Elder. See For the President's Eyes Only. Even now, the Obama Administration can't come clean with the simple truth, because they have to justify what they first said. See Mistakes Were Made, But Not By Me.

And I'm sure that David Petraeus has behaved with more decorum and wisdom than former President Bill Clinton. It's worth noting that he stepped out of line. Good, it's noted. Now it's no longer news.

The Right Wing Media plays up one story, the Left Wing Media plays up the other. Each one tries to reverse the other's spin. That's the problem with News As Entertainment, as a kind of non-historical Short Attention Span Theater. The real issues, the elephants in the living room, get swept aside. Don't worry the public's pretty little heads. They don't want to think. Just give them bread and circuses.

So here's a question for the media: It's normal for war aims (or goals or rationales for fighting) to change during a conflict. How have the West's goals changed in the conflict with Al-Qaeda and Affiliated Movements (AQAM)? How have AQAM's goals changed, if at all? How do we use Joseph Nye's "Smart Power" to hasten this conflict to an end that is favorable to humanity? And who is doing that now?

I'm not interested in the occasional foreign policy screw-up. I'm interested in its overall direction. And I'm not at all interested in the occasional personal indiscretion.

Republicans, Get Over It

1. 2008 was not a fluke. It is the new normal.

2. Nothing you do will win over Latinos as long as your rhetoric during the primaries is about building border fences. Try talking about managing a mobile population for their benefit and that of the US and Mexico, instead of the illegal traffickers.

3. Nothing you do will win over young single women until you accept that restricting a woman's access to abortion is an unfunded government mandate on her of $1 million per child that she must then raise. If you aren't going to put up the cash, then back off. Feel free to advise us that abortion is evil, but lay down the blunt instrument of the law.

4. Nothing you do will win over urban districts until you are in urban districts for the long haul as community organizers, not as carpetbaggers come just for the campaign.

It's time for a change, because your country needs some of your other ideas.

Congratulations, Mr. Obama! You are my President, and I will do my best to help you succeed in carrying out the duties of your office. But look at a map of the electoral districts before you decide that you have a mandate to overreach.

Because 2012 is not a fluke, either.

Things Christians Should Know

Not everything this guy says is on target, but we would all do well to remember that Christianity is what happened when the ailing Roman Empire tried to lengthen its life by transplanting the Jesus movement into itself. There was a graft-vs-host reaction, and the graft won. The Roman Empire is long gone. But Christianity absorbed some of its ideas about hierarchy and the need for orthodoxy from its time as Rome's official government-sanctioned religion. This has affected all subsequent Christianity, East and West, even the Latter Day Saints. That is to say, the Church on earth is a human manifestation of God's Will, and therefore incorporates human failings along with human virtues. We need to keep that always in mind as we strive to be the People of God, to encourage each other in faith, and to do the works that God has given us. A tame Christianity that reflexively affirms the values of its surrounding culture or liberal or conservative subcultures, has surely strayed from the path illuminated by the One who was once crucified and is now resurrected.

Thanks to ET for sending me this one!

Things Muslims Should Know

Last year some jerk who calls himself Sam Bacile made a semi-amateurish film called "The Innocence of Muslims" and posted it to YouTube. Sometime later some jihadi-takfiris translated it and dubbed it into Arabic, and then re-posted it to YouTube in time to start a riot in Benghazi to (1) commemorate the 9/11 attacks, and (2) provide cover for an attack on the US embassy.

Of course jihadi-takfiri jerks everywhere then instigated violence wherever they could, so as not to be seen to be less committed than their Libyan brethren.

And the people went along with this, because they are unaware of certain things. So, here are some things Muslims should know:

(1) The American government does not have the power to police the self- expression of its citizens. This is because we citizens are not subjects of our government - we are it's owners. We instituted our government to protect our rights, which are given to us by our Creator (Allah). And among those rights is the freedom to say whatever we want, in public, even if it offends our government or it's officials. That protects our ability to organize against whoever is in power, and vote them out of office, should they fail to use their powers properly. To protect our right to political speech, we don't let our government choose what speech to protect, because it might choose to protect itself instead of its people.

The benefit we get is better government than is the case in most majority Muslim countries. And with better government comes a better economy. The price we pay is that we must tolerate a certain amount offensive speech, against everybody, including hate speech by some Muslims against ourselves.

So things like "The Innocence of Muslims" aren't a big deal in America, not because we don't care about blasphemy, but because in order to protect our rights, we ignore such provocations.

If you would like to live in a free society, in which you can worship Allah as you see fit, then we suggest you ignore them, too.

(2) Bacile acted on his own without consulting the American government or the American people. Declaring all Americans or their government officials fair game to attack is tribal, not Islamic justice. While tribal justice may work in isolated areas, it is extremely dysfunctional in the modern world. You would do well to learn about the 1400 years and various schools of fiqh, or Islamic jurisprudence, as a better alternative.

(3) You persist in a false narrative that America and Israel are enemies of Islam. But if you look at the statics honestly, the most likely person to kill a Muslim is another Muslim. And that is forbidden by the Islamic law which you selectively ignore. Yet it is commonly done by the jihadi-takfiris who whip up your anger for their benefit.

American Muslims already know these things. It's time to spread the word.

Bye, Neil

Neil Armstrong, the first person to walk on the moon, has died at the age of 82, from complications after a heart bypass operation. By all accounts he was a great guy, a good engineering professor, and family man. His family asks that when you see the moon on a clear night, give him a wink.

Nothing NASA has done since the moon missions has had the same worldwide appeal. So now we have a push to return to the moon and then send people to Mars. I'm opposed, because there is nothing out there worth the cost and risk of manned exploration. We should send robots. That way we will at least continue to learn how to build better robots, whether we find anything interesting out there or not.

The other two missions of NASA should be exoatmospheric astronomy and astrophysics (the Hubble space telescope, the Wilson Microwave Astronomy Probe, the Chandra x-ray telescope, etc.) and figuring out how to get a person from the ground to low earth orbit (LEO) and back for the same price as a transpacific plane ticket.

Once that last objective is achieved, it will make sense to bring back the Neil Armstrong types and go exploring. Global society needs a frontier, don't you think?

Why Inequality gets so Little Traction

I heard a guest on a recent National Public Radio show wonder why inequality in America is getting so little political traction this election year. Maybe it's because there are so many of us who know we have enough, and can't be bothered to envy those who have more.

To be Surveilled or Colonized?

A few months after the 9/11 attacks, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) began a campaign of undercover anti-terrorism surveillance in mosques, schools, and Muslim neighborhoods, according to NYPD commissioner Ray Kelly in a recent speech given at Fordham University. That surveillance has thwarted 14 terror attacks from that time to the present. On the other hand, one reason the German Catholic and Lutheran churches failed to thwart the rise of Nazism and the deportation of millions of Jews to concentration camps was that Nazi informers infiltrated the churches. It's a question of balance.


Balance against the petrodollars funding the attempts by extremist Jihadi-Takfiris and their mullahs and imams to colonize our American mosques, schools, and Muslim neighborhoods. (As if American Islam were any less genuine or authentic than anyone else's Islam.) The Jihadi-Takfiris use methods of agitation-propaganda and provocation learned from atheistic Communism and thuggish violence learned from idolatrous Nazism in order to intimidate or eliminate their opposition within Islam. They function like an organized criminal gang, except that instead of peddling drugs, they are on a Crusade to peddle their narcissistic ideology, to which they themselves are addicted. Against such moneyed, organized, zealous criminal power, the balance of state power is sometimes needed, even welcomed.


But before we get to blasé about it, think of how you would feel if you went on a camping trip with some of your friends, only to find out, years later, that one of them, whom you trusted, to whom you bared your soul, was actually an undercover cop who was reporting your every word.


Our American Muslims need and deserve our care and respect. Maybe sometimes they also need the help of our law enforcement agencies to resist colonization by the Jihadi-Takfiris. But that help should be used  judiciously and circumspectly. Whenever possible, that help should wait for an invitation. And always, that help must respect and protect the privacy and dignity of Muslims who have given themselves to God, and not to the Jihadi-Takfiri idol of God.

You Do Not Have the Right Never to be Offended

Adapted from the poisonous pen of the notorious Right Wing extremist, David Horowitz:


Last fall, a Muslim, named Talaag Elbayomy, attacked a Pennsylvania man name Ernest Perce who had dressed up like Mohammed for a Halloween parade. The attack was caught on film, witnessed by dozens of parade watchers, and verified by a policeman. 

Elbayomy was charged. But when he was brought before Cumberland County Judge Mark Martin, the judge dismissed the assault charges against the Muslim and dressed down the Pennsylvania man for being insensitive to the Muslim religion. Not only did Martin rule in favor of the Muslim attacker, he lectured Ernest Perce for insulting Islam: "Islam is not just a religion, it's their culture. It's their very essence their very being… And what you've done is, you've complete trashed their essence, their being. They find it very, very, very offensive. I find it offensive."


- End of Adaptation.


I find it offensive, and stupid, too. But in a democracy, being offended does not confer the right to commit violence. Yet Judge Martin unlawfully conceded the right to commit violent crime in the name of religion to Elbayomy, and by extension to all practitioners of the religion of Islam.


I doubt that Judge Martin would concede a right of violent redress to equally devout Catholics seeking revenge against members of the Obama Administration who are forcing Catholic organizations to provide insurance coverage for birth control. In other words, Judge Martin is just another knee-jerk, reactionary, Politically Correct "useful idiot" for Islamofacism, who desperately needs to be impeached from the judiciary, and disbarred from the practice of law. It is the job of the judiciary to defend ordered liberty, not to sell it cheap in a vain attempt to appease its despisers.


You do not have the right never to be offended, because if you do, then everyone else has no rights. The whole world must revolve around your sensitivities. And that's wrong.

Birth Control is Not a Right

So Rush Limbaugh satirized Sandra Fluke, a Georgetown University Law Student, who is advocating in favor of the Obama Administration policy that mandates employers who provide health insurance also provide coverage for contraceptives and abortifacients. I have yet to hear or read Limbaugh's remarks, or Ms. Fluke's for that matter.

What I can say, is that when my wife and I were Ms. Fluke's age, we were also living on graduate student stipends. We took care of our own birth control costs, and never thought to ask the University to help us with them. Because we assumed that birth control was not our right - it was our responsibility. Birth control is considered a right by people whose ideology confuses license with liberty.

On the other hand, the real issue is not graduate students, but the working poor. When you are bringing in such low wages that you have to count pennies, then maybe you do need a little help to make ends meet. Maybe the government should win this one. But Catholic and some other religious institutions have moral objections to birth control. At least let them have a means test, so that they will only be compelled to provide such coverage to those whom they pay wages too low to afford it.

That will at least provide those institutions a way to opt out of providing coverage for birth control by raising the wages of those lowest on the pay scale, and letting them make their own choices as to how to spend their own money.

How Dangerous is Theoretical Physics?

The String Theorists and the Loop Quantum Gravitators are busily chipping away at the problem what space-time actually is. For some time, my concern has been that if people can figure out how space-time is put together, then somebody might be able to figure out how to take it apart. In other words, the next paradigm shift in theoretical physics may have weapons implications, just like the last one, which gave us nuclear weapons. The atomic nucleus is not Nature's last word on explosive energy release.

That last word is actually the First Word - the Big Bang that began the Universe as we know it. The question is whether some yet to be discovered physics can yield intentional explosions between the intensity of a nuclear explosion and the Big Bang.

On the other hand, our astronomers are finding that planets orbiting around stars are commonplace. With all those planets out there, surely some are home to technological civilizations, and surely some of them have already discovered physics that is several paradigms beyond our own. If there were any explosive technology based on such physics, and if any extra-terrestrial civilization had used it, our astronomers would have seen it. So far, all the observable explosions and other energetic phenomena in space look natural. Or so we think.

Maybe theoretical physics isn't such a dangerous pursuit after all. Maybe.

Why Conservatives Suck

Here it is, in their own words, by their own admission.

Lunch Box Inspectors

Well, here's an outrage for you:

http://www.nccivitas.org/2012/state-inspectors-searching-childrens-lunch-boxes-this-isnt-china-is-it/

In an era of constrained budgets, inspectors for the State of North Carolina are searching through children's school lunch boxes and forcing them to eat state/federal-funded, school-provided lunches if what they bring from home fails to measure up to state guidelines.

Now I can see state and or federal guidelines for the nutrition of our nation's precious children. But I object to state or federal employees forcing compliance. Providing proper nutrition is the duty and privilege of the childrens' parents. Unless and until a child shows signs of neglect, or failure to thrive, it is tantamount to illegal search and seizure to snoop into his or her lunchbox. It is wasting scarce tax revenues on needless tyranny.

Or am I wrong? If we are all going to be paying for each other's healthcare, then maybe we all have a legitimate interest in what we may each be eating. Maybe we will all save money in the long run if we pay inspectors to do things like citing and fining me for the donut I ate during a workshop on plasma physics I attended this morning.

Perish the thought!

The Problem of Free Will III: The All-Knowing God

In the previous two posts we established that we are conscious beings who are have Free Will within the constraints of being human in this universe. Indeed, the purely materialistic argument is that Consciousness and Free Will arose in human populations because they enabled us to gain survival benefit from behaviors that are unpredictable and more complex, creative and powerful than pre-determined reflexes. The atheist/materialist is thus forced to argue in favor of Free Will, rather than against it.

But the atheist/materialist points out that Free Will is incompatible with the usual notion of an Omniscient (All-Knowing) God. If God knows the Future, then the Future is pre-determined. If God does not know the Future, then God is not All-Knowing. And the atheist would be right, if the Graeco-Roman categories of Omniscience, Omnipotence, and Omnipresence were categories that circumscribed the Deity.

Here I side with the Muslims, when they say, "Allahu Akbar!" which means, "God is greater!" Greater than anything you can imagine, including your philosophical categories. But before we dismiss the argument with a slogan, let us consider an alternate reality that you alone control.

Let us consider your dreams. You are the Creator of every one of them. You yourself are Omniscient, Omnipresent, and Omnipotent with respect to your dreams. Part of you must know how each one will turn out, because part of you creates and controls the plot. But you are still surprised at what occurs in your dreams. Except for relatively rare instances of "lucid" dreaming, you feel out of control, swept along by the current of events in the dreams that you dream up.

Elsewhere I have argued that the Universe and everything in it seems like one vast, self-consistent dream in the Mind of God. Given that we are made in the "image" of God, perhaps it is not too outrageous to wonder if God experiences something of the same surprise at God's own dreaming of this Universe?

And why should God be limited to only one dream?

The Problem of Free Will II: Limited Autonomy

Let us return to the first proposition of my friend the skeptic:


"Every human thought is in principle a pre-determined consequence of biochemical processes that are themselves determined by evolution, the course of which is pre-determined by chemistry and physics. Therefore, there is no such thing as free will."

At first, it appears that the question of Free Will is an "either/or" proposition. Either we have Free Will, or we don't. What we actually experience, however is freedom within the constraints of our abilities. For example, you may be free to desire whatever you can imagine, but you are not free to desire what you can't imagine. The limits of your own imagination are the limits of what you can want, or will. I concede that the limits on our Free Will are pre-determined by our genetic makeup combined with our experience and our situation in the world. But within those limits, determinism is dead.


Determinism is based on the notion that if we could know the positions and velocities of every particle in the Universe we could, in principle, calculate the entire future evolution of the Universe. This idea was born from the structure of Newton's equations of motion and held sway for over 200 years, until the 1920's. Then we found out that very small particles begin to exhibit behavior that is masked by the sheer size of large ones. It turns out that the process of precisely measuring a particle's position destroys information about its velocity, and vice versa. That is to say, measuring exactly where a particle is gives it such a whack that we can no longer know where it's going, and measuring exactly where it's going can only be done via interactions that "smear out" where it is. That the position and velocity of a particle cannot simultaneously take on precise values is a statement of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, and seems to be a fundamental limitation on the measurability of reality.

If the Uncertainty Principle struck Determinism a mortal blow in the 1920s, nonlinear dynamics delivered the coup de grace in the 1980s. The nonlinear dynamicists finally had the desperation, the courage, and the methods to tackle some of the really hard problems of Classical Mechanics (the branch of physics that deals with the motion of ordinary sized things and is described by Newton's equations). They found that even for relatively simple systems, like three bodies moving under mutual gravitational attraction, the future motion can depend so sensitively on the given conditions at any moment (positions and velocities) that the detailed motion of the system is unpredictable (or chaotic) - not only because classical measurements are only finitely precise, but because of the limitations imposed by the Uncertainty Principle as well. In other words, the Universe is not nearly as well-behaved as a wind-up clock. The Universe is not a machine or a mechanism, as we understand machines and mechanisms. Determinism is dead.


How dead is it? Consider that three bodies moving under their mutual gravitational attraction have 6 degrees of freedom per body (their positions along any three perpendicular directions in space, and their velocities along those directions). These three bodies are a system with 18 degrees of freedom whose motion is unpredictable in principle. Now consider that the human brain has about 100 billion neurons, each with about 10,000 interconnections to other neurons, each of which is a degree of freedom for that neuron. The human brain is a system with at least a quadrillion degrees of freedom. The idea of trying to predict the state of a living human brain is ludicrous. 


And that's just classically. Quantum mechanically, the wave function of each neuron in your brain extends throughout the whole universe. True, the far reaches of that wave function have very low values. But I include it to emphasize the fundamental impossibility of knowing all the influences on the state of the brain. 

Now the three gravitating bodies will under certain circumstances, stay within some enveloping region of space. Within that region, it is impossible to predict where they will be over the long term. But they will be (almost completely) somewhere within that region. They are free within that constraint.

Similarly, you are free to think and to desire whatever you want within the constraints of your being human at a certain time and place. That is to say, you have Free Will within limits. You are free to will anything possible. You are free even to will the impossible. But you are not free to will the unimaginable, because you don't know what it is. This is Limited Freedom, rather than an Absolute Freedom. The limits are set only by human nature and physical reality. At least, until we figure out how to change them.

So the dichotomy between Absolute Freedom and being an automaton is false. There is space for freedom with the constraints of being in this Universe. It puts us in a situation that seems paradoxical to absolutists who insist on Free Will as an all-or-nothing proposition. As Isaac Bashevis Singer once said, "We have to believe in Free Will. We have no choice."

The Problem of Free Will I: Is anybody there?

"Every human thought is in principle a pre-determined consequence of biochemical processes that are themselves determined by evolution, the course of which is pre-determined by chemistry and physics. Therefore, there is no such thing as free will. In fact, there is no such thing as consciousness. What appear to be sentient beings are just automata that give the illusion of consciousness."

I feel frustrated, even enraged when I hear or read statements like this, whether from scientists and non-scientists. Such a statement is equivalent to saying that the Universe and everything in it is dead — even ourselves. It implicitly permits the most outrageous disregard of everything and everyone, even one's one children. After all, what harm is there in neglecting or even killing that which never was, and never could be really alive?

I'm outraged when people make such statements, because it is that easy and that quick to show that such statements would have grossly immoral consequences, were people to take them seriously. I'm frustrated when people make such statements, because they are wrong. For the rest of this thread, I would like to show you why.

Let's start with basic philosophy. To whom do automata give the illusion of consciousness? This is not just a semantic game. An illusion cannot have itself, nor can an automaton have one. The very idea of an illusion pre-supposes the idea of consciousness on the part of someone. That is, you must be conscious in order to have the illusion (the false awareness) that you are conscious. You might be semi-comatose and in a dream-like state, but that is still a state of consciousness. In fact, consciousness is the prime datum of philosophy, both Western (self-awareness as in Descartes' "I think, therefore I am") and Eastern (a generalized oceanic awareness).

Consciousness is also the prime datum of science. The discipline of science is to get ever more precise and accurate data into one's consciousness, so that one can discover and then test relationships among the data. If you reject the datum of your own self-awareness, then you can claim that anything I do to demonstrate the contrary is unreal, an illusion (which you must be conscious to experience, but since I must be wrong, logic must not apply). That is to say, rejecting the datum of your own consciousness is unfalsifiable, and therefore unscientific. Because science accepts only statements that are falsifiable (capable of being proved wrong), in principle, by some sort of observation (a means of getting data into consciousness) or experiment (a controlled means of getting data into consciousness). Science is thus a way to get to know by successive approximations (trial and error) those aspects of reality amenable to its methods.

In short, claiming that we are unconscious is unscientific, unphilosophic and leads to logical contradictions. And that is, as mathematicians say, "what was to be proven," Quod Erat Demonstrandum, QED.

Of course, it is possible that my friend mis-spoke. Perhaps what he really wanted to deny is the reality of the self. Here he might be on firmer ground, because Buddhism claims that an individual's sense of self is illusory. That is to say, that your own little sense of self is an illusion entertained by part of the Universal Self.

I think what the Buddhists are trying to say, however imprecisely, is that you are not your personality. Indeed, you build your personality on the foundation of your temperament in order to have an interface with the people and the world around you. You use your personality to relate to yourself, as well. The Buddhist koan, "Show me the face you had before your parents were born," is a demand to experience and relate to reality directly, without the intermediary of your personality.

But that doesn't mean that your personality is unreal. If you build a bicycle, the bicycle is no less real for your having built it. If you write a piece of software, the software is no less real for your having written it, or for it being the expression of your ideas. Similarly, your personality is your real creation, more intricate and grander than any art or literature ever created. It isn't an illusion. It just isn't all there is to you. And if your personality changes over time in response to your circumstances, so what? You might want to make changes to the bicycle you built as you grow, or as you age. So too, you may change your personality, albeit with some difficulty, and sometimes with the aid of a psychotherapist.

Having dealt with consciousness, we now turn to the thornier problem of free will. What my friend above should have been trying to establish was not the solipsistic ideas that we are unconscious or have no personalities, but rather the idea that although we are conscious, we only have the illusion of free will. We may be self-aware, but all our thoughts and actions are pre-determined reactions to preceding stimuli. We only think that we actually decide anything. This will be the topic of the next post in this thread.

A Taxonomy of World Religions

According to their Hermeneutics of Fecal Occurrence

by Author Identity Requested

This has circulated over the net in many versions. Here's ours, with contributions from Scooper, Andy Busch, MM, RF, and others.

TAOISM	S__t happens.
CONFUCIANISM	Confucius say: "S__t happens."
BUDDHISM	S__t doesn't really happen. It is only called s__t happening.
Zen	What is the sound of one s__t happening?
SIKHISM	Cut that s__t out, or we'll cut it out of you!
HINDUISM	This s__t has happened before.
PLATONISM	This s__t will happen again.
JAINISM	When it happens, s__t gently. Don't hurt the s__t.
SHINTO	If s__t happens, put a flower in it. Make a pretty offering.
HARE KRISHNA	...s__t happens, s__t happens, s__t happens...
MOONIES	Only happy s__t really happens.
WICCA	S__t happens if you will it to happen.
ISLAM	S__t happens because Allah wills it.
SUFISM	Even though s__t happens, Allah wants you to dance.
PROTESTANTISM	Let s__t happen to someone else.
JUDAISM	Why does this s__t always happen to us?
CATHOLICISM	You deserve this s__t.
Vatican II	If s__t happens, blame the clergy.
PRESBYTERIANISM	S__t should happen decently and in good order.
CALVINISM	S__t is predestined to happen because you don't work hard enough.
7TH DAY ADVENTISM	No s__t on Saturdays.
TORONTO BLESSING	Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha, s__t happens, ha-ha-ha-ha....
ANGLICANISM	Scripture contains all things necessary to deal with s__t happening.
ANTIDISESTABLISHMENTARIANISM	We still favor happenings of state-supported s__t.
FUNDAMENTALISM	Unless you're one of us, you're s__t.
Baptist	S__t won't happen for you until you're totally immersed in it.
Pentecostal	S__t happens! Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!
METAPHYSICS	In terms of materialistic ontogeny, we're all s__t.
NEW AGE	When s__t happens, channel it. Visualise s__t happening.
Feminism	S__t happening is an act of the Goddess.
Feminist Separatism	When s__t happens, blame men.
Men's Movement	Drums & fire make s__t happen hot & loud.
RASTAFARIANISM	Let';s smoke this s__t!
Bud Lightism	S__t happens... I love you, man!
EXISTENTIALISM	S__t is, therefore it happens.
JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES	If you just let me in, I'll tell you why s__t happens.
MORMONISM	If s__t happens, make sure you have a 2-year food supply.
RAJNEESH	For $1000, s__t can happen for you, too.
HEDONISM	There's nothing like a good s__t happening!
STOICISM	This s__t is good for me.
ZOROASTRIANISM	Bad s__t happens half the time. The rest of the time, it's good.
Parsi	Don't burn that s__t — fire is sacred!
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE	This s__t is all in your mind.
BAHA'I	S__t happens to everyone alike.
UNITARIANISM	If there is a s__t, let it happen to each in his/her own way.
AGNOSTICISM	Maybe s__t happens, and maybe it doesn't.
Apathy	Who gives a s__t?
ATHEISM	No s__t!
POLITICS AS RELIGION
Republicans	When s__t happens, stare like a deer in the headlights. Or invade a country that had nothing to do with it. Or both.
Democrats	When s__t happens, deny it. Or else weasel your way out of it with double talk, as in, "It depends on what the meaning of 's__t' is."
NRA	S__t will happen when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.
NRA-Ted Nugent Style	Before you grill s__t, you gotta kill s__t!