RE: This is Your Brain on Marketing

"This idea, simple as it seems, requires us to completely re-imagine our assumptions about memory. It reveals memory as a ceaseless process, not a repository of inert information. The recall is altered in the absence of the original stimulus, becoming less about what we actually remember and more about what we’d like to remember. It’s the difference between a “Save” and the “Save As” function. Our memories are a “Save As”: They are files that get rewritten every time we remember them, which is why the more we remember something, the less accurate the memory becomes. And so that pretty picture of popcorn becomes a taste we definitely remember, and that alluring soda commercial becomes a scene from my own life. We steal our stories from everywhere. Marketers, it turns out, are just really good at giving us stories we want to steal."

David Brooks, The Social Animal, LINK

Quotable: Hitchens

Since we live in a scientific age, I imagine that stout atheists are driven more than anything by impatience to finish the job. When science is poised to solve every remaining mystery and technology unfolds every new convenience, why should we keep any allegiance to an outworn world view?

- Christopher Hitchens

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/05/16/deepak_chopra_atheists_mistake.DTL#ixzz1OqUcNkIi

Dyrness on Fundamentalism and Modernity

"How can conservative Christians, who entered the century determined to oppose modernism and all it stood for, end up being so influenced by the culture this modernism produced? We have noted that Marsden stressed the anti-modern character of twentieth-century fundamentalism, which led to its consistent opposition and the cultural polemics it engendered. In his history of Wheaton College during this period (1921-65), for example, Michael Hamilton argues that Wheaton demonstrates the ability of fundamentalism, like its evangelical forebears, to adopt modern technology and appropriate (especially) the youth culture in its evangelistic and mission institutions."

What is happening here? How did a movement nourished by the separatism of the holiness movement become so enamored of cultural innovation? The answer, I believe, lies in the inability of conservative Christians to understand the nature of the cultural challenge and their tendency to conceive of its problems in strictly intellectual terms, they did not understand the challenge of social modernism."

William Dyrness, The Earth is God's, New York: Orbis Books, 1997, pg 61.

What History Remembers...

"I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will for ever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race."

- Abraham Lincoln

Obviously there are as many quotes which show his hatred for slavery and his belief that all men should have the freedom to pursue life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Furthermore, it should be noted that this quote comes from the context of his senatorial debates with Douglas, which he lost in part because of his 'radical' positions on slavery (e.g. the "House Divided" speech). Yet, he was also a member of the Colonization society for much of his political career. This society advocated both the emancipation and the transport of African Americans to a Caribbean island or to Africa. I posted this quote and these comments because I think it's important to remember historical figures as they were, not as we wish they would have been.

Leeds on Finance: Imaginary Trust Funds

For the past two weeks, I had been preparing a bombshell to drop on Jenny. I had spent a lot of time meeting with accountants to put the information together. On Friday, I finally worked up the nerve and I sat her down to break the news. As best as I remember it, I said, “Jenny, I’m not sure how to tell you this, so I’m just going to come out and say it. My imaginary trust fund is going to run out sooner than expected.” Needless to say, she didn’t take it that well.

Jenny wanted an explanation. So, I gave it to her. I told her what happened. For the past 15 years, we’ve been doing a good job of saving for retirement and for our healthcare when we retire. Each year, I had been saving $100K for retirement and healthcare. I had been putting it in my imaginary trust fund.

My imaginary trust fund is an envelope. You would probably imagine that my envelope is pretty big – since it has to hold all this cash. But, it’s not. You see, my envelope doesn’t really hold any cash. What happened was that while I’ve been doing a pretty good job saving for retirement and healthcare, I actually needed to use that money for some other things. I spent some of it on education for my kids. I also spent some of it on an alarm system for my house (I like to think of this as defense spending). I also spent some of it on some pet projects (there was some promising research that promised to allow me to grow my hair back, etc.).

Jenny started to get angry when she heard that I had spent all of this money. She’s not really as financially savvy as I am. As she started to get madder and madder, she looked like she was about to vote me out of the office of “husband.” I knew that I needed to calm her and regain her vote. I said, “Jenny, it’s not nearly as bad as it sounds. I don’t have the cash in our trust fund envelope. But look…I wrote myself some IOUs. All of these IOUs are in the envelope.”

Jenny saw the IOUs and started to calm down. Seeing my chance, I told her, “Jenny, it’s even better than you think. We’ve saved $100K for 15 years. You thought that we only had $1.5 million in our imaginary trust fund. But we don’t. We have more. We have $2.5 million. Each year, the IOUs that I put in the envelope paid imaginary interest. So I spent the imaginary interest (on other things) and put more IOUs in the envelope. Now, our envelope has $2.5 million of IOUs that I’ve written. I told her that my biggest regret was that interest rates were so low. If they were higher, I could have written myself some even bigger IOUs. She agreed that this was a shame.

Still financially challenged, Jenny asked a silly question. She said, “aren’t we going to need to start spending some of this $2.5 million soon? You seem to be working less and you’re not getting any younger.” I told her that this was an interesting observation. But, I said, “remember those nice bankers who have loaned us $10 million in the past, when we were spending more than we were earning? While I expect to continue to spend more than we earn, we’ll borrow that money. In addition, I’m also going to need the bankers to replace me as the lender of this $2.5 million. I’m sure they’ll be fine with it.”

Never satisfied, Jenny said, “but if we have been spending our retirement and healthcare money to fund our extravagant living, and now we’re not making enough to save for retirement and healthcare, where are we going to come up with the cash to fund our extravagant lifestyle?” Oh, sweet simple Jenny. “You’re so cute when you don’t understand high finance. Don’t you remember why I talked you into having three kids? They’ll pay for it for us. They’ll just spend less on themselves and send more of their money to us. And, if that doesn’t work, I’ll take it out of their imaginary college fund.”

By the end, Jenny had calmed down. She said, “you’re so smart. You should run this country.”

I’ll be writing two more blogs this week with the Social Security and Medicare numbers and the dismal outlook. But, if you understand today’s entry, you are officially disqualified from running for Congress.

Leeds on Finance

Subtexts: The Social Network

The Social Network opens with one of the more memorable exchanges of dialogue that I’ve seen. The conversation—where Jesse Eisenberg (who plays Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg) obsesses to his girlfriend over his chances of getting into one of the elite final clubs at Harvard, blatantly insulting her in the meantime—sets up a subtext that runs throughout the entire film. Whereas the opening conversation makes the viewer want to cuff Zuckerberg upside the head, by the time we get to the climax of the film you find yourself rooting for him—whom his girlfriend rightfully calls an “asshole”—to beat those nasty, elitist Winklevoss twins.

The key quote in this changing of loyalties comes when Eisenberg responds to his lawyer’s suggestion that he must really hate the pair of establishment types who are suing him for all he’s worth. His response describes in a nutshell the major conflict running throughout the film:

"I don’t hate anybody. The “Winklevii” aren’t suing me for intellectual property theft. They’re suing me because for the first time in their lives, things didn’t go exactly the way they were supposed to for them."

The viewer has moved from a point where Zuckerberg is the “asshole” to a place where she is asked to sympathize with Zuckerberg against the seemingly invincible connections, wealth, success, and arrogance of the Winklevoss twins. Moreover, you’re asked to do so while dealing with the fact that Zuckerberg is still the same guy who acted like a child in the film’s first exchange.

Brian Dijkema at the Cardus Blog

Lewis on Humility

Thousands of humans have been brought to think that humility means pretty women trying to believe they are ugly and clever men trying to believe they are fools...God wants to bring the man to a state of mind in which he could design the best cathedral in the world, and know it to be the best, and rejoice in the fact, without being any more (or less) or otherwise glad at having done it than he would be if it had been done by another. God wants him, in the end, to be so free from any bias in his own favor that he can rejoice in his own talents as frankly and gratefully as in his neighbor's talents—or in a sunrise, an elephant, or a waterfall. He wants each man, in the long run, to be able to recognize all creatures (even himself) as glorious and excellent things. He wants to kill their animal self-love as soon as possible; but it is His long-term policy, I fear, to restore to them a new kind of self-love—a charity and gratitude for all selves, including their own.

C. S. Lewis (Screwtape Letters)

Statements of Value and the Arts

Questions such as, “What does this music communicate?” or “Is this picture in any sense immoral?” have been radically avoided. There exists a thought with regard to the arts, that if a question cannot be decided on the basis of scientific means, then it cannot and must not be decided. So strong is the prejudice against the old forms of knowing—where the subject himself was given the responsibility of holding, of deciding—that when an objective position cannot be achieved, then it is better to have no position at all. “Let’s not argue over that, because we bound to disagree” is the our creed. But what if we should argue over it? What if only approximate agreement is our goal? After all, if there is a truth of the matter with regard to these questions (as Christians should agree that there is), should not we strive to come nearer to it?

Art and Nature

“It appears to me that pictures have been over-valued; held up by a blind admiration as ideal things, and almost as standards by which nature is to be judged rather than the reverse; and this false estimate has been sanctioned by the extravagant epithets that have been applied to painters, as ‘the divine,’ ‘the inspired,’ and so forth. Yet in reality, what are the most sublime productions of the pencil but selections of some of the forms of nature, and copies of a few of her evanescent effects; and this is the result, not of inspiration, but of long and patient study, under the direction of much good sense.”
John Constable, Discourses

A Thought Experiment Concerning bin Laden's Death

Imagine your spouse was brutally murdered by a hardened criminal. Imagine the day of his sentencing; he is given the death penalty by lethal injection. Years pass and the day of his death arrives. Given the option, you may even watch the event, perhaps to see justice completed in his cold and stiffening corpse. Would one think you loved your spouse little or much if you left the prison with cheers and celebrations?

Brand and Chaplin on Kitsch

“Milan Kundera memorably describes kitsch as art in which there is an absolute denial of s___.1 Kitsch offers a cosy, comfortable world, a world that is chirpy and cheerful and emotionally cheap. Kitsch trivialises human experience, never enlarges it. It deals in cliché, never new ways of saying something. It is art that is immature, often deliberately babyish. It is high on nostalgia and glitter and low on realism.

“The problem with talking about kitsch is that it risks criticising objects which can mean very much to people. The attachment is often based not on aesthetic qualities of the object but the associations and memories it evokes: a gift from a child, a souvenir of a happy holiday. There is, of course, nothing wrong with that. Any dogmatic condemnation of such items is merely snobbery. In any case, today’s kitsch may well be tomorrow’s antiques!

“However, if Christian artists produce art which is shallow, sentimental and low on realism, they not only produce bad art, they also misinterpret the full Christian experience of living in a broken, albeit redeemed, world – an experience which may contain more lows than highs.”

Hilary Brand and Adrienne Chaplin, Art and Soul: Signposts for Christians in the Arts, 107.

1. Kundera, Milan, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Poems for Friday

"Behold the Man!"

Shall Christ hang on the Cross, and we not look?
Heaven, earth, and hell stood gazing at the first,
While Christ for long-cursed man was counted cursed;
Christ, God and Man, Whom God the Father strook
And shamed and sifted and one while forsook:--
Cry shame upon our bodies we have nursed
In sweets, our souls in pride, our spirits immersed
In wilfulness, our steps run all acrook.
Cry shame upon us! for He bore our shame
In agony, and we look on at ease
With neither hearts on flame nor cheeks on flame:
What hast thou, what have I, to do with peace?
Not to send peace but send a sword He came,
And fire and fasts and tearful night-watches.

The Descent from the Cross

Is this the Face that thrills with awe
Seraphs who veil their face above?
Is this the Face without a flaw,
The Face that is the Face of Love?
Yea, this defaced, a lifeless clod,
Hath all creation's love sufficed,
Hath satisfied the love of God,
This Face the Face of Jesus Christ.

- Christina Rossetti

The Death Certificate

Almost every day I meet men and women well advanced in years who walk to my desk holding the little blue paper. Perhaps it is me, but I seem to see white knuckles, fingers pressing the little blue scrap, not to let it go. That little blue scrap is a metaphor, the only scrap they have left of the one whose name is written on it. In this case it says, Frieda Fern Wooden, maiden name Mabry. Oh, when it was Mabry! How beautiful she was! She would be 77 this August, that is, before box 33 came. Box 33 is heavy with pain. In this case it's "Colon Cancer," for "years." Maybe this is why I see his face is calm, at peace for once. God knows the last four years have been tulmultuous. Surely the skeptics were wrong, death is very painful. The pain of death is in the waiting for it. Grimly the reaper stood immobile, impassive for years, four to be specific. But now all that remains is the soreness from that pain, the jagged reminders of lost joys in the form of tea cups and Christmas ornaments and blue scraps of paper. Perhaps that's why he told me not to bother making a copy?

Rembrandt van Rijn, c. 1665 Kenwood House, Hamptead, London

"As a child I used often to look at Rembrandt's self-portrait in London's Kenwood House, a picture which gave peculiar comfort in the way it seamlessly joins greatness and frailty. It echoes everyone's vocation to glory, with everyone's painful self-knowledge." David Thistlethwaite, The Art of God and the Religions of Art, 7.

Later, "The self-portrait in which you can see yourself - and humanity's condition: greatness almost swallowed up by self-harm; and self-reproach almost yielded to forgiveness." Thistlethwaite, Plate 2

"Not Many of You Should Presume to Be Bloggers", John Dyer

Can one blog about this article?

At Christianity Today, "Not Many of You Should Presume to Be Bloggers," by John Dyer

Theology Before Facebook, Theology After Facebook
Throughout the history of public theological debate, there was one constant—those debates only took place between a few select people—Moses, Plato, Augustine, Aquinas, and so on—who gained respect through a lifetime of scholarship.

But the invention of social media, like blogs, Twitter, and Facebook, created a radical departure in communication. In pre-2004 Christianity (that is, Christianity before Facebook was invented), only a small group of Christian leaders and teachers had access to the printing press—but today everyone has WordPress. In pre-2004 Christianity it was difficult to become a published author, but today everyone is surrounded by dozens of "Publish" buttons.

Every time we log into Facebook it asks us, "What's on your mind?" Twitter wants to know, "What's happening?" When controversies large and small erupt, there are devices in every direction begging us to not just take a side, but to declare our position on the largest publishing platform ever constructed by humanity.

Not Many of You Should Presume to Be Bloggers
What few of us realize is that when we press those "Publish," "Post," "Comment," and "Send" buttons, we are making the shift away from merely "believing" truth and stepping into the arena of publishing that belief. In doing so we are effectively assuming a position of leadership and teaching that prior to 2004 was not available to us.

James warned us, "Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly" (James 3:1, NIV1984). James goes on to graphically portray the incredible power that our tongues have both to praise and to curse especially in the context of teaching. He then says, "Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good life." (James 3:13). Solomon echoes similar wisdom, "Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent" (Prov. 17:28).

"Evangelicals Divided" by Gerald McDermott

This is a must read from First Things:

In Reformed and Always Reforming: The Post-Conservative Approach to Evangelical Theology, Olson suggests that this brand of evangelical theology is fundamentalist in spirit because it chases heretics out of its “small tent.” He calls his “post-conservative” brand of evangelical theology the “big tent” version.

Olson divides the conservatives—which we would call Traditionists—into two camps, “Biblicists” (a derogatory term suggesting simple-mindedness) and “Paleo-orthodox” (another derogatory term, implying a refusal to face modern realities). The Biblicists, who include Carl Henry, Kenneth Kantzer, J. I. Packer, Wayne Grudem, Norman Geisler, and D. A. Carson, see revelation as primarily propositional and doctrines as facts. But most importantly, Olson claims, they regard doctrine as the “essence” of Christian faith.

The Paleo-orthodox include Baptist D. H. Williams, the Reformed author-pastor John Armstrong, Anglicans such as the late Robert Webber and Christianity Today’s editor David Neff, and the Methodists William Abraham and Thomas Oden. For them, the ancient ecumenical consensus is the governing authority that serves as an interpretive lens through which Christians are to interpret Scripture. The critical and constructive task of theology is conducted in light of what the ecumenical Church has already decided about crucial doctrinal matters.

Olson’s division of conservatives into these two camps is partly right and partly wrong. It is true that when interpreting Scripture some conservatives look to the last few centuries of evangelical reflection for authority, and others look to the Fathers. But the post-conservative suggestion that both the so-called Biblicists and Paleo-orthodox are foundationalist is dubious. Few among the Biblicists just named—and none of the Paleo-orthodox—would affirm the possibility of intellectual certainty based on self-evident truths or sensory experience. Neither group would say doctrine alone is the essence of faith, but all would insist that experience should never be privileged over doctrine.

Hebrew Poetry

It's always fun to read Hebrew Poetry because it always contains richness which cannot be captured in English. I love the word plays in this passage. The point is your idols do not speak; they cannot teach you anything, instead they are shaped as demonstrations of a lie. Keep silent (do not speak to your idols) before the God who speaks.

“What profit is a shaped idol when its formulator has shaped it, a metal image, a demonstration (word play teacher) of a lie? For its formulator trusts in his own formation when he makes speechless idols! Woe to him who says to a wooden thing, Awake; to a silent stone, Arise! Can this demonstrate (teach)? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all in it. But the LORD is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him.”
Habakkuk 2:18–20

Thomas Hardy, “The Darkling Thrush”

Thomas Hardy, “The Darkling Thrush”

I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter’s dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.

The land’s sharp features seemed to be
The Century’s corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware

(reblog) Quotable: Bradley Monton

"If science really is permanently committed to methodological naturalism – the philosophical position that restricts all explanations in science to naturalistic explanations - it follows that the aim of science is not generating true theories. Instead, the aim of science would be something like: generating the best theories that can be formulated subject to the restriction that the theories are naturalistic. More and more evidence could come in suggesting that a supernatural being exists, but scientific theories wouldn’t be allowed to acknowledge that possibility."

Bradley Monton, author of Seeking God in Science: An Atheist Defends Intelligent Design

ht: faithinterface

Quotable: Good Will Hunting