Environmental Pharisees

Environmental Pharisees

Jesus frequently came into conflict with the Pharisees--hyper-strict religious leaders of His day--because they erected rules that went far beyond the requirements of divinely revealed law. He accused them of straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel; loading people with burdens no one could bear; and substituting the traditions of men for the commandments of God.

Some modern environmentalists are not much different, promulgating hyper-strict rules with unjustified moral fervor. They confuse debatable prudence with divinely revealed principle.

A case in point is opposition to soft toilet paper. Because recycled paper won't work, soft toilet paper must be made from freshly pulped trees. But, says Dr. Allen Hershkowitz of the Natural Resources Defense Council, "No forest of any kind should be used to make toilet paper."

Got that? "Should" is a moral term, and “no forest of any kind” makes it an absolute moral judgment. But whether or not we may cultivate trees solely to make toilet paper is a prudential judgment on which reasonable people can differ.

Legalism may be easier to satisfy than the law of love, but the Apostle Paul strongly condemned it:

If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees, such as, "Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!" (which all refer to things destined to perish with use)--in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men? These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence.
(Colossians 2:20-23)

Kent comments:

I didn’t write the above – I’m not that talented!  But you can find a wealth of good information about the environment where this came from, which is We Get It.  Go there RIGHT NOW and sign up for their weekly email.  Just do it!  You won’t regret it.

Science Is A Sacred Cow

from Inside Higher Ed:

Funding Science, Smartly

March 4, 2009

Rep. John Culberson's Web site shouts that the country should "just say no to federal spending," and the Texas Republican boasted at a House of Representatives hearing Tuesday that he has a 100 percent rating from the American Conservative Union because he consistently opposes wasteful government spending. But Culberson makes an exception, he told his colleagues on the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related, for spending on scientific research and science education, given the contribution those things make to the country's economic stability and national security.

"We should find a way to wall off [the National Science Foundation] and other agencies in a way that will protect" their budgets, Culberson said. "We should be looking for funding that is stable and predictable in the years to come."

Kent comments:

Somewhere in my library is an old book titled Science Is A Sacred Cow.  Once upon a time I was a Chemistry major in college, and I still enjoy keeping up with that field a bit.  Science is a good thing, generally speaking.

Even though that is the case, this is no justification for forcing me to pay for your science, anymore than forcing me to pay for your church’s hymnals.

The usual excuse, of course, is that ‘we all benefit from science research.’  In the end, that is probably true in some sense.  We probably all benefit, as consumers, by much of the R&D that is done.  But that is not a good excuse to pick someone’s pocket to pay for it.

Because for any kind of R&D to get to a consumer, some company and its stockholders must first and primarily benefit from it.  I have no problem with that at all – so long as that company and its stockholders pay for their own R&D – and the science that is behind it.

But what about ‘national defense’?  While high tech weapons of defense are very desirable, they could just as easily be purchased by the government hiring private companies to do research and produce the items desired.

If, like Rep. Culberson, you hold to the principle that we should ‘just say no to federal spending’ then you hold a good principle.  But if you compromise it for your ‘sacred cow’ then you are a hypocrite.

Of Course It’s Socialism

Kent comments:

Agnes seems to be at her local ‘public’ school.  So of course it’s socialism!  What did she expect?!

Socialism:  government ownership of the means of production.  Government ownerships of schools (a means of producing schooling) = socialism.

But let not your heart be troubled.  Soon many more parts of American life will be just like ‘public’ schools, the Post Office, and all those wonderfully efficient and customer-friendly places we have tolerated for so long now.

Socialism is bliss.  Learn to enjoy the bliss.  Promote it.  Thank God for it.  Praise the lord Barack for giving us more and more of it.

Amen.

George vs. Today

 

"Harmony, liberal intercourse with all Nations, are recommended by policy, humanity and interest. But even our Commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand: neither seeking nor granting exclusive favours or preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of Commerce, but forcing nothing; establishing with Powers so disposed; in order to give trade a stable course."

--George Washington, Farewell Address, 19 September 1796

Kent comments:

If you manage to wade through the 18th century lingo – charming as it is – something striking and wonderful jumps from this statement.  Notice the phrase, “but forcing nothing.”  Washington is talking about international trade.  How would this be accomplished?  According to Mr. Washington, “neither seeking nor granting exclusive favours or preferences.”

Imagine modern government doing anything like this!  In other words, allowing people to trade with whom and how they see fit.  What would Mr. Washington say about trade barriers, subsidies, and policies?  It seems very clear that he would say, “Away with all those, and let freedom ring!”  (Or something like that.)

But today, a very different sort of person inhabits the office Mr. Washington once so carefully guarded.

Freedom:  what a novel concept, what a rare condition, what a beautiful arrangement.  We had it, but we gave it up in favor of what we thought would be security.

Pity us fools.

Windows 7 Beta

Here is something you don’t expect in this blog:  an operating system review!

I have been trying the coming-soon version of Windows with the Biblically significant (!) number of seven.  To give you an idea of how to evaluate what I am about to say, I consider myself a computer user of above average experience.  My first PC use came in 1982, and I have been far too interested ever since.

I have built PCs, I maintain a little personal network (I’m wired – I don’t like the idea of broadcasting my data.  It’s a prejudice I will probably give up sometime.)  I worked in an IT department for a few years – at a low level, just so you know.

I ‘grew up’ computerly-speaking in the good old days of DOS.  I came only reluctantly into the era of graphical interface operating systems.  After Windows 3.1 I used OS/2 for a while.  I rather liked it, but it didn’t seem to become very popular.

I skipped Vista for a couple of reasons.  First, I am poor and can’t afford to upgrade at the drop of a hat.  Also, I liked XP and heard too many complaints about Vista.

Right now, in addition to XP, I run an additional older PC with the Ubuntu version of Linux.  My wife’s old PC was sitting around, so I stuck all the old hard drives (I never get rid of such treasures) I had into it.  Ubuntu runs very well on that old PC, and it gives me a chance to escape the dominion of Bill Gates now and then.

So having said all that – probably too much – we come to this latest offering from Bill and the boys at Microsoft.

I downloaded one of the last copies in February.  I was going to burn a DVD for installation (it’s too large for a CD – which it seems are almost obsolete now anyway) and I discovered that I had no writable DVD blanks in stock.  So I put the Windows 7 files on a flash drive, and installed from there.  It was rather fun – you have to perform a couple of special maneuvers to pull that off.  Some web browsing was required to learn just what those are.  (This is one of the things I like about the digital world – you can always try something new, and learn something in the process!)

I put the new version of Windows on my XP machine so that it ‘dual boots’ – that is, you must choose which version you want to boot when you start your PC.  The only drawback is that the default is Windows 7, so if you turn on your PC and go brush your teeth while it boots, you are in Windows 7.  There is probably some way to change that, but I haven’t bothered to discover it yet.

So Windows 7 beta has been loaded now for a few weeks.  I loaded up all sorts of programs, uninstalled few I didn’t like, and generally poked around and with the new system quite a bit.  So far, I have found only one little device utility that I used in XP but wouldn’t work in Windows 7.  All my apps – new and old – work without a hitch.

I must give Bill’s Boys a good grade on this one.  In some ways, it ‘looks’ a bit like Ubuntu to my eyes.  It does seem to require less of your PC power for the operating system.  It does start and close very quickly.  It is easier on the eyes, for me at least, than XP.

The guys at Microsoft are soliciting user feedback for this version, and they seem to be taking it to heart.  They have already made some changes based on the input they have received.  While some of the features aren’t quite where I expect them (remember, I skipped Vista) I have not found it terribly difficult to find where to changes settings and so forth.

I like Windows 7, and I think most users will, too.  It is an operating system I am not likely to skip, as I and so many others did Vista.

[Don’t expect many posts like this on THIS blog!  But now and then, a change of pace is good.]

Relevant or Trendy?

A friend of mine recently sent this to me:

Position DescriptionWorship Pastor

Part-time. Church Relevant is looking for a worship leader who can rock it out! We're a brand new nondenominational church plant with a huge vision to impact and influence our current culture for Jesus. In just a few months we've grown to almost 100 people simply by word of mouth. We believe the next step for us is a slammin' worship team. If you have a fresh approach, a love for jeans, an appreciation for all things multi-media, a humble spirit and a passion to serve Jesus, then we would love to hear from you. These are the very earliest days in the CR; you could be part of building this vision that is all about "helping people find their way to Jesus". We're looking for radical people of faith who see tomorrow just as clearly as they see today.

Kent Comments:

Isn’t the ‘relevant’ motif for churches becoming a bit tiring?  There is nothing heretical per se about ‘rock it out’, ‘slammin’ worship team’, ‘love for jeans’ and ‘appreciation for all things multi-media.’  If those things get your church motor running, fine – I suppose.

But isn’t it about time to move beyond this whole ‘relevant’ business – which has become an annoying buzzword – to some model that does more than just skim the surface of our already superficial culture?

And there are dangers in the trendy ‘relevant’ model, dangers that are revealed in this notice.

Start with the idea of a ‘fresh’ approach.  Sounds hip, doesn’t it?  But a church can only be ‘fresh’ in some metaphorical sense.  So is the church like vegetables, which you want ‘fresh’?  Or is it more like fine wine or cheese, which should not be ‘fresh’ but aged?

Also, from what is written here, it appears that this ‘worship leader’ (notice the very truncated view of worship implied here) need have no particular level of musical knowledge.  All that matters is that he can ‘rock’ and ‘slam’ – whatever that might mean.

But beyond that, notice that ‘Church Relevant’ appears to have no concern whatsoever for the theological knowledge of this ‘worship leader.’  Multi-media manipulation skills seem to trump a deep knowledge of the Christian faith.

Think of how important it is for a church to sing good theology.  It is likely that more Bible doctrine (or lack of it) is ‘sung’ into a congregation than is ‘preached’ into it.  There is a whole tradition of church music over the centuries that can be drawn on to help convey the very essence of the Christian faith into the hearts of people.  Some of that will be missed if all we do is ‘rock and slam.’

But apparently, at ‘Church Relevant’ all they care about is the ‘rock and slam’ factor.  Is this really relevant, or is it just a very tired version of trendy?

It is time to abandon the idea that if only we could make our church ‘cool’ then we will have done the work of God.  As far as I can tell, the ‘cool’ factor is of no importance to God whatsoever.  Maybe we should adjust our thinking about church accordingly.

‘Living In Sin’

 

I receive a daily email from Oxford University Press which contains small parts of a book they publish titled Garner’s Modern American Usage.  Today’s excerpt contained this:

living in sin. This phrase is on the wane. Even the Church of England has proclaimed that "living in sin" is a "most unhelpful" way of describing unmarried couples who cohabit. The Church estimates that four out of five couples live together before marrying. A major Church report in 1995 therefore concludes that the phrase should be dropped. Ruth Gledhill, "'Living in Sin' Is No Longer Sinful, Says Church Report," Times (London), 7 June 1995, at 1.

Kent Comments:

Word usages both reflect and influence the way we think about things.  Here is a good example.  Now “even’ the Church of England has declared that ‘living in sin’ is (and notice the delicate wording here) a most unhelpful way of describing the condition of those who ‘shack up.’  (To use a euphemism which, itself, is a rather interesting phrase.)

Suppose, though, we are not interested in being ‘helpful’ (whatever that might mean) but instead would like to be accurate.  Is it ‘living in sin’ when the unmarried live together and (implied) engage in sexual relations outside of marriage?

Someone will no doubt say that are all ‘living in sin’ in some way or other, meaning simply that we all sin.  But, of course, that does not change the fact that engaging in sexual relations outside marriage is a sin.

Without going into a complete defense of this claim, it is the case that it is based on the historic Christian faith.  If the historic Christian faith is true, then ‘living in sin’ is an accurate description of what we are talking about here.

As ‘the Church’ (of England) points out, many people engage in this behavior.  That, of course, is irrelevant as to whether or not it is a sin.  But if you would rather not make people feel bad by accurately describing their behavior, then, as the report says, ‘the phrase should be dropped.’

But if you are interested in the truth (which, apparently, the Church of England is not) then perhaps we should keep using the phrase.  And there is a benefit even beyond this.

Calling a sin a sin is a way of exerting social pressure.  Social pressure is not a bad thing – it can be very good.  Using a negative name for bad behavior can be a peaceful way of discouraging bad behavior.  But it seems the Church of England doesn’t want to do that, either.

Perhaps we need more, not fewer, negative names for bad behavior.  And this could create a lot of jobs for linguists!