Persistent Vegetative State

This video is about a person named Kate who was in a persistent vegetative state. Kate is now able to express some of her experiences. For me, it brings back memories of Terri Schiavo and how her parents could see in her some level of consciousness. Maybe that wasn't so outlandish after all.

Blinded By Science

An interesting point of view that I came across today.

In our time, we are perhaps less inclined to recognize science as a set of ideas with aspirations to universality precisely because the scientific enterprise has been so successful. But the authority we cede to science, both as the servant of health and as the master of knowledge, weakens our allegiance to those other sources of wisdom so crucial to our self-understanding and self-government. Those other sources serve to ground our moral judgment, while science avoids or flattens moral questions, since it cannot answer them and rarely needs to ask them. .  .  . For all its power, science risks leaving us morally impotent. Imagining the Future

George Smoot: The design of the universe

Is art evangelism?

Austin,
I like you're writing and your blog, and am especially interested in what you say about art being persueasive.

Does this mean that art is evangelism?

I don't know how long ago you made this comment on my blog but I just recently saw it. If it was awhile ago, sorry for the slow response.

Art is a form of communication, although not necessarily in a conceptual way. Art can be used in evangelism but not all art is evangelism.

Art can say things that words and concept can't. Science has reduced reality to concepts of thought that fits in our heads. Anything that does not fit, does not exist. Because art points to a reality that is beyond concepts of thought, I believe that art is essential to reconnected people to Christ and his Church.

Cardinal Bellarmine and Galileo's telescope

Or they suppose that science speaks with one voice, and the only dissenters must be Luddites such as the notorious Cardinal Bellarmine, who allegedly refused to look through Galileo's telescope, whereas the truth is that many of Galileo's assertions, including those about the pendulum, were contested by careful observers, including Descartes and Mersenne, probably the leading physicists of the time. And if peoples' miseducation in science has simply taught them to be dogmatists, they can hardly complain if those on the outside can see only dogmatism. But the reality is that science is a human activity, not an abstract calculus, and this properly makes its great achievements a subject of pride and awe, not suspicion and skepticism. It should also make us aware of its desperate fragility, and the hostile cultural forces that it constantly has to overcome. by Alan Sokal

Roman Catholic Political Philosophy

This is a quote from a book review on James V. Schall's book Roman Catholic Political Philosophy.

The distinction between political and religious concerns, though important to recognize, is not as great as is supposed by many--especially by modern secularists, who tend to compartmentalize religion when they think of it at all. For one thing, every person, no matter how oriented toward revelation, must live in the world, and cannot wholly escape political matters or the concerns of the social sciences. Moreover, because politics does not represent humankind's ultimate end, good political philosophy must point beyond itself, and the good state must point beyond itself. A point central to Schall, and in his view a key mark of Roman Catholic political philosophy, is this recognition that "the ultimate destiny of each human being, the political animal, is not located in politics" (p. 158). Following Eric Voegelin, Schall recognizes the rise of ideology, and then the exhaustion of ideology, as symptoms of modern society's failure to recognize this basic reality. In closing itself to revelation and rejecting metaphysics, politics becomes its own monstrous metaphysics. Paralleling the phenomenon of political modernity is modern philosophy's hubristic tendency to identify the wholeness of reality with what is knowable through philosophy's methods. We neglect the vital role of revelation at our peril. (A book review by William F. Byrne)

Doctrines You Least Like

A clearly maintained distinction between what the Faith actually says and what you would like it to have said or what you understand or what you personally find helpful or think probable, forces your audience to realize that you are tied to your data just as the scientist is tied by the results of the experiments; that you are not just saying what you like. This immediately helps them to realize that what is being discussed is a question about objective fact - not gas about ideals and points of view.

The new truth which you do not know and which you need must, in the very nature of things, be hidden precisely in the doctrines you least like and least understand. It is just the same here as in science. The phenomenon which is troublesome, which doesn't fit in with the current scientific theories, is the phenomenon which compels reconsideration and thus leads to new knowledge. Science progresses because scientists, instead of running away from such troublesome phenomena or hushing them up, are constantly seeking them out. In the same way, there will be progress in Christian knowledge only as long as we accept the challenge of the difficult or repellent doctrines. A "liberal" Christianity which considers itself free to alter the Faith whenever the Faith looks perplexing or repellent must be completely stagnant. Progress is made only into a resisting material. (C. S. Lewis, Christian Apologetics)

Dehumanized by Technology

I’m haunted by that scene in 2001. What makes it so poignant, and so weird, is the computer’s emotional response to the disassembly of its mind: its despair as one circuit after another goes dark, its childlike pleading with the astronaut—“I can feel it. I can feel it. I’m afraid”—and its final reversion to what can only be called a state of innocence. HAL’s outpouring of feeling contrasts with the emotionlessness that characterizes the human figures in the film, who go about their business with an almost robotic efficiency. Their thoughts and actions feel scripted, as if they’re following the steps of an algorithm. In the world of 2001, people have become so machinelike that the most human character turns out to be a machine. That’s the essence of Kubrick’s dark prophecy: as we come to rely on computers to mediate our understanding of the world, it is our own intelligence that flattens into artificial intelligence. (Nicholas Carr)

I see this in my own relationship with technology. When I spend too much time on the computer I become emotionally, socially, and spiritually flat.

Pwned by Stuff

POSSESSED from Martin Hampton on Vimeo.


This will have you throwing stuff away after watching it. As a social worker I see a lot of homes like this. Like obesity these types of issues are hard to hide. At different levels we are all slaves to things that are below us.

In Defense of Modesty

"After they touched a bra, men are more likely to be content with a smaller immediate monetary reward," writes Bram Van den Bergh, one of the study's authors. "Prior exposure to sexy stimuli may influence the choice between chocolate cake or fruit for dessert."

The authors believe the stimuli bring men's minds to the present as opposed to the future. "The study demonstrates that bikinis cause a shift in time preference: Men live in the here and now when they glance at pictures featuring women in lingerie. That is, men will choose the immediately available rewards and seek immediate gratification after sex cue exposure."

Do all straight men respond the same? Actually, no. Some men are highly responsive to rewards while others are not so sensitive, and the more reward-sensitive men are the impatient ones.

In fact, doing a task designed to inspire financial satisfaction reduced the bikini-inspired impatience, just as feeling full reduces food cravings. Men may want to be aware of bikinis' effects on their bank accounts and waistlines. (Link)

Coldplay - Viva La Vida

This is a interesting song by a popular English Rock band. Here is someone singing to give you and idea of the song.

I used to rule the world
Seas would rise when I gave the word
Now in the morning I sleep alone
Sweep the streets I used to own

I used to roll the dice
Feel the fear in my enemy's eyes
Listen as the crowd would sing:
"Now the old king is dead! Long live the king!"

One minute I held the key
Next the walls were closed on me
And I discovered that my castles stand
Upon pillars of salt and pillars of sand

Chorus: I hear Jerusalem bells a ringing
Roman Cavalry choirs are singing
Be my mirror my sword and shield
My missionaries in a foreign field
For some reason I can't explain
Once you go there was never, never an honest word
That was when I ruled the world

It was the wicked and wild wind
Blew down the doors to let me in.
Shattered windows and the sound of drums
People couldn't believe what I'd become

Revolutionaries wait
For my head on a silver plate
Just a puppet on a lonely string
Oh who would ever want to be king?

Chorus: I hear Jerusalem bells a ringing
Roman Cavalry choirs are singing
Be my mirror my sword and shield
My missionaries in a foreign field
For some reason I can't explain
I know Saint Peter won't call my name
Never an honest word
But that was when I ruled the world

(Repeat

Chorus)

Hat tip American Papist. The comments on the American papist post had this interpretation of the song.

Ya, there seems to be a lot of suggestions for the songs meaning. Most people think its about the French Revolution - and some will go as far as to suggest the last week of Jesus.

While you could force the song to fit any of these themes, I believe ITS INTENT was to be written from the perspective of Tony Blaire. That would be most fitting with regards to Chris' vocal objection to Blair and the War in Iraq.

For instance:
Puppet on a string - with reference to how Blair would respond to Bush

my head on a plate, and other lines about the fall of a king - with reference to how people wanted him out of office.

lines about not telling the truth - Blaire was well known for being able to spin media

reference to Crusades - allegory to spreading freedom in the middle east

St. Peter still not calling his name - maybe something is still on his conscious even after his conversion.
Anonymous | 05.29.08 - 10:59 pm | #

Suffering

We look in vain for an emotionally satisfying answer to suffering because suffering is inherently a matter of being separated from the good. Complaining that there is not a “satisfying” answer to suffering is like complaining that water is wet.

Suffering is a consequence of Adam and Eve disobeying God. Adam and Eve ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. This knowledge is not the bookish type of knowledge. It's the experiential type of knowing. Peter Kreeft said the following in regards to the word knowing, “The same word is used in Genesis 4 for sexual intercourse: Adam "knew" Eve and the result was not a book but a baby.”

Suffering is a result of experientially knowing what evil is. It is the experiencing of what it means to be separated from the source of all good. There had to be some type of consequence that results from our free choices for there to be any meaning behind our actions. The consequence was not just an experience of suffering but also a separation from grace. Due to original sin, human nature is a little bit off and weakened.

The experience of suffering really could have be worse. God's justice demands the consequence of suffering but there is also the mercy that we are not totally deprived of God's goodness. We are still able to know goodness and we still have the ability to be reconciled to God and His grace.

Suffering does say a lot about God. The Christian God is courageous; reckless even from the human point of view. When humans create a computer simulation of the world, we make it safe. There are reset buttons and little to no consequences.

The Christian God is not playing games with the world. There are real consequences and the stakes are high. Free will gives us the ability to love but it is not without a cost. With the ability to choose to love there is also the power to reject God and his love. We are living God's story. In this story there are real dangers with real suffering. God has allowed suffering but he has conquered suffering also. Jesus took on all the sins of humanity during His passion and as a result, all the eternal debt that justice requires. He is a God that chose to test himself through taking on human weakness. He tested himself to the point that he descended into hell. He saw the world from the view of our sin and human weakness, even to the point of a despairing atheist. He was able to say on the cross, ""My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Matt 27:46 Jesus had not given up trust or faith in himself but had taken on the weakest part of humanity. He was quoting Psalm 22 which does not end in despair, surrender, or failure. (Go Read Psalm 22 to find out the full scope of what Jesus was saying)


The Christian God is strong enough even to die and in so doing Jesus conquered suffering, sin, and death when he rose from the dead. We are part of God's story and in this story it does not always make sense to us. Being separated from God -due to original sin- we are blinded by our human weakness. We have to trust and follow Christ through His-story because, “God is his own interpreter, And he will make it plain.”

(Images from Grünewald's Isenheim Altarpiece)

Still Life with Gilt Cup by Willem Claesz

The overarching message of the still life is that the physical world is seductive, yet you are not to be seduced. God’s creation teems with beauty and pleasures, yet these will pass away, and you should not be so consumed by the physical world that you starve the soul. You are called as a Christian to look beneath or beyond the surface. That is why so often the interior of still-life elements are quite literally exposed to sight: We see into the lemon, the bread, the oysters; we see through the clear glass and wine, and shining surfaces reflect an unseen world.

All this was well-understood in the 17th century. Some early still lifes were more labored in advertising their moral intentions than others; the artists added crucifixes and other religious items in the shadows around the alluring foreground objects, or painted slips of paper encumbered with phrases like " Vanitas vanitatum et omnia vanitas " or "Jesus, the most beautiful flower of all."

Later on, the genre did in fact descend from the higher principles it began with into the showy decorativeness and technical display its critics had said it had always evinced. The moral lessons were subordinated to trompe l’oeil illusions and amusing coded pictures of the five senses, the seasons, and the like.

But the still life survived into the Modern era, outliving much of the "serious" art of its day, which today can strike us as too limited in its appeal or subjects, too tied to issues long past relevance. Because their symbolic language is so flexible and derived from familiar sources, still lifes remain as captivating, beautiful, and enigmatic as they were for the 17th-century Dutch. The timelessness of the still life should remind us of the passage of time and the approach of eternity. (Michael Schrauzer, This Rock

Method of Inderect Apologetics: Art Links

The best defense is a good offense. Indirect apologetics through art is one of the best ways to show a truth when someone is highly biased. The following articles have to do with art and truth. I think anyone interested in art would find these articles useful.

This blog entry talks about the “uncanny valley” and how things that are close, but not close enough, to looking human cause a repulsive reaction. It gives examples through an altered Madonna photo and the movie Polor Express. I thing this idea can be used affectively to represent evil and Satan in art.

This article asks the question, why is symmetry so satisfying in art. It touches on how modern architecture tries to buck this phonomena but without much success.

This article discusses the tension that can arise between truth and facts in art. I don't know if I agree with everything said on this one but it is interesting.

In Defense of Going to Church

Mark Thoma directs us to new research showing that for some, the main reason to go to a house of worship on Sunday morning is the fact that there's nothing else to do (Church and the Bored)

As a Catholic, I go to Mass to give thanks and offer sacrifice to God, to give Him his due. These things are a part of living an authentic life. It is a natural human need much like making art. Sure you can say that people make art due to boredom but there is a deeper reason.

There is a human need for down time. There is a need to realize that life is more than the rat race of producing and consuming widgets. The oldest and most successful civilizations throughout history offer thanks and sacrifice. Jews, Christians and Muslims do this and I would guess that the other great civilizations do to.

The Old Testament God of Wrath and Justice

It's often said that the Old Testament, especially Genesis, teaches a God of justice, in stark contrast to Jesus, who teaches a God of forgiveness and love. It is a lie, of course. The God of the Old Testament does all that He does out of love; and the Father of Jesus needs to satisfy justice as well as love; that's why Jesus had to die. I used to think that only those who never read the Bible could fall for this fallacy. But experience has taught me otherwise. Why is it so common?

I think it comes partly from misunderstanding the literary style of Genesis. It is not meant to be psychology, either of God or humanity. The modern style of storytelling emphasizes psychological motives and scrutinizes inner consciousness. This is simply not the style of premodern writing. Augustine's Confessions is the only personal introspective autobiography in premodern literature.

Thus the “wrath of God” is not meant as a description of God's own private feelings, but of His public deeds, of how those deeds look to fallen, “wrathful” man. Psychologically, this is “projection”. When God gave Lady Julian of Norwich a “showing” of His wrath, she said, “I saw no wrath but on man's part.” (Peter Kreeft)

Progressive Frankensteins

Progress is a rallying cry for a lot of people. Who can be opposed to being progressive? The problem is that no one really defines what the target of the progress is. What are we progressing towards exactly? There can be no progress without knowing this because we could be progressing away from what we really want. For instance in genetic engineering; is the goal to cure diseases or is the goal to create a new humanity, a different species. All things that have the potential for good also have the potential for evil. These thing are so closely connected that the more potential for good that something has the more potential there is for evil. Messing with human DNA can have unintended consequences that we can't even imagine. We are so tempted by the power that anyone that calls for caution is told by our modern day Frankensteins, “Shut up, where making progress!” and the world follows; ignorant of where they are headed.

Emmanuel Jal: War Child

This is a very sad story that has a good ending.

My Name is Emmanuel Jal, and I was born in war torn Sudan.

I do not know when I was born, but I believe I took my first breath of oxygen sometime in the early 80s.

My country has been at war for over a decade. I am from southern Sudan where the people are tall and beautiful with smooth skin similar in colour and texture to that of roasted beans.

At the age of seven I, along with thousands of other children was taken from Sudan to Ethiopia, to learn to read and write. Ethiopia at that time was like a city run by children; there were over 30,000 of us in total. During my time there, I learned 8 languages, but as time passed we learned that we had in fact been bought there to be trained as child soldiers. I escaped from the growing army when people started to lose their vision and started fighting one another. Our common enemy being our Sudanese people from the north. Unfortunately I did not reach home because a number of serious events occurred as we embarked on the long journey home. I ended up in a town called Waat. It was here that I met aid worker Emma McCune. She rescued me, by disarming me and smuggling me into Kenya. Whilst in Kenya Emma put me into school and adopted me. Unfortunately a year after I was rescued Emma was killed in a fatal car accident. After this tragedy things became increasingly difficult for me.

I turned to music as a method of therapy and started singing in church. I discovered I had a talent for music at the age of 20.

I released a song in Kenya called "All we need" which became extremely successful. My second release "Gua" reached number one in Kenya, and bought me international acclaim, winning me an American Gospel Award. I then in 2005 released an album called "Ceasefire". This to was a successful project and enabled me to travel, performing in a variety of cities all over the USA and Europe. I also had the privilage of being asked to be the headlining act performing at the Eden project in Cornwall for Live 8 2005, and my track "BAAI" is featured on the soundtrack of "Blood Diamond."

I am currently working on my forthcoming album "War Child" due for release in 2008
(Emmanuel Jal)

Here is one of his songs that expresses his current temptations that he now faces.



If you would like to listen to an NPR interview with Emmanuel Jal you can go here.

In Defense of Dignity

A central concept used by Catholics in understanding bioethics is dignity. Here is some arguments against this and a response by Fr. James Martin.

Second, dignity is fungible. The Council [The President's Council on Bioethics] and [the] Vatican treat dignity as a sacred value, never to be compromised. In fact, every one of us voluntarily and repeatedly relinquishes dignity for other goods in life. Getting out of a small car is undignified. Having sex is undignified. Doffing your belt and spread- eagling to allow a security guard to slide a wand up your crotch is undignified. Most pointedly, modern medicine is a gantlet of indignities. Most readers of this article have undergone a pelvic or rectal examination, and many have had the pleasure of a colonoscopy as well. We repeatedly vote with our feet (and other body parts) that dignity is a trivial value, well worth trading off for life, health, and safety (Steven Pinker)

But voluntary relinquishments of dignity are not the point. Involuntary ones are. The fetus does not voluntarily choose to relinquish life. The worker in the developing world is not voluntarily denied a living wage. The child living in a slum does not voluntarily choose hunger. The handicapped person does not voluntarily choose to be discriminated against. The nursing-home patient does not voluntarily choose to be treated inhumanely. The torture victim does not voluntarily choose physical agony. The victim of genocide does not voluntarily choose death.

This is quite different from getting out of a small car. In Catholic social teaching, human dignity has little to do with occasionally looking "undignified" or "silly." It is about the inviolable value and worth of every human being, who is created by God. But this foundational concept in human rights is not something that appeals simply to Catholics, or Christians, or even simply to believers. As Pope Benedict XVI said in his recent speech to the U.N. General Assembly, "Human rights are increasingly being presented as the common language and the ethical substratum of international relations. At the same time, the universality, indivisibility and interdependence of human rights all serve as guarantees safeguarding human dignity." (James Martin, SJ)

Hat tip to Didymus from the Catholic Answers Form that pointed me to the article.

Its hard for me to imagine why anyone would have a problem with human dignity being a central concept in ethics.

Conversion of St. Paul by Francesco Mazzola

The Conversion of St. Paul, possibly commissioned by a Bolognese doctor (Parmigianino had fled to Bologna to escape the sack of Rome), is a bravura work whose violently asymmetrical composition, with its unique, tilted horizon, makes visible the inner upheaval Saul must have experienced upon hearing the voice of Christ whom he had been persecuting. Parmigianino shows his world being turned upside down.

Saul, having fallen from his horse, lies sprawled on the ground, his blinded eyes dazzled by the divine light. The horse, with its disproportionally small head, rears up above him. Saul’s outstretched limbs set up powerful zig-zagging diagonals for the eye to follow onto the horse’s body. The dynamic poses of the figures are awkward and untenable: The horse must either continue to rear up even higher or quickly drop its hooves back to the ground.

But the horse only appears to be rearing up: A comparison of the angle of its body with that of the horizon reveals that the two are actually parallel, so it must be the ground that is falling away beneath the horse’s feet. A close inspection at the background reveals further spatial distortions: The landscape seems to warp and melt below the angle of the horizon, leveling itself out just to the right of Saul’s jutting knee; the small figures and animals there stand aligned with the vertical side of the painting. The clouds in the sky too are strangely horizontal from our point of view. Nothing here is as it seems.

The biblical account, of course, makes no mention of a horse; the tradition of depicting the episode as an equestrian scene dates from the 12th century. But the image of the fallen rider has important symbolic meaning. A rider on a horse represents man in control of nature, or the spiritual man in control of his own fleshly nature. Thus, a man thrown by his horse is a man no longer in control of himself. Saul is becoming Paul, the slave of Christ, and his sword, a symbol of power and one of Paul’s pictorial attributes, lies useless on the ground. (Michael Schrauzer, This Rock)