CADRE Comments

If one were to review the various lists of the greatest literary classics, it would be hard to call any list complete which didn't include The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (" Huck Finn ")  by Mark Twain. No less a writer than Ernest Hemingway praised the book stating, All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since. Of course, many years have passed since Hemingway made that statement, and while more novels have been written that deserve consideration for that list, I can't think of any that have had the magnitude of impact both in history and literature as Huck Finn . The almost flawless writing of the book using the "voice" of the people - writing in a way that uses the natural accents and verbal styles used in everyday talk in America of the 1800s -- makes the book stand out as unique at the time and a harbi...

One of the classes I teach at the university is a course on Ethics, and I am using a book by Ralph Dolgoff, Donna Harrington and Frank M. Lowenberg entitled " Ethical Decisions for Social Work Practice " as the text. Overall, I think that it is a good Ethics textbook largely because it provides a balanced viewpoint on the need for values in social work. For example, the book makes the argument (without committing to it) that those engaged in social work cannot avoid making value judgments in ethical decisions because trying to do what is right necessarily involves making an value choice. Also, I book notes that some (including me) think it is ethically wrong for a social worker to cover-up her own values when counseling another person because it creates a false (and ultimately unproductive) relationship with the person being counseled. Still, one of the exemplars in the book gave me pause – not because I thought it raised a deep ethical quandary, but because I wondered how ...

Sometimes I'm asked to try to explain the Trinity simply -- sometimes for the humor of watching me try it! {wry g} And sometimes for the perceived apologetic value in my acknowledgment that the doctrinal set of trinitarian theism isn't simple, as if simplicity of a doctrinal set was itself evidence of truth (tell that to an astrophysicist of any flavor), or as if the complexity in itself should be regarded as evidence of unnecessary (and thus false) over-complication. There are only distant analogies to the Trinity in Nature, and that doesn't help, although that ought to be expected since we're supposed to be talking about the one and only self-existent ground of all reality. The Latin phrase sui generis is sometimes used here; that just means it's one of a kind and so every analogy to it for illustration will bring built-in differences from it. But one of my nieces (not yet ten years old) started catechism training this year, with some portions of doctrine (re...

Bill's topic from a few days ago is something that Christians (and other theists of all stripes) have been chewing over for thousands of years. It might seem like the answer is a simple yes or no; but there are concepts which supernaturalistic theists are (in principle) committed to, which introduce difficulties. I spent several hundred pages in Sword to the Heart ( which can be found for free in some different formats, including first here on the Cadre Journal ) slowly and carefully working up those concepts, but I'll summarize them below in a progressing topical order relevant to the question of God's responsibility. ( Click here on the jump to proceed. )

Yes. Duh. Obviously I am following up on fellow Cadrist BK's excellent article from Wednesday, which I recommend reading first. (See also Metacrock's sociological article at his weblog. ) And I will reiterate what I said in the comments to another recent article of his , that I am far from being the world's biggest fan of arguments from socio-cultural utility. To this I will add that, just as obviously, no idea 'promotes' anything unless a person acts coherently in concert with the idea. Even people who believe (and promote) the idea that all human ideas (tacitly excepting their own human ideas, or this human idea of theirs anyway) are only irrational reactions to memetic stimulations, would agree that unless the 'idea' (or the electro-physical impulses which on this theory are the actual and only reality behind what we call an 'idea') stimulates a reaction along the same lines as the 'shape' of the 'idea' (or words to that ef...

Update: now with 100% more Prisoner Dilemma game theory! {g} "Option A is made of fire!" Some people believe the Golden Rule is that there is no Golden Rule. This kind of person worships the void, rejecting truth (perhaps to serve themselves or else perhaps in despair). And yet in doing so, they only commit intellectual suicide: for if there is no Golden Rule then neither can that be a Golden Rule. Some people believe the Golden Rule is that there is a Golden Rule. This kind of person worships static existence or maybe mere power effect. They do at least acknowledge truth; but typically they expect the truth to be worthlessly simple--or maybe themselves if they have enough power! Some people believe the Golden Rule is "Do not do to others what you'd rather not have done to you." These people worship nothing, not knowing what to worship; but at least they reject the worship of mere power as improper, and might be looking to worship more than themselves if they...

[Note: the contents page for this series can be found here. The previous entry, starting Chapter 44, can be found here. ] [This entry concludes Chapter 44, "The Fall".] I can look at two different sets of data and infer my next conclusion independently from either of them. If I was in total harmony with God originally, then I think my relationship to this Nature would have been significantly different than what I find it to be now. Yet, I don't ever remember being in that relationship with Nature. As far as my own memory goes, I seem to have been born in this condition. But perhaps that is an illusion. However, I also have access to plenty of examples of other entities similar to my own type--other human persons, such as you, my reader--in all stages of life from cradle to the grave. All of them, or virtually all, are in the same relationship with Nature I am. There are some interesting hints of an improved relation here and there, among a few individuals or at partic...

[Note: the contents page for this series can be found here. The previous entry, Chapter 43, can be found here. ] [This entry begins Chapter 44, "The Fall".] In my previous chapter, I probably sounded as if I was waxing rhapsodic about death, and how great it was, and how much I need it. In a way, I was doing precisely that. But I agree it seems specious for me to sit here in my comfortable chair, sniffling over whatever puny sins I have committed in my life and trying to resolve myself to Face Death Like A Man; when all across our planet tonight vicious rapes and murders and grotesque physical and psychological violations are being performed by human fiends upon people whom I cannot possibly have definite grounds for saying 'the victims deserved that'. No, I refuse to argue that each and every victim of atrocity is receiving the just deserts of their own sins. There is no way I can possibly know that, and I staunchly insist that it certainly doesn't look that wa...

[Note: the contents page for this series can be found here. The previous entry, concluding Chapter 42, can be found here. ] [This entry constitutes Chapter 43, "Death".] I have previously decided that the consequences of my sin must logically, ethically entail that I shall certainly die. And I have been discussing what kinds of death should take place in me as a consequence of my sin. I decided that my utter annihilation was a technical possibility, but that it would be inconsistent with the hope of the fulfillment of God's love to me if He allowed the total fulfillment of the consequences of my wishful, willfully chosen intransigence. So although that type of death is possible for me--and even remains possible for God Himself, although He never has and never shall choose it--I think I can deductively conclude it shall never happen to me. My physical dissolution makes no difference: I, me, myself, shall by God's grace somehow continue. And, perhaps I will continue re...

[Note: the contents page for this series can be found here. The previous entry, starting Chapter 42, can be found here. ] [This entry concludes Chapter 42, "Death". Incidentally, this would be another good time to read that disclaimer over there to the right, about how not every journal entry necessarily reflects the beliefs of every Cadre member. Some of us may now, or in the future, be annihilationists, and are free to post defenses of that insofar as they can see to do so (or may have done so already). Links to annihilation defenses are also welcome in the comments below. One popular internet-accessible defense of annihilationism can be found here in a chapter from Dr. Samuele Bacchiocchi's Immortality or Resurrection? While I could engage in a exegetical analysis of the topic, too, my series is designed to proceed along a different route.] Part 2 of 2 (Incidentally, this would be another good time to read that disclaimer over there to the right, about how not every...

[Note: the contents page for this series can be found here. The previous entry, concluding Chapter 41, can be found here. ] [This entry starts Chapter 42, "Death".] I ended my previous chapter by noting once more what the logic of my position leads to: I not only deserve to die, I shall die. Perhaps you think I am being rather hard on myself. And perhaps you are right. Then again, perhaps I deserve to be rather hard on myself! But then again (again!), it is worth considering the question of what it means to die. What happens when I sin? I essentially set myself up in opposition to the principles of interpersonal relationships--not merely in this or that form (about which I may be mistaken concerning their accuracy at reflecting the ultimate principles), but I set myself intentively against them in principle. I think it is also possible to sin by willfully resolving to delude myself as to the state of reality--again, whether my perceptions of reality are themselves particu...