"God helps those who help themselves" is a phrase most of us are familiar with. Many mistakenly believe that it is from the Bible or incorrectly attribute it to Benjamin Franklin, it seems to have actually originated in ancient Greece and through the centuries it has popped up over and over again in a wide variety of places, including the Quran. In America it has been widely accepted by Christians, even lacking a Biblical source, as a theological truth and as a way of incorporating US cultural concepts of independence into Christianity. Other Christians, however, see it as the antithesis to the Bible's message of charity and caring for those in need without giving a thought to the class of the person. So how can Christians be so divided over a simple phrase that originated thousands of years ago in a culture that most Christians would see as debauched and paganistic? Who is it that God helps? Which side gets it right?
I think both sides get it wrong. One side uses the phrase to condemn those who they see as lazy and looking for a hand out, the other side uses the phrase to condemn those who they see as greedy and unwilling to help others. This means they are both forgetting what the phrase actually says. "God helps those who help themselves" is not the same as "God helps those who help themselves and no one else". Of course, from a Biblical perspective, God helps those who help themselves but God also helps those who can't or don't help themselves. Some turn over all of their problems to God first and others turn to God as a last resort, but in both cases God helps. With this phrase, as with everything else, people tend to take what they want to out of it, excluding or dismissing those who take something different from it. Most of the time we can find a way to make any set of words, any situation, any set of facts, fit into our own personal world view. We emphasize what we want to and ignore what we need to and in most cases we fail to see the big picture.
I recently read an article about George HW Bush and how he is receiving a Profiles in Courage award for backtracking on his "no new taxes" pledge when he saw that raising taxes was in the best interest of his country and more important than a campaign pledge. He is being celebrated for doing what was right instead of what was politically beneficial. The article states that his fellow Republicans have looked at this same set of events and decided that what President Bush did wasn't courageous but a political blunder that cost him his reelection and they refuse to make the same mistake. Two different groups looking at the same circumstances and seeing two completely different lessons to be learned. Either way America still faces a huge debt and growing inability to deal with its economic problems.
We have to realize that we are all guilty of seeing only what we want to see. We have to realize that it requires a strong effort to see what the other side sees. We have to realize that we can't be aware of the big picture until we put forth that effort. We have to realize that we can and should learn from those who disagree with us and that doing what is right is more important than being right. If we don't, if we keep following leaders who feel it is more important to rally their base instead of rallying their country we will continue into this downward spiral that all sides seem to agree that we have entered. At least there is one thing we all agree on, maybe we can use that as a starting point to turn things around.
Tuesday, April 8, 2014
Thursday, February 6, 2014
The creationism debate...
This post deals with the creationism debate, both the debate that has been going on for many years over how the Earth and its inhabitants came to be and the debate between Bill Nye the well known engineer and promoter of scientific learning and Ken Ham the founder of the Creation Museum in Kentucky. I have been observing the first debate in the news and by listening to people around me for years and I just watched the first half of the second debate (it is three hours long, sorry, I haven't been able to watch it in its entirety as of yet).
Let's start off with the recent debate in Kentucky. First I will say that, as a debater, I was very impressed with Ken Ham. He didn't come across as a crazed maniac who simply ignores science because of his belief in the Bible. No, he is obviously someone who has done a considerable amount of research looking for scientific mis-steps to try and show that scientists are not trust worthy. His presentation was slick and seemed to present a multitude of facts, his biggest problem though was his inability to see anything other than the facts he wanted to see.
I have not gone through and checked the veracity all of the evidence that Ken Ham presented and so I will assume that all of the research he mentioned, the age testing of rock samples and organic materials, was all true, in other words I will not call him a liar. However I noticed something in his presentation, he constantly presented evidence to say that science is wrong, while the only thing he claimed that was correct was the Bible and the chronology of the Earth's age that was created from a literal reading of the Bible performed by a 17th century Irish bishop by the name of James Ussher. Mr. Ham strongly believes the Biblical account of creation in Genesis and that the Earth is only 6,000 years old, but he offers no factual support for either of these beliefs. Instead he falls into a trap of confirmation bias in which he searches out anything that will support his beliefs, or, if he can't find anything to support his beliefs, he looks for evidence that discredits his opponents. This is a good way to prove things to yourself that you already believe and is something that you often see used by politicians and lawyers and preachers and every day people. Of course it means you have to ignore any and all evidence that supports the views of those who disagree with you. When that evidence is overwhelming, say you believe and want to promote that science is a bunch of hooey and yet you find yourself going to doctors and watching youtube videos of the moon landings, then you have to find a way to alter your argument. Mr. Ham did this very effectively by separating science into two camps, "observational science" in which one can see things happening today and "historical science" in which one looks at things in the past. According to Mr. Ham there is no problem with observational science, if you show him that over the past two weeks one species has evolved into another species he will be fine with that. However if you tell him that apes evolved into other species over the past millions of years and at some point into humans, not matter how much evidence you have he will refuse to believe you.
Mr. Ham's arguments can therefore be summed up in this way, if he can see it with his own eyes he will believe it and that the only truth, even when it seems far fetched and is not supported by any other evidence in any way, about the past is the literal word of the Bible. These two ideas give someone who agrees with Mr. Ham all they need to ignore anything they come across that runs askew of their beliefs and they will use these arguments to try and convince those who disagree with them.
Bill Nye's presentation was very different than Mr. Ham's. First off he seemed rather nervous and slightly manic. He jumped from one topic to another without always making it clear how they were related. He seemed to suffer from having a brain full of knowledge and facts and wanting to empty all of this information out on to the audience as quickly as possible. Mr. Nye presented scientific fact after scientific fact that showed the Earth was much older than 6,000 years, he described science's ability to make predictions based on information it had previously found, and he showed the logical inconsistencies in Biblical stories like Noah's ark and the flood and the ways that Mr. Ham described them. All in all though I would have to say that Ken Ham came across as the better presenter of his argument than Bill Nye did, I would also have to say that they both failed and I find it very doubtful that either man changed anyone's mind on this subject.
You see Bill Nye tried to use science to argue with someone who has clearly rejected science, at least "historical science" as he calls it. Ken Ham tried to use science to argue his point when he was dealing with an opponent who was vastly more knowledgeable on the subject. They weren't debating each other as much as they were debating their preconceived notions of each other, which is quite sad.
Personally, I am a Christian but I don't believe the Biblical account of creation or that the Earth is only 6,000 years old. Being a Christian does not prevent me from believing obvious and well supported facts and trusting science doesn't mean that I can't see great truths and important lessons in the Bible, but maybe it helps me see the disconnect between these two men. If I had been on that stage, not that I am qualified as either a scientist or theologian, I would have been arguing Bill Nye's side of things, but I would have done it quite differently. Mr. Ham argued that science was untrustworthy because wood samples that were dated at 45,000 years old had been discovered encased in a layer of rock that was dated at 4.5 million years old and obviously both could not be true. Strangely Bill Nye didn't mention the obvious point that even though these tests had disagreed with each other, and possibly for a very good reason which we might find with further investigation, neither of them said that the samples were less than 6,000 years old. When Mr. Ham argued that "historical science" was a belief system just as religion is Mr. Nye never said that this would mean that at the least science should be as highly regarded as the Bible. Most surprisingly Mr. Nye never based his argument from a faith perspective.
Not only in this debate, but in the large debate over creationism vs. evolution I would have asked Mr. Ham and people like him what they would say to other religious groups, like say the Hindus. The Hindus believe that some of their holy scriptures are millions of years old, not 6,000 years old. They believe that the creation of the Earth and the universe happens over and over again and that sin isn't brought to the world by a snake but instead Lord Vishnu rides on the back of a snake in the vast ocean that covers the Earth each time it is destroyed and before it is reborn. You see it isn't just science that disagrees with Mr. Ham, many of the world's other religions do as well. All he has as evidence in that argument is that he believes the words of the Bible while Hindus believe different sets of religious texts. Mr. Ham has one book to rely on in that argument, a book that he isn't reading it its original languages and that has been translated multiple times quite often with very different results. This is why we shouldn't teach creationism in our schools, this isn't just a religion vs. science debate, this is also a religion vs. religion debate. Science, historical science, to be exact has discovered the locations of several sites mentioned in the Bible, does Mr. Ham reject those discoveries? Yes, scientists make mistakes from time to time but the beauty of science is that the results of one study are reviewed and compared to the results of other studies to build up a body of evidence. If 500 scientists all find the same answer to a question even though they have used varying methods to arrive at this answer and 10 scientists find an opposing answer science doesn't default to that opposing answer because that would be ridiculous. Now if evidence starts to mount that supports that opposing answer then science will, and has, start to take another look at that particular question, but Mr. Ham only has a book that disagrees with the texts used by many other religions. I would ask him how he would respond to this? Religion and science are not opposed to each other unless we make them opposed to each other. The world has seen its share of both false religions and bad science. As a Christian I believe that we have the powerful minds that we have so that we can use them to understand our world and each other better, the rejection of science by people like Mr. Ham is to me, not only silly, but it is also not very Christian. Why would he want to see people not use one of the most powerful gifts God has given them? More importantly, as an obviously very intelligent man, why is Ken Ham not making better use of his own mind?
Let's start off with the recent debate in Kentucky. First I will say that, as a debater, I was very impressed with Ken Ham. He didn't come across as a crazed maniac who simply ignores science because of his belief in the Bible. No, he is obviously someone who has done a considerable amount of research looking for scientific mis-steps to try and show that scientists are not trust worthy. His presentation was slick and seemed to present a multitude of facts, his biggest problem though was his inability to see anything other than the facts he wanted to see.
I have not gone through and checked the veracity all of the evidence that Ken Ham presented and so I will assume that all of the research he mentioned, the age testing of rock samples and organic materials, was all true, in other words I will not call him a liar. However I noticed something in his presentation, he constantly presented evidence to say that science is wrong, while the only thing he claimed that was correct was the Bible and the chronology of the Earth's age that was created from a literal reading of the Bible performed by a 17th century Irish bishop by the name of James Ussher. Mr. Ham strongly believes the Biblical account of creation in Genesis and that the Earth is only 6,000 years old, but he offers no factual support for either of these beliefs. Instead he falls into a trap of confirmation bias in which he searches out anything that will support his beliefs, or, if he can't find anything to support his beliefs, he looks for evidence that discredits his opponents. This is a good way to prove things to yourself that you already believe and is something that you often see used by politicians and lawyers and preachers and every day people. Of course it means you have to ignore any and all evidence that supports the views of those who disagree with you. When that evidence is overwhelming, say you believe and want to promote that science is a bunch of hooey and yet you find yourself going to doctors and watching youtube videos of the moon landings, then you have to find a way to alter your argument. Mr. Ham did this very effectively by separating science into two camps, "observational science" in which one can see things happening today and "historical science" in which one looks at things in the past. According to Mr. Ham there is no problem with observational science, if you show him that over the past two weeks one species has evolved into another species he will be fine with that. However if you tell him that apes evolved into other species over the past millions of years and at some point into humans, not matter how much evidence you have he will refuse to believe you.
Mr. Ham's arguments can therefore be summed up in this way, if he can see it with his own eyes he will believe it and that the only truth, even when it seems far fetched and is not supported by any other evidence in any way, about the past is the literal word of the Bible. These two ideas give someone who agrees with Mr. Ham all they need to ignore anything they come across that runs askew of their beliefs and they will use these arguments to try and convince those who disagree with them.
Bill Nye's presentation was very different than Mr. Ham's. First off he seemed rather nervous and slightly manic. He jumped from one topic to another without always making it clear how they were related. He seemed to suffer from having a brain full of knowledge and facts and wanting to empty all of this information out on to the audience as quickly as possible. Mr. Nye presented scientific fact after scientific fact that showed the Earth was much older than 6,000 years, he described science's ability to make predictions based on information it had previously found, and he showed the logical inconsistencies in Biblical stories like Noah's ark and the flood and the ways that Mr. Ham described them. All in all though I would have to say that Ken Ham came across as the better presenter of his argument than Bill Nye did, I would also have to say that they both failed and I find it very doubtful that either man changed anyone's mind on this subject.
You see Bill Nye tried to use science to argue with someone who has clearly rejected science, at least "historical science" as he calls it. Ken Ham tried to use science to argue his point when he was dealing with an opponent who was vastly more knowledgeable on the subject. They weren't debating each other as much as they were debating their preconceived notions of each other, which is quite sad.
Personally, I am a Christian but I don't believe the Biblical account of creation or that the Earth is only 6,000 years old. Being a Christian does not prevent me from believing obvious and well supported facts and trusting science doesn't mean that I can't see great truths and important lessons in the Bible, but maybe it helps me see the disconnect between these two men. If I had been on that stage, not that I am qualified as either a scientist or theologian, I would have been arguing Bill Nye's side of things, but I would have done it quite differently. Mr. Ham argued that science was untrustworthy because wood samples that were dated at 45,000 years old had been discovered encased in a layer of rock that was dated at 4.5 million years old and obviously both could not be true. Strangely Bill Nye didn't mention the obvious point that even though these tests had disagreed with each other, and possibly for a very good reason which we might find with further investigation, neither of them said that the samples were less than 6,000 years old. When Mr. Ham argued that "historical science" was a belief system just as religion is Mr. Nye never said that this would mean that at the least science should be as highly regarded as the Bible. Most surprisingly Mr. Nye never based his argument from a faith perspective.
Not only in this debate, but in the large debate over creationism vs. evolution I would have asked Mr. Ham and people like him what they would say to other religious groups, like say the Hindus. The Hindus believe that some of their holy scriptures are millions of years old, not 6,000 years old. They believe that the creation of the Earth and the universe happens over and over again and that sin isn't brought to the world by a snake but instead Lord Vishnu rides on the back of a snake in the vast ocean that covers the Earth each time it is destroyed and before it is reborn. You see it isn't just science that disagrees with Mr. Ham, many of the world's other religions do as well. All he has as evidence in that argument is that he believes the words of the Bible while Hindus believe different sets of religious texts. Mr. Ham has one book to rely on in that argument, a book that he isn't reading it its original languages and that has been translated multiple times quite often with very different results. This is why we shouldn't teach creationism in our schools, this isn't just a religion vs. science debate, this is also a religion vs. religion debate. Science, historical science, to be exact has discovered the locations of several sites mentioned in the Bible, does Mr. Ham reject those discoveries? Yes, scientists make mistakes from time to time but the beauty of science is that the results of one study are reviewed and compared to the results of other studies to build up a body of evidence. If 500 scientists all find the same answer to a question even though they have used varying methods to arrive at this answer and 10 scientists find an opposing answer science doesn't default to that opposing answer because that would be ridiculous. Now if evidence starts to mount that supports that opposing answer then science will, and has, start to take another look at that particular question, but Mr. Ham only has a book that disagrees with the texts used by many other religions. I would ask him how he would respond to this? Religion and science are not opposed to each other unless we make them opposed to each other. The world has seen its share of both false religions and bad science. As a Christian I believe that we have the powerful minds that we have so that we can use them to understand our world and each other better, the rejection of science by people like Mr. Ham is to me, not only silly, but it is also not very Christian. Why would he want to see people not use one of the most powerful gifts God has given them? More importantly, as an obviously very intelligent man, why is Ken Ham not making better use of his own mind?
Thursday, January 16, 2014
It's my turn to shoot... with a camera.
So those of you who read my blog know that I do a little writing, but I also enjoy doing a bit of photography from time to time. Since I am now living in the Netherlands and I am constantly surrounded by new things to look at photography has been occupying a lot of my time recently. Even when I returned to the US for a few weeks recently I found that I was seeing familiar things in new ways. So I have decided to set up a flickr account and now have a photostream at http://www.flickr.com/photos/gaypunk/ where I will be posting most of my photos. I also have a Tumblr account (what is it with the obvious discrimination against the letter "e" in these web site names?) which you can see at http://gaypunk.tumblr.com/ Most of the photos on these two sites are duplicates right now, though not all, but I plan on using them in different ways and posting different pictures to each as time goes on.
I tend to mainly shoot with film instead of digital, mainly because I can't afford a good digital camera set-up right now, but also because I just like the way film looks and I enjoy the rather fiddly nature of using a fully manual film camera. Plus there is that feeling of being a kid on Christmas morning when you are handed that envelope of freshly printed photos and you can't be 100% certain of what you are going to see until you open it. Digital takes that level of fun out of photography, but it sure is cheaper than getting film processed these days. If you have an old film camera lying around somewhere you should dig it out. Yes, you can still get film, Kodak, Fuji, Afga, Ilford and several other companies are still making a reasonably wide variety of film, companies have even released old formats of film like 110 and instant film for old Polaroid cameras. Plus you don't give up anything by using film. You can still digitally alter the images, just scan the negatives or prints (or get the developer to do this for you and put them on a disk) and then run them through Photoshop or GIMP. This is what I do and it works out really well.
So click on the links and check them out, I want to know what you think of my photos!
I tend to mainly shoot with film instead of digital, mainly because I can't afford a good digital camera set-up right now, but also because I just like the way film looks and I enjoy the rather fiddly nature of using a fully manual film camera. Plus there is that feeling of being a kid on Christmas morning when you are handed that envelope of freshly printed photos and you can't be 100% certain of what you are going to see until you open it. Digital takes that level of fun out of photography, but it sure is cheaper than getting film processed these days. If you have an old film camera lying around somewhere you should dig it out. Yes, you can still get film, Kodak, Fuji, Afga, Ilford and several other companies are still making a reasonably wide variety of film, companies have even released old formats of film like 110 and instant film for old Polaroid cameras. Plus you don't give up anything by using film. You can still digitally alter the images, just scan the negatives or prints (or get the developer to do this for you and put them on a disk) and then run them through Photoshop or GIMP. This is what I do and it works out really well.
So click on the links and check them out, I want to know what you think of my photos!
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