No Will Greater Than May Own?

The other night I received an IM from a guy who posts on a certain message board. He's an atheist and we had exchanged a few barbs here and there, but didn't really know each other. He didn't attack me, he was polite enough but he said some very disturbing things. First he began with a lot of break the ice sort of questions, such as was I a YEC and what did I think about it? We got into a very shallow exchange about God arguments, by that I mean neither of us got into it deeply enough to say anything profound. Then he began to say that if God was real, he would still choose to go to hell. Why? He said he hates God. He said in no uncertain terms as he proceeded to issue forth the most blasphemous stream of bilge, complete with all sorts of imagined violations of God's body, I'm suer the reader can fill in the blanks. I asked him way he felt that way he said "no evidence." Well, I told him, he's bordering on abusive lanague and what he said if he could do it would definitely get him in put in jail. No one says stuff like that just because there's no evidence. That's pure hate, no one hates something (or someone) just because you can't prove they exist. He said "I hate dictators."

Now I can well imagine things one would say about why God might be considered a dictator, especially the God of the OT. But I asked him Why is God a dictator. The answer floored me. I expected him to say wiping out the Amalekite babies and such, but instead he says "he tells people what to do." I ventured the theory that a dictator is more than just someone who tells people what to do. God, in so far as he created us, might actually be in a valid position to tell us what to do. He seemed not to understand that concept. I don't think this guy speaks for all atheists. I think he might be just a fringe element, but it made me think. A week or so latter I had a discussion on my boards and it was enough like a lot of other discussions of that topic (moral issues, grounding of ethical axioms) that I have to wonder, do the atheists of this generation, the gen xer atheists really understand the concept of authority? Has no one ever introduced them to the notion that there might be a valid authority that really has the right to tell one what to do?

I am sure that atheists can understand this concept, what I'm not sure is that it has been sufficiently pounded into their heads to the extent that they are willing to actually take it seriously. The Xaths are the product of the selfish, hedonistic seventies and the "go along get along" "we generation" eighties, via their parents. That should make them more docile toward authority, but it also means they may never have been taught that there's a valid reason to think of a will higher than their own. They may resent a will that others purport to know but for which they can find no overt empirical demonstration. Following rules of a system is one thing, but submitting to the unseen is another. This is not something that we can reason about intellectually, its' a cultural difference, a generation gap, and there may be no way to bridge it. What was the discussion on my boards that made me wonder about all this?

The issue was advanced by an atheist friend that morality is genetic. Of course they have no data and certainly have no empirical proof, but sometimes atheists are content with speculation and assumptions, when it suites their side. So the argument is advanced, morality is genetic. we have genes to tell us right from wrong, thus we need no appeal to God. But the Christians counter with the bit a bout objective ethics. So it becomes the usual hum drum argument, "tastes great, less..." I mean, objective moralist vs. no need for God. I argued that objective morality is not the issue. The real issue is grounding of ethical axioms. Morality is not objective, but axioms can be grounded or ungrounded. God provides grounding because he created the universe and thus, is the author of its purpose. But the atheists counter by saying that being author doesn't give God any privilege at all. They are free to do as they please because if God was really kind he would have created them as robots so they wouldn't have worry about moral choices. I have seen this argued a hundred times. I've seen it argued on every major atheist board from CARM to Sec Web.

Many atheists will give it a long protracted argument; so what if God created me. That doesn't give him the right to tell me what to do. He's no more special than a drunk in bar on Saturday night. But every time I try to argue that God is necessary to ground axioms many of them chime in with "no he can't because he doesn't exist." This is merely circular reasoning. They are confusing the distinction between the effects of God's hypothetical existence upon meta ethics, and the actual fact of God's existence. Clearly this is circular since the answer to the question "if God did exist what difference would it make to morality?" Just cannot be "God doesn't doesn't exist so he can't make any difference." Then we spend about fives posts going "If he exists," "but he doesn't exist," "if he exists," "but he doesn't exists..."

I think the problem is it just never occurred to them to ground their moral axioms in some higher authority because they have always been taught to think of themselves as the ultimate authority. I wonder if perhaps they are coming at this from the stand point of consumers. They can understand following rules, but ultimately no other will can be imposed upon them since for each one he/she is the final authority and the only one to whom he/she must answer. If one worships the self, the highest blasphemy is that I am not the center of the universe.This is why my argument about the atonement as solidarity is as big a scandal to them as the financial transaction model or any other model. They see no logic in it and no sense. For the willingness of God to be in solidarity with them would be major blasphemy because God dares to put himself on equal grund with them. This must be what Paul meant when he said there would come a future generation that would be lovers of selves rather than of God.

Of course there are exceptions. There are valid concerns, I am not saying there are not. One such valid concern is wiping out the Amalekties. I am not saying that there aren't problematic Bible issues that have to be dealt with. But when push comes to shove the major cultural difference is, I think, that this nrew trend of atheism, while not very significant numerically, may represent the coming to fruition of many issues unresolved revolving around the ego in the modern age. As modern people we see ourselves as individual units, with rights, invested with a total package of personhood; a package that includes right, privileges, and revolves around the "punctual self" as the center of all navigation in the world. We see this tendency to center self in the world and make the world go around it in the Descartes and in the philosophy of modern world. I think, therefore, I am. I am the center, my perceptions determine reality. There is no tribe, there is no higher power there's only what I want and what I can get and what I have to put up with to get it.

Of course they realize that they have to cooperate. Of course they realize that we can't all be the center so we have to work together, that's why they have teleological ethics. Ethical means can't be based upon duty and obligation, that would necessitate another will than my own. I have to form a corporate will for the purpose of cooperating in society so not duty, but outcome becomes the major sticking point for moral value. That outcome revolves around soft values, like greatest good for greatest number, or avoiding pain since we can't impose anything upon anyone. Outcome ethics always leads to a disaster because it proceeds from the premise that there is no duty to impose and the only obligation is to cooperate so we can all have what we want. It can easily lead to the sacrifice of a small helpless group to support the cooperation for the greater number, because after all, the greatest good is getting what I want. Thus Regan's contra war of the eighties could be justified upon utilitarian grounds; and utilitarians supported the salve trade, because the "ignoble" black man had to be sacrificed to support the greater good (white people making money). I am not saying that atheists are on a par with slave traders. Please don't misunderstand me. This is not an argument about atheists not having morals. Atheists can have morals but they can't ground their axioms. They have to coast on Christian memories to ground their axioms.

There could be no stronger grounding than the authorization of the author of the universe. But we cannot move into this through winning rational arguments. One sees on message boards the bitter result of trying to confront the secular minded hoards with logic and theology. We have to find some new way around it. We have to get our bearings again. We are spoiled to live in a society which coasts on Christian memories. We have to find again the way Paul did it. We have to find out how to live in the power of God. We have to show the power and love of God to a pagan world. But it should help to understand the intellectual basis of the struggle.

Have Tomb, Will Argue

Professor Biddle (The Tomb of Christ) proves the site of the current Church of the Holy Sepulcher (CHS) is the very sight selected by Constantine for his chapel because he believed it to be site of the tomb of Jesus, the one that turned up empty, and the near the cross of Golgotha. It's only a few yards from the site of the crucifixion (so some believe). In the past atheists have become very angry over this point and gone to great lengths of deception and hostility to avoid the obvious conclusions. Nevertheless, their obfuscations is not impressive, even though their persistence is tiresome. The real question is what made Constantine choose this site? The atheists would do anything to divert belief form the historical claims that the site site was always known to local Christians, they marked it, keep up with it, and told it to the incoming gentile Christians. Some atheists who used to harass this blog will do anything to have you believe otherwise. While they are basically right there is no final proof that is beyond question, there is very good reason to assume that the legend is true.

In their fomentation two in particular, "anonymous" ( aka, "Goliath"--"go lie" as I call him) and "loyal opposition" (LP) tried to convence the reader that only they understood the sources that the only the only sources that mattered were Eusebius and Constantine through Eusebius. Even Eusebius himself they ignored completely because he offered evidence that contradicted their view. They only accepted one quote of Constantine that came through Eusebius that they asserted ruled out any of the other stories and reports no matter who handed them on (see comment section this blog May 21, 2007). There is no hard evidence. They right about that. That does not mean there is reason to accept that site as valid. The likelihood is good. Atheists can't understand likelihood unless it's in their favor. There are sources that need to be considered. Scripture tells us that Jesus' body was laid in a new tomb lent by Josephus of Aremathia. There are a few scant details mentioned all the Gospels. (Matthew 27:60; Mark 15:46; Luke 23:53).John 19:17 no details of tomb but mentions Calvary. John 19:41 says the place of the tomb was near the place of the crucifixion.



New Advent, Holy Sepulcher

No further mention of the place of the Holy Sepulchre is found until the beginning of the fourth century. But nearly all scholars maintain that the knowledge of the place was handed down by oral tradition, and that the correctness of this knowledge was proved by the investigations caused to be made in 326 by the Emperor Constantine, who then marked the site for future ages by erecting over the Tomb of Christ a basilica, in the place of which, according to an unbroken written tradition, now stands the church of the Holy Sepulchre.

The Christians fled the city with the fall of the temple in 70. Some came back and re-established their community. There are Jewish Christians there at the time of the expulsion of Jews after the barkaba revolt in 135.

The Christians who were in Jerusalem when Titus laid siege to the city in the year 70 fled, it is true, across the Jordan to Pella; but, as the city was not totally destroyed, and as there was no law prohibiting their return, it was possible for them to take up their abode there again in the year 73, about which time, according to Dr. Sanday (Sacred Sites of the Gospels, Oxford, 1903), they really did re-establish themselves. But, granting that the return was not fully made until 122, one of the latest dates proposed, there can be no doubt that in the restored community there were many who knew the location of the Tomb, and who led to it their children, who would point it out during the next fifty years .(Ibid)

We don't have many real mentions of the site by many writers of the era. Those are named usually are quoting Eusebius. Some of those not connected to Eusebius are mentioned but their works are not on the internet and very hard to get. Such are the works of Melito of Sardis.

It is recorded that Melito of Sardis visited the place where "these things [of the Old Testament] were formerly announced and carried out". As he died in 180, his visit was made at a time when he could receive the tradition from the children of those who had returned from Pella. After this it is related that Alexander of Jerusalem (d. 251) went to Jerusalem "for the sake of prayer and the investigation of the places", and that Origen (d. 253) "visited the places for the investigation of the footsteps of Jesus and of His disciples". By the beginning of the fourth century the custom of visiting Jerusalem for the sake of information and devotion had become so frequent that Eusebius wrote, that Christians "flocked together from all parts of the earth".(Ibid)

Alexander of Jerusalem (d. 251) made a trip to the holy lands to investigate the sacred places, and Origen (d. 253) "visited the places for the investigation of the footsteps of Jesus and of His disciples". "By the beginning of the fourth century the custom of visiting Jerusalem for the sake of information and devotion had become so frequent that Eusebius wrote, that Christians "flocked together from all parts of the earth" (Ibid, same New Advent article). Because I don't have a quote by Eusebius that wsay "I read Malito of Sardis and he talks about the tomb" those atheist asserted that he does not. Becasue I can't obtain the original easily this is was certain proof to them that it's a lie. There is of course, no reason to assume such a drastic bit of casuistry. The Scholarship speaks of it, this is documentation enough they provide a better documented source saying it's not true. Dcoumented debate is like dueling sources. You don't need best to support highly probable idea that is basically common knowledge. New Advent documents that "all scholars" (almost) agree with it. The great Biblical Archaeologist Corbo made clear in Archaeology of the Bible book by book (1976) that accepted the tradition as a valid and likely theory.

Helena and Macarius, having made fruitless inquiries as to the existence of the Cross, turned their attention to the place of the Passion and Resurrection, which was known to be occupied by a temple of Venus erected by the Romans in the time of Hadrian, or later. The temple was torn down, the ruins were removed to a distance, the earth beneath, as having been contaminated, was dug up and borne far away. Then, "beyond the hopes of all, the most holy monument of Our Lord's Resurrection shone forth" (Eusebius, "Life of Constantine", III, xxviii). Near it were found three crosses, a few nails, and an inscription such as Pilate ordered to be placed on the Cross of Christ. (Ibid)

There's a great book on the subject of early holy places in Christianity and especially concerned with the Holy Sepulcher: The Sepulcher of Christ and the Medieval West, by Colin Moris (Oxford U. Press). Moris Makes several arguments. Tombs were venerated and were important. The lack of mention of place names but the rapid grouping of many such names around Bethany and Bethphage and Gologthy in Mark indicated that the readers knew the places. Hegesippus tells us that they knew the tomb of James, even in his own day which a century latter. Would they continue to remember the tomb of James and play no attention and forget that of Christ! (G. Schille, ‘Das Leiden des Herrn: die evangelische Passionstraditionund ihr Sitz im Leben’, Zs. für Theologie und Kirche, 52 (1955), 161–162,
and E. Trocmé, The Passion as Liturgy: A Study in the Origin of the
Passion Narrative in the Four Gospels (London, )) (see also Morris,8).

He quotes certain early writers that who relate pretty clearly the tradition that the Temple of Venus was built on top of the site of Jesus' tomb. "Several writers comment that 'the place was hard to find, the persecutors of hold having placed a statue of Venus on it, so that, if any Christian should presume to worship Christ in that place he would seem to worship Venus. Thus the place had fallen into oblivion.'" this quotation he attributes to the Ecclesiastical History of Gelasius (Borgehammar, 54). He continues:

This suggests that there was still a tradition of where Golgotha was However difficult it was of access. The balance of probability is that the site of Golgotha like certain other Biblical sites remained known to the Palestinian Christians during the first three centuries.(14).

It is possible to get the book and investigate further. Just because we don't have Eusebius saying it doesn't mean there's no evidence for the tradition. Go-lie and OP were desperate to disprove anything they could and to divert attention of the the fact that historical probability indicates the tomb was venerated. One of the major arguments they made by quoting a long passage from Euebius that is suppossed to demonstae that Contantine did not have a prior traditon tht he followed for the site but just made it up, pretending it was "form the Lord:"

"He judged it incumbent on him to render the blessed locality of our Saviour's resurrection an object of attraction and veneration to all. He issued immediate injunctions, therefore, for the erection in that spot of a house of prayer: and this he did, not on the mere natural impulse of his own mind, but being moved in spirit by the Saviour himself.....but calling on the divine aid, gave orders that the place should be thoroughly purified, thinking that the parts which had been most polluted by the enemy ought to receive special tokens, through his means, of the greatness of the divine favor. As soon, then, as his commands were issued, these engines of deceit were cast down from their proud eminence to the very ground, and the dwelling-places of error, with the statues and the evil spirits which they represented, were overthrown and utterly destroyed.....Nor did the emperor's zeal stop here; but he gave further orders that the materials of what was thus destroyed, both stone and timber, should be removed and thrown as far from the spot as possible; and this command also was speedily executed. The emperor, however, was not satisfied with having proceeded thus far: once more, fired with holy ardor, he directed that the ground itself should be dug up to a considerable depth, and the soil which had been polluted by the foul impurities of demon worship transported to a far distant place".(III, XXV-XXVII)

I quoted that passage a number of times myself, but when he wanted to sweep aside my evidence also from Euesbius of a prior tradition he would say something to sound disgusted such as "Ok here it is again" then quote that very quote. The quote says NOT that there was no prior tradition, not that he chose the site because God showed him where it was but because but that his motivatin for doing finding it came from the Lord. Not the site itself, but the motive. see above highlighted. I had argued before my siting of the passage what Eusebius says that gives a context to Constantin's undertaking of the search:

The Franciscans (their websites) put this in as the context before the quote given above:

In 325, during the first ecumenical council of Nicea, the bishop of Jerusalem, Macarius, invited Emperor Constantine to destroy the pagan temples built atop the Christian holy sites in the Holy City. The Emperor, now Pontifex Maximus of the whole Roman Empire and strong in his position decreed the demolition of the pagan temples built atop the Christian Holy Site. This is how Eusebius describe s the event:

This is an indication that they knew the locations of these sites. Why ask for the pagan temples to be destroyed if they didn't know where the true sites were, or at least if they didn't have an idea where they thought they were.

Where does this leave us? It doesn't resolve the issue or prove that the CHS is the original site of Jesus resurrection. It does give us some interesting ammunition. The atheists at times are given to argue that if Jesus really existed and if he was really crucified and there was an empty tomb why didn't they mark. Don't let them argue this on the premise that we can't prove where the tomb is. We don't have to prove that. We can prove there was a tradition, that ancinet writers claim they marked the site. That's enough to negate their argument. When they say why didn't they mark it, well we have reason to believe they did.

The Courtier's Replay and the Fools' Gambit

I was off line for a week due to loss of A/C . Too hot to get on. Coming back I found a bit of hate mail in the comment box. It was an atheist atheist idiot who can't understand the problem with moronic gimmick known as the "courtier's reply." This is otherwise known as "bully and brow beating." It's a fools gambit, the attempt to force the other person into acquiesce by merely demanding something must be the case and any anyone who doesn't agree is an idiot. This allows the Dawkametnalists who say anything they wish to say about theology, and dodge the bullet of ignorance because they have not read any. So evoking the gimmick know as the courtier's replay is about the stupidest thing one can do.

this little hate monger was loaded with insult. I'm so stupid. i am the "stupidest" person ever, why? becasue his little ideology says anyone who disagrees with the ideology must be "stupid." They way they sling epithets about and refuse to learn anything is proof in and of itself that their "movement" which they can't even admit is a movement is about the stupidest thing no earth.

Atheists are always coming up with little gimmicks. Anytime you trump them with real knowledge they get up set and find a gimmick. The Jesus myth theory was such a gimmick. Jesus was such a compelling figure and there is some decent evidence he rose from the dead, so to counter that they just pretend he never existed, and give it a little name and make up some pseudo intelligent sounding crap pertaining to it. The "default" and the "extraordinary evidence credo" these are all gimmicks atheists made up and they are passed off as pseudo official sounding quasi logical tactics that in actuality mean nothing.


The latest is the Courtier's reply. This is it:

I recently referred to the "Courtier's Reply", a term invented by PZ Myers to rebut the claims of believers who insist that their superstitious beliefs are ever so much more sophisticated than the simple version that Dawkins attacks.


PZ's response deserves much more publicity because it goes to the heart of the debate between rationalism and supersition. I'm going to post his original Courtier's Reply below (without permission, but I'm sure he'll understand) but before doing so I need to remind everyone about the original fairy tale [The Emperor's New Clothes].

This is a statement by a reductionist scientism king Larry Moran is a Professor in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Toronto. He's on a blog called Sand Walk.

So what this couriter's reply is saying is that if the sketpic says stupid things about theology and demonstrates that he knows nothin gabout it and the theist says "O your criticism is invalid because you don't understand what you are criticizing" then al lthe atheist has to do is say "that's the courtiers reply" and the theist is supposed to go "O my God, I've violated a law of logic!" and give up and stop believing in God. But in realty it's nto a log of logic, I never heard it in a logic class.It's not in a lgoic text book, and the menaing of it is silly. I'ts just saying 'You can't point out my ignorance of theology because I will not allow theology to have any kind of validity or importance and religous people may not not any sort of human dignity." That's all it's saying. It's nothing more than anti-intellectual stupidity.


Here is Myers statement about it:


The Courtier's Reply
by PZ Myers

I have considered the impudent accusations of Mr Dawkins with exasperation at his lack of serious scholarship. He has apparently not read the detailed discourses of Count Roderigo of Seville on the exquisite and exotic leathers of the Emperor's boots, nor does he give a moment's consideration to Bellini's masterwork, On the Luminescence of the Emperor's Feathered Hat. We have entire schools dedicated to writing learned treatises on the beauty of the Emperor's raiment, and every major newspaper runs a section dedicated to imperial fashion; Dawkins cavalierly dismisses them all. He even laughs at the highly popular and most persuasive arguments of his fellow countryman, Lord D. T. Mawkscribbler, who famously pointed out that the Emperor would not wear common cotton, nor uncomfortable polyester, but must, I say must, wear undergarments of the finest silk.


Dawkins arrogantly ignores all these deep philosophical ponderings to crudely accuse the Emperor of nudity.


Personally, I suspect that perhaps the Emperor might not be fully clothed — how else to explain the apparent sloth of the staff at the palace laundry — but, well, everyone else does seem to go on about his clothes, and this Dawkins fellow is such a rude upstart who lacks the wit of my elegant circumlocutions, that, while unable to deal with the substance of his accusations, I should at least chide him for his very bad form.


Until Dawkins has trained in the shops of Paris and Milan, until he has learned to tell the difference between a ruffled flounce and a puffy pantaloon, we should all pretend he has not spoken out against the Emperor's taste. His training in biology may give him the ability to recognize dangling genitalia when he sees it, but it has not taught him the proper appreciation of Imaginary Fabrics.

In other words, knowledge of theological subjects is just plain bull shit and it doesn't matter if Dawkins doesn't understand it because it's not worth understanding. So it's not valid criticism of him to say that. Except the problem is, if he understood theology he would see that his criticisms are wrong. The criticisms he makes are almost always about fundamentalists views. Since he refuses to accept that there are other non fundamentalist types of theology, when you point it out he just says O that's ridiculous because all theology is crap so it doesn't matter--but if he knew that he might not make the criticisms becasue they don't apply. But it's not worthing knowing that. he's just reasoning in a cirlce.

Here's his logic:

Him: religion is evil superstiion because fundies believe X

Liberal: we don't beileve x

him: that doesn't matter becasue religion is all crap no matter what. so even if you don't believe the thing I say is crap you still your own crap that must be stupid because you are religious. I know it's stupid because religion is stupid. Of course that's based on the stuff that you don't believe but that doesn't matter.

Narrow minded anti-intellectual brinkman ship in a most unsophisticated manner.

A very emotionally immature atheist tried this on me recently. Here's how it went.

Brent: All religious people believe in big man in the sky.

Me: process theology doesn't believe in big man in the sky

Brent: that's nonsesne all religous people do so they mustt.

Me; you clearly don't know enoguh about theology to say that

Brent: Courteiers reply! Courtiers' replay!

Like some magic king'x X that's suppossed to mean something. Clearly it's stupid because they are only trying to dodge the fact that their criticisms are based upon things they don't understand and that don't apply. Its' an attempt to hide their ignorance. They are committing an informal fallacy with the use of this gimmick. It's called "ipsie dixit." It means "truth by stipulation." They are saying in effect "I simply stipulate that I will not allow you to have knowledge. AT this point on your knowledge is now void becasue I declare to be so, since it's religion and religion is stupid."

Again their reasoning is quite circular since the reasons they would give for reducing religion to superstition don't' apply to modern sophisticated theology, but the fact that it can be labeled "theology" and they don't even know what that means, they stipulate that it must be stupid. So even though their reasons don't apply they just demand that they must do so any way.

Again they are merely stipulating truth and insisting they are right without any just reasons. It's idiotic to try and criticize a whole field you know nothing about. To make up for appalling ignorance they imply a third rate gimmick that is actually made up of two informal fallacies: ipsie dixit and circular reasoning.

What About American Films?

For years I labored under a stereotype that European film is all art and brilliance and American film is all dazzling technology, car chases and explosions. It does seem that way. I think when one discovered European Cinema living in America and having known nothing but American films before, being so alone is loving the art film, one tends to look down upon the home grown product and not consider the good aspects. In the last few years I have began to explore the greatness of American cinema too. I discovered European art films in high school way back in the 70s with an early PBS show called "Film Odyssey." Now I'm going back and finding great films made in America. The following list are the top 15 because I want to counter the stereotype so I'll list more films. While it is true that a much greater percentage of American films are car chases and explosions there are many American films that I think stand up proudly beside the best European or Asian films. I must make a couple of qualifications:

First of all I only consider films made between 1931 (advent of sound) and 1972. I feel that in this period cinema really blossomed as art and the artistic aspect have waned greatly since then even in Europe. There were great art films before this period, they were silent (Fritz Lang Metropolis--1927-- and for America D.W. Griffith's Intolerance--1917). There have been great art films since I'm sure. Yet I think film as art flourished between 1931 and 1972 and it's just hanging on afterword. The reasons are summed up well by Jean Renoir in a lecture that is found in extra material in the DVD version of Elena and her men, put out by Netflix.

There are some films that are great within their genre but not compared to films at large. For example I would put Creature from the Black Lagoon in my top 10 Horror/sci fi genre but not on my top 10 of all time great films. Some films that are firmly in a genre but transcend it. Such a film is the Day the Earth Stood Still (see list below). Another would be (comedy) the Bell Boy by Jerry Lewis (see list).


(1) Citizen Kane (1941)
Directed by Orson Wells
starring Orson Well, Joseph Cotton, and with Agnes Morehead

This is not really my favorite movie. It's universally recognized as the greatest American film ever made, so it's obligatory to put it number one. It is a very great film. It's an open secret that it was patterned after the life of Newspaper Tycoon William Randolph Hurst, and that Well's film career was ruined by making it due to Hurt's anger, at least tha'ts been said by some. It was his first first film or at least fist major film. He did make other great films. Nevertheless it's really film about the American Spirit. A fascinating portrait of a sociopath who battles way to wealth power stepping on friends along the way, only continue to long for some forgotten childhood dream that he never found. The illusive goal of his search is incapsulated in his inignmatic dying utterance "rosebud." The film is about a reprise of his life by a reporter seeking to discover what rosebud really was. We find out at the end, the reporter never does it was a sled he had and loved as a child. We see the sled being burned at the end, just one item in a huge collection of junk once prized now useless to anyone after his death.

Wells shows his true brilliance by slicing together two desperate methods of film making, cinema vérité and Montage. The famous breakfast scene which crams 20 years of marriage into a five minute look at the couple at breakfast over the years, which is one of the most famous aspects of the film.

I love the Saturday night live parody which ends with the realization that he did not say "rosebud" but "ham, chase, henry." The reporter goes off trying to find who Henry was (french pronunciation) only to see a menu being burned featuring McDonald's advertisement for Ham on cheese with Rye (Henry, On-ree--on rye).





(2) Dr. Strangelove: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)


directed by Stanly Kubrick

Peter Sellers , Peter Sellers, and Peter Sellers.
(yes, he plays three different characters in the same movie)

Group Captain Lionel Mandrake / President Merkin Muffley / Dr. Strangelove

	George C. Scott...	General 'Buck' Turgidson
	Sterling Hayden	...	Brigadier General Jack Ripper
	Keenan Wynn	...	Colonel 'Bat' Guano
	Slim Pickens	...	Major 'King' Kong
	Peter Bull	...	Russian Ambassador Alexi de Sadesky
	James Earl Jones	...	Lieutenant Lothar Zogg
	Tracy Reed	...	Miss Scott
	Jack Creley	...	Mr. Staines
	Frank Berry	...	Lieutenant Dietrich
	Robert O'Neil	...	Admiral Randolph
	Glenn Beck	...	Lieutenant Kivel (as Glen Beck)
	Roy Stephens	...	Frank
	Shane Rimmer	...	Captain 'Ace' Owens
	Hal Galili	...

This may be my most favorite film of all time. At least for an American film. As an art film I would put up with anything from Europe, except it's a comedy. It scared the hell out of me as a child. I expected the world to end any day and I worried, no I agonized over nuclear war for days after seeing it. It may have set me on the entire political path fo the left with that one film. The portrait of the stupidity of the military and the right wing politicians and the cold war is overwhelming. What I did not get as an eight year old child watching it was that is totally hilarious. The anti-war statement is far more powerful as a comedy. As a drama it's way to serious to think about. People would have dismissed it. The Day After was a powerful film but it didn't change that many attitudes I don't, Regan still won by a land slide. Nucelar war durning the cold war was the ultimate topic, way too serious to approach serous. As a comedy it's perfect for laying bare the stupidity of the times.

It's a remarkable film for many reasons. Peter Sellers pays three characters, everyone and his dog is in it. I'll never forget the line by Keenan Wynn (colonel Bat Guano), who is asked to break open a coke machine so the Peter Sellers in his guise as a British exchange officer call the President and tell him the general (Starlin Hyden as General Jack Ripper) has just started World War III, and Guano says "Ok but you are going to have to answer to the coca cola company." It so prefectly lays bare the stupidity of the mind set that created the cold war and the Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) Policy. It's iconic last scene where Slim Pickins rides the bomb to the earth like a Bronco waving his cowboy had and shouting "Yeeeehaaa!" If only he could have gotten Regan to play that scene American history might have been very different. The world ends when the bomb hits and the last images are of mushroom clouds and a song "tell them I was singing" is playing.




(3) Paths to Glory. (1957)
Directed by Stanley Kubrick
starring: Kirk Douglas

This is turely one of the greatest and most over looked American films of all time.It really is never mentioned, it was his first major film. I would put it up against almost any European film. I would compare it favorably with anything by Robert Bresson. That is whose style this film reminds me of the most. It's not like other Kubrick films. Very different form Dr. Strangelove or 2001 a Space Odyssey. It's much more traditional in the way it's made, it's a drama set in World War I and it's filmed in the older way of pre 60s "old cinema." Meaning the establishing shots are traditionally done, the camera is not looking for new angels and there no avaunt guard techniques, just a too story well filmed. It has a very European flavor since it's about French soldiers. It is about a group of soldiers whose commander realized are supposed to be wasted as canon fodder and they all rebel. They are all arrested adn face the firing squad and there's a race to find witnesses to save them while the top brass fix the proceeding to protect the incompetent general who caused the problem.

The French flavor of this film is so like a real French film, no Hollywood hokum no one saying "zat is zee ting" (no fake accents). Speaking as a consure of French film, if I saw this and didn't know who made it and was told it was by a French director I would believe it. Although I might notice no subtitles and no back over dubbing.








(4) On the Water Front (1954)
Directed by
Elia Kazan

starring: Marlin Brando, Karl Malden, Lee J. Cobb, Rod Steiger

This is a great film and it's a joy to watch. Unfortunately Elia Kazan had a rough break in his directing career. He caved to the McCarthy hearings and named names. So he was counter black listed by liberals in Hollywood. He never really got to make this kind of film again. He never got the recognition he would garnered had that not happened.

On the Water Front is a film about the relationship of two brothers and the social oppression of labor unions by mobsters. Marlin Brando knows who killed a man who was going to be a witness at a Senate committee on organized crime, then he wants to come clean but he's under treat from his brother who is working with the mob.








(5) Salt of the Earth (1954)
Directed by Herbert J. Biberman
Starred:Will Geer

written and produced by the "Hollywood ten" the major film makers and witers black listed by McCarthy. This is like the counter to the previous, except it came out the same year. The black listed Hollywood writers decided to band together and make one film where they could get their social causes aired one last time as a film makers. It's about Latin workers in the American agricultural industry and the racism and hardships they face. It also strikes an early blow for feminism more than a decade before the feminist movement. The wives of the striking workers show their true strength as women.





(6) Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf? (1966)
Directed by: Mike Nichols
Starred: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, George Segal, and Sandy Denis.
Orginal Play by Edward Albee


Edward Albee was a major Play write in that day. He's been forgotten a bit I think, but in the early 60s one heard of him all the time. His place The American Dream was one of the first intellectual book I ever read. On the surfac this film appears to be just a vehicle for Liz Taylor and Richard Burton to show off their acting prowess, meaning long on weeping, wailing, crying, shouting, back biting and being drama queens, and short on plot. Below the surface it's an interesting existential drama. Two married couples, both associated with the faculty of the same university, get together to socialize and wind up spending an anguishing night the marraige of the older couple (Burton/Taylor) unravel but it refuses to die quietly. The two persist in verbal sparring and all sorts of back stabbing until one is forced into a situation where the other must expose himself/herself as a fraud.




(7) Night of Iguana (1964)
Directed by John Houston
Starred: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton,Deborah Kerr, Cyril Delevanti
Original Play by Tennessee Williams

More of the same existential drama. Defrocked minister winds up as a tour guide,a washed up Artist caring for and living off of a washed up Poet grandfather, all wind up in the same Mexican hell hole with no place to go and no place hide, and must finally confront themselves and their failures.





(8) Easy Rider (1969)
Directed: Dennis Hopper
Starred: Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper

They take drugs, ride around on motor cycles and get blown away by rednecks on the highway. It set the stage for the new breed of independent film and new style of film making. It represented in the first clear step away form the Hollywood movie making system. It embodied the ideals and ambiance of the 60s counter culture. It was really cool when I was a kid.









(9) A Night at the Opera (1935)
Directed:Sam Wood
Starred: The Three Marx brothers, (Groucho, Harpo, Chico)
Margret Dumont, Kitty Carlisle

The finest film by the Marx Brothers the first of only two produced by Irving Thalberg. This one and its' twin A Day at the Races stand head and shoulders above everything the Marx Brothers did, and I am a total fan of the Marx brothers but I say that without hesitation. One of the finest comedies in American cinema, it transcends the category of comedy and features some fine Operatic performances. Thalberg was instrumental in re-making the Marx's with these two films. He proved that less is more by cutting the number of one-liners in half, and giving a new organization and attention to plot to the film, and making the brothers into characters that represented protagonists for a worth cause, all of which flew in the face of Groucho's theory of comedy but he was totally won over by the result. The films include generous portions of opera,
Giuseppe Verdi's Il Trovatore.











(10) Lillie's of the Field (1963)
Directed: Ralph Nelson
Starred: Sidney Poitier, Lilia Skala, Lisa Mann.

This is an innocent little film. No car chases,nothing happens. A guy needs work some nuns hire him to build a chapel. They like him so they find reason to keep him on. He keeps wanting to leave and eventually he does. Beneath this seeming noting of a plot is a fine story. It's not a big psychological drama but does certer around an interesting battle of the wills. At a time when the civil rights movement was brewing, a black man pitting his will as a workman being exploited agaisnt that of the mother Superior needs a workman to give more than she can pay him for. It turns out that the nuns had escaped from communist oppression in Eastern Europe and had endured even more hardship then the black American carpenter had. In the end both the nuns and the carpenter grow to love and respect each other. The beset scene is the last one, where Poitier get's the nuns to singing a gospel song he taught them, and as they get wrapped up in it he just walks out. The Mother superior realizes he's leaving but doesn't try to stop him. He's still singing all the way to his car, then he get's in and leaves. No good bye, no words of parting but it's clear the reverend mother will miss him but is willing to let him go.




(11) The Bell Boy (1960)
Jerry Lewis directs and stars.

Probably Jerry Lewis' finest film. I would have chosen the Errand boy, bit's marked in a couple of scene by crass Hollywood sentimentality. The Bell Boy, on the other hand, is an avaunt guard approach. It consists of random scenes from the career of a bell boy at a hotel with nontraditional transitions and establishing shots. It lacks the sugary sentimentality of the Errand Boy. It's a series of gags. My favorite is one Jerry Lewis comes to stay at the Hotel where Jerry Lewis is the bell Hop. So Jerry as himself, in a parody of his life, surrounded by a huge entourage. Then Jerry is also the bell hop. Jerry the movie stars says to one of the assistants who isthat guy over there? Points to someone, the assistant says "that's' your tax man." He says "who is that guy over there? He points, that's your appointment secretary. "Who sis that guy over there," points to someone. He says "that's' the guy who keeps you informed about who all of us are."



(12) The Birds (1963)

Hitchcock: birds attack everyone. One of my favorites.


(13) Psycho (1960)

Also Hitchcock. It has an elaborate structure but the only scene anyone remembers is the shower scene, enough said.

(14) The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)
Hitchcock
James Stewart, Doris Day

Color re-make of 1936 black and white. Both films by Hitchcock, the remake is much better. It's actually more suspenseful. About a family that blunders into a dipolmatic espionage situation (in North Africa). The son is kidnapped and taken back on England by the spies and the Parents wind up rescuing him from a foreign embassy.

(15) Stage Coach
John Ford
John Wayne

The original of a movie re-made with different stars twice over. The other versions are trivial. This is an important film because it represents the first attempt to make a real film out of a Western. Before this westerns were just cowboys and Indians, the real point was shoot-em-up, chase the bad guys, have fist fights. This film tried to make a real story, a real plot, use film techniques to build suspense, and even though it's black and white, the land scape is beautifully filmed, with big skys of the American southwest and some of the most authentic looking Native Americans in any Hollywood movie.




In the Shoes of the fisheman
Michael Johnson


 

God, Bigfoot, and Trotsky: Signs Along The Way

snap from summer camp? The Patterson film.


I guess one reason for writing this is that I'm tired of atheists making comparisons bewteen God and Bigfoot. That's such an obvious attempt to ridicule believers and control the the boundaries of inquiry let's just really get into it and think about it.

When I was eleven years old (summer of 67) I went to summer camp. It was a church camp on Lake Texoma which is a serpentine lake forming part of the state line between Texas and Oklahoma. It wasn't much of a camp, we mostly swam and sort of made fun of the crafts they wanted us to do, but I didn't do them I just made fun of them. They have one mainstay of great summer camp fun, hoaxes. The thing about the good counselor inspired hoax is the pay off. If you don't go "ha ha I got you, you should have seen your face," the whole thing is for nothing. That's why I think the incident I'm about to describe really happened, that is that it was not a hoax. I think of it as "my Bigfoot sighting." Now before I talk about it, do I really believe in Bigfoot? I don't know, what day is it? I vacilate on the subject but I'm open to the possibility. I do have some big doubts but I have little patience for the kind of idiot who just dismisses the whole subject merely becuase it's associated with silliness. It is associated with a lot of stupid things but those who actually try to investigate the phenomenon as though it pertained to an actual naturalistic animal do not include the silliness in their figuring. It's all a matter of propriety and embarrassment not of scinece or fact.

I call it "my sighting" but I didn't see anything. I saw other people see something that I didn't see. I contrast it with the hoax pulled the night before "the incident" that I will describe. The night before that incident the boys dorm was going to bed. Lights appeared on the horizon where was no road. Shills in the dorm began saying they could see little men coming toward the dorm. Everyone was running around. No one really believed it was aliens but we all wanted to go along with the gag just to have fun. One of the "little men" came up to the dorm and entered, it was clearly one of the counselors made up in some stupid get up. Everyone was laughing and a great argument ensued, "we got you, you were scared!" "I was not!" I went to the bathroom as the excitement died down and heard a noise outside in the distance that gave me pause. I didn't know what I heard. I went out to investigate and listened. It was off in the dark woods I barely herd it faintly. I'm still not sure I did hear it, but it seemed like a woman screaming. Some kid came up behind me and was saying "did you hear it?" I didn't know.

The next day we all went for a nature hike. We were lined up in single file and led by the counselors (college age kids). We passed the car battery used in the hoax and someone pointed it out. Then we went into the woods about a hundred yards or a bit more, along a little trail with dense foliage on both sides. In those days Lake Texoma was remote and surrounded by deep woods. There has been a lot of development in the nearly 50 years since. We were stopped by the leaders on the edge of a clearing. One of the older guys who had been up ahead came back and said something to the leader. They had a little counsel while we waited on the trail. They went over a little rise that screened off the clearing from our view. The leader observed came back and said we have to wait. Much discussion ensued and it seemed there was something over there they found odd but they wouldn't say what it was. The main guys said "Dave so and so is coming, he's an Eagle Scout, he grew up in the woods and he'll know what it is." They really would not say what they saw, I demanded that they let me see. I told them I was real experienced in woods. They took me to the edge of clearing. I lied about being experienced. When we camped out in the woods near the farm my Dad grew up on, I was terrified by the cows. Across the clearing all I saw was trees. The guy with me said "it's not there now." But I did notice he had us crouch and sneak to the edge and stay out of sight. The counselors were all having serious whispered discussions and wouldn't fill us in. They seemed very intense and worried.

That might seem hoax-like. We stayed until the "Dave" the local Daniel Boone came. He went over across the clearing to look. When he came back he looked like he had seen a ghost. He said "get the hell back to camp." They told us to go in single file, not to speak or make any noise, and go now!" Once back my brother and I noticed no one would talk about it. When we tired to ask "what was the problem in the woods the other day" they would just say "the camp head as said he doesn't want it discussed." There was no pay off. There was no gotcha. The guys at the time were clearly afraid. We never went back into the woods. The counselors also made some official statement don't go in the woods as there are wild boards (which there are) and so on. Nothing more was said about it. I did notice (but had no idea what it meant at the time) the kid who thought he heard a woman screaming was being made fun of because no one else heard it. He claimed to hear it every night and he went out by the restroom every night to listen.

On our way home we road back with a woman who worked in the camp kitchen and was a friend of my mother. One of the counselors also road in the front. Most of the time those two talked about how he didn't want go to Vietnam. There was a lull and we asked "what was the deal when we tried to go for that walk." He said there was a "creature" and they didn't know what it was. At first they couldn't tell if it was man or animal. It walked on two legs and had a human-looking face. Yet it was covered with dark brown hair all over it's body and had no clothes, it was huge and stunk. He seemed deadly serious. He could have been lying but he didn't seem like the type. He was a pacifist who loved folk music and was caught up in the early anti-Vietnam sentiment and was considering going to jail rather than going to war. He wasn't the joking type. He said they decided it was a hobo. Now it might seem this is all reconstructed and I'm sure some of it is, but I have been in recent contact with a fried who I talked to about it when we got back. He was not at the camp but he clearly remembers me telling him all of the details about "couldn't tell if it was a man or an animal." Of course it's very possible that all of this is influenced by reading about the subject in subsequent years. Those who aer predispossed to poopoo Bigfoot have a perfect out to do so.

Now what do we make of this story? Recently I discussed it with a good friend who is an atheist, but whose views I respect. He was not convinced. His view point I have a lot of trouble buying. Even though I didn't see anything, I'm totally convenience the others did see something. I know they were scared. They looked like they had seen a ghost. The big Daniel Boone guy they relied on was clearly afraid. He wasted no time in saying "get the hell out of here. get the kids back to camp." They were serious. This was before the Patterson film was public, I had never heard of Bigfoot I had no idea what to compare it to. Over the years I pushed it to the back of my mind. When I did see a documentary about Bigfoot for the first time, just a few years latter, I was scared out of my wits. I was totally unreasonably afraid that night and even shaking. The atheist I discussed it with was so willing to accept the obvious propaganda. A naked Hobo? Covered with hair, no cloths out in the woods? Come on we can do better than that. I don't have any real commitment to the idea that it was a Bigfoot. I have huge dobuts about the existence of something that seems to run across the road all the time but shouldn't go anywhere near a road if it really exists. They would have to be saying "hey one of those funny metal things is coming, time to run out there and let them see me again." No one called it a Bigfoot, they didn't know that expression at that time. In fact it was years before I put the two together. When I saw the Bigfoot movie I didn't say to myself, "O that's what that was." I had almost forgotten it. Over the years it began to occur to me here and there as I would hear things about Bigfoot, "gee I wonder..."

Jump forward about twenty years. I'm in Seminary and doing lots of political organizing in the Central America movement. I was introduced by a friend in the movement to his "SWP (socialist worker's party) comrades." Actually I can't remember if they were SWP but they had been. I think the SWP had left Texas. At any rate these guys were amazing. They talked nothing but Trotsky. It was cleary they didn't give a rat's you know what about Nicaragua but they knew it was an opportunity to organize. They had less than 1% of the population of Texas, probalby less than 1/34, it was only about 3 of them in all the Metro-plex. Yet they spoke like they were deciding the fate of the world. Every election year they would work their bums off trying to collect signatures to be on the ballot and never came anywhere near close enough. Yet they spoke like they were just around the corner from lining up all the Stalinist rivals and Capitalists stooges and having them sent to West Texas (Texas Siberia?). When they learned I was in Semineary they said that I was a victim of the great delusion of the age. The great sickness of the age of cousre was belief in God. God is the great evil that has beset the society with delusion and the cure is to learn the word of Uncle Leon (Totsky) who is going to make us free. Free to serve the state that is. I'm the one who was delusional!

The thing that fascinates me is they way everything they said so closely mirrors the way intenet atheists talk about religion. They could have come right out of the Dawkins hand book. They had all the argument from default assumption, to the idea that religion is "a delusion." They way they traded in ideolgoical banter so closely resembles message board atheism, a decade before message board existed except for a hand full of people in silicon valley, I can't help but think that really is the model that the early Secular web used. I have noticed the totalitarian nature of atheist language. The Orwellian nature of it.

Here's the latest example of the Orwellian tendencies. They Dawkies use the term "cult" in relation to all religious belief and groups. Of course they have no knowledge of the true sociological meaning of the term. They think all cults are imposing their will upon brain washed lackies whose live they take over and ruin. An example is the posting by a CARM Dawkie named "Toast"



The title of the thread:" a few questions about cults" so he's just equating religion with cults.

If no one ever told you about your god you would still believe?

if so, would your belief mirror the one you have been indoctrinated into?

if you still would believe even if know one told you these things to
believe would you not just be making things up?

He's trying to say that because you can't come to the same conclusions you do as a Christian on your own with no Bible and no church to guide you then it must be a cult because it's others imposing their will.


another post by Toast:

sorry but everything...a religion is a cult

This is also the same tendency. Everything the other guys value we disvalue so every term they use we must re-think impose our own terms. We can't allow them to name their own things, such as "chruch" we must name them and stick them whit the connotations of our own interpretation. So thus Churches become cults. The irony meter is gong to blaring in a moment.

The really alarming tendency is the almost blatant admission that ideas which don't stack up the atheist ideology are "dangerous" and must be controlled. This statement was made on CARM sept 21 2009 by "Mountaineer Elf.

Because some ideas can be dangerous. Not all ideas deserve to be heard if they are dangerous.

Trying to usurp science and reality to stick in your deity is dangerous.

The context he's speaking of is an argument for the existence of God. The idea that a new concept or some concept that he doesn't agree with is "usurping scinece" is quite alarming. What's worse is he's not content for scinece to stay in its own domain it must conquer all and control all reality. Science when is arguemnts for God usurping scinece? That can only be the case if he thinks that science proper domain is dictating to use that we can't believe in God. It's even worse that equates science with reality. His view is so totalizing that it must control all, there can be nothing in existence that is not controlled by his view point.

Like those SWP guys they are telling me my view of the world is delusional and that I seek to control realty, but it's clearly who seek to control because they are admiate about demanding that whatever is of their opposiion is clearly "a cult" and "delusion" reality has to be shaped around their view. In deciding that the enemy seeks to control reality they seek to control it even more because they have to do prevent the enemy from doing it.

This is a good example of phenomenology vs reductionism. Phenomenology is like me saying "I don't know those guys saw. I'm not going to say what it is and I'm going to rule out options just because they are unpopular (Of course religion is not unpopular)." The fringe group who make up 3% of the popular tries to control everyone else by excluding what they don't like and privileging their position. Then of cousre it's all going to come down to someone else who wasn't there trying to tell me what I really experienced. They will say they guys weren't really so scared, it really wasn't a big deal. There was no sound of screaming. I made all that up over time as I read Bigfoot lore.

The problem is Bigfoot is a tangible thing. Even if there are no such creatures the concept of it (even if fictional) is that of a tangible thing. It could be discovered or dismissed eventually. In we could rule it out given enough time and enough looking. If search every place on earth we could see there can't be one, or we find it. God can never be found in that way. We could never search enough of the universe to rule out God even if we covered every square parsec of the universe. That's a problem for the skeptic because they usually tend to be people who don't like blurry lines. They want clear crisp understanding of reality and if anything is confusing they seek to reduce it away and lose it in it in the shuffle. We can see the forces of control vying for explanatory power. In the political struggle between capitalism and communism both sides sought to control reality. The Capitalists deny that there is any stimulating effect on the economy form public employment. The Chicago school of economics teaches that there is no multiplier effect while Harvard does studies showing that there is. In the election of 2008 a local economist firm the same school that I did my doctoral work at was on local media saying there are no studies at all to back up Obama's stimulus ideas. I started an email exchange with him. He insisted upon sending me all kinds of article asserting that there is no multiplier effect. When I emailed him four studies I found on the net showing the multiplier effect from public employment he stopped talking to me.

The Skeptic wants to fall back on controlling reality by reducing it to what we know. Since God transcends the empirical that let's him out for all practical purposes he might as well not exist. Then to make sure they control the situation some of them mock and ridicule anyone who thinks he has reason to believe in spite of the strictures of atheist propaganda. On the other hand, the organized believer tends to be just as controlling in terms of doctrine. Everyone wants to boil down reality to just what their world view can handle, that's pretty much what Thomas Kuhn says we do. The phenomenological approach would be to allow the pehomena to suggest the categories into which we file information, rather than imposing our pre set categories. To me the guy in the car on the way home filed it all away in the pre set categories; he gave the official version people were asked to give if there was a question by parents or kids, 'what was it?' A hobo! Then we forget about the screaming in the woods, the fact that it far bigger than any human, totally covered with hair. This is reductionism losing the phenomena.

Even though God is not amenable to empirical observation as is Bigfoot, and thus can't be ruled out whereas Bigfoot can be ruled out, God is undeniable reality if one knows what to look for. The fact that people deny undeniable reality is a funciton of the human ability to set up the inquiry in a way that rationalizes the outcome in harmony with our world view, or ideology. It can also be a function of the way people understand reality, the way we define our terms. The undeniable nature of God, or what I call "undeniable" depends largely upon my understanding of God. This is why I say belief in God is really about understanding our place in being. The question of God can't be based upon scientific knowledge. Thus there have to be other forms of knowledge because those other forms of are known and the attempt to reduce all forms of knowledge ot just those that can be controlled, and those that screen out belief and allow only what e already know are the propagandistic end of ideology. That includes the atheist fortress of facts idea. We have this huge pile of facts that supports our view , it's all facts and proven things and God is not anywhere in it and we don't believe that's not in our pile of facts, so therefore, we have this huge mound of truth and God is totally not part of it. The problem is eventualy the mound of truth will decay because with that attitude you can't do new research. How can you investigate the unknown when you insist that you can only believe that is known?

The difference in saying God is undeniable and adding "if you know what to look for" and closing down inquiry is the difference betewen allowing the sense data to guide the search and impossing the answers before hand. Saying "If you know wht to look for, it's a matter of how we define it" means these are phenomena that we both agree too, but it's a question of interpretation.

I don't know what those guys saw in the woods. It might have been a hobo I'm not going to be dogmatic about it, but that's the point.


In closing here's a picture I took at camp that year, this is the head counselor.



There are modern Bigfoot sightings at Lake Texoma I am a bit more skeptical of them then I am of the possibility of a Bigfoot in 1967 because it's so built up around there now. there is an animal preserve but it's small.

So we are all still here hu?

Festinger


I notice the world didn't end over the weekend. I had a plan but had it too late to carry it out. I was going to secretly contact all the Christians posting on CARM atheist and have them not post or show any presence on the net for several days after so that the atheists would begin to wonder "have they been raptured?" I didn't think of it until Saturday. So much for my whimsical contribution to the mockery of a bad idea. You can still read the warning on eBiblefellowship.com

I expect the guy who started all that, especially the guy who gave his savings to buy the posters, I expect them to become more committed to the idea than ever. This is a classic case of cognative dissonance, a major theory in psychology started by Leon Festinger.

Wikipedia

Cognitive dissonance is an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding conflicting ideas simultaneously. The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance. They do this by changing their attitudes, beliefs, and actions.^[2] Dissonance is also reduced by justifying, blaming, and denying. It is one of the most influential and extensively studied theories in social psychology. A closely related term, cognitive disequilibrium, was coined by Jean Piaget to refer to the experience of a discrepancy between something new and something already known or believed.

Experience can clash with expectations, as, for example, with buyer's remorse following the purchase of an expensive item. In a state of dissonance, people may feel surprise,^[2] dread, guilt, anger, or embarrassment. People are biased to think of their choices as correct, despite any contrary evidence. This bias gives dissonance theory its predictive power, shedding light on otherwise puzzling irrational and destructive behavior.

Notice the guy who started the idea also predicted it in 94. Being wrong once didn't prevent him from trying again, he was probably more attached to the idea. This is exactly what happened int the original case where Festinger developed the theory.

Festinger's original work was published in a book called When Prophesy Fails. The book was about Festinger, then a graduate student, who infiltrated a flying saucer cult. The cult began when a women in the mid west started receiving automatic writing from spirits who predicted the end of the world. The cult wound up believing that aliens were coming in flying saucers to save them. They were actually watching episodes of the classic tv sci fi show "Captain Video" to get "secret" messages form the aliens. The remarkable thing is several times the date came and went for the end of the world and yet the group became more committed each time, went out and got more members each time. Festinger contaminated his data because he asked so many questions and brought in so many "new members" (other graduate students and professors) that they began to suspect that he was an alien. They started taking opportunities in private to say "come on you can tell me I want tell the others, you are one of them aren't' you?" The cult finally disbanded the major people wound up in Scientology.





Of course very few Christians expected this guy's thing to be real. My feeling was if Jesus says he doesn't know the day or the hour, (only the Father does) what chance does this guy have of knowing it? As most of these things go this guy had some bogus theory about how to calculate secret messages from the Bible. His prmise is wrong on face value because he was calculating from the Flood, judging literal years (no way to know even if the flood was literally real--which it was not) when it happened. So there was no basis upon which to calculate anyway. Then he decided for himself that it could be traced that way, no Bible passage says it can be.

What is the basis for such foolish notions? First there is the kind of instruction in Bible reading that many people get in churches. When I turn past (I do mean past) televangelists almost without fail what I hear is total ignorance when they discuss how to study the Bible and how to read the Bible. They are the one's who set up this foolishness of secret codes and private meanings, becuase they don't know the basic scientific means of exegesis or textual criticism. American Christianity is based upon an revolution of anti-intellectualism led by harbingers of frontier life against the early Calvinist elites who founded the big schools in the east (such as Harvard and Yale). This revolution was called "the second great awakening" and it's legacy has been the sanctioning of uneducated guesswrok in reading the Bible and a profound suspicion and distrust of academic learning.

Although there may be broader ramifications for anti-intellectualism in America:

Anti-Intellectualism in American Life
book by Hofstadter (quoting reader review on Amazon)

Hofstadter is careful to define what he means by the intellect and intellectuals. The intellect is the critical, creative, contemplative side of mind that examines, ponders, wonders, theorizes, criticizes, questions, imagines. It is the province of writers, critics, skeptics, professors, scientists, editors, journalists, lawyers and clergymen. Just being a "mental technician" in these fields is not enough; one also acts as an active custodian of values like reason and justice and truth.

Unfortunately, America's practical culture has never embraced intellectuals. The intellectuals' education and expertise are viewed as a form of power or privilege. Intellectuals are seen as a small arrogant elite who are pretentious, conceited, snobbish. Geniuses' are described as eccentric, and their talents dismissed as mere cleverness. Their cultured view is seen as impractical, and their sophistication as ineffectual. Their emphasis on knowledge and education is viewed as subversive, and it threatens to produce social decadence.

Instead, the anti-intellectuals believe that the plain sense of the common man is altogether adequate and superior to formal knowledge and expertise from schools. The truths of the heart, experience, and old-fashioned principles of religion, character, instinct, and morality are more reliable guides to life than education. After all, we idolize the self-made man in America.

my money is on this reaction of the second great awakening.


This common man stuff and common sense and so on usually means popular misconceptions and prejudices are enshrined as "common sense." When I was a kid the old people said "it's just common sense to keep the races apart." The same goes for the Bible, people want to feel that God is talking directly to them from the pages of the book and they don't some snob with a degree telling them what he says.

The other aspect of the equations, why we have this sense of "end times," in the first place, rooted in theology. Why does time have to "end?" Jurgen Moltmann, a major theologian of the twentieth century, explores this idea in this work Theology of Hope. (summary of book). He shows that the Israelites journey is spacial, through the desert toward the physical goal of a promised land. What happens once they reach it? Now the journey become temporal. They are no longer searching for the land, now it's a journey of time. They journey through history. Thus the bench mark of the end of times becomes the temporal goal. This theory might be in doubt due to modern scholarly notions that the journeying of the Israelites as been historically disproved. Lawrence H. Shiffman, Ethel and Irvin A. Edelman Professor in Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University, says this is not a consensus. There is still a large segment of scholars who don't accept this idea.

Shiffman writes:

Further, this theory must explain away the historical and archaeological evidence. Numerous cities from this period show a cultural change at precisely the point when the Israelites are said by the Bible to have appeared. Indeed, the newcomers, since they came from the desert, show a lower level of material culture than the Canaanites whom they displaced. This situation fits well the notion of Israelite conquest and infiltration. Second, the Israelites, throughout their history in the land, were concentrated in those areas easiest to defend against the superior arms of the Canaanites, a fact that supports the notion that they were invaders. Third, the doubters have claimed that few cities from this period show evidence of armed destruction. But careful consideration of the biblical narrative, with due attention to the account in Judges and the evidence that the Canaanites were never entirely displaced, eliminates this inconsistency fully. Indeed, the archaeological record supports a reconstruction of the historical events of the conquest when both Joshua and Judges are studied together. Finally, these scholars often claim that the Bible is the only source supporting the Exodus. But they forget that several different accounts of the Exodus exist in the Bible, in books written at different periods, thus providing corroborative evidence for the basic scheme of events.

Still it seems there would be more to the idea of end times than just enshrining it in Hebrew Hopes. The early chruch got into the act when the gentile churches, not aware of the apocalyptic genre of writing, took literal the symbolism of Revelation. No doubt all of that plays a role. Yet it seems there must be a psychological pay off that people long for. There must be an end to this vial of tears we call "the world." This seems especially acute when we wake of and hear of tragedies like what happened in Joplin last night.

People need a goal they need a pay off, other than death. Yet the wrong prediction that sucks others into false hope is not the way to go. We do not have false hope. We have to cultivate the inner life in a relationship with God to understand the reality of the true hope we do have. We need to be aware of God's reality in our lives so the present nature of eternity is always pressing upon us. We should live a position which is aware of two points at once, the concrete now which is here in life, and the eternal which we will someday join. I probably look too lovingly at the past, but being a historian I can't help but think that knowing the past is a good way to demarcate the present.

(see an actual episode of Captain Video)