Free Learning - Who Can Refuse That

So, recently I found a website that makes college classes available online. ... But any "online college class" website that you can imagine ... is not like this website.

This website basically contains a lot of links to various universities. Ones like Duke, Yale, Harvard, Notre Dame ... etc. And all of these links take the user to free online materials. Mostly, I think it is a project to help people in third-world countries or perhaps certain demographics of people in the US... to have access to quality education. But there's nothing stopping some poor classroom-hungry fool like me from learning about microeconomics or game theory or the French Revolution.

A lot of the universities seem to only post written materials (i.e. you can access lecture outlines, quizes, exams, power point slides, etc). ... but Yale University seems to record actual videos of all of their lectures. So you can sit through a whole semester about ... whatever topic you can find. (Yale's link is up toward the top of the page).

Let's just face it ... even books on Amazon still cost pocket change (at least, that's how some of us do it) ... but now you can sit in on tons of cool stuff for free...which means you can spend that change on something better than books. Like games.

Click Here to See the Awesomeness

Science, Art, and Religion

Many people are quick to realize that when it comes to religious claims, we (as in humanity) believe something simply because other people lead us to. Maybe I could, at this point, draw your attention to your parents or your siblings ... who have "encouraged" you to believe all the good Christian things that we do believe (like drinking that Cranberry stuff jordo likes ... should be a sin). But maybe your parents or your siblings or your friends are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to other people trying to tell you what is authoritative concerning belief and action. It goes deeper...it goes all the way back to the Council at Nicea ... where a group of people decided that this book should be left in and this book should be left out, and they called their end result the Bible ... The Word of God (or did we make up that name?). Authoritative.

But I think the question of authority should be taken further back than Nicea ... the question should be taken to the authors themselves.

Even if ... the Council at Nicea was correct in its assessment of what should be left in and what should be left out ... one must still consider that ... here is Paul, talking about what is "good" and "right." Here is the author of Isaiah talking about what is "perilous" and what is "purposeful." Pick any book, any author ... and what you wind up with is still some person talking about what is worth belief (and along with that ... how one should or should not act). So how is it then, that we (this time, as in Christians) can trust these authors (some of whom we know almost nothing about) to be authoritative.

I'd like to consider this question from the perspective of science, to begin with. Many people would agree that the scientific way to discern truth is often implied to be... by experimenting, observing, testing, seeing for yourself, etc. etc. However, sadly, many people are very good at fooling themselves. Imagine the scientific student...maybe like that Junior in college ... who is studying electricity (I admit, I have recently become fascinated with how electricity works ... and I cannot seem to wrap my brain around it no matter how much I read)... and he learns about the ideas of Benjamin Franklin, Michael Faraday, and Georg Ohm. But because he is just a student, with great financial need, he does not have the equipment to test their ideas ... and even if he did have the equipment ... he would not have the experience to know where to start in testing their ideas. So instead, he turns the page and reads on, accepting the perspective that they knew and understood more than he does. People are quick to develop problems with religious authority ... because at the root of religious authority, there is a person telling you what is worthy of belief or action ... and the Christian just takes him at his word, without being able to verify any of it for himself.

Considering the Arts was most helpful to me in thinking about this. Have you ever listened to an entire whatcha-call-it of Beethoven's or Bach's (Bach was a musician, right?)? (I obviously, have not). Could you name me 5 works of DaVinci's? Yet, if I was standing alone in a room, and there were two pictures on the wall, and one of them was some obscure name I did not know, and the other name was Michaelangelo, or DaVinci, or Monet ... can you imagine my reaction (or yours). We would be prone to walk over to the Michaelangelo, DaVinci, or Monet ... and tilt our heads and pay it attention. We would be inclined to try to see what other people find so interesting about Michaelangelo's or DaVinci's or Monet's painting. Why? Because someone (in this case, a lot of people) who understand and experience the Arts more fully than I do ... those people have agreed that Michaelangelo or DaVinci or Monet were geniuses. Someone who knows and experiences music a lot more fully than I do ... has obtained the perspective that Beethoven was a master of music. And so I tilt my head and look closely, or I close my eyes and listen ... and I try to see or hear or feel whatever it is that others have felt that have made them regard this person and their work so highly. I do not need to verify first that Beethoven is actually a master ... I do not need to study chord progressions and the history of music and learn that he was a pioneer of his time. I just accept that he is regarded as a master ... and that is enough to make me close my eyes and listen.

The Bible writers were godly geniuses (at least, the more I read the more it seems that way). They were people who were masters of godliness in their own times ... and when people wonder if Job is "outdated" ... it is very similar to wondering if Beethoven is no longer pleasant to listen to. The Bible writers were geniuses who knew God and godliness closely and personally (again, at least the more I read, the more it seems). Even the authors that we know next to nothing about, we still read their work and marvel at their insight (consider Hebrews, and its unknown author...take almost any part of that book, and you can hardly help but marvel at that author's insight). We do not need to verify the literal truth in their every claim to know that they can be trusted ... Rather, we just yield, accepting that Paul knew more about godliness than I do, and that the gospel writers walked with Jesus and that the author of Job was a mastermind of his age.

The comparison between Science, Art, and Religion is not intended to "prove" the authority of the Bible ... and I don't think that it does. What it does accomplish is that it shows that the way that we treat Religious authority is not all that different from the way that we treat authority in any other field of study. The comparison helps to understand that it is very much ok, normal, and human to yield, accepting the perspective that these authors, or painters, or musicians, or researchers understood things that are ... as of now ... far beyond us, and we profit greatly by just tilting our head or closing our eyes (or reading) and trying to understand what they were trying to get across.

Plus - it is kinda a fun comparison.

I am Jack's Annihilation of the Wave Function

I don't remember the first time my heart broke. I do remember the first time someone stole it. It wasn't on purpose, she's just an absentminded kleptomaniac.

This is one of those nights where, for no readily discernible reason, the whole of existence looms before you with striking clarity, and you have no choice but to admit that you are small. It's a terrifying thing to do the first time, but I guess I've gotten better with practice. Tonight, I think about the future, which is similar to the mind-boggling enormity of the present, except bigger and less tangible.

I have a good imagination. I've kept the imagination I had as a kid. Sometimes when I daydream, I feel like I'm watching a movie or playing a videogame. I see things, I hear things, I feel things, I don't know if I taste them. But all of this to say, today I am in a radically different place than the place I will be in another twenty years. I'm in a different place than I will be in five years. That in one. And today, I haven't gone anywhere yet. There are so many things I could do to change the future of my life. Each time I don't have sex there's a chance it kept someone from being born. That's weird to think about. Each human shares genes from two biological parents--that's easy--but when you choose not to have sex with someone else, you decide that the tow of you will have not children--consequently that they will have no children.

How many individuals have made a difference in the world? There's more than one, just pick your favorite. There are more people who aren't born than who are. What would the world have been like ten years later? A thousand?

According to National Geographic "nearly 8 percent of the men living in the region of the former Mongol empire carry y-chromosomes that are nearly identical. That translates to 0.5 percent of the male population in the world, or roughly 16 million descendants living today."

The scientists are suggesting that a lot of these Y's are passed down through the ages from Genghis Kahn, the war/sex machine. What if he never had sex with anyone? How many of those 16 million people wouldn't exist?

I bring this up because it's a tangible example of what I'm saying. Each choice, now, does not bear the weight of history--but it will. That's something I'm particularly aware of tonight. Whatever happened to the guy who had just figure out how to take control of the slide rule market? Nothing, that market was demolished by the unpredicted development of the calculator. Nobody even knows what a slide rule is, to say nothing of how to use one.

But for me...who are the people I give up with each decision I make? Where are they now? Do they really not exist in any way? It's better that I can't know--what if I had to choose who did and who didn't receive an existence, and from my own family!

(I'm really making headway into becoming a crazy old man, I think)

Anyway, it's one of those nights where you go back over all of your facebook pictures of the people who loved and who still haven't unfriended you. I don't regret my past, and I think a good future is coming, but I don't know how I get there from here. I guess I'll do what I always do, and make it up as I go along.

In 16 days I leave for a far away place, and I'll be there for a long time. Everything will change when I'm gone, and the people who are so sure they'll miss me terribly, will learn to live with it. And in retrospect, everything will seem so obvious, excepting a few things which will remain unexplained forever. But the potential future will disappear into the actual present, and then the past. (In physics, this is called the annihilation of the wave function)

To stare all of creation, and then all of possibility in the face. I doubt if anyone could ever make a choice again after that. Anyway, moral of the story: unimaginative people get to deal with unimaginative problems. And: no worries. It'll be okay.

Reply to Part 1

I tried to post this as a comment, but it was too long. [hang my head in shame]. Oh well.

I think it is too difficult to address both issues in one post ... so here are my thoughts on the issue that interests me most. (note that this will most likely wind up longer than most of anybody ever wants to read ... because it is probably too difficult to talk about in just one post) It is a real shame that not everybody could have attended a particular one of the TAK forums that we had at etbu. We had Rick Johnson (master of thought) "discuss" the issue of the "Anonymous Christian" with Dane Fowlkes (who was of the mindset that if a missionary was not sent ... if a person did not hear ... then the person who never heard had no hope of salvation). That was one of the most clarifying discussions I ever listened in on. The Anonymous Christian is a term that was coined by a theologian at some point in history ... that refers to the individual who has never heard of Jesus Christ, the Gospel, Christianity, the Bible, sin or salvation, or any of the things that we might consider typically "necessary" for faith in Jesus Christ as Savior. (I think of the Anonymous Christian as this person on some small island of the world, who knows no written language, has no Western influences, and only really has contact with his or her small tribe of people). This particular theologian (whose name eludes me), believed this individual might choose what is right, develop an accurate belief in God due to nature, or in some other way ... become convicted and "saved." (I think that this belief was largely due to Romans chapter 1 and 2... and also largely influenced by some of the later Roman Catholic councils). In short (and I am really trying to keep it short). ... this is a problem. If a person can be saved just by doing good, or seeing God in nature, or some other way besides hearing and believing in the claims of the gospel...then it would not be necessary to go and tell anyone about Jesus. Missionaries would be nonessential. But Scripture is (fairly) obvious in its claims to Go and Tell and Spread to Everyone ... the gospel claims. It is mostly clear that a person cannot come to salvation on their own. On the other hand, if you take the stance that a person must hear in order to be saved, then what about those who never hear? It just doesn't seem right that they would perish because no missionary made it to their island. Indeed, what if I had been born in another country...it is unlikely that I would be saved. I find myself thinking of people from the Old Testament ... and (as almost always) the OT comes in to be wonderfully explanatory ... None of us expect Moses, Abraham, or Isaac to be in Hell - yet they never heard the Gospel. Why do we make an exception for them? Mostly, because they were Israelites and even more - they were Israelites trying to follow God. But what about Assyrians - did all of the Assyrians who sacked Jerusalem wind up in Hell? The answer is ... (impossible for me to know, but) ... probably not. One of my favorite passages in the Bible is Jesus teaching at a synagogue in Nazareth (Luke 4:16). Summed up, Jesus said He was the Messiah...all the people liked hearing that because they thought it was the end of Rome ... then Jesus goes onto say that "There were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, yet Elijah was sent to a widown in Sidon." "There were many lepers in Israel in the time of Elijah, yet Elijah was sent to Naaman the Syrian." At this point, the people tried to throw him off a cliff. They liked being special. I think a great deal more thought should be spent on understanding the Kingdom of God as God sees it. Israel thought that you needed to be an Israelite to have God's favor. Many Evangelicals think that you have to theologically agree to some 5 essential points to be saved. But...I think there are enough places in the Bible that seem to indicate that mankind everywhere will be held responsible for the understanding that he received. The American who is well aware of the gospel, but chooses to reject it ... is much in the same boat as the individual on that small island who knows it is wrong to steal his brother's cattle, but who still does it. Likewise, that individual who knows it is wrong to steal that milk-filled cow... and he chooses Not to steal it ... I think it is entirely possible for that person to be saved. I am not saying that he is saved by his doing right. I think what I am saying is that we will all be held accountable for the amount of understanding revealed to us ... and that God will take that into consideration when he makes his judgement. I think that some (as in a great many) people might agree to some 5 essential points ... and completely fail to Do Well By Them. They will be held accountable for the knowledge that was revealed to them - and that should scare all of us. We will all be held accountable for how we handle the amount of truth that is revealed to us. I imagine that I have taken up enough space for one post...so I think I will stop this here. But you should all know that this is a topic I have really really wrestled with ... and I have a lot of thoughts on it... (in case you did not deduce that this far in, I reveal it to you now). So sorry if I went too long. I just have a lot of thoughts.

Does this go here? (part 1)

I have been thinking rather hard about The Bible as of late. Please forgive me for not thinking of writing on here sooner...

One of my dear friends who I have looked up to for most of my life, told me that he didn't think the Bible was the inspired word of God. What he points out is the origins of the Bible. We are told that the Bible was written over a span of 1600 years, with various authors, (some verbal tradition was put on paper and some direct letters) and then there was the Council of Nicaea, and then we have the word of God in a book. My Friends problem is the Council of Nicaea, and the fact that a Roman emperor paid for it. This is not to say that the Bible has no truth in it, but how can we believe 100% everything as truth?

I have thought of these things before, but I would immediately say "you have to have faith that this is what God wanted". The reason I am having trouble is becuase I have found my self not able to say to someone that they will go to hell if they don't become a christian. If I were born in another country would i have been a Christian? I don't know, but if i wasn't would i have no hope. (save a mission trip coming to my town) Which leads to the idea that there could be different forms of truth, so to speak.

I have more to say but i have to go.

First impressions

I once met a man in a cellular phone store. He was nice enough and, as I was there with a friend, we were soon in a friendly conversation.

He was an older man, wizened by his years, and he was very cultured, he said. He liked the opera. In fact, he had been to the Met in New York City. I wondered if this was the same New York city to which I had been.

When he was my age, he had gone to a wonderfully cultured place, and had patronized the opera every week for two years. At the time, he had seen every single performer who was on the international operatic circuit. I was glad for him, because he seemed to love the opera so deeply.

But eventually the conversation began to stall as he reiterated again how much he loved the opera, and remember what he had actually come there for. I can't recall what it was now, but the old man was thoroughly confused by his problem. He was aware that it was only a technicality he was at odds with (as an example: How do you get the SIM chip out of a Verizon phone, and switch it to another? You can't, Verizon doesn't use SIM chips, because they hate when their customers change phones, and actively discourage the practice.).

And so, with his problem unsolved the old man turned to leave, noting as he did, that my friend wore his pants down low. This style is commonly referred to as "stupid" or "cool" depending on the age of the speaker. The old man did not approve, and at length he began to explain why:

It did not betray the hint of culture, he said, or the glimmer of enlightenment, as his attire did. This issue was very dear to him, because he was on the board at the university both I and my friend attended. We had been unaware of this, but apparently in his day, everyone wore dress slacks, and kept their hair cut short, and always bathed, and never complained about it.

I thought that it was a terrible shame my generation had so filled the world with complaints as to affect the old man himself, but I did not tell him.

He continued to explain to us that in the summer of his life, people at least showed an interest in culture, and were polite to their elders, and so on and so on. But, he wished us well and made good his escape, before we could come up with anything good to say as a rebuttal.

There were a few things my friend and I did not tell this man. One, is that we had just returned from studying abroad. My friend had gone to Hong Kong for an entire year (the orient, or the far-east, to those unfamiliar with it's location on the globe), and I had been to England for a semester. Strictly speaking, I had attended the University of Oxford for a semester (a term and a half). Also, I had played the tuba in Carnegie Hall, New York. I know how to use chopsticks, I know Hayden from Bach and Beethoven, and I have a favorite philosopher.

If this additional information would have been of any use to the old man, I doubt I will ever know. I sincerely dislike the opera.

But all of this to say, I don't believe that old people understand as much as they think they do. (I should preface this by saying that I don't think young people understand even half that, by and large)

Reality, in a practical sense, is how you feel about what's going on. To the old man, the reality of the situation was: that he was speaking to two young philistines who reveled in their uncouthness. To me, the reality of the situation was: that the old man was incorrect, because I thought I was fairly cultured--at least so far as I was able.

But who is right? Is it him, or is it me, or both, or neither? Should I think poorly about this old man, who has perhaps assumed too much? Should I think poorly about him, when I haven't had more than one conversation with him? Wouldn't I have to assume much about his life? If I replicate what I've called a fallacy, how could I be right in doing so?

These are little problems, but there is one last thing he told me:

It is a sign of immaturity, he thought, to be twenty-something and not know what you wanted to do with your life.

Maturity is an interesting thing. Often it means age, but an age of character. I didn't ask the old man why he thought what he did, but I wonder if he could have told me?

I haven't the slightest idea of what I should do with my life. But perhaps "should" isn't always the right word to use. You "should" dress nicely, you "should" be more cultured.

Perhaps using words like "Should" introduces an implied dichotomy. (A false dichotomy) Perhaps, using words like "Should" only tells us when we are wrong with certainty, and not when we are right.

Maybe I'll use different words when talking about my life. Maybe I'll say "can."

But as for me, I want to be an adventurer. I'm glad the old man is happy being so cultured. I want to be happy being well-traveled. I want to get lost in the desert, shipwrecked, snowed in, trapped, held hostage, shot at, thrown, burnt, chased and escape. (Admittedly, the last part is the tricky one.)

I think I can be happy. I think I can find adventure. I think one day, I can even find a job I'd like to do. I hope the old man can be happy. I'm going to China.

Contrary

During the day, I have a lot of time to think, if I take advantage of it. Today I spent a lot of time thinking about character and identity. Not just today, actually, but a lot of days I think about it. Usually I end up with questions like: what are the base elements of my character? What about others? This question seems to be a mind trap for me because I have a hard time distinguishing what is necessary to the essence of character (curse you, Plato!) versus the things that I do. After stewing on this for a few weeks, the problem arose again in a different way. (This may be a prime example of my roundabout and shoddy way of trying to explain things. Please bear with me.)

I got to the point where I believe that there are things that we do that explain our character. These things do not comprise our character themselves, but I do believe that they reveal truths about who we are. Think of it this way. If I eat a bowl of delicious Oh's, there are things that I can immediately tell about the cereal. It's sweet, it's tasty, and very grainy, like a small village brought in their entire harvest just so I could have a good snack time. However, these are just adjectives, they don't tell me what's in the cereal, just the product of those ingredients. In the same way, I think these significant actions (not all actions mind you! "I'm pretty sure the way you skip like a little girl says something critical about who you are!" = dumb.) are like tasting our character. They describe the collision and synthesis of qualities, quirks, and qualms that collaborate to create one, singular person.

But it came to me from the other direction, and I think that is the part that deserves at least just as much of my thought. Sometimes I find myself just a little dumbstruck at the fact that some people haven't done some things. This probably sounds odd, but hang with me. For instance, in my opinion, if you want to be a hippie, at least a good hippie (and who doesn't want that?) you better have read Walden. If they haven't, I don't know if I could count them as a good, real, hippie. Furthermore, if I have a clever friend who writes wonderful letters suddenly stops writing said letters, it would seem to me that this person is no longer whole. How will people know that they're so darn clever and can write so clearly? It's like someone punched the oats out of the center of my Oh's, and no one gets away with that. Again, this crucial action does not make the person a writer, it just makes them a clever, articulate person and those qualities are made manifest clearly in writing. One more example: I don't think I play music because I am a musician exactly. But moreover because I need to express myself in an articulate and creative way. I suppose I could do it in a different way, as long as that need is met. I hope this makes sense.

I've felt out of sorts quite a bit this last year, and thinking about these things makes me curious. Are there anything that I'm not doing (or doing, for that matter) that is contrary to my character? Have there been facets of myself that have been denied because of important things that I've forgotten to be? It's a curious thought. For instance, there was a time where I ran like someone was chasing me all the time. I haven't done it in a long time and I really miss it. But is there more to it? Is there an urge for introspection or self-betterment that is not being fulfilled? If there is, I feel like I should lace up my shoes right now, or at least find a way to do that. I don't like feeling incomplete. This seems like an important question.

As an afterthought, I think the actions are, in a way, just as important as the ingredients of character, because I can't understand what the qualities are in their purist (take that, The Forms!). I don't really care that Oh's has a healthy dosage of polymascotfomalate (it doesn't), I care that it tastes like magic. So it seems like maybe we should burn the candles at both ends? I don't really know. I feel like I'm running in circles now.