TASP 2003 at UT Austin:
The Mystery of Creativity |
Wednesday, June 30, 2004
Ahhh, Memories.
That little picture was supposed to be a photo of the very scrable board we are talking about. If anyone knows how to make "hello" from "picassa" work feel free to tell me. For now you'll just have to follow this link...
Big Scrable Board
or cut and paste http://www.geocities.com/elf-friend/scrabble.jpg into your adress bar.
Well, I'm headed to Princeton, that other world where "blonde gods eat ivy and row boats," the land of Asian Invasion v. Jew Crew and "whatnot." I have a graduation gift, a red, white and blue, Texas-shaped neon light, that I will display in memory of the girl I almost married.
Sorry for the self-imposed exile. I assure you all that I have suffered far more for it than you have. I'm suffering for it now. I tried calling Tae-Yeoun two weeks ago, on a whim, a pitiful excuse for not posting. I followed all the instructions, carefully typed the following number (country code included): "011-142-632-819-2530." Alas! The phone rang a hopeful once, twice, then, was interrupted by a computerized message, "Sorry. The phone number you have dialed and/or the person you are calling for is non-existent." Nonexistent! How could this be? I was horrified, so I ran into my room and ducked under the covers, refusing to find out whether all of you, too, were figments of my imagination. To add to this, I am also visiting Japan. But, unhappy coincidence dictates that I leave mid-july, just as Olga comes back. So now, I can only post this in hope of a telephone correction, or a chance meeting in the Narita Airport.
Oh God Aimee I forgot the word!!!
I do remember that I remembered it on the last day of TASP when you asked about it. You wrote it in your morning pages, check there.
I also remember 'texassodom' which never made it to the actual board. (or did it?)
and Eunice and I were one letter away from 'telluride.' :(
Bryan, email me your address in China.
Everyone who hasn't turned in their questionnaires, please do so.
Missing all of you--
Happy TASP anniversary!!!!!!!!!!!!!Tuesday, June 29, 2004
Do you remember exactly a year ago today? We all stumbled into the ADpi house, new and bumbling. Our scrabble game! what was that 7 letter word Kels? That night we were sitting in the TV room after our first not-so-very-hardcore dance party -I was crocheting, tara, jared, Kelsey, john, and other taspers sprawled on the couches (we didnt yet know they were flea infested)- and Jared remarked that he already felt like everyone had known each other forever, yet it had only been a day. Its already been a year since then. And then 4th of July is approaching too- remember that weekend, and our first paper? Something about analyzing a work's aesthetic value from a longinian, aristotelian or platonic perspective. Ahh, fourth of july barbecue, staying up till the wee hours singing Jacob's sing-alongs.
Reminiscence. :)
Yes the World Series is baseball...but college teams don't like to make themselves sound less important by addind (college) in front of things. We were Bryan referring to the (College) World Series, hosted in Omaha every year for like 80 years. Texas won last year, but came in 2nd this year.Monday, June 28, 2004
huh? what address in china? rofl, ill be there for two weeks and in four different cities... and four different host families? im so confused, and I can't speak mandarin or anything. sigh. From what I understand, i won't be able to even call anyone stateside. ah well.
Isn't the world series baseball...? Texas has a baseball team?!
I would like to point out to all Texans, that I was in the stands at the World Series cheering the Longhorns on, through all their wins.Sunday, June 27, 2004
sigh. a requiem for our poor longhorns - first a crushing defeat in the world series, and then the possible loss of a brilliant young nebraskan. what is texas coming to, these days?
Tyger, tyger...Wednesday, June 23, 2004
On friday Princeton invited me to join their class of 2008. I'm supposed to leave for UT orintation/epiphany of Dylan on Monday. I love UT and Texas but if I can afford to I will go to P-tizz. On Monday, hopefully before my flight leaves, I'll learn if their aid package will make the cost sustainable. It's probable that my parents' decision to invest in local business ventures for their retirement rather than an IRA will put it out of reach. Send prayers to God and large sums of money to my address.
Stevie Ray Vaughan!
the reproduction fees are my gift, so...send them in color, and be prepared to see them in black and white unless i can hijack a color printer from someone (which isn't unlikely.)
also, you can send them through the postal mail or over the internet, so everyone who's sent in a survey should be powering up ms paint, since i know the chances of some of them (ADAM) actually sending anything through the mail are slim to nil. i even take faxes. OR...you can give them to me in person, if you happen to be seeing me before the deadline. matthew. (by the way i am still working on that mix. i got a gift of cds by austin musicians for graduation and it has drawn out the mixtape making process. i swear i will try to have it by next week.)
ack, so I get like, ten minutes of internet every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.Tuesday, June 22, 2004
I'm fine with the St. Monas' Day deadline, I'm sorry I sought involuntary exile in a foreign country and in result dodging my yearbook responsibilities, and, yay Kelsey!
also, yay Adam, Matt, and Susan for responding to the questionnaire!
(Adrian, TCKs are cultureless floaters. i.e. internatinal kids.)
Will I have a productive summer? Well, to an extent it has been already. I am proud to announce I recieved a Provisional Operators Permit for class M and O vehicles in the proud and ever so great state of Nebraska. I am a driver. I can drive alone, and legally, except not after 12 am. Well, good enough.
And as Matthew pointed out, we (dems) won in South Dakota. My town, Aberdeen SD, won with 58 percent going for Stephanie Herseth and 42% going to Larry Diedrich (that's his real last name). It is a city that has majority Republican registration at about 55% and then Democratic at about 30% and Indie at 10%. That translates from Politicalease into a darn well job done.
I hope to continue on being paid to work for a candidate, possiably a congressional race in AZ, IL, or WI is beckoning me. Most likely I will stay on in Nebraska and work for a race here. Matthew, if you are not yet planning to vote for the wonderful Matt Coneally we really need to have a talk- cause I checked & you're in the 1st CD. Speaking of, we really need to get together some time before you leave for good for Austin. All those weeks at suitemates and we havn't even gotten coffee in Lincoln yet.
So that's my story. Next.
oh, and i'm moving the due date for the yearbook pages back to july 18th. why? because tae-yeoun isn't here, and she left me in charge. this will be exactly a year after the esteemed dr. monas (and vico with him) entered our lives. this also gives me an additional three weeks to harangue all of you. this is not like the audioblog thing. i am getting serious. i am using my fifth grade teacher voice. be warned: there will be phonecalls home.
i'd like to point out, for those of you who may have missed it, that alex borinsky called me god. neener neener neener.Monday, June 21, 2004
i am afraid, dear adrian, that i am not one of the few among us who can lay claim to a both paid and productive summer, as i quit my job canvassing for john kerry after three short days on the job. it is an excellent cause, i'm sure, and i met some lovely people, but cajoling people for money for an organization that i don't even support myself made me feel like an utter and total douche and so i told the dnc to take their clipboards and shove it. not to worry, though, john, i am still fighting the good fight - i've been working with a statistical historian on some voter registration stuff, building databases and otherwise fulfilling my deep desire for data entry. i've also been reading all my voltaire's coffees books (summer reading for plan ii) and sort of contemplating learning how to drive. i leave for orientation on monday, where i will see tara and matthew and quite possibly the current temporary inhabitants of the adpi house (including dylan!) any requests for needed items from toy joy or the co-op can be fulfilled for the price of a phone call to san francisco.
speaking of which, i finally figured out how to call the voicemail of my cell phone, which has been missing for a few weeks, and i was rewarded with messages from not one, not two, but all three of my beloved tasper suitemates. the maxipad wins again.
alex b., learning may be fun, but teaching middle schoolers most emphatically is not. i wish you the best of luck dear sir! and as for mr. giang, ever since 9:55 pm texas time on saturday, june 19, i have not been able to get the nipple trick out of my head. perhaps you could post some video for those of us who cannot live another second without that most needed pleasure from last summer?
matthew, can one ever go home again?
Considering that Seoul is the most 'connected' city in the world, it profoundly annoys me that it's been a full week since I've had internet.Saturday, June 19, 2004
I'm posting because I'm too lazy to write out an email to Susan, the only other TASPer who'll be in Korea this summer. (Bryan!!!)
Susan? when will you be here?
When you arrive, call me at 010-3111-7181
Love you all.
Guinevere .
(note, this is from utexas archives)
Tasp.
ha.
As for summer, I want to be a penguin. Rockhopper baby season has begun, and you can all say "I know this kid who had a penguin vomit on his shoe." Y'see, when chicks begin to peep (come out of the eggs) even parents who do not have offspring kinda want to be parents too. What do parents do? Feed the babies. Incubate on nests.
Chicks make adults want to vomit and lay on piles of rocks, much like gurgling infants (even chimp babies and several mammals) will inspire parental instincts in humans... though this doesn't involve regurgitate. Life is beautiful, though I must say wanting and being lonely sucks. What can you do. wait
How many of us do you think will actually have paid and productive summers?
As for me I'm just kinda "jammin'" out in limbo...it's the time between the close of high school and the beginning of college and I've got nothing going on. I'm looking for summer work but that's not going well. Let me give you one experience:
Me: Can I get a job application please?
Woman: Do you have any experience with cash registers?
Me: No but I...
Woman: Well he won't call you unless you have experience.
Me: Um (rolling my eyes) is it a particularly difficult job?
woman: *Dirty look*
And then, in the words of Jason Mraz, I sleep all day. It's really rediculous. I'm going to bed at like 2am, on a good day. That's pretty much what I did during school, but I'd wake up at 6. So now that I don't have to get up, I'm waking up quite literally passed noon it's terrible. My dad wanted me to go to sleep at ten and I was like, "I've been awake 8 hours." I missed a doctor's appointment like that.
Oh have you guys seen those commercials for the King Arthur movie...It doesn't seem to be doing any justice to Mr. White's version. I know there are lots of variations in the story but making Guenivere a bad ass warrior is kind of pushing it. Think it's worth seeing?
Oh having told you what I'm not doing, I'll tell you what I am doing...my day consists of eating, sleeping, playing guitar, playing video games, and trying to keep in shape, thus powering up the nipple-trick. Not really doing anything intelligent but then again when have I ever. My brain is taking a little break...next!
In summer there is the money. I've been doing electrical work. I'm on the "B team" and rather than do big jobs my partner and I go around the county doing service calls. My partner is a 30 year old buffoon who loves dispensational, apocalyptic stuff and is a swell guy.
I've really enjoyed being out in the country. Last week we were trying to find a farm "a mile and a half southwest of the Old Opportunity Schoolhouse." After driving the same roads (were they?) many times we found a patched-up trailer house with this old woman dressed in farm clothes. When she spoke I was shocked by her old world accent even though (as I found out) and I found out her family had been in the county for generations. This widow had always been isolated.
I also registered to vote, finally. I've thought a lot about rural issues, about the old woman in the trailer house. When I leave for college I stand the risk of being complicit in the rural tragedy where schools, parishes and mainstreets die. She is my fellow citizen in our rural, spread-out community and confound me if I go to the suburbs, God not willing. Most of my classmates despise it here because they've never lived anywhere else. The rest are content to leave, satisfied that they're sensitive enough to appreciate the beautiful pain of our rural cancer but unwilling to help bear and heal it.
there's an interesting article on the psychology and history of writer's block in the new yorker which can be found online here.Friday, June 18, 2004
P.S.: where is everybody? SOMEBODY POST SOMETHING.
so, besides, you know, contemplating your faith in god and repudiating lust, what are y'all doing this summer?Tuesday, June 15, 2004
mango.
I hope you are in top form, Brian.
Kelsey, I think that you have the right idea when separating 'physical' and 'sexual.' As for the functionality of sex and pseudo-sexual activities, I believe there are definitely non-reproductive uses for sexuality. There is not an element of any society on the plant that hasn't been stained by our collective sex (ha). Like I think I said earlier, if we were built for efficient sex, there are many many schemes in nature that produce more, stronger, and faster offspring than ours. Humans, like Bonobos, use sex as a form of social lubricant. As for the value of sexual intimacy, I think the answer is plain; intimacy. Pleasurable sex (and sexual interactions) helps enforce the socio-economical union necessary to raise hominid offspring in an animal that has an atrophied sense of smell (and thus is mostly unable to detect pheromones).
How many homosexual twins were in the study? I think that that sort of preference does have some genetic basis, but anyone can be forced to like anything under the right circumstances.
On the morality of meat and doin' it, I quote the Delphic oracle: "Never Too Much," and "Know Thyself." These are the two most useful phrases in hindsight (though relatively useless in extant situations).
What is a Third Culture Kid (I hope I don't feel stupid when I hear the answer to this one)?
Matt, what about complexity points to a creator? Generally, complexity points to simplicity, and vice versa... I don't see why it's necessary to add an big Unknown Entity into an equation that we haven't (and likely won't ever) completely uncovered? How could truth be contained in anything less than a man who thought he contained God?
David, there is no perfect circle, only very very round looking somewhat regular spheroids or disks. Even the singularity of a black hole, the body that would be the most rounded mass in known physics, can spin and vibrate and shuffle with itself, thus implying imperfection. A perfect sphere, or circle, or ring, is as imaginary as the un-ending line. We can think of it, and almost-observe it, but it never has and probably never will exist. The existence of polygons implies the possibility of a circle, not the existence of one.
John, I think the answer for most people will be unique. In the face of rather similar circumstances (internal or external) most people find ways of forming their own perspectives. For some this own-view of things involves blindly following another person’s views and then justifying this to one's self, while for others, it involves finding information and attempting to understand vast issues and concerns so that they can formulate their own opinions. Everyone is different, and everyone is the same. If you want a specific answer, diminish your sampling size from all of humanity to say, two or three people who you really have an understanding of.
my graduation cap brings all the boys to the yard.Sunday, June 13, 2004
John- Congratulations on winning in South Dakota. What I wouldn't give for a Wm. Jennings Bryan.Saturday, June 12, 2004
Congratulations Kelsey. :)
And, thank you, Jared, for posting your prom(? - please confirm) photos. This dashing and now long-haired gentleman can be found here. Enjoy!
I'll be in Korea sooner than I expected, from next Tuesday onwards, and may not have internet access for a while. Meaning I can't nag you as much about the yearbook pages. So, please, by the 23rd*!!!
*if you have no idea what I'm talking about, send me a note and I'll resend the mass email I sent out to everyone a week or so ago.
what day is today...? i'm only posting because that way i can see on the side...Friday, June 11, 2004
i. have. GRADUATED.Thursday, June 10, 2004
(insert primal screams/sounds of raucous celebration/sighs of relief here)
Matt- yours is a faith that I respect. It seems the more I become one with the midwest, as every day seems to bring me closer to doing, I find many faiths I cannot respect.Tuesday, June 08, 2004
While knocking on democrat's doors in iowa (for kerry, just before the caucus) I encountered many who had a faith in the democratic party, and thus whoever was "the front runner" was who they supported; their faith was unjustified. It was inherited. While knocking on doors in Nebraska, indiscriminat of party, I have found this the same with many Republicans. And while knocking on doors two weekends ago for Stephanie Herseth I found many of a Christian faith who seemed convinced Jesus votes republican and would punish them if they betrayed that.
What I'm trying to say is, I look around me and see all this blind faith, rarely do I see someone with a faith they have built inside themselves. A faith that is landed on the solid foundation of questions and answers, essentially on doubts defeated.
My nonfaith however is built on the foundation of doubts confirmed and questions unanswered. I would say Matt, that my nonfaith has run completeley parelell to your faith. If I could I would prefer your version I think. But in general my moments of belief end up confirming my doubts, and not the other way around. Does anyone else find this? What is it that makes someone believe in the face of doubt, and others not believe in the face of God, or seemingly Godly things. I am the son of two pastors, two people who believed so much they devoted their lives to it, so it can't simply be enviornment or genetics. Why don't I (and others like me, perhaps even on this blog) believe too?
Hopefully there will not be three days of inactivity after this, as there were after my last post or I will feel that it is somehow my fault when conversations go dormant.
Jared- I've thought extensively about my reason for faith these last few days. Last summer I told Susan I believed in the triune God because of little miracles in my own life. This remains one of the reasons yet it is terribly complex. I have a host of reasons for believing and a host of reasons for doubting, so I do some of both. I don't see any reason why it should continue this way. I guess I think faith is "beyond reason, never contrary to it." Fundamentally I believe the complexity of this world and of each human points to a creator (who may well have worked by means of evolution). The more I've learned about the world's complexity; space-time, up quarks, down quarks, despair, joy, repentance; the more I'm convinced that there is an infinite source to our temporal nature. If one peers deeply into a well he will see the stars.
It's a constant challenge to not take my inherited faith for granted, much as it must be to appropriate an inherited skepticism. It there is a God it seems intuitive that he is greater in every aspect than his creation. So I believe God is moral, rational, emotional, and spiritual. Jesus, who was a historical figure, was a Jewish apocalyptic prophet proclaiming a kingdom of God. His moral teachings in the Gospels (particularly the Sermon on the Mount) have led me to the few blessed moments of my life.
The scholarship of grammar, archaeology and the rest of science’s tools have not discredited the Jewish and Christian canons, which is all science can do. I’m about to start reading the writings of N.T. Wright, a universally respected Anglican, that endeavor to prove this in the face of contemporary objections. The authority of these writings comes from their authors. In the Old Testament the writers were men who boldly and accurately prophesied and were later trusted by Jesus, in the New, those who directly knew and were commissioned by the historical Jesus. In a word, proper Christianity is rational and there are rational people who believe.
As I implied, I think reason is a sort of Virgil who can take us to heaven’s gate but not through it.
In this I cite the Apostle Paul who wrote to the church at Collosae, “My purpose is that they may be u encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
I tell you this so that no one may deceive you by fine-sounding arguments…See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ. For in Christ lives all the fullness of the Deity, and you have been given fullness in Christ.�
Kierkegaard, in all his rational self-contradiction, points out the absurdity of philosophy’s and science’s ambition to contain the whole truth. It seems eminently rational to me that something as great as the truth can be contained only in a divine man seeming full of contradictions. How could truth be contained in anything less than a man who was God? It is by encountering him that any person of any intelligence can know the Truth and be set free. Equal access.
Frankly, there are moments when I doubt all this. Confronting doubts and looking more deeply has made the stars shine more brightly. Sorry for the long (hopefully not too preachy) posts.
I believe three days is the blog's record for longest period of inactivity, and I don't plan to break that, because, well, three is a nice, round number.Saturday, June 05, 2004
I did my u.s. visa interview on Monday. I had to wake up at 5:30 in the morning and line up - in the rain - outside the American embassy, and then stand in line after line after line after line (number of lines is accurate so far) for four hours. It was really depressing, because no one (except my interviewer) seemed to speak English there, and it was the American embassy, and at one point some guy had his son urinate over the gutter because he didn't want to get out of line. While I was waiting in the final line this lady doing her interview (it was somehow classist; I got to interview in a broom closet, while everyone else talked to a booth in the same room as the one everyone else was waiting in, so they didn't have any privacy whatsoever) said, a little too loudly, "of course i will come back in the philippines, i promise, promise," and for some reason, everyone who happened to hear laughed at that.
So after, what, five minutes in line, I anticipated my interview obsessively in a Kurtz kind of way. And long after my legs had liquified, it was finally my turn.
interviewer: So, where'd you go to high school?
me: uh... the International School Manila.
interviewer: You went to ISM? And you're going to Yale?
me: yes.
interviewer: What do you plan to major in?
me: I don't know yet.
interviewer: okay, I'm giving you a visa. take this slip and form and line up [for five more hours] at Gate 4.
I never thought it much of a disadvantage to being a TCK (third culture kid), because everyone else around me was one too. But suddenly there's something a little eerie about it.
Oh wow, the coincidence. Just as I typed that last sentence I got a message on my phone from the embassy's courier service (what will the Philippines do without texting) saying my visa's about to be released.
In response to Kelsey's remark about the functionality of sex as being or not being part of the joy, I think Gandhi's aproach has been the most enlightening for me. He essentially said that there is an inherant immorality in sex. No ifs ands or buts. Lust is immoral, it is a basic sin, and there is no way around it.
In the same vein, people can't live without killing. Now, for us vegitarians that is mostly only including insects and smaller life-forms, but Gandhi saw this even and also as immoral. Like a Jaine monk, he saw one of the possible ways to remedy this as essentially suicide. But that, he decided, was a sort of "easy way out." I don't know how many of you out there are big on Budhism, but he saw the suicide way out as sorta like the difference between Theravaden and Mayahanistic budhism (I think I spelled those both wrong). Rather than sticking around and helping others with their morality, you'd be ensuring your own moral life, but not helping anybody else.
Anyway, Gandhi eventually just sorta says that we have to live the best we can while accepting the intrinsic immoralities of life. That being true, we should treat our "spouses as sisters" with only the exception of when we are deliberatley trying to make a child. And even then I got the gyst that he wanted us to enjoy it as little as possible. Or rather, we should enjoy it for what it is, for the good we are creating and living in, rather than temporarily giving in to a lust we know is wrong just to fulfil an end result.
I think it's a bunch of phooey most of the time, but at least it's not hypocritical phooey, which is what most of the mainstream talk about sex before marriage being immoral but after marriage being ok, seems to be.
completely irrelevant tangent: I believe I posted a no-exaggerated-smiles labor quote from the passport photo place some months ago. I had to go back for something that had to do with my u.s. visa (the application process is unbelievable) and it turns out that they revised the passport photo guidelines:
Smile is allowed but not in exaggerated manner.
(except for Canadians)
I have no idea what they were thinking but I just thought it absurdly hilarious.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY DR. CHAPELLE!Friday, June 04, 2004
actually, aimee, i hate to be a pedant (no i don't), but that's not exactly what a .5 correlation coefficient means. a .5 coefficient means that 50% of the data from one variable (the sexual orientation of a twin) is explained by the data from another variable (the sexual orienation of the other twin). if 50% of the time the twins' sexual orientations coincided (as aimee claimed), that would actually indicate that it is more likely for twins separated at birth to have different sexual orientations (assuming that homosexuals make up less than 50% of the population).
without any more knowledge of the context of the study, i can't say whether .5 represents a strong correlation or not, but i'd imagine with the underreporting of homosexuality that it's enough to draw a conclusion that the sexual orientations of twins separated at birth are indeed correlated.
this statistical public service announcement brought to you by kelsey's (almost) useless ap statistics class.
also, that's a great poem.
Bryan, I've seen that finding as well, but check your sources- the correlational coefficient is .5, i think, which means that %50 of the time the twins' (even though separated at birth) sexual preferences coincide. This is still a huge similarity- but not unfailingly constant.Thursday, June 03, 2004
Thought this poem fit the disussion well (besides being a beautiful poem)
Sex Without Love
How do they do it, the ones who make love
without love? Beautiful as dancers,
gliding over each other like ice-skaters
over the ice, fingers hooked
inside each other's bodies, faces
red as steak, wine, wet as the
children at birth whose mothers are going to
give them away. How do they come to the
come to the come to the God come to the
still waters, and not love
the one who came there with them, light
rising slowly as steam off their joined
skin? These are the true religious,
the purists, the pros, the ones who will not
accept a false Messiah, love the
priest instead of the God. They do not
mistake the lover for their own pleasure,
they are like great runners: they know they are alone
with the road surface, the cold, the wind,
the fit of their shoes, their over-all cardio-
vascular health--just factors, like the partner
in the bed, and not the truth, which is the
single body alone in the universe
against its own best time.
- Sharon Olds
mmm... sorry to be so rude as to interrupt this debate... but it has been found (though we all know that studies show correlation not causal relations) that genetics seems to set a predispositioned tendency towards sexuality. How so? Twins that are separated at birth tend to be either homosexual or heterosexual - not one and the other. It seems that if a person is genetically inclined towards a certain behavior, should we blame him for his actions or are his actions absolved from all responsibility? Or if one believes in moral responsiblity (and if homosexuality is 'wrong') and not in moral luck, does this mean that some people are inclined to be more sinful than others?Wednesday, June 02, 2004
brian, you seem to be confusing the terms "sexual" and "physical." sure, some sex (even a majority) is as purely physical and objectifying as you describe. but describing all non-procreative sex as such is as silly, in my mind, as suggesting that such sex "disarms [one's] intuition for not causing harm." i think even the barest of anecdotal evidence could dismantle that assumption.Tuesday, June 01, 2004
in that vein, i agree that there are "degrees of sexual expression." but what you are describing is degrees of physical expression. not all physical contact between two bodies is sexual, just as not all physical activity is masturbation. i believe there is a fundamental difference between the two, just as there is a difference between intellect and emotion.
a question. almost all of us argued this summer that the aesthetic value of an object or performance of art can be separated from that object or performance's function (or even is dependent on it's not having one), but several of you seem to believe that the value of sexual intimacy is based wholly on its purpose. is that a contradiction?
Matt, I will agree with you that one can point to most religious laws and find their adaptive benefit. There's a law in Anthropology (I think it's called law of Cultural Adaptation or something) and it says that any habit of a given society at some point in that culture's development was adaptive. Just like foot washing made sense for desert people upon entering the home of another, or polygamy occurs in many fast-growing societies (and yes it did spring up in the US of A once the west became an available expanse), having a faith based on words and commandments as opposed to non-portable artistic renderings made with difficult-to-come-by-in-the-desert-materials would be the expected course for an arid-land herding society to take. I feel that most religions were adaptive to their society at a given point in time, and the variant nature of adaptive pressures within human civilizations explains why, for example, Buddhist Philosophy flowed out of India and now is much more successful in East Asian, or why different aspects of the protestant ethic survive differentially in divergent societies (compare Germany to the Midwest).
Public morality is for the public good. In the past, the best way to convince people to listen to laws beneficial to the sum population-and I'm not suggesting any organized group decided this, was to instill laws with panoptic or self-reinforcing properties. Sin and Karma, Heaven or Nirvana, Ancestors and Demons, all for various populations of hominids act as means to make the course of action advantageous to society also preferential to the individual. For most people in history, "don’t steal because it’s wrong" hasn’t been enough; it had to be "don’t steal because it’s wrong and God/the Ancestors/Santa (and so on) will see you AND YOU WILL BE PUNISHED OR AWARDED ACCORDINGLY."
Religion does make an unfair existence seem fair. Ingenious.
Now, some laws may prevent sexually transmitted diseases or keep the nuclear family stable, but by the same token, others can empower males which destabilizes the modern nuclear family, or deemphasize synthetic population control, which stresses our contemporary environment and the carrying capacity of the entire biosphere. Many segments of religious doctrine when practiced have proven detrimental to the esteem and social position of groups like women, 'outsiders' like migrants and minorities, and the downtrodden. I realize that I step on my own toes here because almost all religions urge things like charity and respect, and the corruption of pure doctrine comes in the maladaptation of these social commands or in their being used by people to justify the unjust, but Who Determines Just? ...idunno, that probably didn't come out clearly. I quit
So for those of you who feel that the Bible is inspired, as opposed to representing mythisory (Myth/History), would you extend the possibility of divine inspiration to other works such as the third portion of the Koran or the Ramayana? Are they no less worthy or accurate? Both of these texts could be supported by the same arguments used in justification of the Bible, and indeed the entire Koran includes the bible.
I believe that these and other texts contain truth in that many of the historical events did occur, however, I cannot believe that a man was the son of a deity, or that the world could be completely submerged with water. and so on.
Anything that can be substantially proven deserves permanent consideration, anything that cannot be proven remains theoretical. This is ironically the biggest problem that evolutionary biologists encounter thanks to decay and scarcity when coming to the rest of the scientific community.
If any man his holy, respect his ways. -Varanasi Proverb. Matt if you are devout and live well, than there is nothing wrong with your life. Do me a favor though, when you're in congress or something, remember that there are those of us who live softly without the light and would be deeply offended by having the ways of any single tradition thrust upon us. For myself I value logic and freedom of choice. It is how I have been raised and I will not say that it is any sort of absolute.
"In the beginning there was the cosmic "Om" the sound which resonates with the entire universe. From this sound came the gods and with this sound we may join them."
Churchill was a bloody racist imperialist hawkish douche. Not the say the Nazis weren't or anything, but that whole period was a bloody shame.
Yablon, when I said unable to cheat, I really meant difficult to cheat, or unmotivated to do so. We are a serial monogamous animal. Among wolves or Zebra, pair bonding is for life. If you put two together and they mated, then moved the male to an area bursting with comely females for the rest of his life, he would never cheat. Female mate-loyalty is a huge problem for recovering Zebra populations because when the stallions are poached, the females never reproduce. The motivation for him does not exist, thanks predominantly to pheromone-locking association mechanisms in his brain. If we were supposed to a monogamous animal, like gibbons or some of the smaller primates, we would have much smaller testicles and different sperm composition, since we would not be rigged to compete with other males, and there probably would me no sexual dimorphism. Among monogamous birds and mammals, dimorphism is slight, and outside of breeding periods there would not be gender-specific physical indicators like a 20% size differential or breasts (to begin with). Some creatures are as psycho-biologically resistant to mating outside of the pair bonds as say, we would be resistant towards eating our own offspring. There are plenty of animals with different reproductive strategies where that happens, but we are rigged so that infant-cannibalism is viscerally repulsive.
It's 2:48. I'm going to sleep.
don't be so sure, matthew. you're a very attractive young gentleman and i'm sure churchill would have recognized that.
have you read any joseph campbell?
REQUIRED READING: THE BOOK OF JOB
It encompasses this wide-ranging discussion nicely.
I hope everyone had a great Memorial Day.
As far as liking Churchill, I would not enter into a gay marriage with him, or a civil union for that matter, not that he would consent to either were he still alive.
I essentially agree that religious rhetoric is not valid in public debate. When I write "religious" I mean moral issues; ethical ones do have a place in the public debate. My caveat is that I believe that God's laws are not irrational dictums emanating from some altar but are in fact natural laws of a sort. When God commands men to not fornicate he proscribes a law that is in accordance with nature and is useful for combating societal problems like STDs and broken homes. So though a religious person may be oppossed to gambling on moral grounds he argues against in secular terms of the common good. In other words: public immorality hurts the public and therefore can always be rationally and successfully opposed in secular terms. I believe an examination of Judeo-Christian morality reveals that this correspondence bears out on every moral problem that also affects society (a similar dynamic is true with personal moral problems).
I find the problem of Scriptural interpretation, well, problematic. I do believe the Bible is inspired. Some of it, I think is rather clearly allegorical, or else miraculously literal (which is quite possible). The Book of Job is the book I find most likely to not be literal, and should be the required reading for this wide-ranging discussion. It is pretty short. I guess if the Bible is strictly historical it is absolutely true. One idea I find fascinating is the philosophical notion of "myth." In this sense a myth is a non-historical account that nonetheless contains truths that are applicable to history. It is just as powerful in the truths we deduce from it as it would be were it a historicl event.
Really, I haven't decided how I interpret the Bible. My view is necessarily different than a Jewish one since for Christians Christ is the Word: "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God." Even as the word of God the Bible must be seen as secondary to an ultimate, perfect Word, Christ. The Bible is not the primary vehicle for bringing God home to us but the person of Christ is. Notice however, how my argument rests on a biblical quotation: herein lies the dillemma. Scripture, though "God-breathed," is open to human corruption in revision and translation, yet in God's providence I think the Bible today is essentially intact in its original, god-breathed form.
All this is way beyond me. Take it as food for thought. At any rate, I'm convicted the scripture should be my rule of life. It is the historical footprint of the eternal Christ.
I've abstained from the blog for over a week now in order to take a break from my yearlong practice of missing TASP and finally spend what's left of it missing high school and my friends and the Philippines. But I'm done sulking now. Sort of. I would post grad/prom pictures to encourage Susan to follow suit next month, but I feel somewhat sheepish about being the first, so I'll hide and wait for someone else to be braver. Meanwhile, I wish everyone all the best at South Dakota today (yesterday).
Yearbook business: Thanks, Kelsey, Adrian, and Olga, for posting suggestions for the questionnaire on the tagboard, and hope the contributions will keep coming.
I have a problem with having everyone who has a problem with email snail-mailing their pages to my sister, because my sister decided to hop on a plane and come here given two hours' notice that there was a seat for her on one of the fully booked Manila flights. So, if anyone would be willing to be the middle-person who receives the nonelectronic submissions, holds on to them, then passes them off to me on a given date, please email me. I know I said I myself would send out an email, but I'm waiting for the questionnaire list to pile reasonably so that I won't be annoying everyone with too many emails. But. It's coming.
The current discussion is fascinating, even though I'm not exactly sure which of the many topics thrown around it's on. On sin, however, I agree that, in ideal situations, only conscious choices can reach sin-status. But what do we call the stupid things we do out of ignorance that result in hurting others? I think sin is a concept developed backwards from effect to cause - a reason for punishment-or-atonement, whether or not it happens. Original sin, then, is where we point as the reason to all other suffering we ourselves as individuals are not responsible for. The essense of original sin, I think, is the idea that it's inherited; we suffer for something people before us did. Adam and Eve's taking from the Tree of Knowledge is the reason why we know evil and pain and cruelty and everything else outside of supreme goodness in Eden.
Anyway. It's two in the morning and I have yet to figure out where to place homosexuality once I develop an opinion.
I miss you all--
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