Oh Goody....

Bill Clinton has offered his support in getting Obama elected. Yippee... After his stunning performance campaigning for his wife-- saying that since she's a little up there in age now, her recollection of her trip to Bosnia might have been a little off, especially since she gave the speech around 11 pm. This was, of course, after her "3 am phone call" ad started airing, and, oh yeah, she didn't give the speech late at night either. And let's not forget about the Obama-Jesse Jackson comparison. With supporters like Bill...

My Veep Picks

For McCain: Newt Gingrich
-I think he's already said that he wouldn't do it, but I think he'd be the best choice. Let's face it, he's incredibly intelligent. His scholarly, professorial persona would balance out McCain's straight-talkin, down-to-earth, no BS style. He would also balance out McCain's admitted ignorance on the economy. They also both share an independent streak and believe in climate change.

For Obama: Joe Biden
-Biden would help with the bigot vote (let's face it, that's what it is), balancing the ticket with a solid, presidential, white, male statesman. He also has huge foreign-policy credentials and experience. He is also like McCain in that he's more of the straight-talkin, no BSer and would compliment Obama's professorial and scholarly persona. Oh, and he was also my pick for president. Richardson would also be good, but too risky -- one minority at a time please.

Why Wasn't This Guy in "Expelled"?: Thoughts on I.D.

NPR's Science Friday recently featured Brown University biologist Kenneth Miller talking about his new book Only a Theory which takes on the intelligent design/evolution battle. Miller, of course, believes in the theory of evolution, but is also-- dun dun dun-- a practicing Roman Catholic. I don't know if I agree with everything Miller says, but the interview is good and, at one point, Miller takes on a caller who argues with him about the fossil record and the probability of proteins forming accidentally. To hear this part of the interview, simply skip to the middle.

My point in bringing this up in relation to the movie Expelled, is that I believe movies like Expelled, and this whole faction of the Intelligent Design movement, are just as extreme as people like Richard Dawkins. According to this article in Scientific American (yes I know, they're supposedly the "bad guys," but until someone proves their analysis false, from what I've read and heard, it rings very true) Expelled links the theory of evolution with the holocaust by taking quotes completely out of context:

"Expelled quotes Charles Darwin selectively to connect his ideas to eugenics and the Holocaust.When the film is building its case that Darwin and the theory of evolution bear some responsibility for the Holocaust, Ben Stein's narration quotes from Darwin's The Descent of Man thusly:
With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination. We build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed and the sick. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. Hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.
This is how the original passage in The Descent of Man reads (unquoted sections emphasized in italics):
With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination. We build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.
The producers of the film did not mention the very next sentences in the book (emphasis added in italics):
The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself whilst performing an operation, for he knows that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with an overwhelming present evil.
Darwin explicitly rejected the idea of eliminating the "weak" as dehumanizing and evil. Those words falsify Expelled's argument. The filmmakers had to be aware of the full Darwin passage, but they chose to quote only the sections that suited their purposes."

It's funny to me that the same people who despise Michael Moore will flock to a film that uses his same kinds of tactics. So for the same reason I never saw Farenheit 911, I probably won't ever be seeing Expelled.

Why didn't Expelled feature people like Ken Miller, Francis Collins, Simon Conway Morris, John Polkinghorne or Alister McGrath who are all Christians and take the Bible and their faith seriously, yet are also scientists who believe in evolution? Why did it only feature extremist atheists like Dawkins, who, interestingly enough, didn't even know what movie he was being interviewed for? Why are the I.D.ers so hell-bent on trashing the theory of evolution? I would say that it's because a very specific interpretation of Genesis, but Ben Stein, to my knowledge, isn't a Christian and there are many other people who aren't Christians that support ID-- people who believe aliens created the world, for instance. Technically, I, and the scientists I named above, could be under the I.D. banner, because while we believe mainstream ideas about evolution, we believe that evolution was how God created, hence the design we see in the universe. But I could care less about having theistic evolution taught in the classroom. Why? Because the second God, or anything that cannot be measured using the tools of scientific inquiry enters the picture, then we aren't talking about science anymore.

Ultimately, most of the people that support I.D. believe that evolution leads to atheism, and that's why they're so militant. But, fortunately, as evidenced by myself and a gazillion others, that's a bunch of BS. So how bout this: teach your kids creationism, I.D., evolution or whatever, and let them decide what they think. Just don't teach them that if they believe evolution then they can't believe in God, because that's just not true. If people would just understand that, then maybe we could focus on more important issues.

A Sad Day for Political Junkies

Anyone who follows politics knows how incredibly tragic the loss of Tim Russert is. Ever since Friday, I have been following the coverage. Seeing the humanity brought out in these journalists and politicians that I watch all of the time makes me realize what an amazing person he must have been. I watch Meet the Press every Sunday. This morning, Tom Brokaw started the show with a "no weeping" policy, however, part way in, it was Brokaw who struggled to fight off tears in an attempt to finish his sentence.

One thing I've taken away from watching this coverage is that Russert spent most of his time neck deep in politics, studying it from every angle. Yet, unlike most people, he remained hopeful and optimistic; he loved politics and never grew cynical. I know a lot of people who hate politics, could care less or have grown jaded. I hope I never become that way. Politics are an enormous part of the human condition and influence every area of life. So I am exited for the coming election day because, ultimately, I am hopeful for a better world; I am hopeful for better people and, therefore, also for better politics. But it will be sad to watch it all unfold without the coverage of one of the only journalists who deserve the label "fair and balanced."

Christianity and Politics: Three Current Perspectives in Light of Jesus, the Early Church and Rome - Conclusion

Christianity teaches that humans are fundamentally broken or sinful. People exhibit this brokenness on an individual level and also on an institutional, cultural and societal level. In Romans chapter 5, the the apostle Paul describes how sin started with one person and spread to the entire world. Paul then compares Adams sin to Christ's death saying that Christ's single act of righteousness extends to all. So, in other words, Christ reverses the curse. At one point Boyd quotes Revelation 11:15 which says that the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of Christ. Boyd uses this verse to argue that the kingdoms of this world are in the process of being handed over to Christ. So, right now, the kingdom of God is invading earth.

Going back to the Romans 5 analogy, if sin starts individually and spreads to institutions and governments, then isn't the reverse true? Redemption starts individually and spreads to institutions and governments and politics. If this is true, then wouldn't that mean Satan is less in control of the "kingdoms of this world" than he was in Paul and Christ's day. And if so, what does that mean for Christians engaging in politics? On that, Boyd takes a very separationist point of view. But I'm not so sure that I do.
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The second distinction Boyd makes is that kingdoms of the world are “power-over” kingdoms, while the kingdom of God is a “power-under” kingdom. Power-over refers to the government's use of punishment to rule its citizens. Behavioral change is achieved by force from the outside, so a power-over kingdom rules over its people. But the kingdom of God is a power-under kingdom, changing people from the inside out. Citizens of God's kingdom come under people in loving acts of service. According to Boyd (2005), “The cross is the ultimate symbol for the kingdom of God, for it defines what the kingdom always looks like. It looks like Christ – self-sacrificial and loving. It looks like grace (p. 33).” Boyd concludes that one either places his or her trust in the use of force and coercion, or one places his or her trust in the Spirit, working through Calvary-like love to change people from the inside.

Because America is clearly a power over-kingdom, it cannot be, nor ever have been, a Christian nation. The role of the Christian in politics, therefore, is not to fuse God’s kingdom with a kingdom of this world, but to live out the unique kingdom of God in its midst. This happens when Christians submit to Christ’s lordship and communally embody his teachings and example, which causes people to, as Boyd says “come under the loving influence of the kingdom (Boyd 2005).” So the goal is not to protect the original Judeo-Christian values America was supposedly founded upon, but to overthrow America, and every government, with the power of the cross.

This does not mean Boyd is against Christians involving themselves in the political process, on that Boyd (2005) argues:

“To insist that we keep the kingdom of God radically distinct from all versions of the kingdom of the world does not mean that our faith and moral convictions shouldn’t inform our participation in the political process. Of course they should – but that is true of all citizens of a free country… What the distinction between the two kingdoms does imply, however, is that citizens of the kingdom of God need to take care to distinguish between their core faith and values on the one hand and the particular way they politically express their faith and values on the other. While the way of the kingdom of God is always simple, straightforward, and uncompromising, the way of the kingdom of the world is always complex, ambiguous, and inevitably full of compromises. Hence, kingdom people who share the same core faith and values can and often do disagree about how their faith and values should inform their involvement in the kingdom of the world (p. 15).”

Boyd also points out that Jesus had “conservatives” and “liberals” among his own disciples. Matthew was a tax collector, while Simon was a Zealot (Boyd 2005). As we have seen, these two factions were diametrically opposed to one another, yet under Jesus they were working toward the same ends. Christians, therefore, can live in political tension with one another disagreeing with how their values affect their political involvement, but at the same time are working toward the same goal of overthrowing the kingdoms of this world with the kingdom of God.

Greg Boyd’s perspective looks most like the interactions Jesus, Paul and the early church had with Rome. Jesus rejected the Jewish factions of his day and, instead, created his own unique community that included wealthy tax-collectors, militant Zealots, and societal rejects. He told Pilate his kingdom was not of this world and denounced the way of coercion and violence. Paul started, as Horsley says, “alternative communities” of Jesus worshippers in the midst of Rome and its Caesar worship (Horsley 1997). He did not advocate the Christianization of Rome, but anticipated its overthrow by the kingdom of God, and this is exactly the point of view Boyd argues in his book. I believe the awakening of some on the Christian Left and Right to the folly of aligning God with partisanship and a myopic understanding of values is a hopeful sign that, someday soon, the church might be unified under the cross, rather than divided by politics.

The Solution to the Food Crisis, Environmental Degradation and Factory Farming

Growing up, I was quite the weird little attention whore. One of the things I liked to do to get attention was eat ants. One time, I ate a live one and it kept crawling up my throat. I thought it was hilarious; other people just thought it was gross. Americans still think eating bugs is gross, but much of the world doesn't, and maybe soon things here will change.

I read this article yesterday on entomophagy, which is the term for eating insects. I admit that I have a fear of large flying insects, so I wouldn't really be all about eating them. But given that there's more protein in insects than in chicken, and it takes less water to raise them I might reconsider. This is a great article and I predict that by the time I'm an old man entomophagy will be commonplace in the U.S. The article points out that sushi once had a high gross-out factor, and lobster is just a large cockroach. I would add that food in the U.S. is becoming increasingly multi-cultural and diverse, and shows like Bizarre Foods promote desensitization. I know, it sounds gross, but read the article, it makes a lot of sense.

This Would be Great

Call my idealistic. Call me naive. But I would love this. It's exactly the kind of contest we need. I hope Obama takes him up on it.