:Reasonable Force

Each year, a question is posed by Edge Foundation, Inc., to its membership of what it calls “some of the most interesting minds in the world.” The stated purpose of Edge is “to promote inquiry into and discussion of intellectual, philosophical, artistic, and literary issues, as well as to work for the intellectual and social achievement of society.” Following is an excerpt from their introduction to this year’s question, “What is your dangerous idea?”

What you will find emerging out of the 119 original essays in the 75,000 word document written in response to the 2006 Edge Question — “What is your dangerous idea?” — are indications of a new natural philosophy, founded on the realization of the import of complexity, of evolution. Very complex systems — whether organisms, brains, the biosphere, or the universe itself — were not constructed by design; all have evolved. There is a new set of metaphors to describe ourselves, our minds, the universe, and all of the things we know in it.

Richard Dawkins makes his contribution to this topic by extolling the logical outworking of the materialist’s view of humanity. He claims, quite rightly, that if there is no supernatural component to our being, a proposition he views as inarguable, our behaviors are determined purely by the biological machinery of our minds. Under his view, even the vilest acts are no more worthy of blame or condemnation than the mechanical failure of an engine.

Basil Fawlty, British television’s hotelier from hell created by the immortal John Cleese, was at the end of his tether when his car broke down and wouldn’t start. He gave it fair warning, counted to three, gave it one more chance, and then acted. “Right! I warned you. You’ve had this coming to you!” He got out of the car, seized a tree branch and set about thrashing the car within an inch of its life. Of course we laugh at his irrationality. Instead of beating the car, we would investigate the problem. Is the carburettor flooded? Are the sparking plugs or distributor points damp? Has it simply run out of gas? Why do we not react in the same way to a defective man: a murderer, say, or a rapist? Why don’t we laugh at a judge who punishes a criminal, just as heartily as we laugh at Basil Fawlty? Or at King Xerxes who, in 480 BC, sentenced the rough sea to 300 lashes for wrecking his bridge of ships? Isn’t the murderer or the rapist just a machine with a defective component? Or a defective upbringing? Defective education? Defective genes?

If we recoil at the implications of Dawkins’ assertion, we must at least respect this about him: he is clear on the implications of naturalism.

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And mad props to my Carolina Panthers for utterly destroying the Atlanta Falcons yesterday. They have finished the regular season with a thoroughly respectable 11-5 record; only the third winning season in the team’s eleven-year existence. In so doing they have also earned their way into the playoffs for the third time, and will face off against the New York Giants on Sunday, January 8 at 1:00pm. When I look at what I just wrote it’s hard to believe how frustrated I’ve been with this team at times this year. Perhaps I should be encouraged that their record actually is disappointing considering they had every opportunity to lock up their division and be seeded higher in the playoffs than they are. In other words, the fact that I believe they should have won all five of the games they lost leads me to believe that, despite it being a very rare thing, they have real potential to win through three rounds and into Super Bowl XL.

Yes, watching football is one of the worthless pursuits I engage in when I should be reading or doing something for someone else. Thanks for asking.

On to the resolutions!

Echoing my sister, who is more like me than I knew before she began blogging like a dervish, I desperately need to get my sorry self into bed in order to get my body and brain the rest they need. As she explains, so many of the other areas of self-discipline that we struggle with stem from a simple lack of rest.

Budgeting is something that I’ve really had a hard time getting a handle on. My wife and I did a great job of eliminating all of our debt with the exception of our house, but once we had done that we never took the next step to marshal our income in order to achieve our goals and plan for the future. It seems so simple: divide up the income into categories and stick to it. For some reason, though, I balk mentally whenever the time comes to get it done. That’s got to change this year this month.

Bible study is more than just reading the Bible. It involves poring over passages, consulting commentaries, and doing lots of cross-referencing. I aspire to this, but I want first just to get back to reading the Word regularly. I was amazed at how much stuck with me just from reading the Bible completely through once, so this year I’m going to do it again. Provided I’m on schedule, I can always do some side study, but the goal is to let every word pass before my eyes at least once.

Also this year I plan to go to the bathroom more.

Hmm… maybe a better way to say that would be that I intend to drink plenty of water. Typically, Mountain Dew is about all I drink and I drink it all day long. I also eat very little in the way of fruits and vegetables, notwithstanding tomato sauce on my pizza. Consequently I’m pretty much constantly dehydrated. Not healthy. Gotta change that.

Note that I’m not getting crazy and vowing to give up the Dew or anything. No need to lose our minds, here.

I really want to design my own WordPress theme this year. So far I have tweaked several, but I’d like to do one from scratch. I may have to get a little help with some nice graphical touches, but the nuts and bolts I can do myself.

Finally, at least for the purposes of this post, I aim to read a new book every month (don’t give me grief, sis!). Between Tim Challies and me, we ought to get about 132 books read! I should be able to read much faster than that, and I have in the past. The reality of it is that I’ve been lucky to finish one in three months lately. I’m shooting for goals I know I can achieve. Hopefully, I’ll exceed it because my book backlog is ridiculous and my wife won’t let me buy myself more new ones until I make a dent! (She loves me, though, and she bought me some really nice ones for Christmas, as did blestwithsons!)

Lots and lots of other things I hope to do better, more, faster, etc., but these are great places to start. I realize these are all self-centered, but that’s only because it’s all about me.

Just kidding. I have a fairly specific goal of improving an area of ministry in my role as a deacon. I also want to get more involved with our neighbors, but I haven’t given a lot of thought to specifics on that just yet.

So, there you have it. Some modest, but important areas of improvement in the life of SCPanther are on the table for 2006. Think I’ll get started right now by getting out from in front of this computer.

Happy New Year, everybody!

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