Think Thank Thunk

Chapter 5-7 D’Souza and the West

2008-10-19T14:42:00.000-07:00

       Modern Western civilized man is ignorant of the history of Western civilization. Many modern people believe that Western culture was built on Athens and Rome when in fact it is built on Athens and Jerusalem with Jerusalem being the most important influence through Judaism and Christianity. Many believe Rome was destroyed by Christianity leading to the dark ages of Europe with only the Renaissance saving it to become what it is today. In fact Rome fell because of its own decadence and ultimately was sacked by barbarians of northeastern Europe pushed from the East through expansionist pressure from Asia in the form of the Indo-Turkic peoples. Over time, Christianity civilized these people. Christopher Dawson shows in "Religion and the Rise of Western Culture" how the Christian monasteries became the locus of productivity and learning through Europe. Where there was wasteland they produced hamlets, then town, and eventually commonwealths and cities. Through the years, the savage barbarian warrior became the idealized chivalric Christian knight, and new ideals of civility and manners and romance were formed that shape our society to this day. If Christianity had not come, we might still be living in the dark ages.
      The idea of USA’s limited government is born out of the idea that man inhabits two realms at the same time, the physical and the spiritual. A ruler’s realm is circumscribed by limits beyond which he simply cannot go. The Greek, Alexander the Great when confronted by those limits after conquering much of the known world, perhaps reluctantly, claimed divinity so as to be able to command the Greek city states who believed no mortal had the right to command them to unite. He died before the theory was tested. The American form of government was formed upon the Christian principle of the limitation of government to non religious activities and Christian morality was believed to be a requirement if the constitution was to be effective.
      The belief that ordinary people matter is derived from Christianity. The nuclear family, the idea of limited government, the Western concept of the rule of law, and our culture’s high emphasis on the relief of suffering are derived from the basic Christian understanding of the dignity of fallible human beings. For the Greeks of Plato and Aristotle’s time, the ordinary people were primarily useful as slaves whose value was to provide time for the ruling class to learn, think, and participate in the government of the community. An old Chinese proverb states that the tears of strangers are only water. A Roman father had the right to kill his children. The idea that individuals matter arises not from Greece, Rome, or the east, but from Christianity. Under Christianity, women and children gradually assumed value until prior to the Renaissance, women could conduct business, vote, assume public office based on character and wisdom. One unfortunate consequence of the Renaissance was that women again lost those rights, not to be regained for many centuries.
      Nietzsche thought the Christian idea of the equality of man was crazy and that this crazy idea was “the prototype of all theories of equal rights.” Christianity gave status to women; few societies in the world today give the status to women found in the West. Slavery was opposed by Christian thinkers and is it surprising the slavery world wide is on the rise? Slavery was the norm throughout history, the values of Christianity slowly eroded support for slavery until it was eventually made illegal. Nietzsche forecasted that as Secularism gained ascendancy, ‘new’ values – infanticide, redefinition of the family, and eugenic theories of human superiority – would begin to emerge. D’Souza postulates that “if the West gives up Christianity, it will also endanger the egalitarian values that Christianity brought into the world.” Nietzsche’s future is now.

Chapter 3-4 D’Souza and Atheism Part 2

2008-10-19T14:32:00.000-07:00

      Atheists, alarmed by the rising power of religion around the world are mounting an unprecedented attack on religion. They thought they were winning; but with the decline of secularism and possibly with the precipitous decline of communism, atheists have suddenly become aggressively evangelistic in their efforts to convince the world of the righteousness of their cause.
      Their arguments tend to follow one of two lines of thought. The first is that science has shown that religion is unnecessary to explain reality and that science seems to work better. Carl Sagan writes; “We can pray over the cholera victim or we can give her 500 milligrams of tetracycline every twelve hours.” Sagan also points out that even Christians who pray are likely to supplement the prayer with medicine. We are simply carbon based machines and the mythical ‘soul’ is just a ghost in the machine that science has driven out.
      The second argument is the historical crimes of religion, the Crusades, the Inquisition, religious wars, witch trials and the like. The solution for them is to weaken the power of religion and drive religion from the public sphere. “Modern atheists view themselves as brave pioneers, facing the truths of man’s lowly origins and the facing death with heroic acceptance.
      “Not content with committing cultural suicide-they want to take your children with them.” The atheist strategy is to let the religious breed the children, but the secular will educate them to despise their parent’s beliefs by focusing on science, portraying it as the only reliable source of truth. Richard Dawkins poses the question of how much authority society and the state should give parents to ‘indoctrinate’ their own children and when the state should define such ‘unscientific’ education as child abuse. Is it surprising that home school education is growing at a rate of 15-20% per year or that California recently aborted legislation that attempted to curb the freedom of parents to educate their children as they see fit?

Response to Skinner and Soul Level

2008-09-20T23:50:00.000-07:00

Skinner

First let me thank you for the response; I’m excited to have thoughtful comments to help me focus and to carry on an interesting discussion. My original hope in starting a blog was to carry on a dialog about things I was thinking or reading about. The blog has been up for some time, and based on comments, only family commented and not much discussion. As a result I lost interest for a time and then started to use the blog as a file repository for some of the stuff I was reading or thinking about. This is good!
The primary point that D’Souza is making in Chapter one is that the world is rejecting the secular perspective. Whether that is good or bad is the subject of later chapters. Radical Hinduism seems like an oxymoron and so far at least hasn’t seemed like a good thing. Back to the point of the chapter – that secularism / materialism doesn’t have much draw. Certainly, religion of all varieties is growing with Christianity growing the fastest.
In the words of David Quammen in The Reluctant Mr. Darwin, even in the USA, in spite of a couple of generations of biology classes in which mention of religion is frowned upon, most people “choose to understand the origin of our species as if Darwin had never lived.” The Gallup organization has been polling people since 1982 on the issue of evolution and creation. In 2004 when posed with the statement “God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time in the past 10,000 years or so” (Creationism), 45% agreed with that statement, 38% agreed with the statement that “humans have developed over millions of years from lower forms of life, but that God guided the process” (Theistic Evolution). A statement that Quammen says is “utterly inconsistent with what Darwin proposed”. Just 13% agreed with the statement that “humans have developed from other life forms without guidance by God”. The interesting thing is these numbers have not changed significantly in the 6 times they have conducted the poll since 1982. Again in the words of Quammen, an admirer and biographer of Darwin, approximately 87% of the American population does not believe the fundamental principle of Darwin that higher life forms evolve from lower life forms through blind materialistic processes. Darwin's Evolution doesn't appear to be believable to the majority of the population of the world.
Communism or at least the socialistic versions seen in USSR and China, while not dead, is not doing well for a variety of reasons. Probably the main reason it has imploded is that it is inconsistent with the nature of man even though many aspects pure communism are a great idea and tried briefly in early Christianity. For communism to work well, the people must be fundamentally and almost exclusively good, generous, and kind people. Not much evidence of that.
I guess it is important to define secularism a bit more precisely. Skinner is correct saying that historical secularism refers to separation of religion and government. However the term has morphed to include separation of religion and truth which expands the definition and somewhat merges it with Materialism – the idea that there is only one true thing – matter. I (and I think D’Souza) am using Secularism and Materialism somewhat interchangeably. Secularism as such goes beyond a form or philosophy of government, it is a philosophical world view that says we don’t need divine intervention or revelation to give meaning or direction in any area of life including government, biology, the ‘meaning of life’, etc, or any of the important questions humans ask. A pure secularist (whatever that is) would say that the only valid source of truth is science and no god is necessary; many of the current atheist authors are saying that religion is a liability and must be eradicated.
I’m not sure I have ever heard anyone argue that murder, rape, and pillage have survival value in the way that Darwin used it.
Darwinian theory is clear that we humans are here as a result of a purposeless, directionless, and meaningless process with no guarantee that humans are a good idea or a dead end and with some speculating that the world might be better off without us. (Chernobyl in its current form gives some indication that nature might do well with some well placed nukes to clear out the human population.) Purpose and meaning for our existence can’t come from a directionless process.
I’m not sure what swarms of people have to do with the argument. Demographics seem to say that the secular materialistic countries of Europe and now America are not reproducing themselves; they are short of workers and it is causing problems for their economies and cultures. You might argue that is not a problem, there are swarms of people who want to fill the void, but that begs another question of why those people want to leave. I’m afraid that is an issue beyond the scope of this argument.
I don’t think I understand the optical illusion and shaft arguments. The only point I was making is that hopeful people whose hope is based on truth or reality with survive better than hopeless people or hopeful people whose hope is based in fantasy.
Again I don’t think I understand the ‘human history’ argument. All the countries named rose to power under religious (not necessarily good) people, they now seem to be declining in influence, stability, and prosperity relative to the rest of the world as a function of their move toward a secular and non-religious society. Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, the Roman philosophers, and our founding fathers all seem to agree that governments will fail if the moral discipline of religion is missing.

Soul Level Response (It’s late and I’m tired so I hope this makes sense when I read it tomorrow.

I guess there is a difference between a story that entertains us and fundamental truths. There is general agreement that myths are built around at least a kernel of truth. If there is not at least some truth and we live our lives around a lie, I can’t see how good will come of it.
“Religion is a good way to motivate society.” The question is why is “religion a great way to organized people and society”. Men like Plato and Aristotle while not so sure of the Olympian gods, were adamant about religious duties and some believe were tending to a supreme being – a first cause. Many of the founding fathers of our nation while themselves not professing to be whole-hearted religious men felt that our government could not function without the virtues espoused by religions men.
In the first few chapters of this book, D’Souza is arguing that Atheism is losing the battle against Religion worldwide, mad as hell about it, confused about the stupidity of humans who don’t accept evolution as a fact, believe in science as the arbiter of truth, and that they are becoming aggressive about promulgating their belief.
Taoism - There is a difference between a personal god and an impersonal something that is a first cause. I know little about Taoism, but it appears to me to be a system somewhat related to later Buddhism and still later Epicureanism where the goal is to purge oneself of desire. That might be a good idea when applied to warring or covetous neighbors but if applied to our business or children is likely to result in failure. In any case, again forgive my lack of knowledge of Taoism, but I think it has an understanding of origins that includes purpose and therefore at odds with evolutionary theory. Again based on the little I know, Taoists believe that something nurtured humans in the beginning but doesn’t care much about what happens to us now. I’d better leave Taoism at this point before my ignorance becomes more obvious.
I’m not sure I understand the population argument unless you might be arguing that it would be a good thing if Secular / Materialists failed to reproduce themselves so as to leave room for people too ignorant to figure out how many kids they or their nations can afford. I’m not convinced that we know enough about overpopulation issues, but we sure know enough about starvation to do what we can. Unfortunately, even starvation is not a simple issue – witness Zimbabwe or Sudan.

Well this has been fun, hope it continues, but I need to get some sleep.

D'Souza and Atheism Part 1

2008-09-19T19:44:00.000-07:00

What’s So Great About Christianity by Dinesh D’Souza Part 1

       I have been reading D'Souza's book over the past several months. Like CS Lewis' books, it is heavy reading because he says so much in so few words and covers such a wide range of arguments. I have been curious for the past several decades about what will happen as the center of Christianity moves out of the West. A partial answer for me is that several of my favorite Christian apologists originate from the Indian subcontinent. D'Souza came from India young enough to become involved in American politics at a national level.
       I had intended to summarize his book with a page or two, but am finding that impossible because of the subject range so here goes with D'Souza Part 1

Note that when quotes are included without referencing the author, I am quoting D'Souza

Chapters 1 & 2

       D’Souza opens his book with an aggressive statement about atheism. He say the world is witnessing a huge explosion of religious conversion and growth and Christianity is growing faster than any other religion. We are witnessing the twilight of atheism. The ranks of atheism are shrinking as a percentage of the population world wide. The fact that it is not so obvious to us living in the USA is that Christianity is growing in the southern hemisphere and Asia, but not as much in the west, especially in the USA and Europe. An indicator of the fact that secularism is not progressing as fast in the USA as many atheists would like is the regularly repeated puzzlement of secularists about the data that shows the number of people who believe in God and have doubts about evolution has stayed fairly constant for decades. An interesting and growing trend in Europe is preachers from developing nations moving to Europe to serve as pastors for churches there.
       Secularism, the idea that you can isolate the physical world and especially science and call it reality has lost some of its appeal. D’Souza says; “Secularism has lost its identification with progress and modernity, and consequently it has lost the main source of its appeal. God is very much alive, and His future prospects look to be excellent. This is the biggest comeback story of the twenty-first century.”
       A somewhat bizarre argument for the reason for the demise of atheism is that it is anti-evolutionary – there is no survival value in atheism. Secularism says that life and existence is meaningless and purposeless. Given that foundation, it is not surprising that secularists tend to not reproduce themselves. Atheists such as Scott Altran and others believe that religion requires a commitment to ‘factually impossible worlds’. The question for atheists then can be posed; Why humans would evolve in such a way that they come to believe in things that don’t exist. Christianity teaches that you are a special creation of a good and all-powerful God; created in his image with the capacities to think, feel, and worship that set you above all other life forms.
       Imagine these as two tribes of people, the secular and the religious, subscribing to two world views. The secular is made up of people who are not sure why they exist at all and are made only of matter with no explanation of why they can think at all. The religious tribe is composed of individuals who view their every thought and action as consequential. Which of the two tribes is more likely to survive, prosper, and multiply?
      “Atheism, not religion, requires a Darwinian explanation. Atheism is a bit like homosexuality: one is not sure where it fits into a doctrine of natural selection.”

Response to Jim Pruitt's Comment (Last Post)

2008-09-17T21:05:00.000-07:00

      The author probably accepts the evolutionary perspective, but most characteristics of creatures that could be demonstrating survival of the fittest could also be taken as good design repeated in multiple creatures when appropriate. Similar functions in different species can be seen as nothing more than careful design for function; when a similar function is desired in different species, a similar design is called for.
      We can hypothesize that females carrying babies or caring for babies should be designed so that they are more cautious. This could result in design goals for females to have smaller ranges, stronger desire to be close to the babies, more care in the kind of rough-housing when pregnant and around the babies, stronger attachment to the babies and to the group. If we want to design the group or pair so that the combination has the greatest survival probability, the male might be designed for less caution when seeking food, less fear when faced with danger etc. In general, it would seem to be a good design if the females were more protective and nurturing (since in mammals, they carry the babies) and the males less careful about their personal safety. Body chemistry would be a good way to address these design characteristics in a biological machine. A brain that responded positively to adrenaline might be a good way to get a male to disregard danger to protect. Sin might make that good design characteristic bad if the subject decided to selfishly try to repeat the adrenaline rush for no good purpose.
      Now, about how faith fits into this, it appears to me that God requires us to act on our faith. Faith that God will care for my loved ones (or my neighbor) doesn’t release me from the responsibility to protect and provide. If God is a good designer, he will have given me the requisite skill requirements. I don’t think I can separate natural from divine given that the divine is the designer of the natural and that the end game is to transfer / transport something of the natural into the supernatural after the natural death transition.
      I think of the ‘lion laying down with the lamb’ thing as something very separate from the current state of affairs. It appears to me that people were vegetarians and that prior to the fall, the animal kingdom was also vegetarian implying that the ‘lion and lamb’ coexisted prior to the fall and will again after Christ removes the curse after the end of the world. Examples of the possibility are clear in nature – such as the Panda Bear with carnivore teeth and bamboo for food or omnivores in general and quite a lot of dog food is cereal.
      This is hardly scientific, but I don’t think we need to try to prove that the world was different before the fall because the scientific rules had to change at the point of the curse. For instance, entropy – the second law of thermodynamics – probably wasn’t in effect then or after time ends. If that were the case, science couldn’t even speculate because scientific method has to assume the scientific rules don’t change to even begin and investigation. I think I’m a little off the subject, but it’s fun to speculate about.
      Thoughts?

Gender Matters by Leonard Sax

2008-08-18T04:48:00.000-07:00

After reading Boys Adrift, I read Gender Matters, also by Leonard Sax. Gender Matters was written before Boys Adrift, but I happened to hear about that one first. I’m glad I did read Boys Adrift first because it is more alarming and attention getting than Gender Matters. However, this book provides more evidence for the differences between boys and girls and how that affects the way children react to subject matter and how they can best learn different types of material.
In Boys Adrift, Sax’s focus is on boys and he largely ignores girls, though he does mention that fact is not because girls do not have problems in the educational system. Gender Matters presents more hard data on gender differences and makes recommendations on how parents and teachers can or need to respond in regard to raising and educating children.
Examples include the sight and hearing differences between males and females mentioned in the Boys Adrift post. Another example cited it the common male characteristic among primates for rough and tumble play among primates. This kind of play is commonly discouraged in our society and reflected in our educational systems with the result that games such as dodge ball and similar rough or dangerous activities (teeter-totters, swings, and slides) remove a necessary outlet for the aggressive tendencies of boys. Males that are not allowed rough and tumble behavior among primates have a tendency to produce brutal behavior later. The rough and tumble activities of friends appears to teach them rules of fair play that instills boundaries for the activities of adult activity. He says that our efforts to create a more soft and gentle boy may result in more aggressive and brutal activities in adults. Sax cites examples and research to support these conclusions.
The feminist theory of our times lead us to believe that gender differences are minimal and largely taught. The foundation of Sax’s theories is founded in research that demonstrates the differences in the ‘hard wiring’ of the brains between boys and girls. As an indirect result, Sax believes the modern gender philosophy is driving a trend to drug both boys and girls; boys with amphetamine stimulants such as the Ritalin family of drugs and antidepressants for girls.
In summary, a very thought provoking book well worth reading.

Boys Adrift by Leonard Sax

2008-06-04T05:57:00.000-07:00

I just read a fascinating book called Boys Adrift by Leonard Sax. Apparently huge numbers of boys are doing badly in school and then never finding a nitch as adults. Many of them live with their parents and just get by and are happy with that. The book gives five reasons for this problem:

Boys Adrift is about a couple of generations of boys (40 years) who are unmotivated by such traditional factors as girls (desire to please so as to date and marry a good one), money (work hard so as to have a nice toys and a nice house for the lady to live in), and traditional standards of masculine duty (the obligations of an adult male to protect and provide for). The name assigned to this group by Sax is ‘Failure to Launch’.

Sax reports that the first indications can show up as early as kindergarten indicated by lack of motivation, class disruptions and, underachievement. When these children become young adults, an astonishing number are stalling with many leaving home and then returning to live for years or decades in their parents homes. In 1949, 70% of undergraduates were male. In succeeding decades, the numbers dropped to 64%, 59%, 49%, 46%, 44% respectively and was 42% in 2006. Some of this is due to women becoming more successful at overcoming female stereotypes, but men are both enrolling in and finishing college at ever decreasing rates. Over that same time period the number of able bodied men who could find work but are unemployed and not looking for work has changed from 1 in 20 to a current 1 in 7 men who are content to not work or work part time or at minimum wage while employers seeking skilled craftsmen are having an ever greater difficulty finding workers.

A lawyer joke introduces the chapter concerning the shortage of workers. A lawyer with a luxury house has a plugged toilet. He tries without success to clear the blockage with a plunger and called a plumber. The plumber cleared the blockage and handed the lawyer the bill. The lawyer looked at the bill and exclaimed; “$250 labor, you were only here 30 minutes, that’s more than my hourly rate and I’m a lawyer.” The plumber replied; “I know; I used to be a lawyer”.

Five Reasons Boys Are Doing Poorly:

1. Changes in the way we teach: Kids are going to school too young. Kindergarten used to be mostly constructive play. The emphasis has changed to teaching the skills prerequisite to reading, writing and math resulting in children and especially boys being required to do ‘schoolwork’ before they are developmentally ready. Finland, whose students have the highest scores on standardized testing, don’t start school until age seven while our children are expected to do the same work at age five. School has changed so it is a much better fit for girls than boys. Some issues have to do with the fact that boys and girls are different and these differences may be unknown or even believed to be wrong and needing to be changed. Physical differences that many teachers don’t know about include the fact that girls’ hearing is better than boys and if a female teacher speaks loud enough for the girls to be comfortable, the boys at the back of the room may not even be hearing the teacher. Boy’s eyes have a higher percentage of receptors that see in black and white and respond to motion, speed and direction and less of color and texture. This affects what they see and what interests them in a classroom. Societal definitions of healthy relationships and appropriate behavior can result in normal boyish behavior common to both human and animal male play being ‘treated’ with drugs or simply discouraged. Boys can then come to believe that school is not for them, school is stupid, school is for girls and nerds. In any case, many boys are completely unmotivated and under achievers by the third or forth grade.

2. Video Games: Certain kids with a strong desire to control their environment find that they have a home in the video world where they are in control. Unfortunately, the environment is not healthy and quite addictive. In addition, the brains of these kids have physical changes to centers for motivation and direction with the result that they don’t care about much of anything except the games. The changes appear to be long lasting.

3. Prescription drugs associated with ADD: These drugs affect the same brain area as the Video games and have the same effect in reducing motivation with the result that the boys change from active energetic little boys to lazy, unmotivated, and often overweight kids who hate school. Some of them may still actually need the drugs, but the side effects may include permanent brain malfunction resulting in a kind of laziness that the parents and kids can’t seem to find a way to overcome with the result that they can end up taking 6-10 years to make it through college and then can’t hold down a job. I have a nephew who has a roommate who is a very talented guy and who currently makes just enough money to pay the rent and food and turned down a $120,000 job offer because he would have to work 50 hours per week. My nephew says this guy is a slug and fits the description of the boys in the book to a tee.

4. Endocrine Disruptors: There are two chemicals that are given off by clear plastics which are made from petroleum which that act as estrogen mimics. They first discovered the problem in fish in the Potomac River; the females were normal, but the males while having male organs, were producing eggs instead of sperm. They have since found the same problem in fish elsewhere, alligators, mammals of all kinds, and little boys. Researchers eventually identified two different chemicals that have that same effect in high levels in all those species. Researchers have known for a long time that males of many different species including people play differently from the day they are born. When the give the level of the chemical to animals equivalent to what would be found in a clear plastic water bottle or a baby bottle, the play instantly changed. The chemicals had no effect on the females, but the males became hyperactive for a while and then later became lazy, not wanting to play or even to eat well. In San Juan, Puerto Rico girls were going through puberty as early as eight and in the rest of the USA, girls are going through puberty about 2 years earlier than in the past. When they investigated the cause, researchers found high levels of the chemicals in the girls systems. The drugs appear to reduce testosterone in boys reducing drive and motivation and with identifiable brain dysfunction and serious problems with the reproductive system.

5. Devaluation of Masculinity. In my mind this an effect rather than a cause, but Sax says that masculine values need to be taught to boys by men and many boys are raised in homes without men around. There is some research that boys with the problems listed above can be cured by going to an all boys school. The caveat is that the school has to be run by men who define masculinity for the boys with enforced values and modeling of the behaviors.

All in all a very interesting book.

Persons and Things - Tournier

2007-06-18T05:42:00.000-07:00

I think Tioli is correct. Life is all about relationships; we appear to be designed for relationships and to some extent cannot grow to become whole persons without significant personal relationships. In addition to the interactions with friends that shape us simply by, to some degree, sharing in their experiences; our spouses shape us even more. For instance, most of us are inherently selfish without knowing it. Babies are almost totally selfish, demanding our attention;probably because their awareness of the world around them is so limited. But growing up should change that as we realize there is value and satisfaction in interdependent or even purely altruistic relationships.

I think much of the conflict of in spousal relationships is caused by a lack of focus on the ‘other’. I sometimes think the main value in raising children is to help us become aware of our own selfishness. A significant percentage of the time, the root of my annoyances with my children was caused by my own selfishness – they were interrupting my activities, taking up my time, disturbing my peace.

I also am thankful for the differences in genders, but these days that is often viewed as an exercise in diversity in much the same way that you want contrast in a photo to make it prettier, more interesting, or clearer. I think Tournier would agree that those perspectives have value in themselves, but his claim is that our civilization is incomplete and more importantly distorted in such a way that Western civilization causes harm because of it’s fundamentally male value system.

One of Tournier’s lifetime activities was to reintroduce personal relationship into the medical profession. He told medical doctors that their patients were not just a combination of symptoms to be diagnosed and treated in much the same way that an auto mechanic would fix a car. That if people were not also seen a persons, the best diagnosis and treatments could be ineffective if the patient did not believe the doctor cared.

Tournier highlighted studies where lack of 'caring' resulted in poor medical care and higher mortality rates in patients. One that he referred to was a well known study of babies in hospitals in the early 1900’s. At that time it was believed that if you held babies too much, it was not good for them. The mortality rate was higher than expected and someone conducted an experiment where the nurses would pick the babies up and hold them on a regular schedule for fixed periods of time. They found that the mortality rates dropped as a result. We would probably say ‘duh’ to that, but many doctors still treat patients as if they are malfunctioning machines with the result that a current study shows that if the patient believe the doctor cares as evidenced by the doc spending 15 minutes with a patient, the mortality rates go down and malpractice lawsuits drop to almost nothing.

In spite of more than a century of feminist efforts, this kind of illustration comes as a surprise to many. I think most men and many women who go to a doctor just want an accurate diagnosis and the right treatment. Does that sentence make sense? If it does and Tournier is correct, (“that a ‘male’ dominated society values power, reason, and technology”) then our mindset is typical of Western civilization. It’s not that power, reason, and technology are bad; (I want a smart doctor with a good grasp of medical technology) but that being treated as a respected person is also critically important.

Tournier says that during the Renaissance, Western civilization made a resolute choice of:
Rational against irrational
'I it' against 'I thou'
Objectivity against affectivity and mystical communion
Physics against metaphysics

One result was a world that most people are somewhat uncomfortable in and another was to push women into the wings to the detriment of all.

Women's mission? Push your way back onto center stage without pushing men off. Partner with men to create a culture that balances a value of both things and persons.

Gift of Feelings by Paul Tournier

2007-06-11T06:06:00.000-07:00

Many long years ago (30) when I was still quite naïve, (or at least ignorant) I married a sweet lovable woman. I was very happy with her but for a few minor (very) flaws that would be oh so simple to correct. I proceeded to make an attempt to help her make those simple changes that so obviously (to me) would make her life better. She cried most of the first year of our marriage and was crushed because she was torn between wanting to both please me and remain herself.

My wise mother-in-law gave me a book to read. I don’t know if the timing was simply fortuitous, because she knew I needed it, or if this was a God thing (or a combination of same).

The book was “The Gift of Feeling” by Paul Tournier and it changed my life, my perspective toward women and in particular toward my wonderful wife. Tournier wrote the book in the ‘70’s and the first page catches your attention. He says that women today have a mission; men have kept them out of public life, kept them in the wings, and built up our western technical society without them - a masculine society built entirely on masculine values and tragically lacking the contribution women could make. Here is another quote attributed to Tournier; “That is what marriage really means: helping one another to reach the full status of being persons, responsible and autonomous beings who do not run away from life.”

I read quite a few books, but every once in while a book comes along that changes my life. “The Gift of Feeling” was such a book. Sometimes a book will have a huge impact on us and yet when we go back to it years later, find that because we have changed, the book is not as significant now as it was then. Because this book was so significant to me and I have discussed the concepts with many friends and relations over the years; I decided to reread it. I had loaned it out at some point and lost track of it but my wife found a couple of old copies in her junk store ramblings.

My attempts to change my wife were an ill-advised effort to remake her in my image – to make her more like a man. Tournier believes that our Western civilization since the Renaissance has been essentially male; dominated by male values resulting in women being shunted off into the wings. This has caused our entire culture to focus on and value things as opposed to persons - oriented toward the masculine values of power, reason and technology. No one is really comfortable in this world, even men, but women suffer more from this orientation toward things instead of persons.

Women in this past century, to a significant extent, have come out of the wings and have proven that they can compete in a man’s world. We have all heard women quip that “anything a man can do, a woman can do better” and many women have proven that to be true but possibly at the price of being more like men then many men. Whether or not this is true, it appears that Western civilization is still unbalanced in its focus on things as opposed to persons.

More later……

The Language Of God – Collin’s Personal Position

2007-05-24T02:10:00.000-07:00

Collins is a Theistic Evolutionist but he doesn’t like the label because scientists are confused by the theistic part – what or who is a theist? Theologians are wary of the evolutionist part fearing that God is losing out in the label.

(A Theistic Evolutionist believes that God designed and started the evolutionary process and occasionally tweeks it to keep it on the planned track (ID??) as opposed to a Deistic Evolutionist who believes that god designed and started the evolutionary process and then lost interest or went away, leaving evolution to fend for itself.)

He prefers the term BioLogos. Biologists understand the Bio part – meaning life and the Logos part will be understood by some to be a Greek word meaning word or communication and might be OK with that. Christians love the word Logos - identifying it with Jesus and would be OK with the Bio part, suggesting life and Jesus somehow combined.

The basic tenants of Theistic Evolution or BioLogos as defined by Collins are as follows.

One – The universe came out of nothingness about 14 billion years ago.

Two – Despite massive improbability, the universe appears to be precisely tuned for life.

Three – The precise origin remains unknown but once occurring, the process of evolution produced simple and complex life.

Four – Once evolution got underway, no supernatural intervention is required to produce the universe as we know it.

Five – Humans are a part of this evolutionary process and share a common ancestor with the great apes. Except….

Six – Humans are unique in ways that defy evolution and point to a spiritual nature as exemplified by the universal (or at least earthly) nature of a moral code in all humans and also by the universal characteristic of a search for God in all humans.

Quite convenient and Collins believes that almost anyone from all of the great religions of the world wouldn’t have a problem with BioLogos thus defined.

Collins and ID

2007-05-19T21:33:00.000-07:00

Dr. Collins summarizes (and dismisses)ID as being founded on three (inadequate) principles.

Straw man one: ID was created to overthrow evolution with an apparently scientific theory and as such is not science. Not actually an argument.

Straw man two: ID does not make predictions based on a hypothesis that can be tested and therefore is not science. Also not actually an argument and I don't think completely true.

Collins third argument is quite limited, but the most interesting argument concerning what he believes to be the cornerstone of ID - irreducible complexity. While I wouldn’t say that irreducible complexity is the foundation of ID; it is a significant argument. For instance the bacterial flagellum (locomotion device) is surprisingly complex requiring about 30 different protein components to work; if any are missing, a tow truck is required. The flagellum has a motor, driveshaft, CV joint, and propeller to name a few of the critical components. The ID argument goes like this. Evolutionary mechanisms save mutations that benefit an organism because they give the organism an advantage in the survival of the fittest. Mutations that do not give an advantage tend to be lost because the large population of organisms without the mutation have an equal or greater survival potential and the larger pool will swamp out the single mutation or the new organism becomes a meal for a more fit organism. An organism with a motor, driveshaft, CV joint, and propeller would have greater mobility in catching prey or eluding a predator and therefore greater survival value. An organism with a motor and drive shaft with no CV joint would twist its tail off and that would be the end of that innovation.

For the flagellum to survive, all the components would have to mutate (or be created) at once; if any are missing, the organism would be just a more complex meal. The odds of 30 mutations occurring at once are so poor that it is difficult to conceive of it happening outside a laboratory with a bunch of engineers designing the project, ergo Intelligent Design. Collins argues that recent scientific discoveries lead him to believe that the 30 in fact do not need to arrive at once because individual components could have survival value all alone. One of those discoveries is a bacteria with a stinger made from the same stuff as the drive assembly of the flagellum. Evolution would predict that the stinger came first, and then was co-opted as a drive shaft when motor mutation happened. I guess this innovation would allow the stinger to be used as a drill so the bacteria could inject poison into its target even if the target happened to have a shell. This argument is less than compelling. I wonder how many different proteins there are that have the stiffness, strength, and shape to be used as both a stinger and a driveshaft. Collins leaves that to our imagination or future scientists.

Collins completely ignores the foundation of ID which asks the question of how you can recognize an object or pattern created by chance or intelligence. For instance if you were walking on a beach and you saw a complex ripple pattern in the sand; you say that it is complex, but not specific and could have been caused by a riptide. If you saw the letter “A” in the sand, you could say that it is specific, but not complex. It might possibly have been caused by a snake lying on the sand which was caught by a hawk and dropped a couple of time before the hawk successfully dispatched the snake and carried it off. On the other hand if you saw “Gilmore was here” written in the sand you would assume an intelligent source. The pattern is both complex and specific. These rules have been identified and studied for a long time. The SETI project has looked for and found thousands of signals from outer space and found none that met the complex specificity requirements of a message designed by an intelligent neighbor somewhere in space. Collins completely ignores complex specificity as an important argument.

Rats – To be continued AGAIN…….

The Language of God by Francis Collins …. Cont.

2007-05-18T07:45:00.000-07:00

Dr. Collins believes absolutely that the evidence for evolution is compelling. He also believes that science doesn’t provide adequate answers to some critical questions relating to what he perceives as universal belief in a moral law and a universal search for God. Starting from this foundation he has come to believe in a God who started the evolutionary chain of events and who intervenes at crucial times. This makes him a Theistic Evolutionist; as opposed to a Deist who would believe that God possibly started the ball rolling then lost interest or at least went somewhere and does not interfere in the affairs of his creation.

Collins believes that Scientific Creationism and Intelligent Design (ID) positions are harmful to Christianity and are in somewhat the same position as the church was when it opposed the views of Copernicus and Galileo; views which were ultimately proved correct and from which the church ultimately had to back down. This type of position makes Christians look stupid and so should be avoided.

Scientific Creationism: Collins accuses various people of creating ‘straw man’ arguments and is quite willing to point them out. This doesn’t stop him from doing the same thing. He dismisses Scientific Creationism as an ignorant position of those who feel that evolution is threatening to God. As evidence he describes the ‘apparent age’ argument which makes which he says makes God the “Great Deceiver”. Because we can see stars which are so far away that even with light from those stars traveling at the speed of light, we couldn’t see them unless the universe were billions of years old or if God ‘deceived’ us by creating them a few years ago and making it’s light appear immediately to us.

It is difficult for me to understand how such an intelligent man as Collins could make such a dumb statement. Miracles such as the jars of oil and flour from which the poor woman in Sidon fed him and which did not run dry would have to be summarily dismissed using the same argument. God did not supply olives to press or the DNA of the olives; he gave ‘apparently aged’ oil. Not DNA or wheat seed or even wheat but ‘apparently aged’ flour. What about Adam? Was he created as a baby? Zygote? DNA strng? Not!

Collins is puzzled by the persistence of the belief in a literal creation in view of the overwhelming (his opinion) evidence for evolution. He finds this mystifying at best and dangerous at worst.

To be continued (again)

The Language of God by Francis Collins

2007-05-07T05:14:00.000-07:00

All in all an interesting book to read. His primary argument is that Darwinian evolution is an unassailable fact and not inconsistent with a belief in a personal and awesomely intelligent creator God. Collins is a theistic evolutionist, but doesn’t like the title because biologists don’t know what theistic means but are suspicious of the term before hearing an argument and Christians are suspicious of the evolution part. Neither can with an open mind carry on the discussion. He would like the theistic evolutionist be call by the term ‘BioLogos’; a term that might be acceptable to both theologian and scientist.

His arguments when directly related to his work with DNA and the human genome are convincing while not reaching the level of being compelling. This is natural since he was the leader of the team that successfully completed the Human Genome Project; therefore it is to be expected that his strongest argument is tied to the human genome project.

The argument is similar to a tool of textual criticism that literary critics use to identify the copying hierarchy whereby they identify which copies of a text are older and how each are related to other copies. For instance if I sent this document out and someone retyped it and in the process misspelled interesting as “intresting” and sent it to someone else who then copied the error accurately and sent it to twelve people and added a new error changing ‘book’ to ‘bok’. Those twelve copies were then accurately replicated the copies and sent them on. Three hundred years later someone collected all available copies and compared them. The errors would be noted and it could be argued that all the copies with both ‘intresting’ and ‘bok’ were copies of the ones with only the error ‘intresting’ and the one without either error is a predecessor of the ones with errors. If there are only one or two errors, the confidence level would be low, but if multiple copy errors are found in each document and placed in the hierarchy; the confidence level concerning which were parent and which were child documents can become an almost certainty.

Dr. Collins uses gene ‘errors’ and ‘junk DNA’ to trace similar or the same errors or junk DNA throughout the human genome and beyond to the genomes of multiple species. Geneticists have identified genes with flaws so great that they cannot function. They have also concluded that approximately 80% of the genome serves no useful function at this time and have been copied from some ancestor who either had a use for the surplus genes or they were in themselves errors that didn’t hurt the organism and so allowed by evolution to survive the war of the fittest. His argument is that if the same ‘error’ or ‘junk DNA’ is found in multiple species you can conclude with a high level of confidence that the two species have a common ancestor.

To some extent his argument is a negative argument tied to what is not known, an ‘evolution of the gaps’ theory but never-the-less is interesting and convincing.

….to be continued.

Wheel of Time Trivia

2007-02-21T13:33:00.000-08:00

A point of some interest to a very small company. In one of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series; Matt (who is a ta’veren and of course this might be significant) is short of ready coin and decides to remedy the situation by finding and challenging the two best swordsman to a dual. He bets that he can best both of them at the same time. His weapon of choice is the quarter staff. He in fact wins the bet. The weapons master tells the surprised audience that the best swordsman of another age who was never bested with a sword was in fact humbled once in his life by an opponent whose weapon of choice was a quarter staff.

We are led to believe that a master with a quarter staff will overcome a master with a sword. I always did like a walking stick.

What About North Korea?

2006-11-02T16:01:00.000-08:00

What responsibility do I have for the actions of my government? I believe that I am personally responsible for the actions of President Bush and formerly of presidents Clinton, Regan, and Nixon; each of whom was in office after I could vote. Sean Hannity likes to say that we deserve the government we get. If I don’t approve of my leader’s actions, I have a responsibility to do something about it and I can’t escape responsibility for his actions. So what! In the United States of America, it is relatively simple. I can vote and if I feel strongly enough, I can become politically active or even run for public office. We have a mechanism in place whereby I can take action without the danger of anything more serious than embarrassing myself. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German Lutheran pastor during Adolph Hitler’s term of office and a thoughtful theologian, participated in a plot to assassinate Hitler, was caught and executed for his action. Most people today respect him for his actions.

What of a nation or culture? Does a culture or nation bear responsibility for the actions of its national leaders? It seems to me that it does and it follows that a culture will produce leaders who are a product of that culture and it can be argued that a nation that produces a bad leader deserves that leader. I would also say that the people of any nation in a sense deserve the government it has. For example, the monarchs and aristocracy of Russian and France were so onerous to the people of those nations that eventually they in a very bloody way replaced the entire governing structure. England and the Netherlands for similar reasons restructured their governing bodies in a more moderate way. Africa threw off colonialism; unfortunately they have often replaced the onerous colonial governments with tribal structures now augmented with more efficient weapons with disastrous consequences in too many instances. I have an acquaintance from Nigeria who believes there is no hope for Africa until they abandon tribalism and he sees little hope for that to happen in the near future.

If a culture believes that the leadership is acting in a way that is inconsistent with the values of the culture, it is incumbent upon the people of that culture to remove the offending leadership. Enter North Korea; a nation with a despotic leader whose policies have produced a nation perennially on the edge of starvation and a threat to the Pacific Rim nations.

It could be postulated that we – the free (and rich) nations – have a moral responsibility to feed the starving people of North Korea because they are not responsible for the actions of their crazy leader. However, if in fact the people of a nation deserve the government they have (even under the rule of a homicidal tyrant), they are responsible for the actions that leader. It follows then if we provide material support to the people of that nation; we remove some of the pain of a difficult choice and are the cause of continued pain.

This is the conundrum of every parent. Under what conditions do we allow a child to suffer the consequences of a poor choice versus vetoing a choice for the child’s good? Which action is best for the child? This is the conundrum of every nation. Which actions are best for North Korea and secondarily for the rest of the world?

Gifts That Keep On Giving!

2006-10-31T09:46:00.000-08:00

One comment from my previous post raises important questions:

Quote:“…so...what does that say about the we (the US) are relating to the world in 2006? Iraq, non-feeding of the many in Africa, etc, while throwing away tons of food...The so called "greatest generation" raised this generation of politicians and leaders. What's the state of the nation?”

This is an important question in light of what the Bible has to say to Christians and Jews about caring for the poor.

Unfortunately, the giving of gifts is always tricky. (What do you give your mother-in-law for Christmas?) The question of appropriate giving is much easier in the context of community. If my hard working neighbor falls from a drilling rig and is hospitalized for a year, the answer is simple; I visit him, encourage him, help with chores, groceries, rent, and etcetera. It is easy because I can understand the context of the problems and help in ways that are beneficial.

I have a friend who has a gambling addiction and a husband who comes and goes with the paycheck. I still have a responsibility and even a desire to help, but how to help becomes tricky. I cannot give money because of the gambling issue and if I give food or fuel when the husband is around, I enable the husband to be irresponsible. What I have chosen to do is check if the husband is around, if he has left the family in the lurch for some time, I will help with fuel. This seems to me to be help with the least amount of potential damage.

Zimbabwe’s problem is primarily caused by a terrible government. While the government can be cruel (witness the demolition of thousands of homes and small shops and consequent homelessness of many thousand people); the damage it is doing to the people of Zimbabwe appears to be caused by terminal stupidity. How do we help? Aid sent is routinely embezzled by government officials. Aid that reaches the truly needy, in the end enables a corrupt government. In the short term, generous giving helps the poor and in the long term enables a corrupt government to foster the very conditions that causes the poverty thereby forcing the poor into an endless and hopeless cycle of poverty and disease.

The quandary for me is this; I can only intelligently and beneficially help my neighbors within my community. I can only help my neighbors in another community by partnering with someone within that community. In all probability any government (mine or theirs) will be disqualified.

I am currently sitting on a request to help a small community in Zimbabwe to fund a sustainable welding / manufacturing enterprise which would support several extended families. They have a good business plan. I personally know the individuals involved and believe they are capable of implementing the plan. The budget is approximately $20,000 including sending a welding trainer from here. We believe we could raise the funds but have not acted on the proposal for several reasons:
1. The region is very poor and we might endanger the lives of those who would be by their community standards rich.
2. The police are underpaid and often not paid and have developed a culture of bribery. It is very possible the police or other government officials would either require bribes that would remove all profit from the venture or simply confiscate the equipment.
3. Thievery is the norm for that culture. It is rude to steal something that is watched, but it is OK to steal something that is not watched. If one critical component goes missing that could not be replaced by the enterprise, the enterprise would fail.
4. This is a project that could be a huge blessing for a community in a desperate situation or it could result in the death of the very people we are trying to help.

Raising Children and Foreign Policy

2006-10-13T22:41:00.000-07:00

What is the relationship between raising children and raising (not razing) a nation? We tend to believe we know what is best for others less blessed than we. If the primary goal of raising children is to help them reach a point where they are fully functional independent adults; is it possible that this principle could also provide a model around which we develop foreign policy?

I recently read a historical novel about the colonizing of Zambezi (now Zimbabwe and Zambia) by Cecil Rhodes and England. Rhodes was not presented in a good light. In fairness, those opposed to Rhodes felt that colonizing was inevitable and that England’s colonizing the Africa would be a lesser evil than any of the other European nations striving for the same goal.

I don’t know African or English history well enough to know how much truth was in the novel, but I was left to speculate about how things might have been done differently. The Darwinian hypothesis of evolution so pervasive at the time allowed for a scientific justification of a common belief that it is the responsibility of the ‘civilized’ nations to bring the benefits of civilization to the African continent.

Cecil Rhodes carved out a nation (Rhodesia) that in some ways still benefits from his efforts; however the current status of the nation (Zimbabwe) is one of poverty, famine, corruption, and disease with the distinction of having the highest level of inflation in the world - currently greater than 1000% and anticipated to increase to something between 2000 and 4000 percent.

If we accept that England was correct in believing that they needed to have a stronghold in Southern Africa to protect the sea lanes to the Orient; what could they have done to prevent the debacle we see in many African nations today?

The difficulty seems to me to be in the original goals. The European nations primary goals in their colonization efforts seemed to be Empire building and getting rich. This strategy has almost universally failed, both in building a sustainable empire and getting rich. Poverty seems to be the result in the African colonies and many of the Empire building nations are currently floundering under the load of refugees and immigrants from the former destitute colonies. The colonies did not become fully functional independent and mature nations.

In hindsight, it would appear that the old nations would now be better off if they had determined that their fundamental responsibility was to help the colonies to become mature, successful, and independent nations.

Is it possible that the best training for a politician is successful parenting?

Freedom and Scraps

2006-10-05T21:14:00.000-07:00

Freedom and grace are inseparable, God is free and is our freedom; “l have set you free that you might be free”.

Adam and Eve were free to receive Gods grace and chose the scraps of the tree evidently hoping for something more than the full ride God was giving them. Guilt, duty and obligation become the motivation of the scrap heap.

When we chose the scraps, we get into a sick relationship with the Father where we believe that what we do determines what we receive. We need to be givers and not consumers of grace. Consumers use guilt, duty, and obligation as crowbars to get scraps of grace.

Story of the Prodigal Sons: Both lived on scraps. The oldest son was resentful because he thought he got his scraps of grace because he was so good. He thought to use guilt to get his scraps. The youngest son demanded (obligation, duty?) his share of grace and the father freely gave it to him; but the result was that the youngest subsisted by stealing scraps from the pigs until he asked for grace from his father. This grace was freely given and freely received.

Jesus tells of a servant who was in debt to the king. He asked for and received grace from the king and then refused grace to one in debt to him insisting on an obligation to pay. The king heard of it and immediately denied grace to the first debtor.

Paul tells us to use our freedom for a higher cause than scraps of grace. God allows us the choice to live in His world of grace or to live in our world of guilt, duty, and obligation.

Pluralism and Alienation

2006-04-03T20:59:00.000-07:00

Fredrick Buechner in “Telling Secrets” make an interesting point (Page 64) about the application of ‘pluralism’ which I believe is related to the concept of diversity as applied in our society today. He was teaching a class at Harvard Divinity School and trying to create a community within this group of students. When he asked why there was so little interaction, one student said that he felt that if he said what he thought, he would be “shot down” by the rest.

Buechner says “…that the danger of pluralism is that it becomes factionalism, and that if factions grind their separate axes too vociferously, something mutual, precious, and human is in danger of being drowned out and lost.” A major goal of pluralism and diversity is inclusion with the hope that if we are inclusive, we will not only benefit from the different perspectives but we will also learn to live together in harmony.

At the root of pluralism and diversity as proposed today is the belief that there are no absolutes. If everyone is right in their own way and no one is wrong; in the end the different groups have nothing to talk about and can only converse with others of like mind. The result is that you hang with people who think like you. Each faction will have its unique hidden rules for inclusion and exclusion. The goal is peace, harmony, and unity but the result is likely to be isolation and poor communication.

My experience with ‘diversity training’ has been that training results in wider gulfs and an increased sense of ‘us and them’ rather than greater harmony.

Tonga Crew

2006-03-26T14:00:00.000-08:00

These are the guys we worked with to build the service buildings for their community.

Very Sad! Pray for Zimbabwe

2006-03-21T15:37:00.000-08:00

People in the countryside can barely feed themselves as crops fail for the sixth successive year.

By Obert Gadzi in Kwekwe (AR No.57, 21-Mar-06)

The food situation in rural areas of the county is so dire that people are clamoring for something to eat and schools are appealing for help for hungry children, according to leading aid agencies.

The warnings of mass hunger come as members of the governing elite who’ve taken over commercial farms are reprimanded for using their land as “weekend picnic venues”.

Southern Africa's food security warning organization, FSEWS, said Zimbabwe will bring in from the fields only 600,000 tonnes of maize, ordinary people's staple food, during the impending harvest season against the average annual consumption of 1.8 million tonnes.

Steady, soaking rains have robbed Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe of drought as his standard excuse for nose-diving agricultural production - this being the sixth successive year of crop failure. Until six years ago, agricultural exports to the rest of the region and to the European Community were the country's leading foreign exchange earners.

FSEWS, the Food Security Early Warning System of the Southern African Development Community, said Zimbabwe will have to import 1.4 million tonnes of maize, 200,000 tonnes of wheat, 40,000 tonnes of sorghum and 6,000 tonnes of rice in coming months in order to avert widespread starvation-related deaths.

The minimum cost of such imports for a country that is fundamentally broke - suffering from an official inflation of 800 per cent and only limited foreign exchange reserves - will be at least 350 million US dollars for the maize alone.

In February, the Zimbabwe government struggled to raise 9 million US dollars to pay the International Monetary Fund and thus avoid becoming the first country since Czechoslovakia 52 years ago to be expelled from the world's most important lending institution. The country must find another 120 million US dollars to service IMF payment arrears in the next few months.

Zimbabwe now has the dubious distinction of having what the United Nations has called the fastest-shrinking economy, the highest inflation and the weakest currency in the world - coupled with systematic human rights abuses and the collapse of the rule of law.

"The food situation is grave," said Barbara Shenstone, CARE International's country director in Zimbabwe. "There just isn't food in the rural areas. People are clamoring for food everywhere. Schools are asking for help for hungry children. Most of the vulnerable are eating less than one meal a day."

Zvikomborero, a 33-year-old firewood vendor whose home in the Harare suburb of Mbare was destroyed last year in Mugabe's Operation Murambatsvina (Operation Drive Out the Filth), presented as an urban renewal scheme, said, "My children are now eating out of a garbage dump. We are washing potato skins and eating them. We are starving. You can say we are dead."

Mugabe's ZANU PF government's notorious Fast Track Land Reform Programme, which when it began in 2000 involved the mass invasion of commercial farms by so-called veterans of the 1970s liberation war and landless peasants, marked also the beginning of the agricultural industry's collapse.

After more than 4,000 commercial farmers were driven from their properties, the initial invaders were themselves pushed from the farms, which were redistributed to members of President Mugabe's family, government ministers, top ZANU PF party officials, senior army, air force and police officials, and compliant judges and journalists.

Few of the "new farmers" are producing crops. In a rare admission of government failure, Deputy Agriculture Minister Sylvester Nguni said they lacked the skills to produce on what he called a "commercial or even subsistence level".

The lack of foreign exchange means there are also drastic scarcities of vital seeds, fertilizer, herbicides and chemicals. There are also fuel shortages and frequent electricity power cuts. A dire situation is made worse by the fact that banks are unwilling to make loans to the new farmers because they have no title deeds to the usurped land.

They rarely have any other collateral to repay loans. Neither do they have the capacity to repay loans nor, in the culture of lawlessness promoted by Mugabe, do they have the will to do so.

Central Bank Governor Gideon Gono criticised new farmers from among the governing elite for using their land only as "weekend picnic venues". He also reprimanded some for using government agricultural loans - as opposed to commercial bank loans - to buy luxury sports utility vehicles for private use and profiteering, by selling subsidised petrol available to them at black market prices.

Consequently, the once flourishing commercial farms are now dismal sights, overgrown with weeds and bush. Where planting has taken place - currently on only about an estimated ten per cent of this farmland - the crops are miserably stunted.

No one bothers to supervise what is happening because the agricultural support infrastructure is collapsing, and, at government level, factions are either too busy fighting each other over who gets the next farm or politicising the whole issue.

The mechanics of food distribution in the country have also contributed to hunger among an estimated five to 6.5 million people of the 11.5 million population. Fuel shortages, now a permanent feature of Zimbabwe's problems, have hampered the delivery of food to needy areas.

When fuel is available, the ZANU PF government politicises food distribution. Areas perceived to be strongholds of the opposition are denied access to food aid as political punishment. Food is thus used as both the carrot and the stick, leaving millions hungry and prompting the outspoken Roman Catholic Archbishop of Bulawayo, Pius Ncube, to observe, "They [ZANU PF] would rather kill people for the sake of power. You can see what kind of people we are dealing with here, murderers. President Mugabe is a very, very evil man. The sooner the Good Lord takes him from us the better."

Dydimus Mutasa, Mugabe's right-hand man and Minister of National Security and Land, has notoriously shrugged his shoulders at Zimbabwe's high death rate from AIDS and hunger-related illnesses, saying, "We would be better off with only six million people … We don't want all these extra people."

International food aid is seemingly abused on a widespread basis. Government distribution agents, through whom international agencies are compelled to distribute supplies, tightly control to whom it is given. Local government officials, youth militias, village chiefs and other affiliates of ZANU PF tightly control donor-feeding schemes: they make sure that food goes to communities who proclaim loyalty to ZANU PF, and consequently millions of needy people go hungry. Many donor agencies have withdrawn or been pushed out as a result of these pressures.

Government officials deny the seriousness of the food situation. Both Mugabe and Mutasa constantly assert that the country has adequate food reserves. Denying that Zimbabweans needed international help, Mugabe said, "We are not hungry. Why foist this food on us? We don't want to be choked. We have enough."

Corruption by high-ranking senior government officials and politicians has worsened the food crisis. Politicians who enjoy political protection from prosecution have looted scarce supplies from the Grain Marketing Board, the sole official grain procurement and distribution agency, to sell on the black market and smuggle to neighbouring countries.

Last year, the president’s nephew Leo Mugabe, a ZANU PF parliamentary deputy, was arrested when he attempted to smuggle 30 tonnes of wheat flour out of the country. He was later freed and all charges were dropped.

Obert Gadzi is the pseudonym of an IWPR contributor in Zimbabwe.

Children are Guests?

2006-03-12T12:39:00.000-08:00

My wife Brenda found an interesting devotional by Henri Nouwen. He makes the assertion that true hospitality can only happen in the house of a couple that loves and supports each other. He says, “When we enter a home and feel warmly welcomed, we will soon realize that the love among those who live in that home is what makes that welcome possible.” Guests will always be uncomfortable in a house where the husband and wife are sniping at each other.

He goes on to say that children are guests in their parent’s home. Children come and will inevitably (almost) go. They will feel comfortable in their parent’s home as long as they realize the parents love each other and the parent’s relationship with each other has a higher priority than the parent’s relationship with their children.

The children know that their home will stand the test of time and is one in which they can feel safe. We’ve all heard the quotes from psychologists that say that children will do well if they know their parents love and are committed to each other. Nouwen says it another way. I like Nouwen’s perspective and believe it is true.

True Faced

2006-03-10T19:57:00.000-08:00

Our small group is going through a study called "True Faced".

At the core of True Faced is the concept that we all live in one of two 'rooms', the room of 'Good Intentions' or the room of 'Grace'.

In the room of good intentions, we do the best we can and find that is never enough, ultimately overwhelming, and we have to hide behind a mask to be accepted by others and especially by ourselves.

We enter the room of grace by the door of humility, trusting that God has provided himself and others with all we need to live. There are no prerequisites; we are accepted because of who we are in Jesus Christ. There is no ‘action plan’; God is going to work out our salvation / sanctification on his timetable with us.

It appears that in the meantime we are to simply enjoy God and life. The question I’m asking is this: What the role of leadership is in the ‘Room of Grace’ if we are to simply accept that:
• We are loved and accepted as we are because of who we are
• We are to wait on God to do his work in us in his time and by his strength
• We are to accept and love everyone else in the room on the same terms

Any thoughts?

A Prayer for Zimbabwe

2006-03-08T06:08:00.000-08:00

A Prayer for Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe is dying Lord
The supply of medicine is limited and old
AIDS and other diseases are resistant to the drugs
The wheat is gone and there is no bread
The corn is gone and there is no corn meal mush
My brothers are hungry
My sisters weep for their children
A mother poisons hers trying to feed them
Another drowns hers in despair

Greed is killing people
Violence is eminent
Politicians are quarreling
Inflation is approaching 1000%
The government printed multiple trillions of dollars
The price of bread up 350% last week and electricity 750%
I know what I would do if I were you Lord
But Zimbabwe needs your infinitely wise solutions
Zimbabwe needs your solutions Lord

Grace Works

2006-02-26T21:01:00.000-08:00

Our small group is going through a book called "True Faced" (I.E. No Masks). The chapter we went through tonight was called Grace Works. The starting point for grace is humility. The following sequence summarizes the concept.

Humility requires trust. It is her core feature, that I can trust God to teach, direct and protect me and that he has put others in my life to do the same.

• Humility attracts grace
I.E. (When those around me understand that I know I’m not perfect and don’t expect to arrive soon, it frees them to act in grace toward me, they don’t have the same need to protect themselves and are free to love me.)
• Grace changes our life focus
I.E. (Grace is based on my value by God’s definition and statement and not based on my performance. He says we are loved and valued now and before we accepted his provision. I can affirm and love my friends without requiring good performance first and trust that God is doing his work in them and while I may be able to help, it is primarily God’s responsibility and not mine.)
• Grace lets God handle sin
I.E. (God can change us, we will have few results from trying to perform to God’s standards, even when we have good Intentions.)
• Grace melts masks
I.E. (We wear masks because we are afraid of what others will think and fear that if they really knew us, they would reject us. When I am loved and affirmed simply because I am, I can safely discard my masks.)
• Grace changes how we treat each other and our sin issues.
I.E. (When humility is the norm and grace is the environment, I am safe.)