(This actually was written before the last post, but I thought I had more to add... Never got around to it, so I guess I didn't.)

Christianity needs to examine and re-evaluate its philosophical underpinnings, or else, in the face of secularization, it threatens to either become a reactionary and wholly fundamentalists religion, or be subverted in to a cultural movement devoid of spirituality. What do I mean by this? It needs to realize that its fundamental truths, those of Jesus as God and the Trinity, are not necessarily tied to metaphysical concepts like essences and a universal nature of any sort. Ethics and morality in a Christian sense need not be tied to an idea of nature, essences or natural law. Ethics and morality are social and civil constructs and contracts. Christianity needs to be a spiritual force in the world that fosters love, charity and tolerance (the messages of Jesus and the influence of the present Holy Spirit) in society, so that those principles, along with responsibility, influence and guide the on-going negotiation of morals and ethics that takes place in an evolving civilization.

I figure that the use of Christianity today is not primarily aimed at the saving of souls but at the creation of a civilized society. (The far right moral conservatives aside, that is. And I hope they really can be moved to the side.) It is a change in the ends that allows for a greater revision of the means: a change in how we deal with those once thought to be ‘deviant’ that facilitates getting along with them as they are as opposed to changing the way they are to save them from damnation. Does this simply mean that we have revealed the truth of (de-mythologized) Christianity: it was only ever a handmaiden to politics? Or does it mean that we are watering it down? Or that it is growing to a more spiritual and less ‘moral’ ideology?

After all, I am a firm believer that science has never been aimed at Truth (note the capital ‘T’) but at learning how to predict and then manipulate the material world—thus it is the handmaiden to technology. That doesn’t mean that it is false but just that its truth is based in making the world a more habitable and convenient place. In my mind there is no harm in that; actually, it is very noble.

What would all that imply? I hope not that Christianity (and all religion) should be voided of all spirituality. Or that science should be less methodical and rigorous.

Is it simply that science is after material truth and religion after spiritual truth, and both get used by technology and politics, respectively?

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/04/12/granderson.ignorant.vote/index.html

Not a bad idea at all to require people to know something about the government before they are allowed to vote. But really, anyone with a high school diploma should already know all of that. Don't you have to take a civics class in high school in all of the states in the union? The sad thing is that most students pass the class and forget all they 'learned.' Or they just memorized things they didn't really understand... or they just cheated and passed.

What is just as important as knowing about the government is knowing how to understand what you read (or if you don't like reading, what you hear) and use it to think for your self. As a literature teacher and philosophy major I think that literature and philosophy (for those that are ready) are some of the best tools to teach people how to analyze and think-- and that makes a good voter. People will always vote for their own self interest: be it their own selfish interest or what they think is better for everyone else. The point is to be informed and get them to put thought into what they think is best.

Textbooks are good for feeding information to students. In science, grammar, social sciences, etc. you need to feed information to students (especially entry level students, like high schoolers) that is already digested and well packaged. They need to know the foundations that the field is built upon before (and if they ever want to) think and analyze that body of knowledge. But that kind of approach is often all that is given in high school: read this and remember it for the test so you can spit it back out in the right blank.

Actually thinking is more than that, much more. Good literature often has no clear cut answers... Well, aside from the silly questions like, 'what is this character's name,' 'where did this event take place,' and 'what happened after this.' Questions like: 'What is the significance of this character in the book, or in life? 'What is the significance or meaning of this event and the place that it occurs?' or 'Why would something like that happen and what does it mean?' Those questions are deeper questions. Relating the characters, idea and events in a story to history, reality, everyday life... that requires thinking, not just spitting things back out. That requires a deeper understanding of the story which necessitates thinking beyond the text and relating it to other things. When you can do that with fiction then you can do that with fact as well... but with fiction you have a more open field to play in when you are learning to think and relate.

A science teacher can easily say that you are wrong when you think and relate what you read in you science text. And most high school students would be wrong if they try to think deeply, beyond the text, about science. That doesn't mean they are stupid, or that they can't think and relate, just that they don't have the background in the specific field to do so. (Who can blame them? Some of the brightest minds of the last 300 years are the ones that have been putting together that background... and it has taken many years.) Getting shot down by a teacher can quickly lead to you not trying to think beyond the text; it is discouraging.

But relating literature to modern life or your own personal life, or better yet the life of the community you currently live in.... It is hard for a teacher to say with authority that you are wrong and just leave it at that. Literature is a place for minds to play and practice critical reading and relating that reading to other things. When taught right, literature teaches you how to think in ways that can help you deal better in the real world.

If you can read a Hemingway story and relate it to your own life and the historical context that it came out of, then you can listen to the news or read the news paper and make thoughtful decisions and informed opinions out of it. They are opinions and decisions that are based on the facts as given to you in the news and they relate to your life. And if you are really good at it you can read a story by a contemporary writer and pick apart their view of the world-- where do you think it is right, where do you think it is wrong. That same type of thinking will help you to read news and articles and judge if they seem to be accurate or not-- honest attempts to relay facts, or just hot air.

They best way to get better voters is to have people who know how to read, think and relate. This what literature courses in high school should be about: taking well written and thoughtful literature and using it to train young minds to deeply understand what they read and relate it to what they know and experience. It is sad that so many teachers, and most students, think that literature is just about reading good stories.... Or reading things that other people say are good and important stories. It is much more than that...

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/06/03/catholic-bishop-stabbed-to-death-in-southern-turkey/?iref=allsearch

I am not surprised that a Catholic Bishop was killed in Turkey. I am also not surprised that there is little to no outrage about it.

If an Imam was stabbed to death in Europe or the USA all hell would break loose: protests, death threats, maybe even reprisal murders. But when a bishop is killed in Turkey? Nothing but a small story on CNN.com that buried in the archives after one day. And nothing will come of this murder either. The West has become too domesticated to do anything about violence like this but express sympathies and find reasons why they are to blame, and not the radicals who actually held the knife.

There is a difference between being civilized and being domesticated. Civilized people don't threaten to kill people over insults nor do they deliberately attack innocent women and children, but they do stand up for what they believe in and fight against those who attack them. Domesticated people just sit back and take what comes, letting themselves be trampled over.

Facts

There are no meanings, only facts and interpretations...

Nietzsche wrote that, "There are no facts, just interpretations."  The 'truth' in that depends on what you take for facts.  Of course we can say that something is, that it exists, if we can lay our hands on it.  We can say that it is hard or soft, heavy or light. 

All of those qualities are somewhat relative, but they are factual.  We can make them less relative and more 'objective' by using systems of measurement: 2 pounds, 8 pounds, 1 ton.  But the units themselves are arbitrary.  Numbers are useful but numbers themselves have no meaning.  

Facts are basic statements of how things are in and of themselves.  The thing I just picked up off the ground, the dirt path, is hard and roundish.  Of course it is a rock.  Those are facts and if Nietzsche meant that those things don'tr exist then he was wrong.  Facts exist but they are not nearly as significant as most people thing, if we learn to properly distinguish facts from meaning and usefulness.

Facts, as simple statements, don't have meaning or use without interpretation.  A rock may be hard and may be heavy but there is no meaning or usefulness in that without a human being to interpret those basic material facts as being meaningful or useful.  How things are used and what meaning is attached to things is not present in the thing itself.  Material qualities are present in the thing, and those are interpreted to give the object meaning and purpose.  Is is consciousness that creates meaning and purpose.  And the network of meaning that already exists in the consciousness helps attach meaning and purpose to a new thing: the things material qualities must be integrated into the network that is already in place.  Meaning and purpose are not randomly assigned but they are also not inherent.  

So... there are facts and out of those facts we interpret meaning and purpose as we take into account those facts and integrate the object into the network of meaning that we already exist in.  

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Predictive Text

The predictive text dictionary on my phone is on crack. I now remember, after 5 minutes, why I never turned it on when I got my newest phone. What becomes whatever. Buts not but. The is Therefore. Inspiring is apparently a website: Inspiring.com. Science. Well... That word is a complete thought all on its own. Not makes nothing. Ain't that a neat trick? Though Ain't isn't a word, it is in there. Maybe it is a proper name, cause it is always capitalized. Andy.... That is what I get when I try to use the most common conjunction. It also seems the present is elusive becuase now is nowhere.

Not amusing anymore... Its was. But now it is just annoying.

Olympics...

The Olympics... Haven't watched much but am disapointed. I don't care much about the competition between nations. What I do want to see is something exciting and inspiring. These days it all seems so cold and technical. Perfect is usually cold and not exciting. And technical usually means impersonal.

I have seen lots of things well done, and the commentators make sure to point that out. But I haven't see much that is exciting and inspiring. Oh, well...