Henry Imler October 18th, 2008

“While not literally true, the metaphor aims to provoke the hearer to thought and in the process to engage the conversation partner in the creative process of communication.”

- Calvin Roetzel, The Letters of Paul. p. 14.

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Henry Imler August 30th, 2008

reading: On the Life of the Caesars ¹ - Suetonius

listening: The American – Martin Sexton

Is the myth of the Roman Republic employed much in American culture?  The founders certainly meditated and drew off of the Roman res publica and their desire to retain the benefits of the rex without falling into the most hated of ruling methods, the despotism that comes with kingship.  Do we retain any of the story of the roman republic and its fall into empire in our political myths?  It seems like a perfect cautionary tale, given how we imagine ourselves.  Is it employed by our internal and external critics?  Or are we too scared of naming our imperialistic tendencies and power structures as such to invoke Rome?  Has Rome become a great satan in our popular culture?  I know many Xians that only employ Rome in terms of the Roman Empire and the internal tyranny of its emperors and the imagined tyranny it held over those that it ruled. Now, to be sure, the myth of the Roman Empire is a useful one, but I sometimes get a sense that this is the only way we see Rome and that in doing so, we miss out on some powerful story-telling and teaching.

If we aren’t doing these things in our enculturation education, I think we should include this. It’d require a distinction between the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire. And creating the myth of a republic breaking away from kingship, building an unprecidented power sharing system, and decending back into despotism.

Anyway, if you have any input you wanna share on this – drop me a comment below.  I really don’t know what I am talking about – I am just thinking out loud.

1. Yeah, the modern English title is The Twelve Caesars, but it’s real title is De Vita Casesarum [↩]

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Henry Imler October 12th, 2007

If
I ever major in time machines, be sure to go back in time and confirm
to my then past self that is was the right desision to buy the Orange
Box. Half Life 2, Episode 2 is a work of art, art that makes me scared, frantic, and curious all at the same time.

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Henry Imler September 30th, 2007

Note to self all freshmen: Instead of using the word editation (such as “where editation has occurred), just go ahead and use editing. That way you won’t look as funny when someone grades your test.

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Henry Imler September 19th, 2007

Never leave a red ink pen in pants when you go to wash
and dry the said pair of pants. This is because the red ink pen is
likely to burst in the dryer. If the pen bursts in the dryer, it is
very likely that the red ink will ruin all of the pants, towels, shirts
and socks that you are drying along with the pen. This is not the least
of your problems however. It is also quite likely that the disbursed
ink will also coat the inside of your dryer and even seep into the
seams of the tumbler, render your dryer unusable, resulting in the need
to purchase a new dryer.

This quickly makes the ink pen a very expensive purchase. So, future self, never do that again.

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Henry Imler May 17th, 2007

Never work your abs with a weight machine and have a sneezing fit
the next day. You will alternate between holding your nose and your
stomach - not a good thing.

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Henry Imler April 10th, 2007

Audio from the Lecture (mp3 - 46mb)

I was lucky enough to attend Dr. Pagel’s lecture on the Gospel of Judas. It was a fascinating and informative talk. Here are some of my observations from the lecture. Pagels has just published a new book on this Gospel with Karen King, entitled Reading Judas: The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity. I have not read the book, nor the Gospel of Judas.

While I have read some of Pagel’s work, most specifically, Beyond Belief, I have never heard her in person. She is a very effective speaker, humor and wit with are intermixed with history and background to illuminate her points, she approaches the audience on the popular level and does not talk above their heads. While some of her popular works are criticized for being sensational at times, she is very disarming in her approach - she does not start out shocking the audience with grandiose claims. Instead, Pagels introduced the text and presented 4 problems that she found contained within it and then lead the audience to the answers she came to during her research.

The talk centered around the Gospel of Judas, a repressed gospel dating to the early days of Christianity. Dating is always and estimate. The manuscript that we have was found in upper Egypt and written in Coptic. Most likely the manuscript was from a monastery in the region and dates to somewhere in the fourth century(300-400 CE). It seems to be a translation of a much earlier text, somewhere in the second century (100-200 CE). She did a good job introducing to the audience the issues surrounding the Gnostics, how the term “Gnosticism” is not a good category, but a convenient one that really does not do them justice. There are groups of Christians that deviate from what would become Orthodox views, but to categorize this very messy group as Gnostics is misleading and inaccurate.

To Pagels, the text seems to center around a dispute between Judas and the other Apostles and the topic of martyrdom. While I don’t have the texts that she was working with (see below for the NG translation), I’ll do my best to reproduce what she was talking about. The gospel opens with Jesus ridiculing the Twelve for how they were worshiping. The twelve get angry at Jesus and in response, he challenges them to stand before him. Only Judas is able to stand before Jesus and Jesus rewards him with teachings. The Twelve have dreams about people sacrificing children on an altar. Jesus explains that the people doing the sacrificing are the Twelve. Judas has had another dream, this one shows how he is different from the others. I don’t remember much else about it - see the audio for more.

Pagels looks at this text not as a window into the lives of Jesus and the Twelve, but as a window into the controversies in the early church, most specifically, the one about Martyrdom. She thinks it reflects, in part, a voice standing against “eager martyrdom.” A conception had spread that one should seek out being killed for Christ rather than fleeing to another city, like the Gospel of Luke would suggest. Instead, the best death a Christian could have is to be killed for the cause. The people behind the Gospel of Judas were concerned about this, thinking that this is not the way Jesus wanted us to live because God values life, not death, so we should not actively seek death.

That was the main gist of her presentation. It was more a look into the history of the Early Church than anything else, and for that, I throughly enjoyed the talk. Please see the MP3 for the audio of the lecture.

I’ll have the audio up later. See below for the audio

Resources:

• National Geographic Translation of the Gospel of Judas (PDF)
• Audio from the Lecture (mp3 - 46mb)

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Henry Imler March 6th, 2007

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Honzo December 31st, 2006

…person who is not very bright sometimes.

Note to self: Never put contact in eye after handling open can of rotel without a good washing. It will burn.

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Henry Imler September 18th, 2006

(Notes taken from Eight Theories of Religion on Emile Durkheim)

• He was the Father of sociology, much like Freud was the father of psychology. It was a fundamental shifting of how to look at everything.
• Before systems focused on the individual, now name just about anything and you can place social in front of it: Social Sciences, Social engineering, social psychology, ECT…
• Society was seen as a collection of individuals. See Freud, Descartes, ECT… Now to viewing things from a social perspective is almost our default setting
• He really created the rules of the science that enabled serious study of societies – gave it legs, not just speculation on how it could be done.

|inline

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Henry Imler September 18th, 2006

The following are my notes from a paper entitled: Moral Disengagement in the Perpetration of Inhumanities (Link to PDF) by Albert Bandura.

Thesis:

“Moral disengagement may center on the cognitive restructuring of inhumane conduct into a benign or worthy one by:”

• (false) moral justification
• sanitizing language
• advantageous comparision
• disavowal of a sense of personal agency by ¹diffusion of responcibility or ²displacement of responcibility
• disreguarding or minimizing the injurous effects of one’s actions
• attribution of blame to, and dehumanization of those who were victimized.

The structure of inhumanites is a “supportive network of legitimate enterprises run by otherwise considerate people.”

Given the many mechanisms for disengaging moral control, civilized life requires, in addition to human personal standards, safeguards build into social systems that uphold compassionate behavior and renouce cruelty.

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Henry Imler May 29th, 2006

After opening remarks from Borg and Wright in the first two chapters, the third opens with Wright discussing the prism that one should start to view Jesus, 1st century Judaism. He makes a consorted effort to explain how the first century Jew saw things in religious and political terms and how they were fused together. This fusion of politics and religion is often hard to grasp for American students who have been preached to since they could comprehend about separation of church and state.

At the most basic level, Jesus was a first century Jew.

What were traits of 1st century Judaism? |inline

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Henry Imler May 25th, 2006

The following is a sketch of Revolution, as presented by Anthony Alioto in my Philosophy of Revolution class at Columbia College.

What is Revolution? Some maintain that is it a new change, a return to an older system. Others maintain that is a clean break with the past. Many revolutionary leaders have taken the second view.

It is necessary to distinguish rebellion from revolution. Rebellion is remembered as an event within a system, while revolution fundamentally changes the system. A paradigm shift, if you will.

6 Traits common to revolutions:

1. The Idea and the faith in it.
   • i.e. the sun is the center of the system.
   • from each according to his ability to each according to his needs.
2. The faith is first held in the minds of the intellectuals and it sounds almost like a religious faith.
   • Marx
   • Galileo
3. Simple message and slogans - the revolution spreads through effective propaganda.
   • Liberty, Equality, Fraternity
   • Peace, Land, Bread
   • Workers of the world unite! You have nothing to loose but your chains and the whole world to gain!
4. Heavy use of symbols
   • Fire - burns the old system away and provides the energy for the new system. There is a bit of the phoenix myth present here.
   • The circle - used in the revolutions that talk about bringing about a return to the old utopia.
5. The Prometheus myth - the primal act of throwing off the unjust authority.
   • Prometheus brought fire from the gods to man. This was against the will of the gods and Prometheus was eternally punished for this.
6. The Pythagoras myth - a secret society of revolutionaries. They alone see the reality beneath the surface.
   • Smoke filled rooms filled with men discussing the needs of the revolution

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Henry Imler May 15th, 2006

Paper: Altruism, Teleology and God
Author: Alexandar R. Pruss

Summary

Because unlimited altruism is not biologically beneficial and yet humans see it as a desirable trait, there must be a non-scientific explanation for this. The best non-scientific explanation is that a god designed humans to be altruistic.

Part I will deal with the types of Teleology and the introduction of Altruism. Part II will deal with the application of Altruism to the types of Teleology.

Introduction

Pruss begins his paper by discussing a few of the arguments for the existence of God. First up is the ontological argument. It uses pure reason. An example of this is St. Anselm in the Proslogium.

Next up are the argument’s that use empirical observations. They are usually in the following structure:(quoted, but slightly paraphrased)

Common Empirical Arguments for God

1. There is a general fact about reality that cannot be explained in natural (i.e. non-supernatural) terms.
2. One argues that either the best or the only explanation includes the existence of God.
3. :. God exists.

Pruss goes on to say that there are two sorts of arguments from empirical observations, Cosmological arguments and Teleological arguments.

The Cosmological Arguments

Cosmological arguments are what he calls “prima facie value-neutral“, a mere fact, such as “there is order in the universe.”

Example: The Kalam cosmological argument:

1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. :. the universe must have a cause.

The nice thing about Cosmological arguments are that they lie outside the realm of science. As Pruss puts it, “science is unable to address the question, since scientific explanations are in terms of the activities of contingent beings. The draw back is, are there even answers to such questions?

The Teleological Argument

The opposite side of the coin are arguments from values, such as, “the universe is beautiful“. These design arguments are called Teleological arguments. Pruss notes that usually these arguments are in competition with science and other philosophical explanations to provide explanations. An example of this is “the constants in nature are fine-tuned for the existence of life.” Perhaps the most famous is Paley’s arguments about design in animals. He said that since limbs and other parts of animals serve specific functions, they must have had a designer.

The drawback to this approach is that science may one day explain the features without the aid of a supernatural designer. Paley’s arguments were stripped of their forcefulness by Darwin’s theory of evolution. Evolution explained in natural terms how life could have an appearance of design without there actually being a designer.

So to speak, evolution filled in the gaps that Paley’s God sat in. Alas there was no room in the argument for God anymore. This is where we get the term God-of-the-Gaps. Any argument that uses science’s inability to explain phenomena is called a God-of-the-Gaps argument. Thing is, science keeps figuring out all of it’s problems. This has proved to be rather embarrassing to theists over the years. In addition, in answer to the fine-tuning argument is that if it existed any other way, we would not be here to observe it. This is called the anthropoid principle.

Principled Cosmological/Teleological Arguments

Beyond arguments that rely on holes in science, there are what Pruss calls Principled Teleological Arguments. They are arguments that attempt to explain phenomena that are outside the realm of science. Science can only deal with “hows“, it does not concern itself with “whys” . Well, not after we stopped using Aristotle’s scientific approach to nature. For instance, when confronted with a rainbow, science can tell you how the image is created in your mind, detailing the process of refraction and image collection by the mind. What it cannot do it tell us why it is a beautiful sight. In order to show something is a principled argument, one needs to show how science cannot explain the phenomena and then provide the alternate explanation. Pruss says that it needs to be noted that there are other competing explanations, but these will be from theology or philosophy, not from science.

The Idea of Altruism

Pruss notes that humans exhibit altruism. He defines altruism as doing things for others without expecting to be repaid. He brings up three arguments to back this claim against those of the cynics that believe that all actions that seem altruistic have an ulterior motive. The first conjures up a stranger asking you for the time of day. Secondly, he brings up a study by Monroe, Barton, and Klingemann that details the motives of gentile holocaust rescuers and how they were not attached to selfish reasons. His last argument appeals to the rationality of altruism. Pruss maintains that an important step in the moral development of humans is to realize the unity of mankind. I am no different from you or her. We all have the same moral worth. Therefore, doing a good to you is like doing a good to myself.

Altruism: Doing something for another without thinking to be repaid.

Pruss then argues that Altuism is a trait of the human species that cannot have been a result of evolutionary mechanisms since there is no competitive advantage for the altuist, only the recipient of the altruism. So far this is only a God-of-the-Gaps argument. It only rules out Natural Selection as a cause of altuism. It does not eliminate other naturalistic explanations.

Part II of this notes serries will cover the application of the above notion of Altuism with the two types of teleological arguments from above.

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Henry Imler May 10th, 2006

The following is the general outline and classification of religous development as presented in the introduction of In the Presence of Mystery: |inline

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Henry Imler April 26th, 2006

Simon Cushing argues against Speciesism in his paper �Against �Humanism�: Speciesism, Personhood, and Preference.� He uses Peter Singer’s definition of Speciesism :

Speciesism…is a prejudice or attitude of bias toward the interests of one�s own species and against those of members of another species.

Speciesism is often called “Humanism“, which of course is Speciesism by the human race. Cushing uses two formulations of Speciesism, a strong and a weak:

Strong Formulation :

All and only (innocent ) humans are moral persons

Weak Formulation :

The personhood of a being should hinge (wholly or in part) on its membership in a particular species or group of species.

|inline

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Henry Imler September 10th, 2005

When beginning any discussion in ethics, it is always beneficial to begin on common footing. For, without the same definitions, nothing can be agreed upon. I think Aristotle said that, but I am not sure.

Here are some definitions of some terms that will be popping up here in some posts about biomedical ethics.

Suicide: Self-killing.

• Typically there is not a distinction between levels of beneficence.

Euthanasia: “Good Death”(eu-good; thanasia-death) The killing of another at the request of the person killed.

• Distinguished from Suicide because another agent besides the self is the cause of death.
• the assisting the death of another for reasons of beneficence.
• Also known as “mercy killing or “mercy Letting die”
• There are several different “flavors” of euthanasia.

Assisted Suicide: - Distinct from euthanasia in that it is the enabling of suicide by another party.

• Most commonly this takes the form of Physician Assisted Suicide, or PAS.

When considering the moral and ethical implications of these issues, be sure to distinguish between casual evaluations and moral evaluations. Casual refers to simply how something happened. i.e. The knife passing thru Matt’s head was the cause of death. Moral refers to the ethical evaluation of an act. i.e. It is morally impermissible to place a knife thru Matt’s head. A lack of this distinction is often the cause of muddled issues in biomedical ethics.

Casual Distinctions in Euthanasia:

1. Passive or Letting Die: The withdraw of treatment or sustenance that will lead to death.
   • Also known as “Pulling the plug”
   • Can take the form of removing food or water, discontinuing a vital treatment.
2. Active or Killing: actively bringing ab out the death of a person.
   • i.e. lethal injection

Types of Consent involved in Euthanasia:

1. Voluntary - Person requests euthanasia
2. Non-voluntary - Person cannot request nor deny euthanasia due to a lack of decision making ability. This is found in long term comas.
3. In-voluntary- The person does not wish to be killed.

While there can be an argument made whether or not voluntary and nonvoluntary forms of euthanasia are morally permissible; all would agree that nonvoluntary euthanasia is tantamount to murder.

Now that we have casual and consensual distinctions within the term Euthanasia, we can combine them to form the six types of Euthanasia:

1. Voluntary Passive Euthanasia (VPE) - Patient requests to be allowed to die for the easement of their suffering
2. Voluntary Active Euthanasia (VAE) - Patient requests to be killed for the easement of their suffering
3. Nonvoluntary Passive Euthanasia (NPE) - Patient is not able to request death or sustained life and is allowed to die for the easement of their suffering.
4. Nonvoluntary Active Euthanasia (NAE) - Patient is not able to request death or sustained life and is killed for the easement of their suffering
5. Involuntary Passive Euthanasia (IPE) - Patient requests to be left alive/continue treatment and is allowed to die for the easement of their suffering.
6. Involuntary Active Euthanasia (IAE) - Patient requests to be left alive/continue treatment and is killed for the easement of their suffering.

It is hoped that when one starts with this background when examining the euthanasia issue, one be able to sort through the topic clearly.

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Honzo July 29th, 2005

Never, when you have to be at work at 8:30, start messing with your
blog’s CSS and templates. Suddenly you will find that it is 2:35
freaking AM and that you still have to do laundry for tommorow.

It is always better for my sleep habits that Meredith does not go
down to Versailles and helps with my little sister’s wedding shower.

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Honzo July 24th, 2005

A. If I am ever a young man wearing a coat in July, make it a point
not to run from people who have authoriazation to shoot people who run
from them.

B. If I am a task force who have a license to kill people who run from me, make sure that I am chasing the right people.

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Henry Imler July 4th, 2005

Hume broke all mental contents into two categories, “Impressions” and “Thoughts and Ideas.”

Hume maintained that Impressions were:

1. Sensate
2. All of our more lively perceptions (note the active “ing”)
   • Hearing
   • Seeing
   • Loving
   • Hating
   • Touching

All of our ideas have their root in impressions and therefore in sensations.

Thoughts and Ideas on the other hand are recollection or manipulation of impressions. Hume maintained that the recollection of an impression is infinitely less clear than the original impression. For example:

• Thinking of being angry
  vs
• Being Angry

Experiencing being angry is always much more vivid than remembering being angry.

Hume also maintained that the mind at first seems unlimited in its potential, but, following with Locke’s Tabula Rasa, the mind is actually limited to the base ideas that stem from impressions.

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