Letters from Kamp Krusty

I am a Chosen One. Thanks.

I am now fulfilling my jury duty!  Right now, as we speak!  I'm at the courthouse!  It really is an honor.

You're likely wondering, "Why Brant?  Why was he a chosen one for this?"

I'm not sure, but I can only presume someone just likes my style, my demeanor, and took note of it.  I have a judicious temperament, a certain way of discerning matters of justice, and a real sense of even-handed-ness.  I'm not sure who nominated me, but I admit, I certainly understand why.  I've been told I have a certain je ne sais pas le realite'.

I had to park at the Palm Beach Convention Center, and then take a "jury trolley" to the courthouse.  There was a neat rapport on the trolley.  None of us potential jurors, you know, "talked", but we enjoyed a deep, silent, sense of camaraderie that you wouldn't really understand, because you're not on a jury.

It's supposed to be a Jury of My Peers, which is awesome.  We'll probably talk about library clubs and eat toast and play accordia, once everybody gets warmed up to me.  We've been here five hours, so I'm sure that'll kick in soon!

I'm angling for a Jury Foreman role, and I was pleased that there seemed to be a silent acceptance from others on the trolley that I would be their leader.

It's a County Court assignment, which is a bit disappointing.  I'd hoped to sit on a U.S. Supreme Court jury, to demonstrate my thorough-going knowledge of the law.

My next hurdle, as I wait, is to be selected by the lawyers and judge for the case!  I can't wait! 

I should pass with flying colors!  I hope they like my executioner's hood! 

Traditionalists: This Bud's for You

I'm a traditionalist. 

I realize most aren't going to believe me, since I've left the "attending church" thing.  But I am.

I love creeds.  I love incense.  I hate the designated hitter rule.  I think the "classics" are classic for a reason.  I believe Bach objectively superior to any modern composer I've heard.   

I think marriage should remain a coherent legal concept.  I preferred the old "Hardee's" logo.  I don't think emailed "thank-you notes" really count.  I actively resent the interstate highway system for its contributions to the homogenization of America.  I miss Vince Lombardi, and I think he was dead before I was born.  I love Bugs Bunny cartoons -- but only the violent ones.

I don't like that First Things switched printers, and the ink doesn't smell the way it used to.  To me, Stryper ceased existing when Oz Fox cut his hair.  I like the smell of old, rural church buildings.  I think Norman Rockwell is underrated, and I still miss "Calvin and Hobbes". 

When I see uniformed soldiers in airports, I stop them to thank them. When we played "cops and robbers", I would never be the robber.  I hate the new version of the game of "Life", where the plastic cars are now little SUV's.  Plato knew more about human nature than Freud.  Anything with "modern" as as a descriptor starts with two strikes.  I believe a culture is on its last legs when it sees children in cost/benefit terms.  I like pomp and circumstance.

Ricky Gervais is superior to Steve Carell.  I don't carry a cell-phone.  Our kids speak Latin.  I'm relieved the NBA went back to the old ball.  I have a new Taylor, but wind up playing the old Martin more.   I don't think anyone has anything truly new to say.  I made my boy play with Lincoln Logs.  Lebron or Larry?  Pshaw.

My wife teaches classical and medieval history.  I think all country artists should sound like Randy Travis or George Strait, not Keith Urban.  I'm an Anglophile.  I resent, very much, factory farming, and admire, very much, true farmers.  "Ms." Pac-Man was a hollow imitation.  I love stained glass, and architecture that, itself, suggests beauty, goodness, and truth.

So, here's to tradition!  Here's to the Christian traditions that have sometimes faded from view, or become eclipsed by lesser traditions, embraced by neophiles, who may value newer ideas, newer symbols, over what was valued most highly, by the truly Wise, so long ago. 

Here's to ancient Christian tradition, and may we traditionalists embrace the ancient-future through these great and oldest traditions:  Loving our enemies, exalting the humble, caring for the poorest and the most vulnerable, forgiving early and often, loving God with everything we have, loving others as ourselves, refusing to look at others in a condemning manner, refusing to confuse our public acts of righteousness with God's agenda for the world...so many traditions to embrace, so little time.  May everyone recognize us by our adherence to these traditions.

Here's to traditionalists!

My Favorite Sports Team Hugged Each Other Last Night

My favorite sports team is the champion of its sports league.

My favorite sports team outscored a rival team called "The Tigers" and was awarded a large trophy.

Your favorite sports team?  A little awkward.  Lacking coordination.  That's why they fumble the ball and/or puck.  Your favorite sports team's coach lacks organizational skills, and your favorite sports team's uniform colors don't really "go together" if you think about it. 

Your mascot fails to entertain.  It's been doing the same unfunny stunts for about ten years.

My favorite sports team wins big trophies, sets off fireworks, and then begins a frenzy of hugging, thus demonstrating its youthful joy and heterosexual affection for other each other.  Your favorite sports team occasionally hugs, but without a trophy nearby, and that's a little questionable.

Categorically-Imperative-to-See TV

It's 2006, and yet this remains the most brilliant piece of television in history.

The Real Atheists Club

I don't think atheists are bad people.  Not at all.  This video is, I guess, making a point about what wonderful people atheists can be.  They're "not so bad", it says -- they can be smart and generous and good spouses and all that. 

Well, let's see:  Duh.

(If you watch it, do look past the way it bungles the meaning of the word, "fool", which is kinda...foolish.  We were all young, once.)

Of course, I've never thought atheists were bad people.  I don't think atheists are necessarily hedonists, or can't have great marriages, or don't make good parents.  I don't think that at all. 

I just don't think atheists exist.

People who say there is no God?  They exist.  And some of them are some of the coolest people you'll ever meet.  And moral, too.  They think killing an innocent person for no reason is wrong, period.  They think lying to friends just for personal gain is wrong, period.  They can be very other-centered, compassionate, charitable, and merciful.  You might even say some atheists are some of the most upstanding people you'll meet.

Shoot, it's almost like -- no, it's exactly like -- at some level, they believe in God.

Frequently, I'll mention on-air (as a challenge, really, to Christians) Dallas Willard's wisdom:  What you believe isn't what you say you believe, what you really believe is what you do.

And sometimes, what you do gives you away, right?

I agree with J. Budziszewski of UTexas (who's really agreeing with C.S. Lewis, for starters) that there are some things we just can't not know.  Take any freshman ethics course, and you'll be struck by the god-free attempts to find some basis for our in-common sense of what's right.  They're "elegant contrivances", to be sure:  systems developed to somehow, some way, explain this nagging sense that we all have, universally, for justification.  It's inescapable, though, that none of these contrivances make any sense, or have any ultimate grounding, if we're here by happenstance.  None.  (Trust me, I've searched, asked, debated people who make their living arguing for their atheism.  There's no binding response coming, becaause it doesn't exist.)

Am I saying atheists are lying about their atheism?   Not really.  Denial is a pretty well-established concept in psychology.   I practice it in subtle ways, daily.  (Another post.)

Just check the polls on morality.  Pollsters will ask something like, "Do you agree that ultimately, what's 'right' or 'wrong' is up to the individual, that there's no absolute truth that transcends us?"  And they'll find a large percentage will say "Yes, I agree with that."  People will say that, but no one actually believes it.  Thankfully, we know this from their behavior, and the way they'll properly consider wrong -- just plain wrong -- the actions of racists, or sexual predators. 

They say something, they think they believe it! -- but they don't believe it.  They're not lying to the pollster.  It happens.  Denial is complex.

Irony:  The video's parade of "goodness" from atheists doesn't make the case for atheism, it makes the case for Goodness.  If we're cosmic accidents, it simply makes no sense to make this appeal if we don't know what "good" means. 

I already know the counter-arguments.  "But we're only saying that society has determined these things are 'good', and we can do those things, too, and..."  Yes, of course.  But I'm actually giving you more credit than, "You just go with the societal flow, here..."  I'm saying these are real, and deep, convictions, deeper than some contract with society we never signed, deeper than some utilitarian point-system someone came up with that binds no one, deeper than a majority vote. 

These are things we can't not know.  We've never stopped knowing them, we just lost our confidence that we can know them.

We all know.  Every society in the history of man has acknowledged some transcendence.  Sigmud Freud, who said belief in God was wish-fulfillment, nevertheless spent his life reacting, personally and professionally, to this God Who Did Not Exist.  Uber-Krusty Richard Dawkins (handled nicely here) tries, vainly, to contrive meaning in a universe without God, even as he mocks believers for refusing to face the cold wind of truth.

Atheists don't exist.  All of us are quite obviously desperate for a very deep justification.  Desperate, and our consciences will stop at nothing to get it.   That need for justification shouldn't be there.  So why does Dawkins have it? 

The cold wind of truth is this:  Contrive away, but it's just your lonely contrivance.  Without transcendence, meaning is up for grabs, which is another way of saying, there isn't any.  There is matter and physical law, and that's it, no more.  There's no binding reason to object to cruelty to humans or animals.  We can contrive neat little stories, but ultimately, there's no point to hope, or love.

And really no one, including, very obviously, Richard Dawkins, believes that.

Because what you really believe is what you do, right?

Ding-Darn Cusser

This is going to be a huge disappointment.  Once again, George W. Bush cussed.

-- but that's not the disappointing thing.  Frankly, I don't give give a dang about that.  What's going to be disappointing, to some, is that pretty much no one is going to stinking care.

Those who will be disappointed will work for the flippin' New York Times.

Remember the huge, blazing controversy over Brokeback Mountain?  I don't either.  It'll be the same thing, writ even smaller:  Writers sitting, waiting, wishing, that you who believe in superstition would maybe make some protest signs.  But the freaks won't do it, dadburn it.  Shucks, some even gave Brokeback good reviews. 

And no one will throw a dingly-dokely-darn fuss about this, either, except those who are angry that Christians aren't angry.  Aren't these Christians supposed to be scandalized by cussing?  See, your guy's a hypocrite!  Christians can't cuss!  He just cussed!  Did you hear him cuss?  He cussed!  Christians hate that!  Don't you?  You do, right?

Of course, they don't hang out with any, so they won't know that they don't really give a rippety-flip what language any President might use to describe a war, and many have no issues with this at all, save in front of little kids.  Someone will write an article about what blind hypocrites we are, for not protesting the President's language, just like they did last time he cussed on mic.  No one will note the irony:  that it's the left, not the right, here serving as Pottymouth Patrol. 

And, frustrated, somebody will get a quote from...hmmm...check rolodex...let's see...Pat Robertson.

Snore, etc.

I'm Not Totally Comfortable With This Yet

I'm kinda scared to go to France.

I'm just not...comfortable...with some things, culturally.  I don't know.  I just feel like, sometimes, I don't understand.

I'm not going to judge a culture, or push my morality off on anyone, certainly.  I'm just saying I was watching this soccer game, and...I don't know.  Like I say, I can't judge.  I wasn't raised in France, and I haven't walked a kilometre in their cleats.

Granted, I don't, generally, tend to attack people's sterna with my skull.  But, before we accuse and condemn, think about it:  Who among us, really, hasn't head-butted someone in the sternum during a World Cup final?  So let's hold our fire.

It's a classic case of a clash of cultures.  But I will grow.  I will seek to understand, to learn.

Pursuing Truth About Nature -- But Only So Far

A warning about this interview right here: 

If you want to persist in the idea that Intelligent Design is just warmed-over creationism, or that its adherents are dolts, or that "real science" makes a mockery of it,  or that it doesn't pose a fascinating scientific question -- don't listen to it with an open mind.

I've had a chance to talk with William Dembski a few times, and I've also, on several occasions, debated/interviewed reps with the people behind this magazine, which represents the opposing view.  I'm sympathetic to both, strangely, because I think Dembski is brilliant, and I'm every bit as skeptical -- moreso, actually -- than the people behind Skeptic.

(I should note that personally, I am -- putting it gently -- not a fan of the creationist leaders whom Dembski mentions here who are attacking his views.  I think they've done, and continue to do, much damage.  That's another post.)

Whatever you think of the debate, I.D. is hardly the argument of yokels, despite op-ed writers' attempts to press I.D. into their usual self-affirming narratives.  And Sherer himself says I.D. has a place in science classroom discussion.

The debate may not change your mind.  After all, if you've defined science to include design that might be from aliens from outer space, but to exclude design by a Designer -- well, the question is certainly decided, then and there.  Case closed.

By this definition, of course, you've also effectively said, "If the truth about nature is otherwise -- outside my definition of science -- then I will not scientifically learn from this truth about nature, however beneficial it might be to our understanding."  -- an unseemly sort of thing, I would think, for one with an open mind. 

Dembski rightly notes that I.D. principles are already widely-used in pursuits like forensics, archaeology, and the SETI program.  His worthy opponent, Michael Sherer, notes that he, Shermer, would entertain the idea -- and scientists do, frustrated to account for design, here -- that aliens from outer space may have designed life on earth.  But, he says, we cannot consider the possibility of this different kind of extra-terrestrial intelligence. 

And we mustn't allow that possibility -- in the interest of an open mind, you understand.

Again, Chesterton:  Odd that one is said to be closed-minded for allowing that miracles are possible, while the "free-thinker" has decided, without proof, that they are not.

One Heck of a Test-Post

I'm just checking this out, trying to see how stuff will work.

I'm not sure I like this format.  It just looks so...not cool.  I don't know how to put it.

That's a picture of some water.  I like some water.  Not all water.  Some.