jeffreimer's Xanga

Leaving Xanga

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 02:06:27 GMT

Friends,

I have left xanga for a new home. My new blog--which I have titled, for better or worse, "Mode of Expression"--is now at Wordpress. The web address is http://jeffreimer.wordpress.com (or just follow this link). Please update your bookmarks, links, and feeds.

Xanga has provided something of a community for the past couple of years, but alas the blogging fad has given way to the Facebook fad, and many of my friends here have either given up or simply never update anymore. But I will soldier on at my new blog in much the same fashion as here--sporadic, infrequent, and sometimes moody posts--though I hope to update this new one more regularly. So, I go elsewhere! An elsewhere with better design and without annoying banner ads. I hope to see you there.

That's It. I'm Converting to Catholicism and Becoming a Benedictine Monk

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 00:12:50 GMT

"Thou Shalt Not Kill, Except in a Popular Video Game at Church"

The Rock Doctors

Thu, 04 Oct 2007 01:12:29 GMT

Saturday has a new purpose. That purpose is to be in the car as much as possible in between 11:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m., for during that hour Chicago Public Radio airs a show called Sound Opinions, the world's only rock and roll talk show. The two main rock music critics from the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune, Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot respectively, host a show dedicated solely to the world of rock and roll. The show is thoughtful, well-produced, funny, insightful, and intelligent. Did I also mention it's about rock and roll? One of their best segments is called "Rock Doctors," where a listener with a musical ailment calls in and describes his or her symptoms. Jim and Greg proceed to diagnose the condition and prescribe two albums for the person to go listen to. Then they air the person's reactions to the music a week later. Usually they are successful prescriptions, but sometimes there are quirky side effects. It's always interesting and usually funny. The show is a great place to hear about bands you already know, but it's also a great place to find new bands. Because their opinions are, well, sound.

But beware! These two guys are not bubble gum pop deejays. They are full-fledged, unapologetic music geeks. In John Cusack's words in High Fidelity, "I'd feel bad for them if I wasn't, kind of, well, one of them." Actually, Sound Opinions is what it would be like if John Cusack's character started a radio show. It's a music geek's dream come true. They also have a very nice website, soundopinions.org, where you can download interviews and past shows. Check it out. It'll be well worth your time. If you're a music geek, that is.

The Definition of Terror

Wed, 12 Sep 2007 15:29:17 GMT

Here are two pictures that I think perfectly capture the feeling of sheer and utter terror.

This Just In from the Dept. of Stupid Government Decisions

Mon, 10 Sep 2007 13:19:48 GMT

The New York Times reports that U.S. prisons have removed many religious books from their libraries because they threaten to incite terrorist acts. Among such terroism-inciting tomes are works by such militants as Karl Barth, Reinhold Niebuhr, Avery Cardinal Dulles and Yves Congar. For Pete's sake.

A Few Last Thoughts about Atheism & Christianity and Then I'll Shut Up

Mon, 10 Sep 2007 01:34:45 GMT

There's a lot of talk in the media about the emergence of the New Atheism, some of which I've been commenting on recently. But dialogue (or hostility) between Christianity and atheism and other worldviews is by no means a new thing. To be fair, the term the New Atheism describes a particular historical phenomenon (i.e. the populist ascendency of Dawkings, Hitchens, Harris et al.) and doesn't at all imply that atheism is new. But it seems like much of the bullheadedness and furor on both sides of the debate today could be avoided if we looked at how situations like this in the past have been meted out. I have three examples.

Origen, who lived in the third century, who wrote an entire work dedicated to critiquing a critique of Christianity, Against Celsus,who had written his work seventy years earlier, charging Christianity with intellectual and philosophical naivete, especially from the perspective of Neoplatonism, which was the dominant way of explaining the world in ancient times, much as Enlightenment science is the dominant way of explaining the world today. In his response to Celsus, Origen takes on the patterns and modes of expression of Neoplatonism in order to justify Christianity to its critics. Origen has come under pretty heavy fire in the academy for "uncritically" accepting Neoplatonic assumptions, but this is a fallacy. Origen, rather, uses much of Neoplatonic thought in order to correct Neoplatonism and to develop a uniquely Christian way of explaining the universe. In this light, I think Origen's critique of Celsus becomes downright contemporary. How many times have we heard that Christianity does not make sense in a world where we can send people to the moon, heat things up in a toaster oven and map the human genome? How many times have we heard Christians, especially evangelicals, say that Christianity does not need explaining or that it can be proved simply? People like Celsus should take Christians to task for philosophical naivete, and people like Origen should develop a sophisticated and coherent account of their faith in light of the accusations.

In medieval times, a man named Gaunilo got into a debate with St. Anselm, who wrote a work titled In Behalf of the Fool, a reference to the Psalm that says, "the fool says in his heart, 'there is no God.' " Gaunilo was actually a Christian monk who simply disagreed with Anselm's argument for God's existence. Though Anselm is the name we remember and his ontological argument for the existence of God is what is taught in entry-level historical theology classes, many scholars think that Gaunilo got the better of Anselm and that Anselm's responses were a lot of hot air and insults. I think it's a good thing when Christians say to other Christians, "hey, you're making the atheist position look better all the time, buddy." And vice versa!

In the nineteenth century, Bertrand Russell got a lot of press by lambasting Christianity from a modern, atheistic position. Essentially he was the preincarnate Richard Dawkins. I've actually heard many analogous criticisms of the two. "Russell was a great philosopher, but when he started going on about the ridiculousness of Christianity, it was all so much hot air." Replace Russell with Dawkins and philosopher with biologist and you get pretty much the same thing today. G. K. Chesterton, Christian jack of all trades and master of all, debated Russell and people like him many times over in his career. What's great about Chesterton, though, is that after a debate, he would take his opponent out for drinks, and the two would talk late into the night. Would that that happened more often today.

Ancient, medieval, modern. My, what a succinct surveyor I am.

Good Rules for the Blogging World

Thu, 06 Sep 2007 20:10:03 GMT

A Welsh blogger I sometimes read posts some excellent rules that should govern all cyber-discourse.

1. Don't write anything about anybody that would cause you grief and embarrassment if you were to meet them in the flesh.

2. Don't write anything about me that would cause you lots of grief and embarrassment if you were to meet me in the flesh.

Read the whole post here.

Biblical Exegesis as Cultural Exegesis

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 17:24:09 GMT

From Peter Leithart's weblog:

The habits we develop in reading Scripture – recognizing the significance of the words and the things to which they refer – enables us to read the world rightly. Not just that the Bible provides a system of ideas that we can use as a screen through which to view creation. The habits of textual and of creation interpretation are the same. The world also requires exegesis.

Read the entire entry, Bible and World, here. Robert Louis Wilken, Henri de Lubac, Origen and Augustine also make appearances.

Why Atheism Is Good for Christianity

Wed, 22 Aug 2007 17:39:38 GMT

I heard a piece on NPR over the weekend covering some aspects of the New Atheism. The story featured Sam Harris, author of Letter to a Christian Nation, who is generally making a career out of being an ass. But as I listened, I actually found his rhetoric a little bit refreshing. The gist of his polemic goes something like this:

TOLERANCE? WHY SHOULD WE TOLERATE RELIGION? RELIGION IS INTOLERANT! THEREFORE IT IS STUPID! WHY SHOULD WE TOLERATE STUPID THINGS?

To his credit, it is merely a rhetorical device. He's an intelligent person who draws in caricatures as a way of getting people's attention. Of course, I wholeheartedly disagree. With his starting point, his view of history, his belligerent tone, his conclusions. But I find, even to my surprise, that I prefer it to an argument based on some sort of neutral playing field where political correctness slowly descends into uneasy silence, where we all come together with a shared set of assumptions about good and evil, right and wrong and can work together from there. We Christians should be forced to define and defend ourselves and, more importantly, define what makes us different from atheists. Because there should, ahem, be a difference. We should be put on the defensive, and I'm glad people like Sam Harris, despite being a jerk about it, are calling Christians on our position of smug cultural hegemony. Chalk it up to the law of unintended consequences, because that's not Harris's goal, but I think it's a nasty, bullying shove in the right direction.

In This Corner, Hitchens; In the Other Corner...Hitchens

Mon, 20 Aug 2007 17:59:43 GMT

Over at the IVP blog Behind the Books, Al Hsu points to a review of Christopher Hitchens' book God Is Not Great. The review is written by Christopher's brother, Peter, who is a believer. But I'll make your job of deciding who is right considerably easier. I think it's a pretty simple judgment, based on the picture below. Who would you rather believe? Christopher (left)? or Peter (right)?