Thought 16: Is novelty the heart of comedy?

I've heard this one a couple of times.  It is generally used less to defend a particular piece of comedy and more to attack a particular piece of comedy.  Usually the piece of comedy in question is something relatively formulaic.  The general form of the argument is "If I know how the joke is going to end it isn't funny".

While I understand the sentiment taking the step to "Therefore novelty is the only or most important part of comedy" is just wrong.  Even if you narrow comedy down to "comic performance" I don't think that argument stands up.

But let's start with our first critique.  How many times have you heard a story start with "Remember that time..." and end in hysterical laughter?  You've heard it happen plenty of times.  Humans are social creatures and we crave common experiences.  Some of the worst loneliness comes from a place when you think no one understands you or has similar experiences to you.  While you can have novelty inside a shared space, there needs to at least be some common assumptions and agreed upon rules of interpretation for comedy to take place.

A great example of humor that hasn't evolved much is racist humor (note, this is not racial humor, but racist humor).  Every group of people that holds a negative view of another group has some racist jokes.  These are general not novel.  I have heard many jokes told over and over with the only difference being whether the speaker wants to make fun of blondes, other sexes, other races, or alumni from different schools.  In college my chemistry teacher would stop the class every day to tell a joke about students from our rival college.  These jokes are recycled, yet people still laugh at them.  The laughter is less inspired by the wit of the joke and more by the sense of togetherness engendered by mocking the lesser group, but it is still "comedy" by any realistic definition.

I think I need to make an important point here.  When discussing any kind of art, music, or any other subjectively enjoyable aesthetic based performance we need to make a distinction.  For example if you listen to Jeff Dunham and you don't like his comedy you can say "That isn't funny" (or my preference "I don't think that is funny") but you can't say "That isn't comedy".  You can say it is bad comedy, but you shouldn't refuse to grant it the ability to define itself as comedy.

We also need to draw distinctions between "That is not subjectively funny" and "That is not well crafted humor".  Someone can craft a very well put together rape joke.  I'm not going to think it is funny because of the topic.  I can still appreciate the craft put into it and determine whether or not someone is skillful in creation and delivery.

Basically comedy is much richer of an experience than "I haven't seen that before".  While novelty/shock value should not be underestimated (I can only hear so many airplane food jokes before I stop laughing at them unless you have a new angle) it isn't the only (or even the most important) part of comedy.  The context (racial humor by majority people against minority people is very differen than vice versa), who we listen to the comedy with (in a club vs alone in a car vs in my living room), the content, the delivery (personality, timing, etc...), these all have just as much impact as whether or not I've heard a similar set before.

Thought 15: Does satisfying an arbitrary goal provide happiness?

I beat the game Minecraft yesterday.  There isn't any real narrative arc for the game.  There were times where it felt like the tasks put in front of the player are arbitrary.  Collect wood.  Make wooden tools.  Collect iron.  Make iron tools.  Collect diamonds.  Make diamond tools.  Collect Obsidian.  Make a portal to another world.  Collect Blaze Rods.  Collect Ender Pearls.  Build 12 Eyes of Ender.  Complete the Ender Portal.  Go through the Portal and Kill the Dragon.

But why are we killing the dragon?  Is he threatening us?  No.  We're just killing him to get to the End of the Game.  The ending is pretty interesting.  You can look it up on you tube if you don't want to spend the 40-50 hours necessary to beat the game.

Oddly enough one of the things that drew me to Minecraft was the lack of a plot.  It was just a sandbox.  You could build lots of things.  The only point was to build something cool while simultaneously not dying.  Not dying was pretty easy as the monsters were not difficult.  There wasn't much of an incentive to kill them other than to collect a few items they dropped.

Then the game grew more complex.  If you want to tame a dog then you'll need to go collect skeleton bones.  Want to enchant that diamond sword?  You'll need to kill a lot of monsters to gain the necessary levels to buy enchantments.  Want to build some of the more complicated mechanics?  For those you need slimeballs so go dig deep in the caves to find slimes.

Yet it was always fun.  While there isn't a strict arbitrariness (because logically you would need iron tools to mine diamonds, wooden tools just wouldn't be strong enough!) adding in the hierarchy gives a feeling of progress.

I didn't (it turns out) need a full suit of enchanted diamond armor to be able to beat the Ender Dragon.  In fact it made the final fight pretty easy.  While building up to a bow that fires infinite arrows at double damage is fun going around taking pot shots at creatures isn't as fun.  There needs to be a feeling of progression to continue in a game.

Now that progression might be something like building a cool castle.  It might not be going out to slay a dragon.  It might be the mere act of survival (dwarf fortress).  But once we hit a part of the game where there is no struggle to survive or goal to accomplish we lose interest.

So no, satisfying arbitrary goals doesn't provide happiness.  We need to feel like we're making progress.  Whether it be through a narrative or building a character's stats we need to feel like we're moving forward.  Even new year's resolutions run into this.  If I don't think that I'm actually getting healthier through not eating french fries then why continue?  I need to see or feel some progress.

Thought 14: Why do we celebrate holidays instead of holy days?

Let me start by saying this is not going to be about how holidays now have forgotten about their original meanings or how any holiday is under attack.

My question is a little different.  Has there been a change in reality that reflects the change in language from Holy Day to Holiday.  When we talk about a holiday now we talk about taking time off from work.  While people still observe holy days with religious significance that is a thing that varies among different people.

But we all celebrate holidays.  We all take time off from work.  So my question is, is this something new.  Is this something that started in the last couple of hundred years?  Five hundred years ago was there no cessation from labor?  Was there only a few (or many) days a year when you stopped working long enough for some religious observance and then got right back to work?

I don't think so.  If there is one constant among humanity (and there are in fact quite a few) we like to take time off from work.  Even if you love your job sometimes you want to take a break.  So where people in the olden days just as likely as us to see a holy day as an excuse to party?  Yeah yeah, you make pious noises (or maybe have some genuine religious observance) but you're really looking forward to that time off.

Clearly people with differing levels of energy required to get sustenance will have different levels of holiday priority.  But how often did Cinco-De-Mayo type celebrations happen?  To clarify, how often did a group of people with absolutely no association with a celebration use it as an excuse to party?  How often was the supposed observation completely lost in the opportunity to unwind.

Dionysius' followers may have been rigorously keeping up with the holidays but were they devout (or was devotion to the god of parties even something that is truly possible with our understanding of religious devotion)?

I don't think you even need holy days (at least from my understanding of the Bible there seems to be no mandate for them).  There is a mandate for taking some time off though.  So we can each decide how and when we will celebrate holidays.  Are they a reason to take time off or do we imbue them with religious observances.

I really like symbols.  I will try very hard to communicate to my children (in the future!) the deep meaning of the holy days of my religion.  I won't do it because I think if they don't celebrate the same way as me they are wrong, but because I want to share something that is significant to me.  But not everyone is as symbolically sensitive as I am.  If they just want a holiday I can live with that.  You gotta rest sometime.

Thought 13: What is the point of a superstition?

I am not a supersitious person.  I in fact have gone out of my way to show that I do not believe in superstitions.  As a kid I would spill salt, walk under ladders, walk in front of black cats, etc.  My lack of belief in ghosts/hauntings/etc. combined with a rather boastful nature lead me to prove that I wasn't afraid of bad luck and other associated superstitious maladies.

But if I'm playing D&D and a die keeps rolling bad I'll switch it out.  If a die rolls hot I'll keep rolling it.  Oh, did I find a particular habit that I indulged in before winning 5 games in a row?  Now I'll do it before every game.  I'll do it and feel like I'm maintainig some weird kind of balance of cosmic forces.

Yes, riffle shuffling 7 times will somehow alter chance to let me top deck that card I need at a crucial minute.  The dozens of times I've done that exact same thing and still lost won't keep from doing it again next time.

The more I've studied probability and variance the more often I have found myself thinking more about the uselessness of these habits.  When I was younger I really did think these kinds of things helped.  I had lucky dice.  Now I know it does nothing.  The cards are shuffled and the die rolls according to chance.  Not Lady Luck, or Fortune, or Fate, just plain ol' chance.  Yet I've done all kinds of weird things to try and influence something that I don't really believe exists anymore.

I do think the games are a little less exciting, but more enjoyable.  I can see games as a contest of skill with enough variance thrown in to keep each game fresh.  But as I think about designing a game I kind of want to tap into these habits.  I think some people really do enjoy the game more when they have their little fetishes.

I'm not sure how to implement something like this into a virtual space, but as a method for making a game more enjoyable I think it is a non-trivial idea.  Maybe allowing the user to customize something about the appearance of a character.  They can have a lucky color.  Maybe just allowing them to making non-deterministic branching choices gives them an illusion that they can influence luck and chance.

A few habits still stick around though.  If I roll enough misses in a row with a die I'm probably still going to switch.  I know the die isn't cursed, but maybe, just maybe it really is.

Thought 12: Why am I a competitive person?

Looking back at my childhood and even many of my contemporary friendships a lot of them are and have been centered around competition.

I don't mean in an unhealthy way.  I don't mean that I'm always trying to dominate the people around me or make myself feel superior.  Most of the men I've grown up around have a strong sense of competition.  I played a lot of sports growing up and while having a good time wasn't looked down the main emphasis was on winning.

My parents had a very low level of pushing me to win.  My dad would often give me advice about how to improve in baseball and basketball, but not in a weird way.  He was always sure to give praise with advice.  It wasn't a "live through my son vicariously" thing for him.  He was just willing to share from his experiences things he thought would help.  They did encourage me to do my best, but they didn't put pressure on me to win.

My coaches on the other hand were a very different story.  A few seemed to remember this was a game played by pre-teens (and eventually teenagers) but most didn't.  I've been chewed out for not winning games by a large enough margin.  I've had coaches throw bats and scream at us for getting a drink of water during our multi-mile run during the blazing hot summer.  I saw coaches push their own children, scream at them, scream at refs, and generally act a fool in public over a game that no one would remember a week or two later.

I think some of that sticks with me.  Most of my male friends (other than the ones I've met in the last year or so) and I typically have some kind of competition as a strong part of our friendship.  Playing board games, card games, video games, sports, or whatever other method of competition comes to mind.

As a younger kid (with an older brother who was better than me at most things I enjoyed) I was always interested in cooperative games.  I didn't really like losing when I didn't feel like I had a chance to win.  I wanted to be on a team, preferably playing against some impersonal thing (like say a computer).  As I have aged and gained more confidence I became more and more interested in competition.  Once I was able to beat my brother at things I was even more interested in competing.  My dread at losing largely vanished.

Now I really enjoy playing directly competitive things.  I think that in general I have a pretty good shot at winning.  The biggest shift though has come in the last 5 years.  I don't care if I lose at things anymore.  Competition is a thing of pure joy.  It is only upside.  If I lose that is completely okay.

I understand people who like to compete in a way I didn't as a kid.  To me as a kid competition was just another way for people to dominate or show they were better than me.  Now I understand the drive to compete.

I guess I am a competitive person.  Hopefully my experience as a kid will help temper my competitive spirit and keep it from making me abrasive.

For those of you who don't get it, I doubt I can explain the thrill.  Exhulting in pitting your strength against a worthy opponent who will push you to improve and be the best version of yourself possible is amazing.  Knowing that you've done your best and watching yourself making good plays is satisfying.  Knowing that you've lost in the past, you might lose tomorrow, but today you have conquered is an addiction I can understand.

Thought 11: Is knowing the future important?

People really like to talk about the book of the Revelation.  They like to talk about the many layers of meanings behind each symbol and give incredibly intricate diagrams and flowcharts about the time period described in the book.  Some people even go far enough to predict when all this stuff is going to happen.  I have heard a number of otherwise sane people tell me straight faced that the rapture/tribulation/etc... would all happen in specific years.  It's funny how much time and thought go into interpreting this book when so many other parts of the Bible are rarely if ever talked about.

I think I understand why people are so obsessed with knowing the future.  The future is dark and the dark is scary.  So we come up with elaborate understandings of prophecy in Revelation so we know the future.  That makes it less scary (even though most of the stuff in Revelation described literally is pretty horrifying).

But the better question is, is it important to know the future?  Other than trying to make it less scary for ourselves what importance does it hold?  Why would God go to great lengths to let us know what is going to happen in the future?

I imagine some people think it is so we will know the Bible is true.  If we see these prophecies fulfilled then we'll know the Bible is right and have proof of its authenticity.  The problem with this is that idea if not found in the Bible anywhere.  Our knowledge of God's (and the Bible's) trustworthiness is not based on true predictions.  Every single person who lived through Jesus' life misunderstood most of the major prophecies about him.  They still ended up doing alright.  So we can't say that understanding those prophecies will let us act more correctly.

The gospel according to John is written as a convincing argument that Jesus is who he said he was.  It doesn't reference the future at all, but rather the past.  John's idea of convincing isn't supernatural future telling, but rather a history of the life Jesus lived and the words he spoke.

For us to live correctly we should be much more concerned with knowing the life Jesus lived and the words he spoke rather than whether or not Revelation requires a literal "this is stuff that will happen" interpretation approach or a metaphorical approach.

I'm not saying understanding what this book is about is not important.  Obviously understanding Scripture is important.  God wouldn't give it to us if there was no purpose for reading it.  But being able to correctly guess (and yes guess is the right word) when your particular flavor of Revelation interpretation is going to happen just isn't important.  We don't need dates.  We don't need specific understandings of the future actions that will correspond to each description.

We need a Revelation of who Jesus is.  We need to understand his heart and his thoughts.  We need to understand the one who is the expression of God Himself.

Thought 10: How does variance effect the fun of a game?

I love games.  I've been playing a good bit of magic the gathering lately and it has been interesting to observe the emotional ups and downs linked to variance of the game.  I particularly enjoy drafting.  There are two questions to look at.  The first is whether or not variance effects our enjoyment of the game.

At first this looks like an easy question.  Variance does effect our enjoyment because when we are lucky we win, which makes the game more fun.  Early in my days of playing rarely did I win a game without thinking that I had been the superior player.  As I studied the game more and learned more about the role of and effect of variance in my games it changed the way I think.  Now I ask a second question.  Does knowledge of variance effects our enjoyment of the game?

Now things are different.  There are days I draft a terrible deck and do well.  There are days I draft (what I think) is a great deck and get thrashed.  There are days I draft a good deck and do stunningly awesome.  I was playing in that last scenario the other day.  I had drafted a solid deck (Return to Ravnica is the set, the deck was Azorius tempo) and was absolutely crushing people.  I kept playing one of the two bombs I had in my deck consistently early in the game.  It was the Grove of the Guardian, and I was able to cast other spells that let me copy the giant creature it made.

As I reflected on how often I was drawing the card (almost every game) it dawned on me that perhaps I hadn't done a good job building the deck as I originally thought.  Perhaps I just had a case of the "run goods" (I was drawing the good cards in my deck every game rather than some of the less powerful 'filler' cards).  That thought made me slightly less happy than the giddy "I'm so awesome" feeling I'd had earlier.  So did my knowledge of variance make the game less fulfilling?

In this particular case it did. But it also makes some defeats less crushing.  I can see how I made one mistake (or two) but it was combined with incredibly bad luck.

One thing I have noticed though is as I have learned more about (and observed more) variance I have found happiness and distress less in the results of my games and more in my individual play (and draft choices).

Of course I still feel emotions.  The funny thing is when I have good results but notice lots of loose or bad play on my part it does diminish my happiness.  But not too much.  I still really like winning.


So as I've matured I've learned that variance does not directly impact my enjoyment of the game if I think about things.  If I left myself get caught up in the swings of life then yes I can get down.  Playing well and losing to a lucky play (or unlucky series of draws) still effects.  I can still tilt.  But the more I play and the more I think the less it effects me.

Thought 9: Are people made up of one part, two parts, or three parts?

I was lead to believe (or taught to believe) that people are made up of three parts.  Body, soul, and spirit.  The soul and spirit were all mushed up but clearly kept separate from the body.  Any changes to my body didn't effect my identity.  I am an animating force driving my body around like a vehicle.  When I die I will dispose of my body and get a new one, much like selling an old car and getting a new one.

The problem with this view of reality is that it overlooks certain key facts.  My brain has a very real impact on how I act.  Head injuries can change my personality.  This isn't a debatable topic.  There have been enough studies done on patients with head trauma and enough research done into what each part of the brain does that this is settled science.

So, who am I?  Is my personality controlled entirely by my brain?  If so then that would lead me to think that I am a deterministic machine.  Every choice I make is the consequence of a series of chemical interactions and my brain plotting out how to solve problems.  Perhaps there is a little tiny random number generator in there somewhere when I have to make a choice.

There is evidence that the brain isn't even entirely in control.  If you smile a lot you will feel happier.  If you exert your will (which is what again?) to frown a lot you will feel worse.

Before we go too far down the rabbit hole science still doesn't know what produces self awareness.  We understand a little bit about how the brain works but we don't understand how cognition works.  We can perform a task and watch which part of the brain lights up to see how it is segmented but we don't know why it works the way it does.

So, am I one, two, or three parts?  If I am multiple parts how do they interact?  Does my body act less like a vehicle and more like a filter?  Every stimuli and experience that my soul or spirit or soul/spirit combination would receive has to be brought to it via my body somehow.  How does that lead to a situation where my brain being injured changes my soul/spirit personality?  Is this proof that a person isn't broken up into constituent parts that interact like objects in an OO computer program?

Yet we have parts of the Bible that talk about us having a new body.  Paul talks about leaving this body for a new one like taking off clothes to put on new ones.  The more science digs in the more it looks like who we are as people is tied up in our bodies.  I do believe there is something more to us than just chemical processes, but I think the model view of a soul piloting around a body is wrong as well.

If you cut off my arm it doesn't change who I am in my identity, but it will change my life.

I do think we're at least 2 parts, body and soul.  I imagine an argument could be made for 3 parts, but I have no reason to believe that over  2 parts.  I guess for now I'll just assume we're 2.5 parts.

Thought 8: Why do we have a love hate relationship with rewards? - Also 47 days left in the year...

So, it looks like I may have to chalk this blog up to a horribly failed experiment.

Or not!  If I do a blog post every day for the rest of the year I can do it.  52 blog posts in one year.

Let's do this.

Thought 8

There is a lot of talking and writing about rewards especially in a religious context.  I have heard many times in my life about how many rewards await me in the afterlife (because I'm on the right team TM!).  But I've also been told that I shouldn't work for these rewards.  That having done the work should be sufficient reward.

I have frequently heard people talk about 'bribing' their children to do things they should do.  That has a very negative connotation.  I believe the thought pattern is the kid should be willing to do the right thing because it is right.

I think this is a very attractive idea.  It seems very pure.  We do right because it is right and not because of a promise for something pleasurable.  Doing the "right" thing shouldn't be a chore it should be a pleasure.  We don't want to spoil our children by teaching them to do right only because it profits them.

But God promises us rewards.  We know He isn't a bad example to follow.  So, how do we reconcile these two ideas.  Is one of them wrong?  Do they point to an underlying truth about who we are?  I think that is more likely to be the point than some kind of tension between the two ideas.

We are broken people.  Sometimes our appetites and desires are good.  Sometimes they are not.  Sometimes we want things that are bad for us.  I think that makes rewards a very practical tool for aligning our desires with what they should be.  This leads us to looking at rewards in such a way that we can try to avoid the pitfall of "doing things for the reward rather than because it is good".

Rewards have as a purpose getting us to experience the goodness of God.  Giving to others is good for us on many different levels.  God puts incentives for us to give even before we understand this.  The point of the reward is to get us to go along with the plan so we can experience that doing these things do produce their own rewards.

We don't always look at the long term.  The Bible talks about Jesus enduring things he dreaded (the cross) for the joy of seeing mankind redeemed.  He saw the long term.  Rewards are a way to train us to do the same.  Sometimes we need a reminder that we're doing something with rewards (rewards in heaven!) so we keep doing it until we learn that doing the thing is both good for us and good for others.

Best analogy I can come up with is the reading program in my elementary school.  I love pizza.  My school offered pizza for reading a certain number of books.  So I read a lot of books (I already enjoyed reading, but stay with me here).  Now I continue to read books.  I have outgrown a need for external stimuli to move me towards reading books.  I value reading because I have experienced that reading is good for me.

There are days when it is hard to be nice to jerks.  When I think of the external reward for being nice I can be nice.  Then I see the natural outcome of being nice making my life (and the jerk's life) better.  The more times I do that the deeper the truth that being nice is good for everyone sinks into my bones.

So there is nothing wrong with rewards.  It isn't bad to like thinking about being rewarded for doing good things.  It isn't wrong to reward your child for doing something good (remember you only 'bribe' someone to do something wrong, if it is for doing something right it is a reward).  But I do think that the reward of performing a loving act and seeing the people around us helped and changed is greater than thoughts of silver and gold.

Addendum - Now ultimately life is a lot more complicated than the examples I used above.  They take a more conditioning/humanistic model of things and I don't think that is a robust explanation of how we work.  We are motivated by a lot more than just carrots and sticks.  Seeing God's love for me has changed me a lot more than rewards/punishments ever could.  But in our every day life sometimes they act as practical things that influence our immediate actions.

Thought 7: Does randomness obliterate skill?

I like games. In fact one could easily say I love games. I enjoy all different kinds of games and multiple aspects of said games. I like creating a strategy to achieve goals. I like interacting with other people. I love pitting myself against intelligent opponents and pushing myself. I like being silly and cracking jokes while playing. I like playing less intense games to have a way to pass the time while hanging out. I love competing with my brother head to head. I love sitting down afterwards and thinking about what I could've done to play better. I like breaking down the mechanics of a game to see how they interact with one another.

With that out of the way I've noticed that people tend to get frustrated by randomness in games. An example would be the dice rolls in Settlers of Catan. Higher level players who've done research to know the high percentage plays tend to get angry when some one else wins with a lower percentage play. They feel that superior play should reward them with victories.

This brings up the key question, how often should a more skilled player beat a less skilled player? Should it be 100%? I personally don't think (outside of a wild imbalance in ability) that is correct. I know several people who I believe disagree with me vehemently on this point.

This comes down to the heart of what I think skill is. But first another side trail.

Kids love to play tic-tac-toe. Adults don't. The reason is simple. Tic-Tac-Toe is a solvable game. There is no variance (randomness) in the game. Every game played by compentent players should end in a draw. Every line of play can be calculated by the average person. There are a few tricks you can try, but again none of them work if the opponent knows the line of play to follow. Every play has a counter play that maintains parity. That's why adults don't play among themselves. Once a kid gets smart enough to realize this they lose interest in the game.

Chess is like tic-tac-toe for adults. There is 0% variance, all things that happen are the direct consequence of a player's choice. There is a general imbalance in that one player gets to go first. That is worth (roughly) half a pawn. Chess is too large and complicated to be solvable, so we don't run into the same problem we have with Tic-Tac-Toe where a countering line of play can be easily found by a person of average intelligence. High level chess becomes about gaining incremental advantage, using tempo and board positioning rather than trying to create material imbalance by inequal exchange of pieces.

Chess gives us an answer to the idea that more skilled players should be able to beat less skilled players 100% of the time.

But what happens when we add in a little randomness?

What takes more skill? Having an environment where your only interactions are with your opponent directly (chess) or with an outside environment as well (poker)?

I hope there is no argument that games with an element of luck lose interaction with skill. The reason the same people go to the World Series of Poker every year isn't that they are incredibly lucky. They are incredibly skilled players. One of those skill is understanding the effect of variance on the game. Instead of saying "If I move my pawn here it will capture their knight" they'd think "I have a 78% chance to win this pot" or "I have 8 outs to win this hand". Imagine if chess captures were only a % chance. It would change the dynamic of the game. People who play chess as it is now would probably complain that it made the game too "luck based" but it would really just change the way you play.

Instead of making a guaranteed play you start learning to take high percentage plays over low percentage plays. Sure in the short term you'll lose some games you "should" have won. But I think over the long term you'll see a return to the same win percent break down you had with chess pre-random capture success. Having a playstyle that incorporates variances into it becomes a key skill for playing a game with variance. Those games aren't less skill oriented they just require a different skill set.

Thought 6: Salvation (Deliverance) is constant

We (and by we I mean mainline Protestant American Christianity including Evangelicals) use the word salvation in a very narrow sense. We talk about being 'saved' in the past tense as a singular occurrence. We pass from destined for hell to destined for heaven. A binary state flag is flipped from 0 to 1. This is a dangerous approach to a word and it colors the way we interpret so many different parts of the Bible.

I read the parable about the sower today and I started thinking about the limited way we frame salvation (only pertaining to heaven/hell) and the application of that parable. A lot of people try to split hairs about which people are 'saved' and which aren't in the parable (way side seeds, choked seeds, withered seeds, and seeds that produce fruit). That is not the right approach interpreting parables. I don't think it's about salvation in the sense of heaven/hell. If you think of it as all of the people receiving seeds are already 'saved' (or not) then the parable is about their every day life rather than a conversion experience

Sometimes even for a saved person the Word of God is put into their life and they don't respond. This is Satan messing with our salvation. Here I don't mean "going to heaven or hell" that is permanently settled. But the daily living out of salvation (in the sense of deliverance from the power of sin) is something we can cheat ourselves out of. If we don't respond to the Word when we hear it then it (and the power it has) can be quickly removed.

Maybe a good sermon that could help us gets set aside because of other things on our mind? I think the other examples work here too. When we see the word salvation in the Bible we can't automatically narrow the meaning down to heaven/hell. So when we move away from interpreting the Gospel as being narrowly applied to only heaven/hell instead of being applied to every day we run into weird parable interpretations. Every day I can let the world choke out the Word of God in my life. Every day I can be fruitful. Every day I can harden myself and let Satan steal the usefulness of God's Word. That's better than "Well this one day I accepted Jesus so now I don't have to think about being choked out, or withered, or fruitful because that's already decided". It also means any confusion about "well they're acting like they are withered so maybe they aren't saved" because it isn't about that. It's about the Gospel's impact on my every day life. My constant salvation (deliverance) from sin is the view, not a binary state flip.

A holistic approach to salvation is better for us as a church. I understand the distinction between justification and sanctification as theological concepts, but I think that pushing only one of those as the view of every parable leads to anemic theology. We view everything through the lens of salvation as heaven/hell and impose that as the interpretation for every parable and wonder why some parables don't seem to make any sense. It's because we're restricting ourselves to a small (and understandably important) space of Christianity.

This reveals a flaw in our mindset. It shows our goal is not to be better, but rather to avoid punishment. If Christianity is reduced from becoming like Christ to avoiding punishment for our failures then Christianity is in a sad state. It ceases to be a revolution of the human heart and life and becomes one more system for people to hide behind. A system to try and mask the chill and fear that thoughts of death strike into the human heart. Another way to try and smother doubts and worries that we don't have answers for. That's the beauty of Christ. He doesn't offer a system that wipes away our fears. He doesn't offer simple pat answers for our difficult questions. He offers himself and the life he lived.

Our comfort doesn't lie in having the answers. It lies in knowing the answers are out there somewhere and we'll get to them some day.

Thought 5: Is industriousness morally good?

Is it immoral to be inefficient? I think in the past this would have perhaps been a silly question, but now concerns for human impact on the environment have brought it new life.

I think we can all agree that extreme sloth is bad. Any person who doesn't provide for their own basic needs with no reason has to be cared for from the largesse of others. Laziness is considered a vice by most.

However while I think most of the people I know have always lauded great productivity as morally good I'm not sure about it. I certainly think it is useful and can be used for good (greater wealth to give to the needy for instance). But is it inherently to itself good?

Does the corporate raider who generates a tremendous amount of wealth for many people doing something inherently good? Is the more efficient (if perhaps less humane) distribution of wealth good or bad? If we replace workers with robots and lower overall employment have we done something good?

Should we take a utilitarian approach to the situation? Do we want to generate the greatest value to people even if that value is less equitably distributed?

What if I'm providing a service to someone at an outrageous price because they don't know or understand the alternatives? Am I being immoral? Am I in fact being moral because I'm extracing more wealth for myself?

Is it wrong or right to lay off someone who has a job that is entirely redundant for a company?

We come to a place where the core conflict becomes one of people versus efficiency.

Should we deny expensive care to Medicare patients so that less expensive care can be given to a large group of other people with higher chances of recovery?

What are the responsibilities on us that exist because we live in a world with scarcity? Do we have a responsibility to care for as many people as possible? Doesn't that just leave us in a place of utilitarianism? At what point can we sacrifice one person for the greater good? How many people and cultures have gone down terrible roads when starting on a path to this greater good?

I wish I had answers for these questions.

I think my approach to the Bible is often one of looking for personal action. For the above problems I have answers for myself. Turning to the wisdom literature we see encouragement to work hard, but a reminder that wealth without contentment is pointless. I don't have a lot of ambition so my focus is on not being motivated enough, but I can easily provide for my family so my motivation to work more hours is pretty low.

I'm going to try and do some more studying of corporate action in the Bible. It gives some outline for how the church should work, but very few specifics. I'll see what I can come up with and do a second post if I find anything. I'm not expecting to find anything.

To the question of environmental impact, I do think it behooves us to care appropriately for our world. On the flip side I don't agree with the degree of moral condemnation people bring to bear on others for eating non-locally grown food while ignoring lots of other problems. Of course plenty of people like to point out the existence of problems so they can pull focus off of what they can do to be a little more efficient.

Thought 4: What is humility, really?

I have won a vote of confidence.

From: Friend

To: Everyone

Who is more brutally honest: [Me] or [Some Other Person]?

My vote is [Me]! He does it with so much more confidence.

I received this dubious distinction recently after hearing a story about me sharing a rather blunt truth. I had been very honest about something and the other people at the table hearing the story were struck by my brutality. That isn't the first time something like this has happened.

However I have not been particularly good in my life about being brutally honest with myself. That is something I've been working on for the last year or so. It has brought me to an interesting place, part of which involves writing this blog. I am prone to starting projects and not finishing them. After being honest with myself about this I am trying to have several weekly goals that I meet for an entire year.

One thing I have noticed this year while reading articles was other people talking about this problem. I love playing the card game Magic the Gathering. Many of the top players do a lot of writing. One recurring them I saw among the top professional players was the idea of how to improve your game. I saw the phrase "take responsibility for your mistakes" over and over again. Players talked about how their bad habits and stubborness cost them game after game and until they were able to acknowledge that and work on changing the way they acted they weren't able to break into the top tier of the game.

As I'm trying to implement similar things in my life (which is one of the most difficult things I have done in a long time) I started seeing how this meets one of the definitions we have of humility. As a side note I'm not very humble (by almost every definition). I definitely have a natural tendency to arrogance and condescension. Without conscious effort I quickly fall into a pattern of relating with lots of criticism. It has taken a lot of time and failtures to lose the deep down conviction that if I just tried really hard I could be better at anything than everyone around me.

Back to the point, a willingness to take responsibility for mistakes and admit that you fail because of choices instead of circumstances is a key component of (my definition) humility. It naturally leads to a mastery-oriented mindset over a performance-oriented mindset. The mindset here is failure is okay as long as you're learning from your mistakes, rather than attempting to make oneself appear competent at all times and hiding deficiencies.

I think this approach to life is key to humility, but I don't think that it is humility. A dictator could do plenty of research on how to more effectively run his regime, be willing to admit his mistakes, and even make his operation more efficient without being truly humble. I think we all recognize that humility has an additional component to it.

So recognizing one's own faults or objective ranking is not the only part of humility. It is a valuable tool however it is not something that left to itself will make us better people. It might make us more effective, more competent, and even more productive but we will not be morally better because of it.

When we pursue humility I don't think we are only trying to have an accurate view of our own abilities relative to others. That is a definition I've heard before and I think it misses out on the heart of humility. It is built to allow for a person to still be humble but acknowledge their own superiority in something that can be objectively measured.

It sets the center of humility as accurate knowledge of the world. That isn't right. When we turn to the Incarnations display of humility what do we see? We don't see someone rigidly enforcing an accurate ranking of people in the world. By that definition of humility Jesus could've come to be served instead of coming to serve.

After spending a lot of time trying to come up with a description of humility (and failing) I realized it is easier to describe what humility produces than what humility is. So pardon me as this terrible segue is followed by an abrupt jump in logic.

We all value people differently. Some people (like me) will always value family over friends. That is part of the value system I grew up with. Other people will value loyalty over anything else. Some value keeping to a set of standards. Others value people by how similar to themselves each other person is.

But that isn't what we see in Jesus. He valued every person. While his personal responsibilities did change the way he interacted with people (he setup someone to care for his mother when he died, but not for every woman in the world) his valuing of people wasn't based on any of the above methods. It was based on valuing people because they are people. Giving human being intrinsic value instead of value based on any measurable quantity.

I think this is one of the most important things humility produces in a person. It is a change from a performance or value based measurement of one's self and others to a view of people as being inherently valuable. It pushes us away from a pragmatic valuing of individuals to a place where loving each other person as much as ourself is possible, but all people are equally valuable and wonderful.

Thought 3: Do I have the right to not be offended?

I've been thinking about offensiveness a good bit lately. There are a couple of different perspectives. Do I have the right to not be offended by you? Do I have a responsibility to not be offensive? Is there a time or circumstance where being offensive is ok? Would that line be subjective or objective? If it is objective what criteria need to be met to ensure my actions are objective and not subjective?

I'm going to start with the first question. Do people have an inherit right to not be offended. In other words is it morally wrong to be offensive.

Now let me say that I'm not approaching this from a legal angle. I'm very much a defender of the right of people to express themselves free from legal repercussions outside of a few narrowly defined cases (slander and libel). I think the proper response to people expressing themselves through speech is return speech. If you act like a jerk then I have the right to call you a jerk. Freedom of expression is not freedom to express yourself without criticism. My approach is one of what is my responsibility in dealing with offending other people.

Offense is very broadly defined in our language You can be offended because I am purposefully trying to offend you. You can also be offended by a statement of my beliefs.

So, should we try to differentiate between the two types of offense? The deliberate and the incidental? Should we take offense not at idea, but rather at intentions? If someone says quite sincerely and without malice that they believe statistics teach that [Race X] has [Undesired Characteristic Y] can and should we be offended? What if they restate it as [Race X] has a higher probability of having [Undesired Characteristic Y]?

At what point does a statement of fact cross the line between observation and offense? What if instead of race we used cultural? Poor people are more likely to be in jail. Is that just a fact or is it an insult to poor people? What if we go from a fact to an interpretation of that fact? Poor people are more likely to be in jail because they are barbarians who can't control their urges. If we stay away from the conclusion (which is obviously offensive) and just state the fact is that non-offensive?

My parents have a newspaper that is pretty old. I think it is from the early 40's. In it the writer talks about how it is common knowledge that when retarded savages (Native Americans) drink alcohol it inflames their natural brutishness (or something to that effect). The writer talks about it like it is common knowledge. Everyone just knows when those Indians get some firewater in them they just go crazy!

For us this is offensive. At that time it was seen as a simple statement of fact. Everyone knew it was true. I'm sure most people would've made an argument for that knowledge being objective reality.

We have a few categories. Offensive by belief, Offensive by intention, and Offensive by methodology.

Examples of each:

Offensive by methodology - For Muslims pictures of the prophet is offensive. While there are Muslims who are fine with criticism of their religion they would find certain methodologies (comic strips of Muhammad) offensive. Even if they don't find your belief or intention offensive (if you were say a felloe Muslim trying to purify their theology by criticizing certain beliefs) they would find your methodology offensive.

Offensive by intention - Some people are okay with debates about abortion. People that they wildly disagree with in belief they can still debate in good faith with. Others hate people who disagree with them. They want people who think abortion is okay to be put to death. Their intention is not to make the world a better place or to help people, but rather solely to punish people who do wrong. I find that offensive. We don't seek to do right to meet an arbitrary standard but because we love other people and we want what is good for them.

Offensive by belief - [Race X] has [Undesired Characteristic Y]. Merely by believing that (and stating it out loud) without any other conclusions drawn people will be offended.

I think Offensive by belief is the one category I think is defendable. Methodology and Intention is something we should work on to not offend people. But I don't think people should be forced to censor their own beliefs even if I find those beliefs to be revolting and disgusting. One of the reasons is because then there can be no dialogue about those beliefs which I do believe helps a lot more than people think.

Thought 2: Do I have to respect Cartman's authoritah?

Authority is a very pervasive idea. It is everywhere. Humans spend a tremendous amount of time and effort trying to determine who is under their thumb and whose thumb they are under. Pecking orders exist throughout our lives. Most of us try to make sure we're not at the bottom, though not everyone has the drive to try and get to the top.

We see the same thing in animal circles with some very interesting results. Alpha animals tend to have higher serotonin levels which lead to more alpha behavior which leads to higher serotonin levels. It's a small natural positive feedback loop. Of course once you lose status you stop exhibiting alpha behaviors which leads to a drop in serotonin levels. That's the downside. Perception of dominance making us more dominant is a very interesting phenomena.

Since authority and domination of others is a big part of our lives logically it is something that our religions will address. Some have caste systems. Some have delineations between a clergy and a laity. Some have all members being equal. Some have what looks like a pyramid requiring ascension up the ranks. This isn't something that most religions agree on, like say not stealing and murdering.

As someone who was raised in a very independent strain of Christianity the idea of submitting to an authority structure outside of the local congregation was something that never really occurred to me. Interpreting the Bible was always a question of people arguing out which interpretation was the correct one. No one had final authority to say "When Jesus says X what it means is Y". People would of course make the assertion that X meant Y but the appeal was "I know because I am smarter/wiser/older/understand Greek/etc..." not "I have the authority from God to make this declaration".

I imagine this makes a big impact on the way I look at authority. The few times people have tried to tell me what God wanted specifically for me to do I imagine I looked at them like they were crazy. Here I don't mean "give to charity" or "love your neighbor" but rather "Go to this specific college" or "Take this specific job". They got a crazy look because I have always believed they weren't part of the conversation. That conversation happened between me and God, not me and God and them. I am also very willing to argue with people about what the Bible means.

So this is all background to help you understand my thought process on the "biblical" idea of authority. I claim no ability to authoritatively explain the Bible. I'm doing my best to understand it and if I find something true I like to share that with others. If someone disagrees with me I can't threaten them with "You are disobeying God". The worst you'll get from me is "When we're all dead and find out I'm right I'm going to say I told you so."

The Bible definitely talks about authority. It talks about the apostles agreeing on things and Jesus being behind them. I'm not wading in to break that down in its entirety and determine apostolic succession. It's not my goal. My question is more about my every day life. What is the authority given to me in any role of spiritual leadership?

I think this question is inherently flawed. I'm not saying there isn't an answer but the emphasis of the question is approaching the situation from the wrong direction. Spiritual leadership has very little if anything to do with authority. It has everything to do with responsibility. The question being asked is "What can I do?" The question that needs to be asked instead is "What needs to be done?"

Changing the emphasis pulls us from a mindset of seeing others as resources into a mindset of seeing others as people to help. A simple analogy (which I'm stealing because it's so good) is we stop seeing people as water faucets and start seeing them as buckets. I think this is what spiritual leadership is about.

Our example is the Incarnation. Jesus is remarked upon as being someone who spoke with authority. He commanded nature in a variety of ways. He explained who God was and spoke with God's backing. Yet the description of his leadership style is that he came to serve not to be served. This needs to be what drives our view of authority. Jesus comments on humanities natural tendency to accrue power so they can turn people into resources for themselves.

Jesus pushed his disciples to stop thinking in those terms. Rather they were to make themselves resources for other people. People become the goal rather than the means to another goal. For leaders people are a responsibility not a tool.

Note that this doesn't do away with the ideas of organization and direction. Having a leader to direct effort in an efficient manner doesn't necessarily break away from this idea. Jesus definitely assigned tasks to his disciples. I'm not advocating anarchy, but rather a change in perspective.

Leadership isn't about pushing or pulling people to a path. It's about walking our path and helping the people who walk beside us.

So if someone starts listing out all the verses in the Bible that talk about the different rights and privileges that people in authority have over others they may need a gentle reminder. Jesus' view of his own authority was not what abilities it gave him, but rather what responsibilities it placed on him.

Thought 1: Do time travelers have a different morality than the rest of us?

I've been thinking about the Incarnation a lot lately. Jesus does a lot of things. One of those things is making God expressable in a way we can understand.

Frequently people look at God in the Old Testament and tell me they find Him very confusing. He does things that don't seem to mesh with the morality Jesus taught. He does things that don't mesh with what we think of as moral today.

There are two important ideas that we run into as we work through this issue.

Point One: The Question of Perception

There is a thought experiment I came up with many years ago thinking about the way people see the world.

Man A stands up in a crowd and shoots another Man B.

Man A is a murderer.

Then we learn that the Man A shot Man B because he saw the Man B preparing to blow up a bomb.

Man A is a hero.

Then we learn that the Man A was actually delusional and what he thought was a bomb was a colostomy bag.

Man A is a murderer.

As information about a situation changes our perception of whether or not actions were moral changes. Perception of morality is controlled by point of view.

Point Two: The Question of Ability

A question a lot of people have bandied about with me in leisure time - If you could go back in time and kill Hitler would you?

No matter what answer you come to it is a great question to consider. I think the problem most people have with the question is they don't consider how a change in ability changes morality.

One thing that is debatable is whether or not taking a human life to save one or many is ok. I'm not going to address that as the situation could be changed to not include death, but I like the impact the situation has.

Let's consider this hypothetical and see where it takes us. I can travel through time. I don't know what the effects of changing time will be.

I know that Hitler will cause the death of many. If I kill him though, do I save those lives? What if that makes things worse? What is more people die? Without knowing this I can't claim to be saving lives by killing Hitler.

I guess my morality hasn't changed. Let's add another dimension though. Let's say now I know exactly what will happen if I kill Hitler. 1 million fewer people will die.

So, does killing Hiter change in morality? What if you knew a bomb was going off tomorrow that would kill millions and you refused to stop the person who was going to arm it?

Is that immoral? Are you killing people through neglect? We have a hard time with this question because we never know exactly what the consequences of our actions will be. There will be lots of repercussions and we can guess, but never know.

So, does adding this ability to change the past and perfectly know the future change fundamental aspects of morality?

We don't understand His decisions because our morality is based on having imperfect information. Our entire way of thinking is deeply rooted in the concept making decisions based on partial information and possibly being wrong. We have to account for not knowing what will happen based on our choices.

God doesn't haven't to deal with that and therefore He will act differently.

Conclusion: Incarnation is God Expressed

I think it does and I think here we have one of the biggest problems with knowing God. His knowledge and power are qualitatively different from ours so His morality will be fundamentally different. That just compounds our misunderstandings.

This is why the Incarnation is important. Jesus is God expressed in a language we can understand. His abilities match ours so he will act in the same moral framework.

This is in no way an exhaustive analysis of the situation. I'm just sharing the approach I've been taking when considering questions of the morality of God's actions in the Old Testament and how they mesh the message Jesus shares of "Who God Is" in the New Testament.

I welcome discussion and criticism and will hopefully learn from it.