Epistle to the Romans Resources Online

So far I’ve posted a collection of on-line resources for each of the following: the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and the Acts of the Apostles. The idea was to give a broad range of resources, even some from angles that I don’t necessarily agree with. Further, it wasn’t necessarily a collection of the “best” resources, but rather I wanted to compile a good starting point for venturing deeper into the Gospels.

Well, here is a similar collection for Romans.

Introductions and Outlines and Themes:

Older Sermons, Commentaries, Studies

Modern Sermons, Commentaries, Studies

Pointers to Other Resources

Other Items Not Specific to Romans, But Helpful

Mel Brown Passes Away

This past Sunday, Mel Brown, a bluesman from the Mississippi Delta, died. 
Mel’s first gig was with Sonny Boy Williamson, and he played with many greats such as B.B. King, T-Bone Walker, Stevie Ray Vaughn, and John Lee Hooker.

One point of interest was that Mel Brown actually lived in Kitchener, Ontario (my birth place) since 1989. Of Kitchener, he once said: “‘I love this place. I just love this place”.

Here’s a video of Mel Brown playing Crosstown:

The Folly of The Government’s "War on Drugs"

Introduction

To many the idea of overturning the laws prohibiting various plants and substances known as “illicit drugs” would be sheer lunacy.

The mere suggestion that marijuana be legalized, let alone harder drugs like heroin or cocaine would be a sign to many of the degeneracy of our society.

Also, I understand that some of my Christian brethren are not entirely used to hearing a theologically-conservative Christian question the “war on drugs”.

And yet the litmus test of the negative effect of these plants and substances on society is NOT  their legal status, but instead how they are enslaving people and wrecking their lives. And the reality is that laws against drugs at the best have allowed these problems to flourish, at the worst have made them exponentially worse. A question which I ponder but will not answer here is:  Why do people so tenaciously hang on to drug laws when they have done so little for the cause against drugs?

Before I continue, I wish to refer to the great Austrian economist Ludwig Von Mises, who said the following about drugs and other potentially dangerous substances:

“No words need be wasted over the fact that all these narcotics are harmful. The question whether even a small quantity of alcohol is harmful or whether the harm results only from the abuse of alcoholic beverages is not at issue here. It is an established fact that alcoholism, cocainism, and morphinism are deadly enemies of life, of health, and of the capacity for work and enjoyment; and a utilitarian must therefore consider them as vices. But this is far from demonstrating that the authorities must interpose to suppress these vices by commercial prohibitions, nor is it by any means evident that such intervention on the part of the government is really capable of suppressing them or that, even if this end could be attained, it might not therewith open up a Pandora’s box of other dangers, no less mischievous than alcoholism and morphinism.”

Three Nuances

It is my observation that the people who are most gung-ho about the government’s “war on drugs” have ignored at least three nuances which are very critical to this matter:

1. The difference between a vice and a crime.
2. The difference between condoning an activity and advocating its legality.
3. The difference between the mere presence of enforcement and actual prevention.

Unfortunately, there is a basic inability or perhaps purposeful desire to not understand
these nuances.

Nuance #1 (Vices vs. Crimes)

Ignoring #1 is the ideological foundation of all Nanny States. When criminal law
turns vices into crime, things get foul very quickly. As Lysander Spooner noted, “Crimes
are those acts by which one man harms the person or property of another”. He then went on
to show how “Vices are simply the errors which man makes in his search after his own
happiness. Unlike crimes, they imply no malice towards others, and no interference with
their persons or property”. He then goes on to conclude that

“For a government to declare a vice to be a crime, and to punish it as such, is an attempt to falsify the very nature of things. It is as absurd as it would be to declare truth to be falsehood, or falsehood truth”

The state does not throw adulterers into jail, and yet the adulterer is actually
violating a covenant (or contract) with their spouse. Then why should it throw those in jail whose only offense is against their own body? Drug abuse should be seen as a vice, not a crime.

Nuance #2 (Condoning Use/Abuse vs. Condoning  Legalization)

The most insideous aspect of ignoring nuance #2 is the way it reframes the discussion
in an impossible and ridiculous way. Since the distinction between condoning something
and legalizing it is ignored, of course those of us who support legalization are
falsely portrayed as “advocates of vice”. Since the vast majority of people see drugs,
in some sense, as being dangerous, being an “advocate of drugs” is a losing position in
the public square.  However, wanting something to be legal is NOT the same as condoning it.
And yes, it is possible to be “ridiculously anti-drug” (in the words of Office Space) and yet
be against the state enforcement of laws against drugs.

My stance against drug abuse is by no way decimated or called into question by my opposition to prohibition. In fact, the governments “war on drugs” and the laws it entails are in reality more
“friendly” towards the drug cartels and pushers than they are to those citizens concerned with
the drug problem. Those who want to see less of a drug problem” should, for the sake of their
cause, call on the government to withdraw from the “war on drugs”, for the “war on drugs” has at the best not slowed down the explosion of the drug problem and at worst caused it.

Implicit in the ignorance of this particular nuance is the assumption that the government
“war on drugs” is the only way to try to combat the ill social effects of drugs. It blindly
assumes that anyone who opposes coercive, statist government efforts would propose no other
voluntary methods, such as voluntary organizations, churches, non-coercive campaigns,
education, etc.

My plea to those in favor of the government “war on drugs” is to stop ignoring this nuance.
When you misrepresent pro-legalization people by assuming their advocate drugs, you are being intellectually dishonest. Being against throwing people in prison for drugs no more makes one pro-drugs than being against throwing adulterers into jail makes one pro-adultery. There are many ways to address social problems, and the violence of the state is not the only one.

Nuance #3 (Enforcement vs. Prevention)

By ignoring nuance #3, many errors are also made. The drug laws and the “war on drugs” are put forward as the “finger that stops them dam”. Stop the war on drugs, the reasoning goes, and
the floodgates of drug abuse and societal problems will come forward. But, in reality, that is
not evident. The evidence suggests that at best, these laws things are a poor restraint and have
a very marginal restraining impact on the overall existence of drug abuse. At worst, these laws
are actually making the problem worse. There is, within the evidence, some room to dispute over whether the best or worse case scenario would be true. However, the evidence gives us no room to suggest that the “war on drugs” and the drug laws are having any major success is
stopping or restraining the societal problem of drug abuse. Sure, there have been minor
improvements and shifts from one drug to another as supply changes due to raids, but nothing
permanent or worth writing home about.

For instance, the war on drugs has been a factor (if not the sole cause) of a 50-fold increase
in the price of cocaine. This has undoutedly resulted in making it more enticing from the

perspective of pushers, and certainly has driven more users/addicts to more overtly criminal acts in order to obtain the drug. And, if this increased price has discouraged some users, they most certainly found other, cheaper drugs to consume. Governments do tend to brag about a decrease in cocaine use, but where the rubber meets the road is what we are hearing from the hospitals–they are telling us that over the past 8 years, cocaine overdose cases have quadrupled.

Quite frankly, it appears that in many cases the “cure” is much more harmful than the problem  in the first place. For instance, what has a more likely to have a problematic impact on a kids future: experimentation with or selling of marijuana, or being locked up in a prison  for 10 years?

Some Concluding Thoughts

Although the drug legalization movement has had some very limited successes, due to many factors including the societal climate, the dominance of the “Nanny State”, and the heavy bureaucratic machinery of the drug war, the government’s war on drugs is unlikely to end any time soon. So for the time being, we will see that in the name of “protecting” us from vices, our governments will violate liberties and crowd prisons with people serving inordinately long sentences for either abusing a substance or trying to sell it on the market. And while they do that, the governments will spend themselves into debt during already shaky economic times and conversely they will continue to make drug dealing a particularly lucrative business, and generally make the problem worse.

In the words of Abraham Lincoln to the Illinois House of Representatives in 1840:

“Prohibition will work great injury to the cause of temperance.  It is a species of intemperance within itself, for it goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man’s appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A Prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded.”

This is not intended to be any sort of comprehensive treatise, and many others are far more educated on the subject and can provide more “linking” facts.  But this will at least introduce the topic, I think, and lay some groundwork for understanding this issue more precisely.

Recommended Readings

Wikipedia and Beyond

Back in 2007, Reason magazine had interesting feature on Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales.

I know that’s old news, but I just thought I’d refer to some interesting quotes from that article.

On the influence of Fredrich Hayek:

“Hayek’s work on price theory is central to my own thinking about how to manage the Wikipedia project,” Wales wrote on the blog of the Internet law guru Lawrence Lessig

And again:

Wales has adopted Hayek’s view that change is handled more smoothly by an interlocking network of diverse individuals than by a central planning authority

On Von Mises:

He swears to have actually read Ludwig von Mises’s 10-pound tome Human Action

On Homeschooling:

Wales, whose wife Christine teaches their 5-year-old daughter Kira at home, says he is disappointed by the “factory nature” of American education: “There’s something significantly broken about the whole concept of school.” A longtime opponent of mandatory public school attendance, Wales says that part of the allure of Florida, where his Wikimedia Foundation is based, is its relatively laissez-faire attitude toward homeschoolers.

Social Policy Seminar 2009

Introduction

The Institute for Liberal Studies (a non-partisan liberty-minded organization promoting economics, philosophy, history and policy from a classical liberal perspective) put on a Social Policy Seminar this weekend at the University of Windsor. I attended their Windsor Liberty Seminar last year and it was fantastic (here’s my report on it).

These events provide a much needed balance to much of the intellectual and political climate of this area.

There were less people than last time around and I can’t say the topics/speakers quite blew me away to the extent they did last year. However, it was very well worth attending and the directors involved (Matt Bufton and Janet Neilson) really did a fantastic job in putting on this event.

Dan Rothschild’s Talk

Dan Rothschild spoke on the recovery after Hurricane Katrina. Dan is the associate director of the Mercatus Center’s Global Prosperity Initiative.  In my opinion, this was the best presentation and also had the best discussion period as well.   He presented a compelling treatment of the situation from a classical liberal perspective, and it sure didn’t hurt that he dealt with a situation that is still very fresh in our memories. Dan presented his organization’s approach, which is really quite interesting. They have been conducting economics through field work, something which economists don’t normally do. They are covering the “political economy of every day life”.

Dan’s talk was very conceptual, and brought up a lot of good “frameworks” to understand what is going on, and also to help understand the classical liberal way of understanding disaster response.  He had a very ‘economic’ talk, but really brought it down to a conceptual/philosophical/political level which is very understandible to non-economists.

Dan brought an interesting aspect of the situation when he highlighted the difference between facts and interpretation, illustrating this with the example of “looting” (which is an interpretation of “theft”).  He stressed how that while the difference between facts and interpretation is not always cut and dry, it is an important distinction, because interpretations turn into the histories we write. And he also showed how interpretations which arise from the facts create mental models which subsequently reinforce the way we make subsequent interpretations. Dan also introduced a number of  important concepts such  “rules of the game” and also a three-legged stool (political, social, and economic) as representing the resilience of society.

Dan granted that the classical liberal response to disasters is imperfect, since there really is no silver bullet to emergencies. He presented it as having three I’s:  Innovation, Information, and Incentives.

He talked about the Incentives operative in each actor in a disaster situation. For the politicians, the incentive is to get re-elected. So, the idea is consequently not so much doing the right thing, but rather being seen as doing the right thing. This was illustrated by the fact that George W. Bush was criticized for not appearing on the scene, while really his mere appearance on the scene would really not help the people there in any concrete way.  For the residents, the main incentive is normalcy, to have things return to normal. For entrepreneurs, they want to resume business as normal. A main part of the talk of incentives was how bad policies mute incentives.

He then talked about Information, and how price conveys information and sends meaningful signals.   He presented two basic models of how this works, either bottom-up (which encounters the challenge of nobody wanting to be the first to convey information after a disaster) or top-down (via government planning–where the government substitutes economic information with political information by putting up the details up to a vote). He then talked about the critical aspect of Innovation, which comes about by innovation + incentives

Connected to Dan’s talk were some great discussions of what place planning has, the problems with centralization, and what the government’s involvement in disaster planning/response should be.  He really did a fine job of bringing out audience participation, both in asking questions and responding to questions.

David Beito’s Talk

David Beito is the author of a soon to be published autobiography of T.R.M. Howard, a doctor and black civil rights activist. David is a professor of history at the University of Alabama. He described how he became interested in and was led to write about this fascinating and yet generaly ignored early civil rights activist.

David spoke about Howard’s life, his roots being born in poverty and his involvement in the 7th Day Adventist movement, and his eventual involvement in various fraternal societies in Mississippi.

David focused quite a bit on fraternal societies as both important contextual information regarding Howard’s life, and also as a topic of interest due to their provision of material aid OUTSIDE of the welfare state. An underpinning concept of David’s talk, was how the tradition of mutual aid (outside of the welfare state) really paved the way for the civil rights movement.

Howard  became the first chief surgeon at the Taborian hospital (a hospital founded by a fraternal organization). in Mount Bayou.  Eventually, he became increasingly dissatisfied with this hospital, and founded a hospital across the street (Friendship Clinic). While some would think this would hurt the Taborian hospital, it actually seems like this move may have benefited both establishments.

Besides his involvement with the hospitals, Howard was a really motivated entrepreneur, leading him to start many ventures. A major emphasis of David’s talk was how entrepreneurship played a key role in the civil rights movement in Mississippi.  He commented on how the role of the Black Church is often over-emphasized (though it was very prominent in Alabama) and the role of entrepreneurship in black civil rights is often neglected or disregarded.

Howard was unique in many ways. He combined diplomatic skills and ability to charm even his enemies, with a marked militancy.  Since he was marked out by the Klu Klux Klan he often travelled armed to the teeth. Incidentally, David commented on how early gun controls were mainly targeted towards blacks, and Howard had to frequently pay fines for carrying weapons. He led a successful campaign to boycott gas stations that didn’t provide washrooms for blacks and he also gathered together impressive rallies of 10,000 in small towns of perhaps 1,000 inhabitants.  He was well known for his advocacy in the Emma Till murder case and also his confrontation with the director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover.

David also covered many of Howard eccentricities, the way he was rather ostentatious for a member of a minority group and how he was a game hunter, and how he confronted some of the earliest endangered species acts. And as any good biographer does, David outlined how Howard’s legacy was by no means without considerable controversy. Of particular controversy is how Howard performed illegal abortions (often for white woman) in his clinics, causing many people in the black civil rights movement to distance themselves from him.

John Murray’s Talk

The last talk was by John Murray, who is a professor of economics in Toledo (no.. he’s not John Murray the reformed theologian risen from the dead!).  He spoke of comparing health insurance models from an economic perspective, as opposed to the way it has been presented in historical literature.

John started by sharing how the conventional wisdom is that the American system is broken and the other systems have worked. However, he proposed that instead of taking that approach, we should understand why the American system is unique and why it developed the way it did. He talked about the difference between “Sickness Insurance” and “Health Insurance”, and how these terminologies have become political.

I must say that I had the hardest time following John’s presentation, as relevant and important as the topic is, just because it was steeped in a more academic economic approach. He made a very detailed historico-economic comparison of systems implemented in France, Germany, Britian and other European countries and contrasted them with the trends in the U.S., specifically focusing on “Mutual Benefit Funds”.

John explained “Mutual Benefit Funds” as  small private associations that are alternatives to dependence on the State.  He showed how this concept is NOT unique to the U.S., and how it has also been implemented in the form of “micro insurance” in West Africa.

John put forward the issue of whether the insurance was compulsary or voluntary as the key question and also the main focal point of his comparative studies. He also drew attention to te issue of who pay sfor it? Whether the workers, which can involve direct or indirect payment, or whether te employer, or the State (which of course trickles down to the workers indirectly). He also spoke of some “non-member” payments systems. Which included deriving the funds by putting on various forms of “entertainment” as well as a “honorary member” model. The “Honorary Member” model involved a sort of civic minded bourguise which contributed into the funds while opting out of benefits. This system became problematic, because even though these honorary members opted out of benefits, they did have “expectations” in return.

John talked about the role of “informal asymmetries”, such as “moral hazard” (the change of behavior because a person is covered by insurance) and “adverse selection (how people who need insurance are more likely to sign up for it–voluntary funds tend to attract older, sicker workers). He also talked quite a bit about how compulsary funds resulted in increasing paid absences, while voluntary funds resulted in declining paid absences.

According to historical literature, the U.S. turned out different than other systems because either: 1. Various actors (doctors, employers, insurance companies) opposed government health care. 2. It was known that there was too much corruption in government for them to handle such a large fund. 3. Too much democracy was present, and the whole progression of health insurance was held up by the process of democracy. John then made a number of comments on these, and showed ow each assumption is not really satisfactory.

John brought out an interesting point when he highlighted how the progressives who were pushing reforms had a very negative view of the working class. He also showed how the mutual health funds were actually popular, and the progressives reforms were normally opposed by the majority of the working class, there was never really wide-spread working class interest in government insurance.  He also made the point that while the progressive’s vision of health insurance may have delivered slightly more benefits, it was also far more costly than the American system of mutal health funds, requiring far more to be deducted off paychecks.  Ultimately, the mutal health fund system was a more efficient use of the workers money, which is really the best explanation of why the American system turned out the way it did.

I don’t know how well I covered this particular talk since it sort of lost me at a few points, but I think I’ve covered some of the main themes in a descent amount of detail. I must confess I got sort of tired during this topic, though I know the economic-history buffs in the room were just drooling!

Concluding Remarks

Now that I’ve given the wraps on the topics, I’d like to mention that I got another signed book by a great Canadian philosopher, Jan Narveson:  “Respecting Persons in Theory and Practice”.  He’s a retired professor of philosophy from the University of Waterloo, and apparently he’s Canada’s most published philosopher.  Another highlight was the short chat a friend and I was able to have with him. It sort of got cut off by a presentation, and unfortunately we never got to continue it!

The seminar cost $20, which includes cofee/tea and a pretty good lunch! These events are well worth attending, if you can show up next time they put it on! It will be sure to challenge and inform you. Even if you don’t agree with everything, you will find that these events have topics that are well-thought-out with very intelligent speakers. And the organizers really want to get the attendees involved with break-out sessions and what not as well, giving you a chance to chime in.

Please Stay Out Of Iran

Luke Knapp has posted a link to 10 reasons, from a conservative perspective, why a war with Iran should be avoided.   I wholeheartedly agree and think these are some very good, sound reasons. I hope the “cooler heads” prevail (if there are any to be found in today’s political environment) and Iran is not attacked. Unfortunately, the thrust to attack Iran comes from both the Right and the Left, and many elements of Obama’s cabinet are quite eager to confront Iran.

With risk of greatly oversimplifying the situation, there is a bit of an ironic tension in place. The USA probably wants to invade, bomb, or otherwise interfere with Iran at least partly to prevent the development of nuclear arms.  And, on the other hand, it seems apparent to me that Iran has little reason to develop nuclear arms outside of their value as a repellent to such invasions.

I think the supposed “threat” of Iran is greatly overblown.  No doubt, they are a major regional power. And their power in their region has been greatly increased since the USA has toppled the Iraq regime, creating a great imbalance in the regions dynamics. But I have a hard time believing that they would be any serious threat to a USA which had a principled foreign policy of non-intervention.

As much as a menace Iran supposedly is, they are very much a localized power, and really in the final analysis shouldn’t be a threat to the USA, at least not if the USA stuck to worrying about its own interests and the safety and welfare of its own people.  A non-interventionist foreign policy would go a long way towards marginalizing Iran.

You might also be interested to check out The Big Lie: “Iran is a Threat” by Scott Ritter, a Marine Corps intelligence officer from 1984 to 1991 and a United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998.

God and the Social Sciences

Now, the first judgment of the reason, the preamble of every
political constitution seeking a sanction and a principle, is
necessarily this:  THERE IS A GOD; which means that society is
governed with design, premeditation, intelligence.  This
judgment, which excludes chance, is, then, the foundation of the
possibility of a social science; and every historical and
positive study of social facts, undertaken with a view to
amelioration and progress, must suppose, with the people, the
existence of God, reserving the right to account for this
judgment at a later period.

(J.P. Proudhon in The Philosophy of Misery)

Watts' Perception of Christianity

Continuing to process some material from Alan Watts’ autobiography, I now will outline some of his perceptions of Christianity, mainly formed from his early youth within Anglican Christianity. This comes from two chapters, “Tantum Religio” and “I Go To Buddha for Refuge”.

These points which I refer to in this post are not so much a philosophical or theological critique of Christianity, but they are more so practical, biographical, and aesthetical anecdotes which relate how he views the Christianity he was brought up in. Imagine them scattered throughout a biography, because that is precisely what they are.

I would like to get this out of the way before going into some more central philosophical and theological issues that are raised.

Christianity as The World’s Most Talkative Religion

Here Watts’ sees most of Christianity’s observances as nothing beyond chatter, telling “God what he ought and ought not to do, and inform him of things which he is already well aware, such as that they are miserable sinners, and proceed to admonish one another to feel guilt and regret about abominable behavior which they have not the least intention of changing” (p48-49).

He then proceds to claim that if God is the Christian God, “he would be beside himself with boredom listening to their whinings and flatteries, their redundant requests and admonitions, not to mention the asinine poems set to indifferent tunes which are solemnly addressed to him as hymns” (p49).

Haunted By Hymns

In the previous quote, you will notice the negative reference to the hymns. This theme comes up again a few pages later. He says that he was “haunted by hymns” (p52), and perhaps in a tounge-in-cheek way said “I have thought of composing a book entitled Hymns Haunting and Horrible, bound in dark blue cloth..containing versical and musical parodies of these preposterously infantile ecclesiastical dities…They are wretched bombastic, moralistic, and maudlin nursery rhymes”  (p52).

Church Buildings

Watts also had some strong words regarding church architecture. He refered to Presbyterians, Baptists, and Methodists having a “strange genius for worshipping God in buildings that looked like obscene mixtures of churches and factories–all entirely devoid of color” (p54).

Empty Sermons

Watts saw the sermons he heard as convenying “nothing beyond the emotional energy of their funny voices” (p55).

A Lack of Gaity

Watts complains about a lack of gaity in Christianity, and also in the Christian view of God. He says (p60):

“A particular lightness, joyousness, and exuberance of mind and attitude? The opposite…of that high seriousness which has so afflicted us all..and which I am simply incapable of understanding. A priest once quoted to me the Roman saying that a religion is dead when the priests laugh at each other across the altar…I always laugh at the altar…because real religion is the transformation of anxiety into laughter…

But this gaiete d’espirit was entirely lacking in the religious atmosphere of my childhood, although I found it later in the Christianity of [Chesterton, Belloc, Temple, Dix, and Graham]…Throughout my schooling the religious indoctrination was grim and maudlin…As I attained puberty I had to escape it, and therefore took refuge in Buddhism”

He brings up this theme again in a bit more of an autobiographical and word-picture fashion in the next chapter when he says (p73-74):

“As I have said, I simply couldn’t get along with the Christian God. He was a bombastic bore, and not at all the sort of fellow you would want to entertain for dinner, because you would be sitting on the edge of your chair listening to his subtle attempts to undermine your existence and to probe the unauthentic nature of your life. He was like the school chaplain who took you aside for a VERY SERIOUS TALK. He had no gaiete d’espirit, no charm, no lilt, no laughter, no sensual delight in the world of nature which he had supposedly created.

Fighting Over Definitions and Words

Watts also launches an attack on Christianity’s insistance on paying close attention to and fighting over the definition of theological terms. He said :

“I kept wondering and wondering what was the hang-up of the British and Europeans in general, about being definite and precise regarding hte nature of either the deity or the nondeity. They had fought battles over the problem of whether God the Son, the Second Person of the Trinity, was homoousios or homoiousios…They slaughtered women and children and laid fields waste in verbal quarrels about transubstantiationism…As an unabashed pantheist I am naturally a full-blooded transubstantiationist, knowing full well that the ground wheat of bread and the crushed grapes of wine are the body and blood of Christ, the Anointed One…But I’m not going to go to war about it, nor sizzle…those who don’t agree with me…

I regard my more remote European forefathers who engaged in these quarrels as utterly insane. They were hopelessly confused and hypnotized by their languages, by the crude linear symbolisms wherewith they sought to make “sense” of the world…

Notions of God, of the ultimate reality or the ground of being, must be necessarily vague…Verbal definitions of God in the form of creeds, dogmas, and doctrines are far more dangerous idols than statues made of wood, stone, or gold, because they have the deceptive appearance of  being more “spiritual,” and because a creedally formulated God has been reduced to words, and is no longer experienced immediately” (p74-76).

To be fair, Watts also applies this critique consistently to Bertrand Russell also and says (p76):

“such an articulate, amusing, and reasonable atheist as Bertrand Russell was also hypnotized with words–with endless talk about talk, with making, as the French say, precises about this and that–all of which is an intellectual game of chess having little to do with the realities of nature”

So here you have six critiques, based upon experience, which Watts brings forward against Christianity. For now I will leave them unanswered, perhaps touching on them a bit as I delve further in future posts and comment on his worldview.

Pragmatism as a Lobotomy

Psychologically, Pragmatism lobotomized the country’s intellectuals: John Dewey’s theory of “Progressive” education (which has dominated the schools for close to half a century), established a method of crippling a child’s conceptual faculty and replacing cognition with “social adjustment”. It was and is a systematic attempt to manufacture tribal mentalities.

(Philosophy: Who Needs It, Ayn Rand, Signet, 1994, p43)

Watts on Kipling & the Orient

As outlined in a previous post I’m going through a number of post referring to some things that Alan Watts has written in his autobiography. Here is a short excerpt which refers to the influence Rudyard Kipling had on him

It was in this room, with its flavor of Oriental magic, that my father in his perfectly unostentiatious King’s English accent, read to me the tales and poems of that much maligned and misunderstood author, Rudyard Kipling…Today, Kipling is largely regarded as an imperialist and jingoist whose writings represented British colonialism at its most aggressive peak. Yes and no. Kipling was one of the major channels through which the high culture of India and the Himalayas flowed back into the West, and persauded me, for example, through such books as Kim, to have more sympathy for Buddhism than Christianity. Kipling was not a Max Muller or an Arthur Waley on the level of fine Oriental scholarship, but he spoke in a subtle and roundabout way to the emotions in the solar plexus, the manipura chakra, and thus echanted a small boy with curious, exotic, and far-off marvels that were simply not to be found in the muscular Christianity of the (Low Church) Church of England or the boild-beef-and-carrots English middle-class way of life.

(In My Own Way: An Autobiography, Alan Watts, 1972, p25)

The Garden of Eden in Schopenhauer and Watts

The narrative of the fall in the Garden of Eden is of utmost important to the Christian faith, particularly in explaining The Fall, Sin, and redemption.

Non-Christian thinkers have also recognized the importance of the Garden of Eden. Individually, they have assessed it in different ways, some ridiculing it and others outlining its importance and yet reinterpreting it allegorically. In effect both of these poles entail rejecting its meaning as defined by Christianity.  But one way or the other, these thinkers have rightly understood how crucial the Garden and The Fall are in the Christian understanding of history.

First, I wish to refer to what Arthur Schopenhauer has to say about it. He simultaneously gives it credit as being a uniquely important part of the Old Testament, and yet  simultaneously frames it allegorically:

Accordingly, the sole thing that reconciles me to the Old Testament is the story of the Fall. In my eyes, it is the only metaphysical truth in that book, even though it appears in the form of an allegory. There seems to me no better explanation of our existence than that it is the result of some false step, some sin of which we are paying the penalty.

(The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Studies in Pessimism, )

Next, I will refer to Alan Watts (for an explanation as to why I am venturing into studying some of his thought, please read this post), who is far more overtly flippant and careless with interpreting the story.

This is, of course, what happened to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and perhaps it was an unripe apple that made Eve ill. It is not usually understood that she was a little girl and Adam a little boy, because they are always portrayed as mature adults, but they were obviously a couple of kids scrounging around Big Daddy’s garden. Having thoroughly satisfied themselves on gooseberries, raw peas, and green apples, they hid between the tomato parts and began to examine each other’s private parts. But just then Big Daddy came along and said, “God damn it, get the hell out of here, you little bastards!”

(In My Own Way: An Autobiography, Alan Watts, 1972, p22)

As you can see, Schopenhauer’s approach avoids the vulgarity and flippancy of that of Watts. And Watts makes a number of inferences that are pretty far out there, probably mainly tounge-in-cheek..I don’t think he’s that ignorant of the details of the Garden Narrative.

However, when it comes down to it, the truth is that both are playing fast and loose with God’s revelation, and ultimately picking out parts that they want.  Just because Schopenhauer frames his terms in a less confrontational manner, does he mean he is ultimately treating God’s revelation with any more reverence than Watts.  In fact, while Watts may seem rather sacriligous, it appears that if anything, Watts for all his unbelief better understood the theological impact of the garden narrative than Schopenhauer.  He understood it could not be simply explained away by making it allegorical.

Schopenhauer thought he could affirm The Fall’s importance (while relegating the rest of Old Testament revelation to uselessness) by relegating it to the allegorical. Alan Watts seemed to better understand the interconnectedness, and rather takes a skewed interpretation of the narrative, which is ultimately wrong but retains the seriousness of it. In a footnote, Watts also explains his vulgar language in describing the narrative with the following statement:

The vulgar language is, as always, soundly grounded in theology. In the Catholic and Christian scheme of things we are sons of God by adoption and grace, not by nature, since God has only one Son, rendering the rest of us bastards essentially damned and in hell.

(In My Own Way: An Autobiography, Alan Watts, 1972, p22)

So, while both Schopenhauer and Watts present The Fall framed in a context of unbelief, the “less overt” unbelief (of Schopenhauer)  is in some limited ways less insidious than the “more overt” unbelief (Watts).  Schopenhauer couches his unbelief in feigned respect for the narrative and appeals to allegory, while Watts is more direct and clear in his unbelief.  And it appears to me that this signals that Watts is actually the one who better understands (but of course, rejects) the real meaning of The Fall. I would say that the unbelief of Schopenhauer has done more damage, simply because it is couched in language that by nature appeals more to the Christian church and people with Christian language.  In Alan Watts’ assesment, there is a stark contrast between belief unbelief, but in Schopenhauer there is a dangerous ambivalence which mirrors the way the modernists of “liberal Christianity” have similarily done much damage by making their unbelief “more palpable”.

Acts of the Apostles Resources Online

A while ago, I posted a collection of online resources for the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.  The idea was to give a broad range of resources, even some from angles that I don’t necessarily agree with. Further, it wasn’t necessarily a collection of the “best” resources, but rather I wanted to compile a good starting point for venturing deeper into the Gospels.

Well, here is a similar collection for the Acts of the Apostles.

Introductions and Outlines and Themes:

Older Sermons, Commentaries, Studies

Modern Sermons, Commentaries, Studies

Pointers to Other Resources

Other Items Not Specific to Luke, But Helpful

Why I'll Be Covering Alan Watts Some More..

I’m going to be launching into some quotes/references  to Alan Watts’ autobiography called “In My Own Way”.  It certainly is not because I condone his worldview, in fact my worldview is quite different than his!

I’ve previously posted some references to the writings of Alan Watts, a now deceased scholar/lecturer famed for really being the one who more than anyone else spoke Eastern religious/philosophical principles successfully to a Western audience. One thing that really struck me in his “The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are” was how deeply he understood the way the “gaze” of the Christian God deeply disturbs people. He really provided a window into his perspective on the Christian view of God–which reflects how non-Christians view God in general.  You can read some excerpts and my reflections in an older blog post from my previous blog. Reading what Watts wrote really struck me deeply, just to see how deeply he understood the crux of the issue and yet walked away from it rejecting the Christian conception of God.

Watts was born in England, became an Anglican Bishop and eventually left that, and made it to California.  His alcoholism later in life probably shortened his life quite a bit.

Watts was a patient, thoughtful lecturer who gave his pupils a lot of respect and really clearly communicated what he believed. He was witty, engaging, and an appealing figurehead.  He was humorous, but not excessively. He was forceful, but not abrasive.  In many ways he was a sort of “Francis Schaeffer” for Eastern Religion. Generally appealing to the counterculture, very apt to listen and answer questions, understanding, willing to communicate in new ways that challenge the status quo, etc. In a number of different ways His religious/philosophical views were eclectic, but probably most closely identified with Zen Buddhism.

My main motive in reading this book and also posting quotes is to really understand Eastern Religion better on an apologetical level, and also help other Christians towards the same. Its very easy for us to misunderstand Eastern Religion, and I think Watts provides a good starting point for getting a better and more effective understanding.  Also, secondarily Watts is simply an engaging and entertaining writer. Some of the things he wrote are quite quoteable and worth thinking about.  Sometimes I will merely quote him. Other times I will quote him and pose questions or respond with thoughts or critiques. I trust that readers will both get a better picture of the thought patterns of an Eastern Religionist/Philosopher, and also perhaps in some minor ways be better equipped to engage these ideas apologetically from a Christian standpoint,

Neither Here Nor There (Again)

It appears I’ve hit some sort of blogging dry spell. No post in exactly a week! So, this calls for another issue of “Neither Here Nor There”.