NOTES FOR THE UNDERGROUND

Are you breathing? Could you just check? You are? Great. Okay. So here’s my proposal for your Thanksgiving day: Thank God you’re alive. Not that you’re happy or healthy or doing well otherwise. Just that you’re actually alive and not, not alive.

I don’t think about this very much and I probably wouldn’t think about it at all if I hadn’t read the great Christian writer G. K. Chesterton. He was big on this. Among my favorite quotes: “When we were children we were grateful to those who filled our stockings at Christmas time. Why are we not grateful to God for filling our stockings with legs? We thank people for birthday presents of cigars and slippers. Can I thank no one for the birthday present of birth?”

I hope I’d sense the gift of life, but I’m not sure I’d see it clearly enough to think about it. Life keeps you so busy that you don’t remember that you’re living.

The truth is: We don’t have to be here. As the philosophers put it, we’re all contingent beings in a contingent world. We depend for our life on something else — or rather Someone else. God not only created man because he loves man in general but he created you and me because he loves us, and he keeps us in existence because he loves us. That’s a gift any way you look at it.

We read in old books about men being given keys to the city and what was called “the freedom of the city.” It meant that even when the city was feeling defensive and locked the gates, they could let themselves in and wander about at will and enjoy everything the city had to offer. God gave us the key to the world when he made us.

What I suggest for Thanksgiving is … not that you asked, but if you’ve read this far you must be interested … is to sit down in a quiet place by yourself, some time in the morning before the day gets busy and certainly before the kickoff of the Philadelphia-Detroit game at 12:30. (And go Lions, because another Eagles loss will put them another half game behind the Giants and that is A GOOD THING.) When you’re sitting down, pick maybe three things from the list below and think about each one as systematically as you can. Think of all its aspects and thank God for each of them.

Let’s take “body” for an example. Have you ever realized what an amazing thing the human body is? I’d never thought about it until I came across an essay by the writer Andre Dubus, who’d lost both his legs after being hit by a car.... asked readers to imagine that they’d only have in heaven what they’d thanked God for on earth.

I think he asked if we’d ever thought to thank God for our hands and arms. I hadn’t. Never occurred to me.

I knew to thank God for the obvious things. I remember once, as a barely Christianized teenager, driving down a country road in a snow storm very late at night. I knew what I was doing and was creeping along when the car broke traction and began to spin slowly around as it glided down the road. It finally settled with the softest of landings into a snow bank and I reversed out and went home. I could easily have hit a tree and been badly hurt on a road that few people travelled, and could have laid injured in the wrecked till morning. Or just gotten stuck in the bitter cold for hours. Or I might have been driving on the highway when the car lost traction and been hit by a truck. It may have been the laws of physics or God’s hand that saved me, but I knew to say a prayer of thanks.

But about my hands and arms. Nope. Never thought of thanking God for those. But they are actually really, really useful. And incredibly well designed. If your right arm was a gadget you’d gotten for Christmas, you’d be happy as a clam. (If you’re a guy, and a nerd. Everyone else, think up your own examples.) The right arm is a thing to thank God for, the way you’d thank him for keeping you from hitting at tree on a country road at one in the morning.

So if you choose body, maybe start with your toes and think about what gifts they are and thank God for them. If you’re old enough, they probably look funny, but you’d look funnier without them, and they help you walk and run and get from the couch to the refrigerator and back during time outs. Then think about your foot, and your ankle, and your calf — think how useful it is just in connecting your ankle and your knee and letting you move like a human being — and your knee, and so on all the way up to the bald spot. (If you’re an older male with an unfortunate generic inheritance.) Include the parts  you don’t talk about, because they are fearfully and wondrously made.

Even if, like me, some parts no longer work as well as they did, you’ll still find that God’s given you a greater gift than you ever realized, and you ought to thank him for it. Every part of your body is God’s gift to you.

That’s the idea. Here is the list of subjects. It is incomplete but a start. Start thanking.

Body

Physical and intellectual gifts

Parents

Siblings

Grandparents and other relatives

Ancestors

Childhood friends

Adulthood friends

Husband or Wife

Children and pets

Good influences (pastors, friends, writers, especially writers, etc.)

Strangers who’ve been kind to you

Home

Neighborhood and town, including neighbors, businessmen, police, etc.

Schools and teachers

Job and co-workers (this may just be “thank you I’ve got one”)

Church (local and national), including pastor(s) and fellow members

The Scriptures

Aid, public and private

Public infrastructure (the sewage system, for example, because just think about life without it)

Technology that makes your life better

Modern medicine

The Detroit Lions (if they win)

“We're drowning in information and starving for knowledge.” - Rutherford D. Rogers "Information is an asset; it is a tool, but it is no more than that. Information is not virtuous; it is not an end in itself. If we are to live virtuous lives in the aftermath of this digital explosion, we must learn to deal with unending sources of information, and how to survive amid its constant flow. As we deal with increasing levels of information, we have to develop skills to distinguish between what is important and what is mundane.

We are becoming a people whose knowledge is a mile wide and an inch deep. The Bible seems to tell us that it would be far better to know fewer things, but to know those things on a much deeper level. Virtue is not in the accumulation of facts, in winning a game on Jeopardy, but in living a life marked by wisdom, by the application of knowledge. If we are to live in this way, we must be willing to step outside the torrent of information; we must be willing to understand that information is a great servant but a lousy master. As Christians, it is imperative that we live in ways that are marked with wisdom born of deep knowledge. Our theology tells us that we must live distinctly Christian lives, lives marked by God’s wisdom. And in order to do this, we must have knowledge of who God is and what he requires of us. 

Our experience tells us that we are prone to lose knowledge in the midst of all of the data and information that surrounds us. Our increasing distractions, our growing number of stimuli, keep us from being able to ponder information, to take what we know and have it inform how we live.

And our theory of technology informs us that amid all of the opportunity that comes to us through the many new sources of information, we also bear an associated risk - that the very information we love will overwhelm us.

How can we live in the sweet spot between them?

Get wisdom. In a culture obsessed with information, we have found that more information does not necessarily mean we will have any more knowledge or wisdom. In fact, the very opposite may be true. It may well be that less information will lead to greater wisdom. Without the distraction of dealing with vast amounts of information and without overtaxing our brains with hundreds of sources of information, we will have the time to know more about less. “The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom, and whatever you get, get insight” (Proverbs 4:7). Above all else, know and understand the difference between information, knowledge, and wisdom, and always seek information that can be turned into useful knowledge and wisdom to live by."

Throughout history people have been awed and thrilled by retellings of their culture’s creation story. Aztecs would tell of the Lady of the Skirt of Snakes, Phoenicians about the Zophashamin, and Jews and Christians about the one true God”Jehovah. But there is one unfortunate group”the children of atheistic materialists”that has no creation myth to call its own. When an inquisitive tyke asks who created the sun, the animals, and mankind, their materialist parents can only tell them to read a book by Carl Sagan or Richard Dawkins. But what sort of story are they likely to find? Should they be told, as famed astrophysicist Stephen Hawking claims in his recent book The Grand Design that “the universe . . . create[d] itself from nothing”? Since Hawking’s explanation is a bit too drab and nospecific for bedtime reading I’ve decided to take the elements of materialism and shape them into a purportedly accurate, though mythic, narrative. This is what our culture has been missing for far too long”a creation story for young atheistic materialists.

******

Russel Moore:

Christianity is dying. At least, that’s what major newspapers are telling us today, culling research from a new Pew Center study on what almost all sociologists are observing these days—the number of Americans who identify as Christians has reached an all-time low, and is falling. I think this is perhaps bad news for America, but it is good news for the church.

The heavens frighten us; they are too calm; In all the universe we have no place. Our wounds are hurting us; where is the balm? Lord Jesus, by thy scars we know thy grace. The other gods were strong; but thou wast weak; They rode, but thou didst stumble to a throne; But to our wounds only God’s wounds can speak, And not a god has wounds, but thou alone.

“Total eclipses of the Sun as seen from the surface of the earth may be described as both 'useful' and ‘exceptional.’  Apart from the deep awe they inspire in every people group from remote tribes to astrophysicists, these eclipses allow us to study the Sun’s corona, test general relativity, and calculate the slowdown of the earth’s rotation. They are exceptional in that they are nearly ‘perfect;’ that is, the earth and Moon are similar in size, the solar and lunar profiles on the sky are nearly perfect circles, and the Sun appears to be larger when it is viewed from Earth than when it is viewed from any other planet with moons. The likelihood of finding this combination of features is remote. Of the roughly 65 natural satellites (moons) in the solar system, none even comes close to producing such clear and spectacular eclipses.

Utilitarian Atheists Aren’t "Just as Moral," They’re "Differently Moral"  

Christopher Hitchens used to insist that atheists were as moral as Christians, challenging, “Name one moral action performed by a believer that could not have been done by a nonbeliever.” But as I said long ago, the claim that “atheists are as moral as Christians” is meaningless if we’re operating under different systems of morality.

This week, Richard Dawkins was a perfect example of this as he set off a firestorm with his tweets about Down syndrome children. Here’s the interaction that set it off:

He said even more than that as he continued to defend his original tweet (including the regrettably true statement, “Apparently I'm a horrid monster for recommending what actually happens to the great majority of Down Syndrome foetuses. They are aborted”), but you get the idea.

Within Dawkins’s moral system, it is actually immoral not to abort a Down syndrome child. In his eventual apology for creating a controversy, he explained why:

If your morality is based, as mine is, on a desire to increase the sum of happiness and reduce suffering, the decision to deliberately give birth to a Down baby, when you have the choice to abort it early in the pregnancy, might actually be immoral from the point of view of the child's own welfare….

My true intention was, as stated at length above, simply to say what I personally would do, based upon my own assessment of the pragmatics of the case, and my own moral philosophy which in turn is based on a desire to increase happiness and reduce suffering.

So you see? Dawkins’s recommendation to “abort it and try again” was perfectly moral within his own system of morality. If nothing else, this incident has brought some clarification:

A system that adds up potential happiness, weighs it against potential suffering, and chooses to “increase the sum of happiness” (at least, according the reckoning of the person doing the adding and the weighing) kills Down syndrome children before they can be born.

A system that upholds the value and dignity of every human being regardless of his or her abilities or characteristics because we’re all made in the image of God protects, cherishes, and loves them.

There is no “just as moral" here; we’re differently moral. And as long as God gives me the ability, I will fight to convince people that the moral system built on our being made in the image of God is the true one.

"Whence is it that Nature doth nothing in vain; and whence arises all that Order and Beauty which we see in the World? To what end are Comets, and whence is it that Planets move all one and the same way in Orbs concentrick, while Comets move all manner of ways in Orbs very excentrick; and what hinders the fix’d Stars from falling upon one another? How came the Bodies of Animals to be contrived with so much Art, and for what ends were their several Parts? Was the Eye contrived without Skill in Opticks, and the Ear without Knowledge of Sounds? How do the Motions of the Body follow from the Will, and whence is the instinct in Animals? Is not the Sensory of Animals that place to which the sensitive Substance is present, and into which the sensible Species of Things are carried through the Nerves and Brain, that there they may be perceived by their immediate presence to that Substance? And these things being rightly dispatch’d, does it not appear from Phaenomena that there is a Being incorporeal, living, intelligent, omnipresent, who in infinite Space, as it were in his Sensory, sees the things themselves intimately, and thoroughly perceives them, and comprehends them wholly by their immediate presence to himself: Of which things the Images only carried through the Organs of Sense into our little Sensoriums, are there seen and beheld by that which in us perceives and thinks. And though every true Step made in this Philosophy brings us not immediately to the Knowledge of the first Cause, yet it brings us nearer to it, and on that account is to be highly valued."

Sam Kee:

Albert Camus wrote a book in 1942 called The Stranger. He mainly wanted to show how absurd life was—how the little things in life turn out to be big things. Through a series of thoughtless events, the main character, Meursault, finds himself awaiting execution for killing a man.

At the end of the book, Meursault is ranting about his fate, unable to comprehend the absurdity of it all. He looks at his looming execution, which he rightly recognizes as an “ultimate” sort of thing. To decide whether one lives or dies, and to carry out that sentence, is a mammoth matter. The thing he couldn’t get over was this, that his execution would be performed by a guy “who changed his underwear.”

In other words, it’s absurd to realize that such an ultimate act could be performed by a finite mortal, a bumbling human, a creature who is no better than any other creature—a man who has to get dressed every morning. Perhaps Meursault preferred his executioner to be someone who was above changing his underwear? At least then his death would have a bit more dignity?

Whether or not to grant life or take life seems to be a profound decision, one that should not be left to mere mortals. Yet every day, every hour, human beings are administering their power over life as only God should be allowed to do. It’s absurd to think that guys who change their underwear would walk into a building in Paris and blow up people at work. It’s absurd to think that mere mortals would sneak into a school and kill children. And yet we hear other people who voice their disgust over the authorities—also people who change their underwear—who execute the same sort of judgment over the lives of the culprits. Everyone cries incongruence. But this is just the echoing voice of Camus, who pointed out the absurdity of mortals operating in ultimate ways.

Lurking in the shadows of humanity is another Stranger. Though he came from another world, his life embraced human absurdity and incongruence to the max. This Stranger did not take any lives; he did not blow up anything; and he did not perform any executions. He did not commit any crimes, kept no record of right or wrong, and did not seek vengeance. Yet he was a Stranger who changed his underwear, grew tired and hungry, and had an appetite for tears.

He came into this tragic world from a perfectly good world, heaven, in order to subject himself to our cruelty. Our redemption came through his condemnation, and our rescue came through his abandonment. He did not take life but gave it away in absurd amounts. He gave second chances, he opened his heart, and he brought restoration. His “reward” for all of this was trial, torture, and death.

There is no more absurd character than Jesus, the Stranger of strangers, whose love compelled him to face the onslaught of punishment that our sins deserved—bravely, calmly, and controlled. Yes, one sinner who takes the life of another sinner is absurd; but infinitely more absurd is one sinless Person who gives his life for sinners. Jesus was not one finite person making an ultimate decision, he was one Ultimate Person making the decision to be finite.

The child born in the night among beasts. The sweet breath and steaming dung of beasts. And nothing is ever the same again.

Those who believe in God can never in a way be sure of him again. Once they have seen him in a stable, they can never be sure where he will appear or to what lengths he will go or to what ludicrous depths of self-humiliation he will descend in his wild pursuit of man. If holiness and the awful power and majesty of God were present in this least auspicious of all events, this birth of a peasant's child, then there is no place or time so lowly and earthbound but that holiness can be present there too. And this means that we are never safe, that there is no place where we can hide from God, no place where we are safe from his power to break in two and recreate the human heart because it is just where he seems most helpless that he is most strong, and just where we least expect him that he comes most fully. For those of us who believe in God, it means, this birth, that God himself is never safe from us, and maybe that is the dark side of Christmas, the terror of the silence. He comes in such a way that we can always turn him down, as we could crack the baby's skull like an eggshell or nail him up when he gets too big for that.

Freeman Dyson:

EnV:

Writing recently about the Golden Ratio, we described how spiral shells grow according to that special ratio, designated by the Greek letter phi (φ = 1.618...), based on the Fibonacci series, that the human eye finds pleasing. Since hurricanes and spiral galaxies also follow the same proportions, it seems that natural laws can explain how non-living spirals in hurricanes and galaxies will grow, but living things like ammonite shells require genetic instructions. This is evidence of intelligent design, because no natural law pulls silicon out of seawater and fashions it into exquisite spirals without being directed by a code. The ubiquity of φ in so many unrelated phenomena, both living and nonliving, suggests a deeper level of design in the universe.

Now two scientists from South Africa say that φ is the key to unifying all of science. A news item from the University of Witwatersrand ("Wits" for short) in Johannesburg summarizes an article of scientific correspondence by Jan Boeyens, a former Wits University Professor and now at the Centre for Advancement of Scholarship at the University of Pretoria, and Professor Francis Thackeray, a paleontologist at Wits University's Evolutionary Studies Institute. Writing in the South African Journal of Science, "Number Theory and the Unity of Science," Boeyens and Thackeray relate an astonishing list of apparently unrelated phenomena that follow the Golden Ratio:

The curl of an elephant tusk

The shape of a kudu's horn

Hurricane spirals

The distribution of planets in the solar system

A biological species constant, T

The spiral structure of the cochlea ear-bone in a fossil hominin

The logarithmic spirals of galaxies

The structure of DNA

The growth of many plants (phyllotaxis)

The Periodic Table of the Elements

Spiral shells of certain mollusks, like snails

Spiral shells of living and extinct ammonites

Stress patterns in nanomaterials

The stability of atomic nuclides

The topology of space-time

Luc Ferry:

Philosophy is the best training for living, better even than history and the human sciences. Why? Quite simply because virtually all of our thoughts, convictions and values exist and have meaning – whether or not we are conscious of it – within models of the world that have been developed over the course of intellectual history. We must understand these models in order to grasp their reach, their logic and their consequences...

Douglas Wilson:

God knew that we were going to need to pick up dimes, and so He gave us fingernails. He knew that twilights displayed in blue, apricot, and battle gray would be entirely astonishing and beyond us, and so He gave us eyes that can see in color. He could have made all food quite nourishing, but which tasted like wadded up newspaper soaked in machine oil. Instead He gave us the tastes of watermelon, pecans, oatmeal stout, buttered corn, apples, fresh bread, grilled sirloin, and 25-year-old scotch. And He of course knew that we were going to need to thank Him and so He gave us hearts and minds.