The Problem of Free Will

In his book Chosen by God, I found RC Sproul's analysis of free will very helpful, arguing that indeed no one is indeed as free we think. He uses the analogy of Alice in Wonderland to demonstrate his point:

Consider Alice's dilemma. Actually she had four options from which to choose. She could have taken the left fork or the right fork. She also could have chosen to retutn the way she had come. Or she could have stood fixed at the spot of indecision until she died there. For her to take a step in any direction, she would need some motivation or inclination to do so. Without any motivation, any prior inclination, her only real option would be to stand there and perish.

Indeed if we were to argue Alice had equal inclination, namely she had equal will to walk in whichever direction she chose, again she would have stayed on the same spot and perished. We must therefore reject the equal-will theory as not only illogical, but as wholly unbiblical.

Big Babies 3 - Sorry, whats with all the cameras?

''America spied on all its citizens' telephone calls, Britain is building the most invasive database ever (one the Soviets of the Maoists would have killed for, and indeed did kill for, but all the same didn't actually get), there are cameras everywhere, we are tracked and corralled and monitored as surely as any baby in a nursery playpen, and we make the mistake of believing that this is about security.

We are mistaken. Security is all about this. There was a time (was there?) when the law eisted to enshrine various rights: for example, the right not to be killed as you went about your business, and the right for rich people to tell eveyerone else to f%*k off. The rest of it - constabularies, watchmen, narks, baliffs, dossiers, interrogation rooms and so on - was there to support the implementation of the law.

Now things have subtly changed. More and more, the law exists to ratify surveillance. Governments do not enact laws and then consider how to enforce them; governments begin with the idea of enforcement, and work back to the laws that would legitimise them.''

Big Babies 2 - Why iPods suck

Here is another quote from Michael Bywater's book, Big Babies. In chapter 5 he addresses the problem of entertainment, arguing that distraction has become one of the hallmarks of our age, lamenting in particular about the proliferation of the use of personal stereo equipment. Those little, 'cultish' white ear buds (and you yes, you have to have the right ones, not those fake 'wannabe' ear buds), which let the world know you belong to the cult of the iPod, screaming 'Are you One of Us?' yet at the same time saying, 'Leave Me the Hell Alone!.' He writes...

"Wandering from room to room is someone with an iPod; music no longer requires going out, being with other people, or even sitting in a room on your own, listening. Now its a permanent distraction, a matter of right, a way of affirming your identity without having to be identified by other members of your chosen tribe; even when we interact with the outside world, reluctantly our ears are plugged with the iPod buds, trickling music into our minds. Our grandparents would have thought is appalling rudeness; after all what does it say but, 'I do not acknowledge your existence. You are superfluous to me. I may be moving in the same physical space as you, but don't expect me to acknowledge it.' "

Enjoy New Words?

Here is a list of nine words which I wrote down, after reading a book which trod down my 'lexical ego,' wedged my vocabulary wide open and forced me to get my dictionary out in humble submission.

I have listed them in order in which the words are most fun to say aloud. Enjoy...

1. Solipsism - the theory that only the self exists, or can be proved to exist.
2. Simulacrum - a slight, unreal, or superficial likeness or semblance.
3. Liminal - situated at a sensory threshold.
4. Vapidity - without liveliness or spirit; dull or tedious: a vapid party; vapid conversation.
5. Apotropaic - intended to ward off evil.
6. Neotony - the state resulting when juvenile characteristics are retained by the adults of a species
7. Preternatural - out of the ordinary course of nature; exceptional or abnormal: preternatural powers.
8. Fatuous - foolish or inane, esp. in an unconscious, complacent manner; silly.
9. Apposite - suitable; well-adapted; pertinent; relevant; apt: an apposite answer.

Please feel free to share any interesting words you have discovered recently, especially those which are particularly enjoyable to speak aloud.

Somewhere Over The Rainbow

This guy is a genius...

Home Education in the UK

A great post by Daniel Newman over on his blog. A classic quote in the second to last paragraph...both insightful and sobering at the same time.

I agree with Daniel's closing exhortation to repentance and intercession. It is about time the Church felt the weight of responsibility in praying for the Lordship of Christ to be restored in our nation, and for a fresh move of the Holy Spirit to awaken people's hearts to God, bringing them to repentance and faith.

"It is rather like those scenes you sometimes watch in films when one of the characters has a heart attack in a restaurant, collapses, and as he falls to the floor, clutches at a tablecloth and pulls it and everything on it, on to the floor with him in the process, making a horrible mess and smashing all the crockery. Still, we have only received the government we deserve. As a country we have refused to take responsibility ourselves and have continued to give power over more and more areas of life to the state; as a church we have colluded with this, transferring our duties to the state so that it can fulfil them for us, rather than standing up prophetically against its tyranny and saying, “This far, and no further.” We are reaping what we have sown."

Big Babies - 1

I have just finished reading the book, Big Babies by Michael Bywater...A Cambridge lecturer, writer and literary critic. A interesting book, which unlike the majority of books I read, actually had me laughing...and more than once. This is not so much a grumpy old rant, as one reviewer commented, but a cultural lament at the slow degredation of our culture and society. Bywater is a modern day prophet pleading with a generation to wake up and grow up.

I will leave you with a short quote in which Bywater draws our attention to how signs-which-point-out-the-obvious, infantilise us and make us essentially 'Big Babies.' It had me laughing for quite a while, yet at the same time strangely awake to every plastic and metal sign (and there are alot...an awful lot) as I continued my day.

''It strikes you as out of kilter that there's a notice at London Paddington station which says 'please be ready to may with your luggage when you reach the top of escalator' becuase it implies that otherwise you wouldn't be ready to move away with your luggage but, instead would stand there like a moron with other morons piling up against you so that eventually something has to give and you all tumble back down the escalator in melee of morons and get sucked into the mechanism and ground to hamburger and they'd hose the down and scrub the gobbets of stupid flesh out of the machinery and start it up again and the same thing would happen again...or, if not, why the need for the notice.''