science and theology in context

I have a great deal of discomfort with so-called Intelligent Design, considering it to be intellectually dishonest, a means of trying to insinuate religion into science, while denying that is what is being done. Such things as geology and Darwinian evolution–certainly at the micro-evolutionary level–are observable.

On the other hand, one thing that science profoundly struggles with is consciousness. The very fact that we ask the questions we do is deeply puzzling, and has not been answered from a purely physical point of view. This is one of the reasons I am a believer.

Here's an interview with Georgetown University theologian John Haught that I found fascinating, especially as he deals with subjects such as those I've mentioned.

mars/venus mythology

fascinating: What language barrier?

I have long said that women and men are more alike than they are different.

Surprise

Expecting new tech,
I rezzed in SL last Fall;
Instead I found friends.

soul words

Psychology comes from Greek psykhe (breath, spirit, soul) + logia (study, words). This struck me Sunday morning, as I lay in that strange transition from sleep to waking. Soul words, words about the spirit.



Second Life is, any many ways, about soul words. I am fascinated by several things in SL:

• how I, as Thoria, am both different from and the same as my RL self; sometimes, it's as if I'm with two selves at once: me and myself.


• how often my RL self dreams of SL acquantances and events, with SL and RL intertwining.


• how the emotional baggage people bring from RL comes into SL, sometimes metamorphosizing in surprising ways.


• how accelerated romantic relationships can be, running from start to finish in a matter of a few days.


• finally, how often conversations turn into discussions of psychology.

When I first came to SL in the Autumn of 2006, I was investigating a technology. But SL has turned out to be much more emotionally disruptive than, say email or the Web.

Some have talked about the feeling or illusion of presence, and I suppose that's a large part of it. It would be very hard to maintain a friendship with someone on the opposite side of the world—given that I've never met her in RL—only in a messaging tool or a social website. Somehow, it's the actual 3-d presence that makes the difference emotionally; it feels like she and I are with each other in the same place, instead of talking remotely.

requiem in pace

I'm now adding to the superabundance of blog writings about the shooting at Virginia Tech, though I have not yet fully analyized all the information, nor synthesized it in my mind. I may never get there. So, for now, some thoughts that I hope are not too vacuous:

- I ache for all the families and friends wounded by this; the colateral damage will go far, far beyond 33 deaths.

- though it is hard to see the good in something like this, I am convinced that some good will arise, that some relationships will be improved, that some needed introspection will occur.

- it seems that every one I talk to, regardless of her or his views on gun laws, sees support for those views in these events.

- politicians, being politicians, will react by passing laws, many (most?) of which will be irrelevant; the cynicism of political and business leaders continues to astound me.

- the mass murder is universally condemned as a very bad, very evil thing, a condemnation with which I strongly concur. What is the basis of that universal condemnation amongst people who otherwise claim to have little in common as a basis of morality?

- many more people are killed each week in places like Baghdad; why do people not react as strongly? Is it because of proximity, is it racism, what?

- how can the political and military leaders involved in adventurism around the globe possibly condemn this event without condemning themselves? What is the difference between pulling the trigger oneself, and sending others to pull the trigger? Either way, people who were simply trying to go about their own lives are hurt and killed.

- after posting the above, this poem came to me as appropriate, somehow.

The Second Coming
William Bulter Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

gender/sex justice

After posting the previous missive, with it's rant on the confusion of gender and sex in American writing, I realized that my profile lists "gender justice" as one of my interests. I could make a long defense of how I was using it correctly, but, really, I wasn't. I'll just claim the right to be inconsistent, as I like the alliteration of "gender justice" that is missing in "sex justice", even though the latter may be more strictly correct.

As to a definition, I use gender justice to mean treating a person respectfully, recognizing her or his inherent worth, and offering opportunities, without respect to sex.

Or, if you prefer a Christian context for the definition, try this one, borrowed from Gal328.org, and edited:

Gender justice means recognizing that men and women are created by God, redeemed by Christ, and gifted by the Spirit truly without distinction or partiality. In Christian community, gender justice means encouraging both men and women to exercise their Spirit-given gifts in the church’s work, worship, and leadership, and celebrating the truth that the Spirit grants such gifts without respect to gender.

endgendering gender

On a whim, I ran my previous two posts through The Gender Genie, a site that purports to analyze text, and determine the sex of the author.

I admit that my samples were rather short, so it likely wasn't a fair test. Nevertheless, I found it amusing that it rated the first entry, the haiku-like thing, to be male-authored, while the second, the introduction, was female-authored. Yet, I wrote them both.

BTW, one of my pet peeves is the confusion, especially in the US, of gender and sex. If a person is talking about biology, female and male, she should use term is sex, because gender is primarily a grammatical term. Both words have lots of analagous uses, but somewhere a long the way, Americans have confused gender with sex, maybe out of a prudish fear of sex.

Of course, many say, with some justification, that, while most humans have a fixed sex, they can adopt different genders, that is, different sets of attributes which may or may not be associated with sex. I suspect that's the intent of The Gender Genie, and I recognize that it's simply a proof of concept and a fun toy.

I just ran the above through GG, and it rated it as strongly female (326 vs. 226 male). It considers "if", "not", and "and" to be female words.

what's it all about?

I started this blog on a whim, as I suppose is the case with most blogs. Given that, there are no strict rules as to what I'll be posting here, or how often.

See my profile for a few of the things I'm interested in, but don't expect me to limit my thoughts to only those things. In fact, don't expect me to post my thoughts at all. Maybe I shall, maybe I shan't.

Maybe I'll invite some friends to post here, too. Stay tuned. Or don't.

hello

what an idea,
some blogging by Thoria
to welcome springtime.