Above the Line: Chris Seals

Discussions on Theology, Politics, Philosophy, Austrian Economics, Ecclesiology, and Worship. Feel free to comment: click the comment button at the bottom of each post.

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The Tico Times - Central America's leading English language news source.

Does this surprise anyone? Not I. If only 27 year old admissions would actually make an impact on the way we view the stories that our government tells us today.

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A [ridiculously late] response to Zeitgeist

Now that I teach Bible to high-schoolers I get asked good questions from time to time.  The following is a response that I originally intended for an e-mail, but then decided to turn into a blog post.  

Here is a brief, non-exhaustive response to the first section of the Zeitgeist video.

Correlation is not the same as causation: Even if all of the claims of the Christian religion regarding Jesus of Nazareth bear similarities to those of other ancient religions, it does not necessarily logically follow that those claims bear a causal relationship to one another. Here’s a simple example:

Every time I go to Mexico, I ride in my mother’s Honda CRV. 

I get the stomach flu every time I go to Mexico. 

Therefore my mother’s Honda CRV causes the stomach flu. 

Though there is an undeniable correlation between the vehicle and my stomach flu, it would be naïve to think that the CRV and my vomiting spells are causally related.  This may be a silly example, but I’m trying to illustrate the danger of the causation fallacy.  Just because two things bear similarity, does not mean that they are causally aligned (e.g. did J.K. Rowling “plagiarize” George Lucas because Harry Potter and Star Wars bear undeniable similarities?).

The alleged correlations are not really correlations: If you actually read the other myths that he references you’ll notice that the similarities between the stories of Jesus of Nazareth and other “Sun gods” are tenuous at best, and at worst patently false.  For example, the film claims that the Roman diety Attis was born of a virgin, crucified, dead for three days, and then resurrected.  If you actually read the story of Attis here’s what you find.

Attis was born of a Nymph who had an almond fall in her lap.  That almond was actually the severed genitalia of another god Agdistis.  More like accidental copulation rather than virgin birth.

Attis was not crucified, he was driven mad because he was unfaithful to the goddess Cybele who loved him. Cybele caused him to go crazy and he castrated himself, bleeding to death in the woods.

Attis was kind of resurrected, but not really.  He wasn’t raised from the dead to continue living his life, he was turned into a fir tree to live out his existence as a tree in the forest. 

This is all fascinating stuff to me, and if I had more time I’d love to do more research and get back to you on the rest of the list of god’s that he claims to parallel Jesus.  But I can assure you that Attis is not the only god-story that was stretched from being the truth in order to make a point.  The producer of the video essentially used a body of scholarship that was trendy over a century ago, but was discredited by modern historians. It was a body of scholarship designed to prey upon the ignorance of people who won’t take the initiative to actually read the original source documents about these gods.

The three kings: Nowhere in Christian scripture is there mention of 3 kings.  This is a bad inference drawn from uninformed Christmas cards. Magi show up and there is no mention of number.  Magi were not royalty, they were sagely wise men. Also, no early source materials refer to the stars of Orion’s belt as “the 3 Kings” except for that same debunked school of historians mentioned in number 2.  No mention of that constellation being called “the 3 Kings” anytime from the 18th century or before.

Jesus didn’t exist: Even if we don’t count the 27 books of the New Testament (all of which are conservatively dated to the first century AD) there are a total of 39 extra-Biblical authors that mention Jesus and elaborate on a combined total of over 100 facts about the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth.  His discrediting of Flavius Josephus, Pliny the Younter, Suetonius, and Tacitus showed no regard for the historical textual criticism necessary to make such a preposterous claim.

December 25: Nowhere in scripture is the birthdate of Jesus mentioned.  Most scholars believe it was in the spring sometime since the shepherds were out in the pastures.  It wasn’t until the 4thcentury AD that Christians began celebrating his birth in December, and they did so as a liturgical festival, not as an historical assertion of the birthday of Christ.

Virgin Births: If you look at the stories of the other gods, you would be hard pressed to actually find another story that has a virgin birth.  Most of those stories are of gods inhabiting animals, people, or other natural objects.  Those embodied gods would then copulate with a woman and produce the demi-god offspring.

Astrology: The Christian symbol of the fish has nothing to do with Pisces. It was an early Greek acronym that Christians used to self-identify ICTHUS – Insous Christos theos uisos soter.  Jesus Christ, God’s son, Savior.  Also, if the “age of Pisces” started in 1 AD, there isn’t any connection between this beginning and Jesus’ birth since Jesus was born somewhere between 2-6 BC (since scripture mentions Herod the Great who died in 2 BC).

  Again, there was much more that was either uninformed, ignorant, or intentionally misleading about those 30 minutes of video.  Nevertheless, it was well produced and entertaining.  George Carlan’s standup comedy can be pretty funny, even if he is an Atheist.  It just makes me sad that people cannot tell the difference between authentic Christian beliefs and the strawman that he repudiates in his act.

  I hope this is helpful.  If nothing else, hopefully this is an encouragement for you to do sincere investigation into truth-claims that you run into on the internet.

  Some of this was from my mind… some was from help from the following sources:

http://withalliamgod.wordpress.com/2011/01/21/refuting-attis-myth-parallelism-to-christianity/

operation513.blogspot.com

Josephus on Jesus – Wikipedia article

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:)

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Pure Gold.  As a half-filipino who looks latino in Southern California... I appreciate this video.

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Though Jesus taught us not to judge... here is an extra tool in your judging toolbelt if you decide you don't think the beginning of Matthew 7 applies to you.  :)  Found this here: http://www.geekologie.com/2010/04/22/beards-full.jpg

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borborygmi

Borborygmi

This is my new favorite word.  Not just because its an onomatopoeia but also because of what it is.  I can now put a name to an every day experience.

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‘Duck Dynasty’ finale ratings beat ‘American Idol’ | EW.com

Maybe the Duck Dynasty guys should judge American Idol. A&E’s docu-soap phenomenon shattered previous ratings records for its Wednesday night finale. The episode following the...

I'm not sure why... and I'm not sure it's a good thing... but for some reason this makes me feel like humanity is on the right track.

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Domestic Invasion

This week I learned that there are on average 220 SWAT raids each day... most of which are perpetrated against people who are committing non-violent crimes.  I am sad to say that the days of Andy Griffith, where we looked on police officers as keepers of domestic peace, are over.  We now have police departments across the nation that are trained to see civilians and the public in general as enemies.  Not only does the officer training proliferate a wartime ethos and mindset among their officers, but many of these officers come straight out of the military where they were deployed in warzones.  They come out of Iraq and Afghanistan and are put in the midst of American civilians with a set of objectives that continues their previous M.O. with a domestic deployment.  

This is not to say that all police officers are bad guys.  But many of them are put into situations where they are trained to play the role of the bad guy.  

For example (http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/55826216-78/stewart-death-wednesday-court.html.csp) the home of a man named Matthew David Stewart who was accused of growing marijuana for personal use (not even for distribution or sales) was invaded early this year.  Undercover officers who modify their appearance to look like druggie hoodlums, invaded his home armed to the teeth.  Imagine, if you grow marijuana in your house and a bunch of hoodlum types came in your home shouting with guns, would you put your hands up and assume that these guys are peace officers looking out for your best interest and the interest of the public?  Or would you try to defend yourself?  

Needless to say, a shootout ensued, many were wounded, one of the officer invaders was killed and Stewart faces the possibility of the death penalty.  Meanwhile the invader receives a hero's burial for his act.  I am not saying that the killed officer does not deserve honor as a human being who perhaps had a good number of honorable traits, but I don't think the act that led to his death was one of virtue and/or honor.

Perhaps it's high time that we re-evaluate our approach to domestic peace.  Snipers, assault style home invasions, drones, and police/military activity don't seem to be doing the trick in order to create a truly peaceful world.  I'm sure there are places where the statistics disagree, but the escalation of violence has to stop somewhere.

Right?

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It's not enough to ask ourselves 'what would Jesus do?' in some situation if we have not taken the time previously to develop in ourselves the character of Jesus so that we would have the strength to do what Jesus would do in that situation.

William Lane Craig quoting Dallas Willard on Reasonable Faith podcast.  

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This project seems pretty legit.  In addition to doing food security, microfinance, education, and violence mitigation (all good stuff), they're also empowering local villagers to be active participators and catalysts in the peace making process.  Peace from grass roots, not steel hum-vees.  I like.  

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Dow Jones reaches record highs??!??

So last week the Dow reached record highs.  

A lot of people were pretty excited about it.  

I'm not thrilled.  Not angry, or disappointed, or upset, or sad, or gassy.  Just not thrilled.

Here's why:

Since December of last year, the Federal Reserve has committed itself to the creation of about $85 BILLION every month until the unemployment numbers drop to 6.5%.  What does this do to the value of the dollar?

Well... lets say that in a town called Bitterville, farmers only had the ability to grow 10 bushels of grapefruits annually, and the farmers in that town charge $5 a pound to sell them. Due to the scarcity of the sour citrus fruit, the citizens are willing to pay that silly price.

Now let's say that due to technological and agricultural advances those same Bitterville farmers are able to produce 40 bushels of grapefruits annually.  With more grapefruits in the market the farmers can no longer get away with charging $5 a pound... so the value of grapefruits drops to $1 a pound.

So if Wilfredo from Bitterville wanted to trade some grapefruits for a German Shepherd puppy... before the technological agriculture revolution, he could have traded 3 grapefruits for a puppy.  Now that grapefruits are worth less, he has to give 12 grapefruits to the puppy mill proprietor.

There's not a spike in German Shepherd puppy prices.  The Bitterville puppy mill is just conducting business as usual.  The value of GRAPEFRUITS has gone down.  

In my humble (not an economist) opinion, that's what seems to be happening.  Below is a chart of the number of dollars in circulation since 1984.

That's a lot of grapefruits.

So if the value of something (the Dow in this case) goes up relative to dollars, it still remains to be determined if the ACTUAL value of that thing has gone up.  In the 70's it seemed that the Dow was staying stagnant... but while it remained stagnant, the money supply was increasing.  So the result was the chart below.  The nominal (in dollars) value of the Dow stayed flat while the actual value of the Dow went down.

The following charts are my own construction.  Not real.  Not to scale.  Not anything.  They're simply illustrative of what I think is happening.

For those of us using dollars, we'd say "WOW! The Dow, Gold, and other stuff are expensive, but Lumber and Beef are cheap!"

A few years later in this chart though...

...we'd say, "Dang!  Everything has gotten so expensive!"  But in "real value units" all the other stuff is still the same amount of zillions while the value of the dollar went through the floor.

Alright... I've probably over explained something that doesn't need over-explaining... but after hearing all the excitement this week about the stock market, I'm not so sure that's the case.

Meh.  

Have a good week!

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Politics as Kayfabe

“Politicians are liars.”

A statement that we hear all the time, right?

But it’s not a very helpful or instructive statement, because if all it does is say that members of group X, affiliation Y, or party Z tell lies, it basically explains all of humankind, or at least all groups therein.  

White lies, dark lies, small deceptions, or unwitting misdirection…

...everyone lies.

So why does the specific breed of lying that is typical of politicians bother us so much?

Here’s my stab at the issue:

We call politicians liars, over and above the average citizen, because the lying never seems to turn off.

What I’m not saying is that they are always in a state of spewing out untruths (though sometimes this is the case).  What I AM saying is that the whole thing from campaigns, to interviews, to speeches, to promoting some piece of legislation… it’s all an act.  But it’s not the kind of act that TV actors, or stage actors, or screen actors do.  For the next 2 hours, David Bowie is the goblin king of the Labyrinth.  For the next 21 minutes, Amy Poehler is Leslie Knope.  The difference is that the acting never turns off.  Joe Biden - (D)... is Joe Biden - (D) indefinitely.  John Boehner - (R)... is John Boehner - (R) indefinitely.  They’re not even method actors, because once they are initiated into the character of politician, they never cease to be that, even after their term is up. 

What kind of liars are politicians, then? 

They are men and women locked in Kayfabe.

For those of you not familiar with Kayfabe, check out this Hulk Hogan video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sw_YQq4_3yw).  Kayfabe is an old carnie term that began to be applied to professional wrestling all the way back in the 1800’s.  Ironically, Abraham Lincoln was also a professional wrestler… how appropriate. 

Anyway, the term is thought to be a form of Pig Latin meaning “keep it fake!”  It allowed pro wrestlers the ability to prolong their careers by staging victories and losses, agreeing to not intentionally try to hurt the opponent, and making it look as real as possible so that the match is lucrative in both the long and short term for both parties.  

Sound familiar?

Democrats and Republicans, fight each other daily on the talk radio shows, political news shows, and on Capitol Hill.  They throw out just as much vitriolic nonsense as Stone Cold Steve Austin or the Ultimate Warrior, threatening to beat one another up and yelling about how the opponent is in the wrong.  But what are the results?  A never-ending, always bloating, more totalitarian group of oligarchs, committed to longevity and riches of their fellow opponents.  And like Kayfabing wrestlers, they are required to stay in character indefinitely, or else the whole ruse (which everyone in their gut knows is fake) will be exposed for what it is.  

Were that the happen, the masses would be forced to confront the fact that they’ve been emotionally and financially invested in “sports entertainment,” and not in meaningful socio-political activity.  Maybe the ratings would drop and people would ignore the show, leaving a bunch of sad old fakers yelling into microphones with no crowd to hear their foul words.

Hey... there's an idea!

If we give up on our pro-wrestler politicians, and begin to work out meaningful solutions, change daily decisions, and stop contributing to systems of injustice, then the world would become a better place.  The match in D.C. would become irrelevant and perhaps the show would have to stop.

Maybe if we all learned to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God, we will make more substantial transformations to our world, than yelling at the TV screen when “the other side” is yelling into a microphone.

Between the Sequester and the Fiscal Cliff, I think it’s time to face the fact that it’s all Kayfabe, and we’d be better off investing our interest elsewhere.

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70 years ago today Sophie Scholl was murdered by the state. She was caught distributing a leaflet at Munich University, where she was a student, condemning Hitler and the war. She was a member of the non-violent resistance group, ‘Die weisse Rose’: The White Rose. She was brought to trial on the 22nd of February 1943, convicted of treason, and beheaded that afternoon. She was 21. Her last words were:

“How can we expect righteousness to prevail when there is hardly anyone willing to give himself up individually to a righteous cause? Such a fine, sunny day, and I have to go, but what does my death matter, if through us thousands of people are awakened and stirred to action?”

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I got a letter in the mail from my friend, Chad (constipatedgeni.tumblr.com), and this was on the envelope. Yes... focas is Spanish for Seals, my surname.  My wife's the one with the dreads. Too good to not share.

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Antecedents

Looking for the key to sobriety in global political, economic, sociological phenomena?  See below. 

For example:

Why is there such deep bitter resentment and animosity between Israel and Palestine?  Well you could point to recent acts of terrorism or military action…

But what was before that? 

Well, back in 1948 there was a war between Arabs and Israelis.

But what happened before that could cause a war?

Well, the allies of WW2 decided to draw some arbitrary lines in the middle east to carve up lands and create a new nation state with a large number of transplanted European Jews… essentially setting up a Jewish state in the midst of a diverse religious region.

What was there before that?

The questions could go on and on, continuing to reveal more layers of nuance and depth to a very hard and emotional situation.

  The same thing could be done with

   the Nazi party’s rise to power,

     contemporary US-Iranian relations,

       the recession of 2008,

         the last 6 years of escalating violence in Mexico,

           the price of gold,

             or Iraqi/Afghan insurgencies.

Unfortunately if you bring up antecedents in many political discussions, you are often called names and accused of being a commie, a conspiracy theorist, or just plain ole anti-American.  To the above list one might defensively say, “Who cares about the Versailles treaty, the Shah of Iran, the creation of Federal Reserve, the declaration of a War on Drugs, inflationary fiscal policies, or US foreign policy!?  What matters is that you be loyal and stay on the right side!”

Maybe things could be better if everyone on this blue and green globe of ours, from all nation states, from all regions, and all cultures, took a step back and thought for a moment, “How in the world did we get here?”  

What if diplomats and heads of state, swallowed their pride and uttered an apology for potentially provoking current situations? 

Could we approach foreign relations with a bit more sobriety? 

Could we look at economic climates with more wisdom?

I believe so.

Only sometimes, though, when I’m being an optimist.

Nevertheless, we should at least start by being willing to discover the antecedents, and ask… “What happened to make things like this?”

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O, the Empires of (relatively) Old!

I may be overly sentimental about a time period before my birth, but I am more and more impressed with the superiority of the governmental systems previous to the current day pseudo-democratic oligarchy.  I found this little story about the Austro-Hungarian emperor Franz Joseph I to be both heartwarming and stinging.

Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn told the story of an arrogant Teddy Roosevelt calling on Franz Joseph and asking what possible point there could be to a monarch in the modern 20th century. "To protect my peoples from their governments," replied the Emperor.

To learn more about how old empire was superior to new empire (though both I think to be inferior to liberty and the Kingdom of God), check out this article in honor of Franz Joseph I.

Here's to you, Franz!

Happy New Year.

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From the mouths of Giants

One more Gulliver's Travels quote.  This time it's the King of BROBDINGNAG (a race of kindly giants) that is responding to the government of Jonathan Swift's day.

He fell next upon the management of our treasury; and said, "he thought my memory had failed me, because I computed our taxes at about five or six millions a-year, and when I came to mention the issues, he found they sometimes amounted to more than double; for the notes he had taken were very particular in this point, because he hoped, as he told me, that the knowledge of our conduct might be useful to him, and he could not be deceived in his calculations. But, if what I told him were true, he was still at a loss how a kingdom could run out of its estate, like a private person." He asked me, "who were our creditors; and where we found money to pay them?" He wondered to hear me talk of such chargeable and expensive wars; "that certainly we must be a quarrelsome people, or live among very bad neighbours, and that our generals must needs be richer than our kings." He asked, what business we had out of our own islands, unless upon the score of trade, or treaty, or to defend the coasts with our fleet?" Above all, he was amazed to hear me talk of a mercenary standing army, in the midst of peace, and among a free people. He said, "if we were governed by our own consent, in the persons of our representatives, he could not imagine of whom we were afraid, or against whom we were to fight; and would hear my opinion, whether a private man's house might not be better defended by himself, his children, and family, than by half-a-dozen rascals, picked up at a venture in the streets for small wages, who might get a hundred times more by cutting their throats?"