Minor Thoughts from me to you

The University of Pittsburgh, my alma mater, released an interesting report today. Apparently, smokers aren't just addicted to the nicotine in cigarettes. Smoking creates a link between the pleasurable environment a person is in and the cigarette that they are smoking.

The smoker puffing away in the corner might be hooked on more than just nicotine. A 15-year study by University of Pittsburgh researchers suggests that nicotine also enhances the pleasure smokers get from their surroundings when they smoke and creates a psychological link between that amplified satisfaction and cigarettes.

Without discounting nicotine as a powerful primary reinforcer, Donny said, the Pitt research proposes that nicotine also amplifies the satisfaction smokers get from their environment, from the smell of cigarette smoke to drinking in a favorite bar. This second action of nicotine is known as a reinforcement enhancing effect. Smokers associate the heightened enjoyment with cigarettes and continue smoking to recapture that sensation.

"If people were just after nicotine," Caggiula asked, "why don't they get addicted to it in other ways such as drinking it or shooting it into their arm? But people don't do those things-they smoke cigarettes. There has to be something else at work here other than just an easy way to get nicotine. We're not saying that focusing on the physical addiction to nicotine is worthless, but it's incomplete."

Interesting.

As every media outlet from Al Jazeera to the Jerusalem Post is reporting, The Rev. Jerry Falwell died today, at age 73.

The U.S. Postal Service raised it's rates for first-class mail today. No longer will you be able to buy a $0.39 stamp. The day of the $0.41 stamp is upon us. The rate hike is annoying, but ultimately not all that relevant to my life. Aside from thank-you notes and renewing license plates, I don't really use the Postal Service.

However, the USPS isn't just raising rates on first-class mail. The Postal Regulatory Comission also decided to change the way it calculates rates for periodicals and magizines:

Starting in July, postal rates for some publications will rise by as much as 30 percent, and a growing number of critics say the new rates will saddle small, independent publishers with inflated costs and betray protections granted by the founding fathers to the press.

The U.S. Postal Service gave periodicals a special class of mail more than 200 years ago and averaged rates to make it cheaper to send a magazine than a letter, while still giving publishers first-class service.

The cost to the Postal Service of sending periodicals has also risen disproportionately to other types of mail over the past 10 years.

Very basically, here's how the changes in rates are calculated: The average cost increase to periodicals is 11.7 percent, but this rate skews lower or higher for many based on price-based incentives created to push publishers to streamline their mailing operation.

A 758-page document details the plan, which plugs many variables into a pricing equation: packaging, co-mailing, co-palletting, pounds, pieces, shape, sacks, drop-shipping, points of entry, distance traveled and editorial weight versus advertising weight.

Confused? So are many publishers. It doesn't help, they say, that the computer software created to help them solve this equation won't be available until mid-June.

Both sides agree that the issue is, at its core, an ideological debate between those who believe periodical postal rates should be averaged for all to protect the democratic dissemination of information and those who see averaging as a subsidization that hinders efficiency.

It's also a fairly pointless debate. The only reason it's happening at all is that periodicals have exactly one choice for delivery: the USPS. There is no competition for first-class mail delivery. By law, anyone who tries to compete with the USPS in first-class mail delivery commits a crime. Publishers are forced to use the government monopoly, instead of using whichever company gives them the best combination of price and service.

It's time to end these pointless, stupid debates over the best way to calculate postal rates. Allow Fed-Ex, UPS, DHL, and other carriers to compete with the USPS. Let publishers choose their own mail carrier. Some carriers might have rates that are less expensive than current Postal Service rates. Other carriers might have rates that are more expensive than current Postal Service rates. Regardless, they would be rates that publishers choose to pay, based on their unique needs. Everyone would get the best combination of price, speed, and service that they need.

Right now everyone gets the same combination of price, speed, and service -- whatever the Postal Regulatory Comission decides is best for the nation.

How un-American.

Earlier this week, Reason Magazine columnist Cathy Young asked why is it still illegal to pay for sex?

Yet prostitution is perhaps the ultimate victimless crime: a consensual transaction in which both parties are supposedly committing a crime, and the person most likely to be charged"”the one selling sex"”is also the one most likely to be viewed as the victim. (A bizarre inversion of this situation occurs in Sweden, where, as a result of feminist pressure to treat prostitutes as victims, it is now a crime to pay for sex but not to offer it for sale.) It is sometimes claimed that the true victims of prostitution are the johns' wives. But surely women whose husbands are involved in noncommercial"”and sometimes quite expensive"”extramarital affairs are no less victimized.

Another common claim is that prostitution causes direct harm by contributing to the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS. However, that may be the reddest herring of them all. In Australia, where sex for money is legal, the rate of HIV infection among female prostitutes is so low that prostitution has been removed from the list of known risk factors in HIV surveillance. In the U.S., reliable data are more difficult to come by, but a 1987 Centers for Disease Control study likewise found very low infection rates among prostitutes.

Why is prostitution illegal? From a Biblical perspective, I have a very hard time distinguishing between prostitution and plain old adultery. In one case, one person directly pays another for sex. In the other case, one person indirectly pays another for sex through dinners, compliments, movies, and other outings. Why should it be illegal to pay a someone for a sex, but not illegal to take a co-worker out for dinner and drinks before going back to their apartment for sex?

I think the common answer is that sex should only be enjoyed within the context of a loving relationship -- that it shouldn't be commoditized and sold like any other service. I would agree that sex shouldn't be routinely bought and sold. I'm not at all certain that all prostitution occurs outside of a loving relationship. After all, some women would certainly leave a man if he didn't provide enough expensive gifts. Why should we classify cash payments any differently? I am certain that not all adultery occurs in the context of a loving relationship. Many men and women will commit adultery purely out spite and not because they love the person they are committing adultery with.

Simply put, I think there can be a lot of overlap between prostitution and adultery -- and adultery are equally morally objectionable. I don't see the distinction that makes one worthy of criminalization and the other "merely" worthy of scorn.

I'll talk later about whether I think adultery should be criminalized.

From What special-ed cut means:

Several speech and language clinicians predicted some of the projected savings won't materialize.

Testing of children diagnosed with only speech and language disabilities will intensify, they said, in search of additional diagnoses -- such as learning disabilities, or emotional behavioral disabilities -- that would cement the need for a special education teacher's involvement.

"I have no doubt that additional labels will appear if you look hard enough," said Johnson [a speech and language clinician], who acknowledged that the current system made it more expedient to simply call upon the special education teacher without going through the process of amending a student's individual education plan.

If you subject children to enough tests and examinations, I'm sure you can manage to find something wrong with every one of them. That allows you to easily justify spending millions of dollars on special education teachers, thus preserving valuable teacher jobs and leaving no teacher behind.

It's no surprise that the head of the local teachers' union said the move appears to shortchange vulnerable students and subject the pared-down special education staff to burnout. It will also result in immense hardship for the 45 teachers and assistants that may have to find other work. But never, ever mention that. Keep all of the focus on the children and you may yet preserve your jobs.

I can tell that the home school market is growing. I don't need to cite any facts, figures, or anecdotes to do so. I just need to make one observation: Amazon now has a homeschooling store. Cool.

United States Steel, Alcoa, Goodyear and the United Steelworkers want to convince you that American manufacturing is in serious decline and that if serious action isn't taken soon our manufacturing sector will disappear entirely.

"The hemorrhaging of manufacturing jobs is hurting America down to the local level," said Terrence D. Straub, United States Steel's senior vice president for public policy and government affairs. "Until and unless there is a political understanding of that -- and political attention paid to that -- our fear is much won't change and in 10 years the American manufacturing base could be gone."

"The image of manufacturing has taken a beating "” quite unfairly "” especially with the younger generation that views information technology and services as being hip and cool," said Scott Paul, the alliance's executive director, who used to work in the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s industrial department. He said the group wants to "reconnect the American people with the importance of manufacturing and what it means in their lives and what it has meant in terms of creating good, middle-class jobs."

"The fundamental reason we've formed this is we've lost three million manufacturing jobs, and there doesn't appear to be a strong pro-American manufacturing voice out there," said Mr. Gerard, whose union represents 800,000 steel, aluminum, rubber, paper and chemical workers. "The so-called manufacturers' organizations that exist are part of the problem. The National Association of Manufacturers promotes the loss of manufacturing. The N.A.M. has become the voice of multinationals giving away our jobs, of setting up operations overseas."

Oh, baloney. The American manufacturing sector has never been stronger. This is just another example of the shoddy facts and logic that Warren Myer attacked in his analysis of Manufacturing Jobs Myths. For one thing, we manufacture far more today than we ever did before:

Considering total goods production (including things like mining and agriculture in addition to manufacturing), real goods production as a share of real (inflation-adjusted) Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is close to its all-time high.

• In the second quarter of 2003, real goods production was 39.2 percent of real GDP; the highest annual figure ever recorded was 40 percent in 2000.
• By contrast, in the "good old days" of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, the United States actually produced far fewer goods as a share of total output, reaching 35.5 percent in the midst of World War II.

For another thing, not all "manufacturing jobs" are created equal:

Let's take an automobile assembly plant circa 1955. Typically, a large manufacturing plant would have a staff to do everything the factory needed. They had people on staff to clean the bathrooms, to paint the walls, and to perform equipment maintenance. The people who did these jobs were all classified as manufacturing workers, because they worked in a manufacturing plant. Since 1955, this plant has likely changed the way it staffs these type jobs. It still cleans the bathrooms, but it has a contract with an outside janitorial firm who comes in each night to do so. It still paints the walls, but has a contract with a painting contractor to do so. And it still needs the equipment to be maintained, but probably has contracts with many of the equipment suppliers to do the maintenance.

Keep in mind that the United Steelworkers exists to further the aims of steelworkers who like cushy jobs. The union doesn't exist to further the interests of all Americans. Keep that in mind as you view this graph, depicting the amount of goods manufactured, as a share of GDP.

For our troops fighting the war in Iraq, the number one threat isn't gun battles with terrorists, it's improved explosive devices left by the roadside. IED's cause fully 70% of American casualties in Iraq. This has been known for a while. What's also been known for a while is that Hummers do little to protect the troopers riding in them.

Unfortunately, most members of Congress have been too busy pointing fingers over the war to spend time figuring out how to help the military actually fight the war. Fortunately, it appears that some members of Congress are finally starting to see the light:

What my amendment will do is allow the military to put 2,500 more mine resistant ambush protected vehicles--known in the military by its acronym, MRAP--in the field by the end of this year. ... MRAP vehicles provide four to five times more protection to our troops than up-armored HMMWVs. That statement, that these MRAPs provide four to five times more protection than up-armored HMMWVs, is not my estimate. That is the judgment of our military leaders. The Commandant of the Marine Corps, GEN James Conway, with whom I spoke as recently as this afternoon, wrote on March 1 to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He said:

Multi-National Forces--West, that is, the Marines in Iraq [JK Background: specifically, in Anbar province], estimates that the use of the MRAP could reduce the casualties in vehicles due to IED attack by as much as 80 percent.

Let me explain the specifics of the MRAP. Each vehicle can hold 4 to 12 troops. Like the rhino, these vehicles have raised steel, V-shaped hulls and chassis. The raised hull is valuable because it gives the blast more time to expand, lessening the impact. The V-shape pushes the blast up the sides of the vehicle and away from the occupants. With an up-armored HMMWV or any humvee, the flat bottom sends the blast through the floor right into the occupants. In addition, the vehicles have side armor and bulletproof glass, and they also have tires that can be driven when flat.

Surprisingly, the person leading the charge on this issue is none other than Senator Joe Biden. While he often endures the nickname "Slow Joe", in this case he's faster out of the blocks than far too many of his colleagues. Good for him. Now let's work on getting some MRAP's over to Iraq.

According to radical environmentalists, putting diapers on your baby is a great way to ruin the earth before your grandchildren arrive. Here they are, in their own words:

"There is a way to have a baby and NOT use diapers."

"When David was born, I started to think about the kind of world I was making for him to grow up in. The thought of garbage spewing and sprawling landfills filled me with horror. And right along with this horror were those little mother's helpers, disposable diapers...rotting, but never really going away in all their plastic glory. ... [M]any of us have not, until recent years, given credit to the mothering skills of more Earth-centered, i.e. 'primitive" cultures." -- Natec

"In my mind, diapers became the symbol of the Evil Empire of Western Parenting in which babies must suffer to accommodate the needs of their parents' broken-continuum culture: a controlled, sterile, odorless, wall-to-wall carpeted fortress in which to live with the illusion of dominion over nature. ... How I longed for a simple, dirt-floored, baby-friendly hut like that of a Yequana family." -- Scott Noelle

"Observation and close bonding interaction help the parent to understand the baby's signals, body language and timing rhythms. Some common signals that indicate a need to pee in a young infant are: squirming, 'fussing,' tensing the face, frowning or having a look of 'inner concentration'. When the baby has to go, the parent holds him or her in a comfortable position over an appropriate toilet place and makes a cueing sound (perhaps a gentle "sss"). [Parents out shopping] may rely on using public bathrooms, or bring along a container such as a tight -lidded bucket. This gentle and ancient practice is the most common way of caring for a baby's hygiene needs in the non-Western world." -- Ingrid Bauer

Diaper-less babies -- because diapers are more dangerous than the plagues, diseases, and sicknesses endemic in pre-diaper societies. Hygiene is, apparently, overrated and the earth is underrated.

I don't always agree with Capital Times columnist Mike Ivey, but I do today. He writes about WalMart's appetite for corporate welfare:

Wisconsin's largest employer draws more in corporate welfare than it pays in state taxes. Wal-Mart pocketed $852 million in net profits in Wisconsin off value-hungry consumers between 2000 and 2003. Over that same period, Wal-Mart paid only $3 million in corporate income tax here. That's a tax rate of 0.35 percent, a fraction of the 7.9 percent rate corporations doing business in our fair state are supposed to pay.

Pardon my West High math, but if Wal-Mart paid the going tax rate here it would have owed closer to $67 million. The Arkansas-based retailer has benefited from more than $20 million in public economic benefits in Wisconsin, according to one national study. Good Jobs First reported in 2004 that Wal-Mart stores and distribution centers in Baraboo, Beaver Dam, Menomonie, Milwaukee and Tomah received at least $21.75 million in local tax subsidies, the report says.

I'm a fan of WalMart and I applaud their efforts to bring lower prices to shoppers. But what they're doing in Wisconsin is neither "capitalism" nor "free enterprise". It's looting, pure and simple. The local governments that decided to give tax money -- taken from individuals -- to a big business should be vilified, demonized, and run out off office on a rail.

I read this today and I found it so thought-provoking that I wanted to pass it along

It wasn't a big deal in one way. Just a small conversation that had turned a bit ugly. It wasn't a dramatic life-altering moment. It was in the privacy of my home with one of my family members. But maybe that's the point. Perhaps it's very important because that's where I live everyday. You see, you and I don't live in a series of big, dramatic moments. We don't careen from big decision to big decision. We all live in an endless series of little moments. The character of a life isn't set in ten big moments. The character of a life is set in 10,000 little moments of everyday life. It's the themes of struggles that emerge from those little moments that reveal what's really going on in our hearts.

So, I knew I couldn't back away from this little moment. I knew I had to own my sin. The minute I thought this, an inner struggle began. "I wasn't the only one at fault. If he hadn't said what he said, I wouldn't have become angry. I was actually pretty patient for much of the conversation." These were some of the arguments I was giving myself.

What's actually true is that when I come to the Lord after I've blown it, I've only one argument to make. It's not the argument of the difficulty of the environment that I am in. It's not the argument of the difficult people that I'm near. It's not the argument of good intentions that were thwarted in some way. No, I only have one argument. It's right there in the first verse of Psalm 51, as David confesses his sin with Bathsheba. I come to the Lord with only one appeal; his mercy. I've no other defense. I've no other standing. I've no other hope. I can't escape the reality of my biggest problem; me! So I appeal to the one thing in my life that's sure and will never fail. I appeal to the one thing that guaranteed not only my acceptance with God, but the hope of new beginnings and fresh starts. I appeal on the basis of the greatest gift I ever have or ever will be given. I leave the courtroom of my own defense, I come out of hiding and I admit who I am. But I'm not afraid, because I've been personally and eternally blessed. Because of what Jesus has done, God looks on me with mercy. It's my only appeal, it's the source of my hope, it's my life. Mercy, mercy me!

Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle has a plan to give more money to hospitals. It's very simple -- in order to pay them more, he first has to tax them more. The Wisconsin State Journal gave a breakdown of the plan:

It works like this: The state imposes the tax on hospitals, leading to an increase in the cost of providing health services. The state returns the money raised by the tax to hospitals to help cover the costs of providing care to Medicaid patients. Then the state reports the increased costs of Medicaid to the federal government, which in turn increases its reimbursement to the state.

The state can then use the extra money for health care or other programs.

I'm reasonably certain that any private doctor, trying to increase Medicaid reimbursements this way, would be prosecuted for Medicaid fraud. Why are states are allowed to get away with such blatant fraud? Wisconsin isn't the only state doing this, but it might be one of the last:

"We have, as a state, been much less aggressive than other states in the use of these assessments," said Jason Helgerson, executive assistant and policy director for the Department of Health and Family Services.

Hospital executives say they understand why states are imposing such taxes. But they said the federal government is catching on to what states are doing and federal rules changes could limit Medicaid reimbursements and render the taxation strategy ineffective for states.

This whole scenario is a perfect example of government inefficiency and waste. Whatever faults private insurance might have, this kind of chicanery isn't it.

It looks like the State is getting behind the Wisconsin goat industry:

State officials are putting their support behind Wisconsin's growing goat industry.

About 260 farmers, processors, state officials and lenders are expected to attend a conference - "Focus on Goats: Milk and Meat Production in Wisconsin" - on Thursday in Barneveld.

... The program is an extension of the Grow Wisconsin Dairy project, which has put an emphasis on high-quality dairy products. "Goat cheeses and other goat products are really becoming more popular," [Jeanne Meier, a spokeswoman for the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection and a leader in the dairy goat initiative] said. "There's great demand in the U.S."

Based on the article, it sounds like the goat industry is really taking off. Lots of farmers have already made big money with goat cheese, goat millk, and goat meat. Many more farmers are eager to get into the industry. Here are the questions that the article raises in my mind: why does the State need to help out the goat industry? Why do Wisconsin tax payers need to pay for an already successful industry to become even more successful? At a time when Governor Doyle wants to tax the oil industry for being too successful, why is his administration paying for another industry to become more successful than it already is? At a time when the state faces a $1.6 billion deficit, why are we spending scarce tax dollars to help businessman who apparently don't need help?

With a child on the way, I'm starting to think about schooling more and more. (Hey, you can never start too early, right?) Having been home schooled myself, I have a gut-level preference for home schooling my own kids. My only regret is that I can't be a stay-at-home dad and do all of the teaching myself!

Earlier today, I stopped by Dr. Helen's place and found a link to the latest Carnival of Homeschooling. I checked it out and found several things that interested me. Here's a quick rundown:

• Thinking Like a History Teacher. This won't be relevant for a couple of years, but it's good to keep in mind.
• The "unschooling" movement is the fringe of the homeschooling fringe. It has to do with letting children learn by indulging their natural curiosity, rather than through rigid, structured curricula. I'm not entirely comfortable with the idea, but I think it has its merits. An early magazine of the movement, Growing Without Schooling, is being put online. It might be interesting to check it out. (Growing Without Schooling)
• The Thinking Mother posted her thoughts about all of the work she does for homeschooling. Reading through this list made me wish I could quit my day job and devote myself to studying everything she does. Does your child's "professional", "paid" teacher put half of the effort into teaching your children as this mother puts into teaching hers?
• Jen talks about the many ways that children can learn science, even if they're not actively studying science.

Last, but not least, one of the blogposts mentioned the Sonlight Curriculum. I'm always a sucker for checking out curricula, so I took a look. After browsing around their site, I'm really starting to like what I see. It's based around reading (a lot!), it's based around exposing students to both good and bad ideas, it's based around getting children to think for themselves rather than developing an ability to regurgitate facts. It's also based around a Christian worldview a global perspective (instead of an America-first perspective). They're 13 reasons to buy Sonlight are good, but I found myself more convinced by their 27 reasons not to buy Sonlight. (That is, I find myself disagreeing with most of the 27 reasons.)

Fortunately, I have five years to continue researching all of this before I have to make a decision.

Several weeks ago, the Isthmus interviewed my pastor, Chris Dolson, about the Wisconsin Marriage Amendment. The Amendment reads:

"Only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as marriage in this state and a legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals shall not be valid or recognized in this state."

Here is the portion of the article that referenced him:

What about the evangelicals?

A survey released last month by Baylor University shows that evangelical Christians are far more likely than Catholics or mainline Protestants to have politically conservative views. But not all evangelicals lean to the right.

On one end of the evangelical spectrum is Ron Dobie, pastor of Stoughton's Christ the King Community Church and president of the Dane County Association of Evangelicals. With Appling, he serves on the advisory council of the Wisconsin Coalition for Traditional Marriage, a group of religious, community and business leaders working to promote the amendment.

"I support marriage," he says. "When we went to no-fault divorce, we saw the divorce rate go up and the marriage rate go down, because it devalued marriage. This is another thing that says marriage is not important."

Dobie also condemns homosexuality. "The homosexual lifestyle is not a healthy lifestyle," he says. "Homosexuality has never been accepted by any society that I know of. [Gay marriage] would be a huge step away from what traditionally has been true. If we do that, I don't think we have any basis to say polygamy is wrong, or bestiality is wrong."

In principal, Dobie agrees it is healthier for gay people to be in committed relationships, as opposed to not, but says society benefits from the traditional definition of marriage. "Emphasizing marriage between one man and one woman is the best way to go," he says. "We should be promoting that, not doing anything to diminish it."

On the other end of the spectrum is Chris Dolson, senior pastor of Blackhawk Church, a west-side "mega-church" that packs in more than 3,000 worshippers each week. While he affirms that the Bible says the only appropriate sexual relationships are between married men and women, he says the amendment has not come up in his conversations, and he will not preach about it.

Like a growing number of evangelical preachers, Dolson believes church is not an appropriate place to discuss politics. "It's not an issue of this or that amendment," he says. "What's more important, following Christ, or following our Legislature?"

But Dolson encourages churchgoers to consider Christian ethics as they ponder the amendment's possible effects on the gay community. "Put yourselves in their shoes," he says. "Do you think it would be beneficial to them? The whole thing about people not being able to see their dying spouse because they're not married, to me that's not fair."

Reaping the whirlwind:

If prices are rising, that should be a signal to people and businesses to avoid settling in risky areas. The economic centre of the hurricane business is Florida, which is both the most vulnerable part of America and the most valuable. In 2004 the total value of insured coastal property in Florida was $1.937 trillion, compared with $1.902 trillion in New York. Unfortunately, the signal is not getting through to homeowners in Florida, because the government is cushioning the blow. Insurance companies in America may not set their own prices. The rates they charge customers (and indeed the models on the basis of which they calculate their rates) are regulated by state governments. "Communism survives in three parts of the world," says Mr Muir-Wood: "North Korea, Cuba and the American insurance market."

Thanks to subsidised insurance, the risks of living on Florida's coast are not reflected in property prices. In 2005"”the year after the most damaging hurricane year ever"”six of the nine metropolitan areas with the fastest-rising house prices in America were in Florida. The state's population is expected to rise by 52% between 2003 and 2030, as against 21% for the country as a whole. The insurance industry is not impressed. "You've got to send a proper price signal," says David Unnewehr of the American Insurance Association. "You can't subsidise development through insurance."

What would Florida look like if the price signals were getting through? More like Grand Bahama, probably, which is covered by the British insurance market. The Queen's Cove canal estate in north Grand Bahama, which has been flooded three times in six years, is no longer insurable. People are moving out and new houses are being built on stilts.

I've been listening to Ravi Zacharias's radio show, Just Thinking, for many months now. Several months ago, while discussing Ethics in the Workplace (part of his "Faith Under Fire" series), he laid out three rules for distinguishing legitimate from illegitimate pleasures. I found them so thought-provoking and succinct that I wanted to share them:

1. Anything that refreshes you without diminishing you, destroying you, or distracting you from your final goal is a legitimate pleasure.
2. Any pleasure that jeopardizes the sacred right of another is an illegitimate pleasure.
3. Any pleasure, no matter how good, if not kept in balance can distort reality or destroy appetite.

Before I can apply these rules, I have to ask myself a deceptively simple question: what is my final goal? After identifying my final goals, perhaps I should define several sub-goals that will help me meet my final goal. (For example: what can I do in 2006 / 2007 to help me move towards meeting my final goal?) Only after I've done that can I really identify whether a pleasure is legitimate or not.

Now that I've changed the way I look at myself, how about changing the way I look at everyone around me? Here is C.S. Lewis, from "The Weight of Glory":

Meanwhile the cross comes before the crown and tomorrow is a Monday morning. A cleft has opened in the pitiless walls of the world, and we are invited to follow our great Captain inside. The following Him is, of course, the essential point. That being so, it may be asked what practical use there is in the speculations which I have been indulging. I can think of at least one such use. It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbour.

The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbour's glory should be laid daily on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare.

All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics.

There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization -- these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit -- immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously -- no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.

And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner -- no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbour he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat -- the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden.

I found this in Jonathan Edwards' "The Justice of God in the Damnation of Sinners". It's not only convicting, it's changing my perspective on how I view myself.

But sinful men are full of sin; full of principles and acts of sin: their guilt is like great mountains, heaped one upon another, till the pile is grown up to heaven. They are totally corrupt, in every part, in all their faculties, and all the principles of their nature, their understandings, and wills; and in all their dispositions and affections. Their heads, their hearts, are totally depraved; all the members of their bodies are only instruments of sin; and all their senses, seeing, hearing, tasting, &c.; are only inlets and outlets of sin, channels of corruption. There is nothing but sin, no good at all. Romans. 7:18. "In me, that is, in my flesh, dwells no good thing." There is all manner of wickedness. There are the seeds of the greatest and blackest crimes. There are principles of all sorts of wickedness against men; and there is all wickedness against God. There is pride; there is enmity; there is contempt; there is quarreling; there is atheism; there is blasphemy. There are these things in exceeding strength; the heart is under the power of them, is sold under sin, and is a perfect slave to it. There is hard-heartedness, hardness greater than that of a rock, or an adamant-stone. There is obstinacy and perverseness, incorrigibleness and inflexibleness in sin, that will not be overcome by threatenings or promises, by awakenings or encouragements, by judgments or mercies, neither by that which is terrifying nor that which is winning. The very blood of God our Saviour will not win the heart of a wicked man.

And there are actual wickednesses without number or measure. There are breaches of every command, in thought, word, and deed: a life full of sin; days and nights filled up with sin; mercies abused and frowns despised; mercy and justice, and all the divine perfections, trampled on; and the honour of each person in the Trinity trod in the dirt. Now if one sinful word or thought has so much evil in it, as to deserve eternal destruction, how do they deserve to be eternally cast off and destroyed, that are guilty of so much sin!

The Thirsty Theologian: God Gave C2H6OPart 5: To Abstain or not to Abstain

"I know there's nothing wrong with alcohol, but I abstain for the weaker brother."

What is wrong with that statement? Absolutely nothing, in the right context. However, if that means abstinence as a lifestyle, and categorizing everyone who disapprove

(tags: christianity southernbaptist alcohol abstinence)

The Thirsty Theologian: God Gave C2H6OPart 6: Answering Objections

David wraps up the series.

(tags: christianity southernbaptist alcohol abstinence)