The Petty and Spiteful Son of Man

In the morning, when he returned to the city, he was hungry. And seeing a fig tree by the side of the road, he went to it and found nothing at all on it but leaves. Then he said to it, "May no fruit ever come from you again!" And the fig tree withered at once.

Matthew 21:18-19

The State of Tennessee begs the question

I swear I haven't distorted the meaning of this, only edited out the parts that might mask the beauty of its logic.

Every murder . . . committed in the perpetration of . . . any murder in the first degree . . . is murder in the first degree.

Any questions?

From the people charged with finding me a job...

Here is a brief excerpt from a section of my Career Planning and Professional Development Handbook concerning resumes:

You may wish to list any publications, either published or unpublished . . . .

So, my career counselor wants me to include my unpublished publications. Well, I've got lots of those!

Hey, a funny!

If the text is too small, click to zoom in. I believe the author asks eight questions in-a-row before he decides to break the insanity with a joke, in the form of a question -- no, two! -- of course.

Also, note the use of the verb "burgle" near the top there. You like that, don't you? I know I do.

I miss good writing

It's sad the kind of writing that moves me these days. Judicial opinions, especially concerning contract law, are so dull and tedious that even passages like this give me a little flutter:

[T]here can be no unconscionable enrichment, no advantage upon which the law will frown, when the result is but to give one party to a contract only what the other has promised; particularly where, as here, the delinquent has had full payment for the promised performance.

Justice Stone, Groves v. John Wunder Co., 286 N.W. 235 (Minn. 1939). You see, lawyers don't have it so easy. Stuff like this is the best part of what we have to read all day long.

The Problem of Evil

Let's start with two views of this problem, one from the East and one from the West. First, the Bhûridatta Jataka, a Buddhist text making clear the Buddha's stance on the existence of an all-powerful creator-god:

If the creator of the world entire
They call God, of every being be the Lord
Why does he order such misfortune
And not create concord?

If the creator of the world entire
They call God, of every being be the Lord
Why prevail deceit, lies and ignorance
And he such inequity and injustice create?

If the creator of the world entire
They call God, of every being be the Lord
Then an evil master is he, (O Aritta)
Knowing what's right did let wrong prevail!

And now from Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, by David Hume, a Scottish philosopher of some note, paraphrasing Epicurus, a Greek philosopher also of some note:

Is [God] willing to prevent evil, but not able? then is he impotent.
Is he able, but not willing? then is he malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil?

For those who haven't read their Shakespeare in a while, you'll remember that "whence" means "from what place or source."

Most Christians who grapple with this problem are unwilling to budge on God's power and love, so, as a consequence, most attempts at theodicy (a solution to the Problem of Evil), attack the evil factor. It seems the most common argument is that what we experience as evil is not really evil: it's all part of God's divine plan, and since we don't really know what God considers evil and has in store for us, it is too presumptuous of we humans to question him.

My first response to such an argument is this: Read Genesis. The Bible says evil exists. God created it, albeit via woman, and them blamed it on the rest of us. The Bible makes this all very clear. So no dice on the no evil argument.

Second, it matters little to a starving child or a tortured hostage what God thinks of evil and what his overall plan might be for the world. Real people suffer real pain unceasingly. Whether we can understand God is irrelevant. He should understand us. He should know that what may be a trifling occurrence in his grander scheme is often of great import and consequence to us piddling mortals.

This is why, from a theological and exegetic perspective, I have more respect for the Westboro Baptists who are at least honest about the wrath and spleen of God than I do for the Jesusfreaks who only want to talk about his infinite love for me and the world. Pshaw!

What's a guy gotta do to appear to be in distress?

Here's something a real man said in front of a real judge in a real case:

"Ziolkowski testified that he observed a man lying [face down] on the [train station] floor . . . . Ziolkowski testified that the man did not appear to be injured or in distress."

That must be a rough neighborhood where people lie face down on the train station floor and it's not considered a sign of distress.