< Back What Are Farm Animals Thinking? David Grimm New research is revealing surprising complexity in the minds of goats, pigs, and other livestock. You’d never mistake a goat for a dog, but on an unseasonably warm afternoon in early September, I almost do. I’m in a red-brick barn in northern Germany, trying to keep my sanity amid some of the most unholy noises I’ve ever heard. Sixty Nigerian dwarf goats are taking turns crashing their horns against wooden stalls while unleashing a cacophony of bleats, groans, and retching wails that make it nearly impossible to hold a conversation. Then, amid the chaos, something remarkable happens. One of the animals raises her head over her enclosure and gazes pensively at me, her widely spaced eyes and odd, rectangular pupils seeking to make contact—and perhaps even connection. It’s a look we see in other humans, in our pets, and in our primate relatives. But not in animals raised for food. Or maybe we just haven’t been looking hard enough. That’s the core idea here at the Research Institute for Farm Animal Biology (FBN), one of the world’s leading centers for investigating the minds of goats, pigs, and other livestock. On a campus that looks like a cross between a farm and a small research institute—with low-rise buildings nestled among pastures, stables, and the occasional dung pile—scientists are probing the mental and emotional lives of animals we’ve lived with for thousands of years, yet, from a cognitive perspective, know almost nothing about. To read the rest of this article for free, click here. David Grimm is the Online News Editor of Science . He also writes for the magazine, where he covers animal welfare, animal rights, and the science of cats and dogs. He received a bachelor of science degree in biochemistry and cell biology from the University of California, San Diego, and a Ph.D. in genetics from Yale University. Grimm is the winner of the 2010 Animal Reporting Award from the National Press Club. In 2009, one of his stories for Science , "The Mushroom Cloud's Silver Lining," was published in The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2009 . His writing has appeared in The New York Times , The Wall Street Journal , The Washington Post , Slate , BuzzFeed , and a variety of other publications. He teaches science journalism at Johns Hopkins University. Grimm is the author of Citizen Canine: Our Evolving Relationship with Cats and Dogs , which traces the evolution of pets from wild animals to members of the family. Click above to return to Winter 2024. Previous Next

< Back Beyond Pascal's Wager “Once we get past skyscrapers and suspension bridges, we really have no idea what’s going on, do we?” David Cowles A Hasidic folk tale, possibly dating back to the Baal Shem Tov himself, tells of a certain Rabbi on his way home from Schule who comes across an elderly widow crawling on her hands and knees under a streetlamp. Not wanting to play the part of passer-by in some future production of The Good Samaritan and eager to perform one last mitzvah before going to bed for the night, the Rabbi offers to assist. "I've lost my shiny penny, the only thing I have left in the world," the widow wails. "And is this where you lost it?" the Rabbi inquires innocently. "No," she replies. "I lost it over there." The quizzical Rabbi, still hoping to be helpful, asks, "Then why are you looking for it here?" "Because the light is better...," the exasperated widow sighs as she continues her search. But under her breath, she mutters with all the derision she can muster, "... Obviously!" This story is often presented as a commentary on the widow's folly, but in fact, the widow is the hero of the story. She defies conventional wisdom. Why look for a lost penny in pitch darkness where there's no hope of finding anything? Pennies can be funny; they have a tendency to bounce and roll. They often end up in the places you'd least expect to find them. Possibly, the widow's penny rolled under the lamp, probably it did not. In any event, it would make no sense to look for it anywhere else because, even if it were there, we would have zero chance of finding it. Let’s recap. It is unlikely that the woman and the Rabbi, now both on hands and knees, will find the penny under the streetlamp; but it’s possible. On the other hand, were they to look in the probability-rich darkness, they would have no chance whatsoever of finding the coin. Real searching is not just idle gazing; searching presupposes a target and a method of getting to that target. I’m making myself a bowl of cereal and I need milk. I open the refrigerator door and look in…for several seconds; then I call out, as we all knew I would, “Are we out of milk?” At which point, my wife gets off the couch, walks to the fridge and pulls out a brand new, unopened half gallon. I gazed; she searched. We look for rainbows; we search for intelligent life…extra-terrestrial and otherwise. This story reminds me of ‘Pascal's Wager’ (1650 CE). Faced with the God Question , the French mathematician, Blaise Pascal, employed a forerunner of what is today called ‘Game Theory’. Conceptually, Pascal divided a sheet of paper into four quadrants. Across the top of the page, he wrote, “I believe that God exists;” down the left-hand margin, he wrote, “God does exist.” Then he filled it in: (N/N), (N/Y), (Y/N) and (Y/Y). Got it? Of course not. Would it be easier to understand if we expressed it in the language of computers, i.e., binary numbers? (0/0), (0/1), (1/0) and (1/1). No? Ok then, (0*0), (0*1), (1*0), (1*1). Now? Ok! Pascal looked at the ‘God Question’ hyper-objectively . He reasoned that one of four things must be true: (1) I do not believe that God exists, and he doesn’t; (2) I do not believe that God exists, but he does; (3) I believe that God exists, but he doesn’t; (4) I believe that God exists, and he does. Flash back : I’m standing at the craps table ( Bellagio , Las Vegas) and I’m holding one $25 chip in my hand. It’s all I have left after a week of heavy drinking and gourmet dining. This is my very last chance to recoup. The ‘felt’ offers me more than a dozen possible wagers, but I need to know my best bet, objectively speaking. Where do I put my last $25 to give myself the best chance of winning? (It’s not as easy as it looks. Different bets come with different odds but also with different payouts.) Back home : (Don’t ask me what happened in Vegas, that stays in Vegas .) I’m still looking to optimize my chances, but this time I’m playing a different game; it’s called the Game of Eternal Life . My options: God does not exist, and I never thought he did: Winner! I believed in God but, as it turns out, I was wrong: Loooser! I did not believe in God, but I was wrong; God does exist: Loooser! God exists and I knew it all along: Winner! Defining Terms - Belief in this context does not refer merely to our intellectual assent to a certain proposition; we are not talking about some sort of creedal affirmation here. Far from it! Believing X means living life as if X were true. So, if you choose one of the “I believe that God exists” options, you are committing yourself, not just to the recitation of a creed but to the adoption of a lifestyle, even if it turns out that you’ve guessed wrong. How about God ? An old man in a white robe living on a cloud? Maybe…but probably not. Then, what does it mean to say, “I believe in God?” What I call the God Hypothesis runs something like this: (A) an objective universe, more or less consistent with experience, exists, and embodies or reflects values that transcend* it; and (B) those values are normative for the way I live my life and the way I live my life, ‘makes a difference’: somewhere, somehow, on some level. *A value is transcendent if and only if it is valid throughout the universe, in all places, at all times, regardless of circumstances, and would be valid in any possible universe (don’t leave home without it) and would still be valid even if there was no universe to reflect or embody it. And finally, universe . Here we must make a distinction. By ‘universe’, I mean what science means: the sum of all events that occur relative to me in spacetime. But we also need to talk about universe, an entity in its own right, not just the totalization of other entities. Everything that happens in the universe happens in spacetime; but universe itself does not. Universe per se transcends spacetime. Nothing limits it. Nothing is beyond it. Therefore, in its own way, it is infinite and eternal. Payoff : So, two winners, two losers. I should break even over time, right? I guess it all comes down to a coin toss after all, which is what I thought in the first place. But not so fast: Remember, different bets come with different payouts. Option (1), “God does not exist, and I never thought he did”, is a winner… Cue confetti! What’s my payout? Zero… Did you just say, “Zero?” What a rip-off! I suppose I have the satisfaction of knowing that 75 years of depression and anxiety have been warranted…but that still leaves me $2.95 short of a Grande at Starbucks. Cold comfort on a winter’s morning. Options (2) and (3) are obvious losers, so “no payout for me – you loooser!” That leaves option (4). Like option (1), (4) is a winner…but this time, hold the confetti until we check the payoff. I’m expecting the dealer to put a few chips down in front of me (I’m hoping for black ones). Instead, he hands me a sheaf of papers. What the heck? – OMG, it’s the deed to the casino. The Bellagio . I’ll confess I’ve always wanted to own the Bellagio , but that’s not this. This isn’t the deed to the Bellagio …it’s the deed to the entire Universe: “Winner, winner, chicken dinner!” Who needs confetti? You’re not convinced. You think you’ve found an error in my reasoning: “Your calculations assume that all 4 outcomes are equally probable: P = 25% across the board. But that may not be the case.” “What if the probability that God does not exist is a 99.99999% and the probability that God does exist is only 0.00001%? What then? Nothing then, that’s what! Odds don’t matter! (1), (2) and (3) payout nothing – it doesn’t matter the odds. Only (4) offers a positive payout, so who cares what the odds are? Is P(4) > 0? (Few would assert otherwise.) 0.00001 is a pretty lousy average payout, but hey, it’s better than 0.00000. So, there is nothing to do but to go ‘all in’ on (4)…and pray. Since (4) pays out ‘the entirety’ and the other three options pay out ‘nothing’, I really have no choice, do I? And that , my friends, is Pascal’s Wager…or is it? Face the facts : our world is incomprehensible and frankly absurd. Sure, we can hit a rock, hurtling through deep space at breakneck speed, with a rocket launched years earlier from Earth. But that’s the equivalent of rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic . On the surface, reality is somewhat intelligible and highly manipulable, but only on the surface. Once we get past skyscrapers and suspension bridges, we really have no idea what’s going on, do we? Could the world have been created by a super-intelligence? I suppose so. Could it have just arbitrarily sprung into being? So they tell me. Will anyone ever know for sure? Probably not. Will anyone ever know for sure that they’ll never know for sure? Again, probably not! “Daddy, you know everything : why is the sky blue? Why is water wet? How many seconds are there is a year? Daddy, who am I, really?” I was doing so well; I was on a role…and then I hit the wall. We can answer a million questions but the ones we can’t answer are the only ones worth answering. So what to do? Lapse back into agnosticism, skepticism, or nihilism? We are confronted with an epistemological barrier: we can’t use deductive reasoning to prove existential propositions; neither can we rely on induction. But we can use Game Theory to our advantage…and we just did. What if the implications of Game Theory could take us ‘beyond Pascal’s Wager’? Let’s revisit our base equations. Options (1), (2) and (3) pay out nothing; that’s certain. There’s no phenomenological difference between options that pay zero and options that don’t exist at all. Option 123 is equivalent to null-universe. Now let’s take a look at option (4). We’ve called the payout ‘1’ and so it is… in our two value number system. Therefore, the expected payout is just 0.000001. But what is the meaning of ‘1’? It’s not ‘half of 2’ because there is no 2; and half of 1 is still 1. There is only one and none, and one is any x where x > 0. But we’ve seen above that one is everything (Universe) and Universe (everything) is infinite (eternal). In a bizarre mathematical twist, if P(4) > 0, no matter how small P(4) is, then P(4)*∞ = ∞. This is the ultimate ‘participation trophy’. Just playing the game guarantees you an infinite payout…as long as you put your paltry pile of chips on #4. Winner, winner, cosmic dinner! Now, that’s what I’m talkin’ about, Willis! David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com . 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< Back A Universal Quantum Computer Is Possible! David Cowles Sep 10, 2024 “We are living in a version of Universe in which some quantum bits are still in superposition (potentiality) and others are already ‘decohered’ (actuality).” In a recent edition of Thoughts While Shaving (August 8, 2024) , Aletheia Today (AT) proposed that the Universe might itself be a giant Quantum Computer with every bit in superposition. Now scientists have released new findings that support that possibility. Physicists have created a new model for quantum computers that could more easily scale them up to make them more powerful than previously thought possible. The new theory, outlined in a recent study published in the journal PRX Quantum , proposes linking qubits, the fundamental workhorses of quantum computers, over vast distances to work as if they were part of a single super-powerful machine . These qubits can then be stitched together through quantum entanglement , linking their data across vast spans of spacetime, to process calculations in parallel. The more qubits are entangled, the more exponentially powerful a quantum computer can become. According to our (AT’s) version of this model, there is one ‘Universe’ with 10^80 bits, all potentially in a state of quantum superposition (i.e., not 0 or 1 but 0 and 1). Accordingly, there are 10^160 possible ‘universes’, i.e. unique combinations of decohered (0 or 1) quantum states. Perhaps unexpectedly, the Book of Genesis captures this model explicitly. Prior to the primal creative act ( Fiat Lux! ), “…the earth was without form or shape with darkness over the abyss and a mighty wind sweeping over the waters” (1: 2). What better metaphor could there be for ‘universal quantum superposition’? At any given moment in time, we are living in a version of Universe in which some quantum bits (Q-bits) are still in superposition while others have already decohered. (Time is not an element in Universe if decoherence is either 0% or 100%.) Imagine a bucket of water. As the temperature cools, the water will gradually, not suddenly, transition from a liquid to a solid (ice) state. Like the surface of a shallow pond, ice first forms at the surface and along the edges and then gradually spreads until the entire body of water is frozen solid. The constituent molecules, randomly jumbled in the liquid state, gradually assume a fixed alignment according to the principles of crystallography. Our Universe is currently in such a process of crystallization. We experience that process as ‘time’, the gradual transition from ‘pure potentiality’ (Aristotle) to total actuality. This model potentially resolves the perennial philosophical challenge of reconciling stability with flux. This problem fascinated the founders of Western philosophy (e.g. Parmenides and Heraclitus, 5th century BCE) as well as its last great systematic thinker, Alfred North Whitehead (c. 1930 CE). The challenge is transmuted into a prayer in an Anglican hymn: “Abide in me, fast falls the eventide.” Permanence amid flux! From here and now, we would expect additional Q-bits to decohere, ultimately resulting in a universal and eternal steady state. Could that be the much anticipated Kingdom of Heaven (Whitehead)? Or much dreaded Heat Death (Penrose)? Or the Block Universe we hear so much about these days? Our model, however, raises an additional question: If the Universe is in a state of superposition, how is it that any of its Q-bits ever decohere? According to standard quantum theory, decoherence only happens when a Q-bit comes in contact with an outside agent, a measurement tool, e.g. a nosey physicist. Decoherence, like ice, is contagious. But if the entire Universe is in a state of superposition, how is it that any portion of it can decohere? Traditionally, the role of universal outside agent, the cosmic other, has been assigned to God. But for those of you who are ‘enlightened’ and therefore God-phobic, we don’t need that hypothesis. The phenomenon of universal, reciprocal Incarnation will do the trick. The Universe is incarnate in each of its component entities just as each such entity is incarnate in the Universe. Anaxagoras realized this 2500 years ago. Pan in Panti he called it. Therefore, everything has the potential to function as an outside agent relative to anything else. The end is implicit (not necessarily determined) in the beginning. Bertrand Russell notwithstanding, just as ø is a member of every set, so every set must be a member of itself. Universe is maximally recursive. Universe is recursion. What we experience as ‘time’ (above) is the process of the Universe decohering. This model reflects our everyday experience in realms far removed from icy lakes. For example, assume 20 legit candidates announce plans to run for President of the United States in the next cycle. The outcome is highly uncertain. Gradually, the number of possible ‘final states’ (outcomes) reduces. On Election Day, the remaining Q-bits ‘collapse’ and we are left with one bit with a value of 1 (all others are 0). We call that Q-bit POTUS. Keep the conversation going. 1. Click here to contact us on any matter. How did you like the post? How could we do better in the future? Suggestions welcome. 2. To subscribe (at no cost) to TWS and ATM, follow this link . 3. We encourage new articles and reprints from freelance writers ; click here to view out Writers’ Specs. Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

“1,500 years ago, we didn’t have these problems. We knew all that we needed to know about life.” < Back The Living and the Dead David Cowles Jun 1, 2024 “1,500 years ago, we didn’t have these problems. We knew all that we needed to know about life.” An article by Paul Sutter (12/3/2023), republished on space.com , makes an intriguing contribution to the age-old debate over the boundary between ‘the living’ and ‘the dead’. No, I’m not talking about seances or Ouija boards or long Celtic twilights. Sutter proposes that we define as ‘living’ anything that is subject to the process of evolution . 150 years ago, we were debating whether any organisms were subject to evolution. Now Sutter proposes we make evolution the defining characteristic of Life itself. What a difference a day makes! 1500 years ago, we didn’t have these problems. We knew all that we needed to know about life. How did we know? The Bible told us so! Life was created by God, on Earth only, less than 10,000 years ago as a well-defined set of largely visible organisms thriving in reasonably hospitable ecological niches. Now we know some things we didn’t know 1500 years ago, or 150 years ago for that matter. We know that life probably emerged just once (on Earth); and so far, at least, it has proven to be indestructible. We know that life is ubiquitous on Earth, that it populates nearly every nook and cranny, no matter how hostile. We anticipate the end of the world. We’ve been doing so for millennia. Recently, nuclear weapons, biological warfare, climate change and even AI have considerably advanced the timeline suggested by the Book of Revelation. We now know that speciation is just a series of rest stops on the trail. Check out the view from Tiger ! It’s burning bright. We know that living organisms adapt, genetically, epigenetically, culturally, to almost any conceivable set of environmental stresses…and we’re still pushing that envelope: Don’t like it on Earth? Try Mars! Don’t like oxygen? Breathe methane instead! And if that means you can never be more than 1 cm away from some tree’s root system, so be it! I didn’t want to see the world anyway; did you? 1,500 years ago, few conceived that the order of species might undergo modification other than as a consequence of divine intervention. Nor did we imagine that independent life forms might exist elsewhere in the cosmos. Since Darwin, the field of astrobiology has boomed…but at a cost. We have lost control of our subject. At one extreme, we now have pan-vitalists , folks who believe either (1) that the Universe itself is a living organism (Gaia) or (2) that life suffuses the cosmos as if it were a field …like EM or Gravity or God. Pan-vitalism may or may not have the final word. Regardless, it has contributed a new perspective. Universe contains innumerable (but not infinitely many) environmental niches. Given that life has emerged once, in one such niche (Earth), we can speculate that it must have emerged innumerable times in innumerable other niches. At the other end of the spectrum, there are ‘lunatics’ like me who still think there’s a slight chance that life ‘evolved’ once and only once - on just one planet, in just one solar system, in just one galaxy, not so very far away. We reason, the probability that life emerged anywhere, even here on Earth, is infinitesimally small (є), but life did emerge on Earth. Absent that information, the chance that Life emerged independently in more than one niche is astronomically smaller: є² or less. Read literally, є is smaller than any real number: є = 1/∞. Then how small is є²! One advantage of this argument is that it resolves two great cosmological scandals : Why is the Universe so big (or so old)? Answer : It needed to be that big for Life to have at least a 0.5 probability of emerging. If Life did emerge 4 billion years ago, as is generally believed, then perhaps we can say that the half-life for Life to emerge is 10 billion years…in which case we should not expect any cosmic company for a while yet. Why would life evolve on Earth and nowhere else? Answer : Why not? One is one! Think of what I call a ‘proto ice cube’ (you call it ‘water’). The liquid does not transition to ice all at once. The phase change begins at one or more nodes and spreads from there through the entire volume, but the location of the node(s) appears to be entirely random. Between these two poles, there are folks who think that life commonly evolves but just as commonly dies out. Their bumper sticker reads, “Frequent but Fleeting”. Therefore, the current state of bio-diffusion is entirely uncertain. And then there are those who think that extra-terrestrial life is likely limited to a relatively small number of Earth-like exoplanets. Finally, still others think we may find independent occasions of life on various moons and planets in our own tiny solar system. As a result, we are sending a probe to Venus to look for life in the Venusian atmosphere. Presumably, the lifespan of any such organism would be the time it takes to fall from the edge of Venus’ atmosphere to the surface of the planet. And they say our lives vanish like the dew! Sutter (above) stops just short of pan-vitalism . “How short is he?” About 2 seconds short! Sutter maintains that life could have emerged just a few seconds after Big Bang. He believes that we should push the boundaries of life at least as far back as prebiotic molecules. But he’s not done yet! “ Some physicists have hypothesized that in the earliest moments following the Big Bang, the forces of nature were so extreme and so exotic that they could have supported the growth of complex structures. For example, these structures could have been cosmic strings , which are folds in space-time, anchored by magnetic monopoles. “With sufficient complexity, these structures could have stored information. There would have been plenty of energy to go around, and those structures could have self-replicated, enabling Darwinian evolution. Any creatures existing in those conditions would have lived and died in the blink of an eye, their entire history lasting less than a second — but to them, it would have been a lifetime.” The fundamental (Planck) unit of time is 10^-42 seconds. The Cosmos is expected to reach an age of at least 10^11 years before it ‘chills out’. (There are c. 10^7 seconds in a year.) Therefore, the scale of time encompasses c. 60 orders of magnitude. It is hard to imagine that any ‘objective durations’ have real meaning on such a scale. I mean, now what counts as ‘fleeting’? It’s also a bit odd that time would have a minimum and a maximum value. Is there something significant about the 60 orders of magnitude spread? Would the same spread apply in any feasible universe? Is this spread a defining characteristic of ‘Universe’ per se ? (As Leviathan is a defining characteristic of our world - Book of Job.) But this article is not about time! It’s about scientific reasoning. We have viable conceptions of life, ranging from the cosmos itself to a single, primal DNA/RNA molecule. I suppose we could even go further and argue that Life itself is ‘not a thing’, that biology is just mechanics. Any model that can’t discriminate between values ranging from ‘all’ to ‘nothing’ is in serious trouble. That doesn’t necessarily mean that the model is wrong, that it will be falsified. Rather, it may be subsumed as a subroutine under a broader theoretical framework. And when a single term (e.g. ‘life’) can be applied to such a broad spectrum of phenomena, it is a good bet that we don’t understand the term itself as well as we thought we did. Bottom line : we can be sure that we’re not at the end of this tunnel yet, no matter how well lit the corridor may seem. David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com . Return to Summer 2024 Share Previous Next Do you like what you just read? Subscribe today and receive sneak previews of Aletheia Today Magazine articles before they're published. Plus, you'll receive our quick-read, biweekly blog, Thoughts While Shaving. Subscribe Thanks for subscribing! 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< Back The Rosette – God’s Kaleidoscope David Cowles Sep 17, 2024 “Its sole function is to convey Beauty, one of the primary manifestations of Divinity in our World.” Next time you visit a Roman Catholic Church, especially an older cathedral, turn around…and this time, do look up! Chances are you’ll be looking at a large, circular, stained glass window, often referred to as a ‘Rosette’. If you’ve timed your visit right, light may be streaming through, filling the interior with an eponymous rosy glow. Elsewhere in the church you may find other stained glass windows, usually depicting scenes from the Bible, or from the life of a particular saint. Unlike these, the Rosette is most often purely a design. It has no thematic content; its sole function is to convey Beauty, one of the primary manifestations of Divinity in our World. After the riot of color, the most striking feature of a Rosette is the symmetry of its design…usually at least hexagonal but often dodecagonal. Why did Christianity settle on the Rosette as one of its defining symbols? First, the circular form symbolizes the unity, wholeness, and perfection of God. It suggests God as the source of light, symbolizing the act of creation and the illumination of revelation. The symmetrical design reflects the order of the cosmos created by God. The number 12 is important in Christian theology, so it is no surprise that larger Rosettes often display dodecagonal symmetry. 12 apostles, for example. The 12 baskets of scraps collected after Jesus fed the 5,000. Of course, 12 is also the number of signs in the Zodiac and, as every third grader used to know, it is the product of 3 x 4: the three persons of the Trinity and the four corners of the Earth (i.e. the material world). Finally, in Roman Catholic spirituality, the Virgin Mary is often portrayed as the Mystic Rose (Rosa Mystica). The lack of a thetic image allows the Rosette to sample, and be sampled by, other spiritual traditions. For example, some observers have detected a similarity to the Great Mandala of Tibetan Buddhism. As such, the Rosette recalls the cyclical nature of birth, death and eschatological rebirth, contrasting the simple eternal unity of God (circle) with the variety and variability of life on Earth (colors). Roman Catholics do not shy away from spiritual aids. Unlike some other faiths, Catholicism makes generous use of statues and images to focus the worshiper’s mind on given spiritual themes. Thank goodness! The result is some of the world's greatest artistic achievements. And it’s not always necessary to travel to a museum or cathedral to have such an experience. Many Catholics carry rosary beads in their pockets, wear medals, place icons in their homes. On the other hand, carrying around a huge architectural feature like a Rosette is hardly practical, is it…or is it? Actually, those of us born before the age of video games routinely had Rosettes in our bedrooms growing up. We called them ‘kaleidoscopes’, but unless our parents were particularly perspicacious, we were unaware of their potential as spiritual aids. They were just ‘fun’. In fact, however, $9.99 kaleidoscopes embody many of the same features as Rosettes. Obviously, they display light, refracted into a rainbow of colors. They do so without resort to thematic images and they also exhibit symmetry, usually hexagonal (because of the size limitations imposed by their portability). And they are portable! Unlike some people I know, you can take them anywhere. You could even hitch one to your belt or belt loop like a 1960’s engineer’s slide rule. You could put one on your bedside table. You could carry one in your glove box (not to be used while driving). Point is, you’re never more than 3 seconds away from an experience of God’s glory. Is that worth $10? Ok, let’s get real. Even the best kaleidoscopes fall short of the Rosettes we see in the great cathedrals of Europe. On the other hand, they have a feature that no medieval architect could have even imagined. They move! Take a scope in one hand and look through the eyepiece located at the far end of the cylinder. What do you see? A gorgeous pattern of shapes and colors. Now slowly rotate the ‘nose cone’. The initial pattern morphs gradually, and then suddenly, a ‘phase change’! An entirely new pattern emerges which does not appear to relate in any way to the previous pattern, or to any prior pattern for that matter. I have the impression at least that every pattern is novel, that no pattern recurs. My kaleidoscope captures a feature of God’s glory that no Rosette could possibly match: the forever newness of his creation! Keep the conversation going. 1. Click here to contact us on any matter. How did you like the post? How could we do better in the future? Suggestions welcome. 2. To subscribe (at no cost) to TWS and ATM, follow this link . 3. 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< Back Faith Is Not Belief Without Evidence Joseph Hinman "Faith is not belief without evidence; it's the content of a relationship with God and is based upon the private experience of God's love." I am tired of hearing atheists say "faith is believing things without evidence." No definition of faith in Christianity says that. Let's Get this out of the way up front. Heb 11:1: faith is the substance of things to be hoped for, the argument (argumentum) of things that are not apparent. Most translations say "evidence of things not seen."This does not say faith is belief without evidence it says faith itself is a kind of evidence because it points to the reality that caused one to have faith. The most important dictionary in theology is the Westminster Dictionary of Christian Theology. There are two kinds, one for theologians and one for ideas. Let's consult the latter. faith (Gr. pistis, Lat. fides, “trust,” “belief”) In Christianity, belief, trust, and obedience to God as revealed in Jesus Christ. It is the means of salvation (Eph. 2:8–9) or eternal life (John 6:40). Faith affects all dimensions of one’s existence: intellect, emotions, and will. See also salvation.[1] According to that definition there is nothing like a lack of evidence. There Is no hint that faith involves a lack of evidence. Consulting the same source for different uses of the term "faith:" Faith, explicit (Lat. fides explicita) Faith in that of which one has knowledge. Thus the term may be understood as referring to what one professes to believe because of what is known.[2] Here faith is equated with knowledge. Since evidence involves knowledge and builds on knowledge it would seem that faith is actually dependent upon evidence rather than being without it. Faith, implicit (Lat. fides implicita) The Roman Catholic view that one believes as true “what the church believes,” even without certain knowledge. It was rejected by the Protestant Reformers as a true faith because the element of knowledge was lacking.[3] The Catholic view seems closer to being without evidence, but not an exact fit. In any case that view was rejected by the reformers and is not really compatible with the Protestant view.The Protestant view rests upon knowledge, which again, would have to involve evidence at some point. Thus direct contradiction to the atheist bromide. Then we turn to the protestant notion of "saving faith." That is faith that saves. Remember Paul tells us salvation is by Grace through faith:“For by grace you have been saved through faith” (Ephesians 2:8).[4] Faith, saving. The gift of God through the Holy Spirit whereby one accepts and believes the promises of the Gospel as the reception of salvation through the life and the work of Jesus Christ. One is incorporated into Christ, participates in his benefits, and is an heir of eternal life. [4] No indication is given that there is no preliminary basis for belief which might involve evidence.Before one can trust God one must believe that God is. None of these definitions preclude basing that initial belief upon evidence. It is after one accepts the conviction that God is real that faith might supersede evidence in matters such as trusting God for salvation. Let's turn to some major figures in Christian theology to see if they define faith as belief without evidence: St. Augustine Faith, to Augustine, is a humble posture of seeking and confession, in which the individual confesses their sin and brokenness before God, and by his Grace, is cleansed. The individual surrenders to the God who is already present in the soul. This initial work begins the process of cleansing the soul so that it can see clearly. As the individual continues to seek God, the soul is continually cleansed as a gracious process, which slowly flakes away the filth of the Fall. Augustine believed that much could be known through Platonic meditation: eternal things and God’s presence could be apprehended, but God could be known only for a moment.[5] Thomas Aquinas Popular accounts of religion sometimes construe faith as a blind, uncritical acceptance of myopic doctrine. According to Richard Dawkins, “faith is a state of mind that leads people to believe something—it doesn’t matter what—in the total absence of supporting evidence...Such a view of faith might resonate with contemporary skeptics of religion. But as we shall see, this view is not remotely like the one Aquinas—or historic Christianity for that matter—endorses. To begin with, Aquinas takes faith to be an intellectual virtue or habit, the object of which is God (ST IIaIIae 1.1; 4.2). There are other things that fall under the purview of faith, such as the doctrine of the Trinity and the Incarnation. But we do not affirm these specific doctrines unless they have some relation to God. According to Aquinas, these doctrines serve to explicate God’s nature and provide us with a richer understanding of the one in whom our perfect happiness consists (Ibid.).[6] Here again knowledge, an intellectual thing, compatible with evidence. How could faith be based upon knowledge and be an intellectual act and yet without evidence? By intellectual he means one consciously assents to belief. Marin Luther ... faith is God's work in us, that changes us and gives new birth from God. (John 1:13). It kills the Old Adam and makes us completely different people. It changes our hearts, our spirits, our thoughts and all our powers. It brings the Holy Spirit with it. Yes, it is a living, creative, active and powerful thing, this faith. Faith cannot help doing good works constantly. It doesn't stop to ask if good works ought to be done, but before anyone asks, it already has done them and continues to do them without ceasing. Anyone who does not do good works in this manner is an unbeliever. He stumbles around and looks for faith and good works, even though he does not know what faith or good works are. Yet he gossips and chatters about faith and good works with many words. Faith is a living, bold trust in God's grace, so certain of God's favor that it would risk death a thousand times trusting in it. Such confidence and knowledge of God's grace makes you happy, joyful and bold in your relationship to God and all creatures. The Holy Spirit makes this happen through faith. Because of it, you freely, willingly and joyfully do good to everyone, serve everyone, suffer all kinds of things, love and praise the God who has shown you such grace.[7] John Wesley With a deep conviction, Wesley repeatedly stresses the necessity of faith. ‘Saving faith is a sure trust and confidence which a man has in God, that by the merits of Christ his sins are forgiven, and he is reconciled to the favour of God.’1 It is also clear that Wesley sees faith as a gift of God, although he does not emphasize that very much.[8] There is an initial coming to faith where one decides "I do believe in God." In that stage evidence is not a contradiction to belief. Most of the activity of faith involves personal trust in God's salvation and his providential care. In this regard evidece is irrelivant, unless we want to think of the content of personal experience of God as evidence.It is evidence of God's goodness. I think for the most part evidence is irrelevant to faith. Faith is not belief without evidence, it's the content of a relationship with God and is based upon the private experience of God's love. Source: This originally appeared in Metacrock's Blog and is seen here without any edits. Notes [1] "Faith," The Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms,SECOND EDITION, Revised and Expanded,Donald K. McKim ed.,Louiscille Kentucky:John Knox Press, 2014. https://www.mybibleteacher.net/uploads/1/2/4/6/124618875/the_westminster_dictionary_of_theological_terms_by_donald_k._mckim__z-lib.org_.epub.pdf [2] Ibid. [3] Ibid. [4] Ibid. [5] Mark Hansard, "Faith and Reason, Part 2 Augustine," Intervaristy: Emerging Scholars Network, (August 18,2018) https://blog.emergingscholars.org/2018/08/faith-and-reason-part-2-augustine-summer-2018-series/ [6]Shawn Floyd,"Aquinas Philosoph8ical Theology,"Internet Encyclopedia of Philosphy, https://iep.utm.edu/thomas-aquinas-political-theology/#SH3a [7]An excerpt from "An Introduction to St. Paul's Letter to the Romans," Luther's German Bible of 1522 by Martin Luther, 1483-1546. Translated by Rev. Robert E. Smith from DR. MARTIN LUTHER'S VERMISCHTE DEUTSCHE SCHRIFTEN. Johann K. Irmischer, ed. Vol. 63 Erlangen: Heyder and Zimmer, 1854), pp.124-125. [EA 63:124-125] https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/martin-luthers-definition-faith [8]J. W. Maris, "John Wesley's Concept of Faith," Christian Library taken from Lux Mundi 2010 https://www.christianstudylibrary.org/article/john-wesleys-concept-faith https://www.amazon.com/dp/0982408765 Joseph Hinman's new book is God, Science and Ideology. Hinman argues that atheists and skeptics who use science as a barrier to belief in God are not basing doubt on science itself but upon an ideology that adherer's to science in certain instances. This ideology, "scientism," assumes that science is the only valid form of knowledge and rules out religious belief. Hinman argues that science is neutral with respect to belief in God … In this book Hinman with atheist positions on topics such as consciousness and the nature of knowledge, puts to rest to arguments of Lawrence M. Krauss, Victor J. Stenger, and Richard Dawkins, and delimits the areas for potential God arguments. Click above to return to Winter 2024. Previous Next

“Parmenides anticipated Trinitarian theology and 19th century German dialectics (Hegel, Marx). May we refer to his cosmology as Monothreeism™?” < Back Parmenides I David Cowles Sep 1, 2022 “Parmenides anticipated Trinitarian theology and 19th century German dialectics (Hegel, Marx). May we refer to his cosmology as Monothreeism™?” On Nature is the oldest work of European systematic philosophy still largely extant. The verse epic was composed in the 5th century BC by Parmenides of Elea, a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, widely regarded as both ‘the father of Western philosophy’ and ‘the father of Western science’. On Nature divides Being into two modes: the “Way of Truth” ( Aletheia ) and the “Way of Seeming” ( Doxa ). Most scholars hold that the realm of Aletheia is preeminently real…but Doxa ? Not so much! Commentators holding this view tend to understand Doxa through the prism of Eastern philosophy ( Maya ) or Jewish wisdom literature ( Vanity )…both perfectly valid perspectives, but not the only possible ones. In fact, Parmenides anticipated such a heterodox interpretation and took pains to confront it head-on: “But nevertheless you shall learn…how the things that seem had to have genuine existence, permeating all things completely.” Doxa is real, genuine, and universal…as is Aletheia ! I will argue that there can be no adequate account of reality that does not include both Aletheia and Doxa (even though, as we shall see shortly, the two models appear to be mutually exclusive). I believe that view in consistent with Parmenides’ text and verified by our personal experience. Hold on tight! We know that Al Gore invented the internet , but who invented the concept of ‘Complementarity’ - the convergence of two mutually inconsistent models to account for a single phenomenon? We’d like to think we did! We ‘invented’, or at least discovered, complementarity sometime during the first half of the 20th century; only we didn’t! Examples of complementarity, unlabeled of course, dot the landscape of Western Intellectual History. To attribute the idea of complementarity to Parmenides seems crazy because it is so radically anachronistic. According to the standard model of cultural evolution, Parmenides should not have been able to conceive such an idea 2500 years ago. But he did! Res ipsa loquitur! Despite our self-congratulatory preconceptions, the text of On Nature clearly suggests an interpretation based on Complementarity. The cognoscenti developed a rigid, linear model of intellectual progress. Phylogeny recapitulates ontogeny! Just as a ‘young child’ should not be expected to grasp complex or abstract ideas, neither should an ‘earlier civilization’. Resurrection theology in the Book of Job? Anarchist political theory in the Book of Judges? Complementarity in Parmenides? Impossible! Hog wash! Children are able to entertain challenging ideas better than we can – their minds have not yet ‘seized-up’ like engines deprived of oil. Likewise, the pre-Socratic philosophers of Ancient Greece had a much deeper appreciation of ‘what-is’ than most of their modern counterparts. The venture we call Intellectual History begins with a massively non-linear network of ideas, competing for connections. Survival of the fittest, social media on steroids! Who says there was no Facebook before Zuckerberg? It was just called ‘the Academy’. Whatever memes make the most connections wins . But unlike Hall of Fame voting in most Professional Sports, memes can keep looking for connections until the end of time. The game isn’t over until an amply proportioned individual sings (God per chance?) Occasionally, a meme that has fallen on rocky ground surprises itself and starts to make connections. In that case we often say that this is an idea whose time has come . And as soon as a meme starts to make connections within a particular network, it begins to shape that network. The result is the non-linear process we know as ‘History’! On Nature spells out what it means to exist in the mode of Doxa : “To come to be and to perish, to be and not to be, and to shift place and to exchange bright color.” To exist in the mode of Doxa is to exist relative to other existents, to be one among many. In the mode of Doxa , all being is contingent, just as in the mode of Aletheia , what-is is…necessarily. In the realm of Doxa , entities are engaged in the perpetual process of becoming and perishing; they never really are ! Events in the mode of Doxa can be variously analyzed: subject-predicate, substance-accident, existence-essence (Sartre), actual entity-eternal object (Whitehead), Dasein-Wassein (Heidegger), etc. Parmenides’ Doxa seems to ‘borrow a page’ from Heraclitus: everything flows! Everything is in perpetual flux. As we like to say today at our ubiquitous $199 self-help seminars, complete with a complimentary boxed lunch of course, “Change is the only constant”. What we used to call ‘stability’ is now just a measure of variations in the rate of change. At first blush, this model ( Doxa ) is very attractive; it seems to correlate well with everyday experience. But there is one problem. According to this model, there is no ‘Present’ and therefore no ‘Presence’, no ‘here and now’. To be ‘present’ we need to step out of Heraclitus’ River of Time, but Doxa has no off ramp. At best, ‘here’ and ‘now’ are infinitesimal ‘points’ abstracted from the continuous flow, but that is certainly not what we mean when we speak of ‘the Present’. In the mode of Doxa , there is only ‘then and there’, ‘past and future’. When everything is in flux, nothing really is. Understood this way, Doxa accounts for absolutely nothing! We don’t experience the then and there, the past and future. We believe that they are real, but we can only experience them indirectly, as they are felt through the Present. And if there is no real Presence… Aletheia to the rescue! In the mode of Aletheia , “…what-is is ungenerated and imperishable…whole, single-limbed, steadfast, and complete; nor was it once, nor will it be, since it is, now, all together, one, continuous…Thus coming-to-be is extinguished and perishing not to be heard of.” There is no generation or corruption. There is no space (here and there), no time (past and future), no extension (dispersing and gathering). There is only Presence: “For what coming-to-be of it will you seek? In what way, and whence, did it grow? Not from what-is-not…And what need could have impelled it to grow later or sooner, if it began from nothing?” The concept of ‘the past’ implies that there was once a stable state-of-affairs different from the current state-of-affairs; and the concept of ‘the future’ implies that there will one day be another stable state-of-affairs different from what is now. But in the mode of Aletheia , nothing can ever be different from what is and what-is is eternal, now…and forever. Therefore, in the mode of Aletheia , there is only Presence. Further, if there were a past and/or a future, that past would have to differ from this present and this present from that future. That would suggest that whatever-is is not always ‘complete’. But that too is impossible: “…it is not right for what-is to be incomplete; for it is not lacking, but if it were, it would lack everything…Therefore, it must either be completely, or not at all.” While to exist in the mode of Doxa is to be one among many, to exist in the mode of Aletheia is simply to be one. The origin of ‘becoming’ is ‘the lack’ (Sartre). Therefore, what-is must lack nothing. To be is neither to become nor to perish; it is simply to be, eternally. Understood this way, Aletheia accounts for nothing either! We don’t experience permanence, eternity, wholeness, any more than we experience past and future. We only experience in the Present and what we experience are phenomena that are not present. Wrap your head around that one! How do we account for stability in the midst of flux, and how do we account for flux in the context of stability? This is one of the core problems of philosophy. We can see, I think, that any model of reality that is all flux or all permanence won’t account for much…or anything. Things that genuinely exist must be both stable and changing; but how is that possible? How can anything be ‘both stable and changing’? Only in the mode of Complementarity! Imagine a continuum ranging from absolute flux to absolute stability. What we call Being can only manifest itself in a narrow corridor located somewhere between the two extremes. Call it the ‘Being Belt’! To make this point, 20 th century British philosopher, Alfred North Whitehead quotes a verse from a famous Anglican hymn: Abide in me! Fast falls the even’ tide. What is Being but the juxtaposition of stability and change? Given the fact that neither Doxa nor Aletheia by itself can account for every, or any, phenomenon of everyday experience, are we not entitled at least to conjecture that Parmenides intended us to understand the world using his two models together , effectively viewing the universe stereoscopically? The wave-particle duality in Quantum Mechanics is often cited as the paradigmatic example of a Complementary relationship. According to prevailing thought, the behavior of sub-atomic particles cannot be explained unless one assumes that they are both waves and particles, even though such an assumption appears to entail a contradiction. “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” (Emerson). Apparently, God does not have a ‘little mind’! Nor do children. Now consider the poem’s narrative content. At the beginning of the epic, when Parmenides first comes into the presence of the goddess, she greets him: “Welcome, for it is no ill fortune that sent you forth to travel this route…but right and justice. And it is right that you should learn all things …” And later, “…It is all one to me where I am to begin; for I shall return there again.” Parmenides uses language that we recognize today as characteristic of non-orientable topology, another concept supposedly inaccessible to him at that time. It suggests that Doxa and Aletheia form a reality that is locally two-sided but globally one-sided, i.e., a Mobius Strip. As you pass along the Mobius Strip that is embedded in every non-orientable space, you keep coming back to your starting point (a bit like Alice in Through the Lookingglass ), but every time you return, you find that your ‘orientation’ has reversed. This is exactly what happens in Dante’s Divine Comedy . At the lowest rung of the Inferno, Dante encounters Satan, encased in ice, but standing upright. However, as Dante begins to climb Mount Purgatory and looks back, what does he see? Satan, still encased in ice, but now, upside down! Apply this model to On Nature . For every “spot” on the “strip”, there are two potential orientations: the extensive orientation of Doxa and the eternal orientation of Aletheia . Surprise: Doxa and Aletheia , supposedly polar opposites, turn out not to be so very different from one another after all. In fact, they turn out to be the same thing , just seen in two different orientations, i.e., from two different perspectives. What then really distinguishes the Way of Seeming from the Way of Truth? “…From here onwards learn mortal beliefs…they distinguished opposites in body and established signs apart from one another (language) …all things have been named light and night...” Alfred North Whitehead, in his seminal work of systematic philosophy, Process and Reality , concluded that any ‘processional’ model of reality must include at least three ‘undefined’ terms (i.e., terms whose meaning must be taken for granted without further definition); for Whitehead those terms are: ‘One, Many and Creativity’. We might attempt an even more general formulation. Every processional model of reality must include a principal of disjunction (‘or’ in the language of logic), a principal of conjunction (‘and’), and a transformative function: ʌ, ˅, ↔ The one becomes many and the many becomes one; it is Penelope’s great loom of Being. If this model is taken as the universal substructure of all processional models, Parmenides’ model passes the test. Aletheia is ‘one’, Doxa ‘many’; but what of the ‘transformative function’? Parmenides invokes the goddess herself for this role: “In the midst of these is the goddess who steers all things; for she rules over hateful birth ( Doxa ) and the union of all things ( Aletheia )…” But ultimately, the role of the goddess is not to rule, but to create a third mode of being that can unite the other two: “…She devised Love ( Erota ), first of all the gods…” Thus, Parmenides identified the minimal conditions necessary for ‘process’ to occur, and he did it 2,500 years before Whitehead. Parmenides anticipated Trinitarian theology and19 th century German dialectics (Hegel, Marx). May we refer to his cosmology as Monothreeism™? We have found in Parmenides an ontology that respects the reality of phenomenal events but situates those events in the broader context of Eternal Being. This has been the Holy Grail of Western philosophy for millennia. Now we find out now that we’ve had the Grail in our possession all along, from the very outset in fact. Dorothy never left Kansas…and she just needed to click her heels together to see that. Image: Bust of Parmenides discovered at Velia , thought to have been partially modeled on a Metrodorus bust. [1] David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com. Share Previous Next Do you like what you just read? Subscribe today and receive sneak previews of Aletheia Today Magazine articles before they're published. Plus, you'll receive our quick-read, biweekly blog, Thoughts While Shaving. Subscribe Thanks for subscribing! Click here. 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< Back Regime Change & Democracy Jan 21, 2025 "When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them…” Democracy is in fashion these days. Virtually every country in the world declares itself to be ‘democratic’, if not a democracy per se . A few even include the word in the nation’s name; for example:  Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea)  Democratic Republic of the Congo  People's Democratic Republic of Algeria  Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka  Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal Were I asked to list 5 countries that exemplify ‘democratic values’, my list might differ from the above…considerably. Democratic regimes understand that all political power ultimately rests with the citizens of a nation. Therefore, the true test of any ‘democratic’ institution is its willingness to cede power back to the people, even at the expense of its own institutional survival. It is one thing to oscillate between Party A and Party B within a stable political system; it is another to dissolve or transform that ‘system’, i.e. the institutions of government themselves. Regime change is not a matter of counting ballots; it is about changing hearts. Successful change necessarily involves the 3 immutable values: Truth, Justice, Beauty. Regime change requires that these values be reapplied if not redefined. Conversely, it is when these values are questioned or probed that we know that the possibility of regime change exists. “What is Truth?” asked Pontius Pilate. Today, we ask, “Where is Truth?” The world is drowning in information but how much of that information is useable? Where do we go for information we can trust? Here too, we’re not just talking about Fox News vs. MSNBC. We’re talking about hip hop, Bible study, Shark Tank , Tik-Tok, TED Talks, and Podcasts. Drowning in unverified and mostly unverifiable information, we rely on the source for authentication. For the first time in recent history, at least, Americans do not rely on common sources of information. There is no longer any final court of appeal where ‘facts’ are concerned. Likewise, Justice for most Americans is no longer whatever the courts (formal and informal) say it is. Over the past 70 years, courts have no longer merely applied existing cannons of justice; more and more they are being asked to answer the question, “What is just?” Intriguingly, many high profile cases ask the court to define or redefine Justice in particular contexts. Often these cases seem to involve irreconcilable conflicts between previously accepted values: civil rights vs. states rights, security vs. free speech, the rights of the accused vs. the victims, the scope of the right of self-defense, etc. These sorts of contractions are a sign that we may need to rethink our basic premises. Finally, Beauty, the most subjective of the three. The character of every historical epoch is reflected in its art, but the nature of that reflection can usually be assessed only in retrospect. ‘Regime Change’, at least the way I’m using the term, must in the main be non-violent; any violence must be incidental. Regime Change cannot be imposed; it must be the organic outgrowth of shifting popular consensus. Yes, I'm familiar with this concept - it's often called the "3.5% rule" and was popularized by Erica Chenoweth has proposed that analyzed historical nonviolent protests and civil resistance movements, finding that no movement that achieved active participation from at least 3.5% of the population failed to bring about significant change. However, it's important to note that this isn't a magical threshold that guarantees success. The research was specifically focused on nonviolent movements aimed at regime change or territorial independence. The effectiveness of this percentage could vary significantly depending on the type of social change being sought and the specific context. Would you like to explore any particular aspect of this research or discuss how it might apply to specific social movements? Are there any examples of successful regime change in modern times? How about Eastern Europe c. 1989? Most of the Warsaw Pact countries and many of the former Soviet Republics accepted displacement with barely a shot fired. Ironically, this may have been communism’s finest hour. These moribund regimes allowed themselves to be replaced by systems reflecting extremely divergent ideas and values. The people spoke and it was not the place of the state to pretend otherwise. The options were clear: step aside as demanded or give up any pretense to ever having been democratic. Another example? Brexit. Even though the major political parties were against British Independence, it happened anyway. The people spoke…and the deep state stepped aside and the map of Europe changed. Yet another example? Yesterday’s (January 20th) peaceful transition of power in the United States. Of course, this is scheduled to occur, or not, every 4 years, but I think most readers will agree with me that this time it feels ‘different’. In retrospect, things changed the moment Donald Trump descended the escalator in Trump Tower (2015). For 10 years, a war has waged on TV screens, PTA halls, and barrooms but for now at least the outcome seems ‘settled’…and not just because Trump won the rematch. It is the way Trump won that makes this regime change and not just the usual quadrennial reshuffle. Let’s cut out the noise – voter turnout, 3rd party candidates, etc. Let’s just talk actual votes for the Republican and Democratic nominees. In 2020, the Democratic nominee (Biden) received 7,000,000 more popular votes than the Republican nominee (Trump). In 2024, Trump received 2,000,000 more votes than Harris, a swing of 9,000,000 votes or about 6% of the total votes cast. Oversimplifying, a net 3,000,000 Biden voters switched to Trump while another 3,000,000 simply stayed home (50,000 in the City of Philadelphia alone). The manner of Trump’s victory is key here. Trump did not ‘pick-off’ a few ‘battleground states’ as expected. He won them all, some by big margins. In fact, Trump improved his position relative to the Democratic nominee in every one of the 50 states and in the District of Columbia, and I was hard pressed to find a single demographic category where Harris improved over Biden. For all practical purposes, Trump improved his position with both genders, all ethic groups, all income groups, all educational levels. That is what makes this election a Regime Change. (The last time this happened was in 1932, inaugurating a half century of the New Deal.) Now the forces of the Ancien Regime have two choices: (1) Join the political process and seek to influence, if not control, the evolution of public policy, or (2) Withdraw, metaphorically speaking, into the mountains to wage guerrilla war. For the sake of the nation and the world, I hope they choose Door #1 . Keep the conversation going. 1. Click here to comment on this TWS. 2. To subscribe (at no cost) to TWS and ATM, follow this link . 3. We encourage new articles and reprints from freelance writers ; click here to view out Writers’ Specs. Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back Mass Casualty Events David Cowles May 9, 2023 “There is broad consensus that loss of identity and a sense of belonging has played a huge role in the mental health crisis, especially among teenagers… I’d like to throw another log on that fire.” Through April, we have had more mass shootings in the US than there have been days on the calendar. In other words, we are averaging approximately one mass casualty event per day. Long prior to the pandemic, folks were already feeling lost. Ever since the virtual started to replace the real, ever since chat rooms took the place of barrooms, we have been unmoored: today, nobody knows your name ! The pandemic only served to accelerate processes that were already well under way. The honeycomb of civil society that furnished robust social networks in the past has all but vanished. 40 years ago, a successful parent might have served on a parish council, coached a pee wee soccer team, joined a country club or fraternal organization, and still found time to make an occasional appearance at the corner tavern. Our lives are being reorganized…with no input from us. No more one-income households, no more 40-hour work weeks, no more fiercely guarded family time , no me-time at all! We are urged to balance life and work. A great idea! You should try it. Going, going, pre-pandemic, gone! The collapse of civil society checks all the boxes on the mental health admission form. It has taken away important confirmations of my personal identity; it has greatly restricted my opportunities to experience ‘belonging’, i.e., to join with others in a common enterprise. Finally, it has robbed me of the chance to share ideas with others in reasoned, respectful dialog - to make a contribution to the public debate – to be a citizen. Ok, but what does this have to do with mass shootings ? I think there is broad consensus that loss of identity and a sense of belonging has played a huge role in the mental health crisis, especially among teenagers. I agree with this analysis, but I’d like to throw another log on that fire. Once upon a time, politics was our national pastime – ok, along with baseball. If we weren’t talking about the one, we were talking about the other. These conversations were often heated. As the 1950s became the 1960s and beyond, the rhetoric got extreme…but the conversation never stopped…until now. The 1960s was no golden age, no matter what anyone says. Political dialog was fierce…but there were unwritten rules! First, there was an assumption that ‘ something is true’ and that efforts to discover that ‘truth’ could bring us closer to it. I’m not sure we make any such assumption today. Wow! Think about the implications of that ! It is not ‘truth’ that’s under assault; it’s the concept of Truth itself. A world full of lies is not a good thing, but it is paradise compared to a world without lies. In such a world, all propositions co-exist. None has pride of place over another. None links to another, none crowds-out another, they all just sit there, inert. Hmm, doesn’t this sound a lot like political speech today? Sit there? Inert? Second, there was an expectation that everyone’s hierarchy of values would include the sharing of truth with others. Again, we do without such an assumption now. So with our identity supports and our social networks already depleted, it’s also dawning on us that we will have no voice in the public discourse going forward. We can’t talk politics at work or at home or when we’re out with another couple for dinner. One thought injudiciously phrased or inadvertently shared could have consequences for you and yours, down to the third generation . Society is moving at lightning speed to marginalize the input of its citizens. Could there be a cost to this? Could someone who feels permanently frozen out of any meaningful participation in public life decide to ‘cast a vote that can’t be canceled’? Tragically though, such overtly political acts rarely come with any agenda, except no mas ! I have traded the bustling political life of the hive for a solitary spot in the rookery carved into the mountain side by wind and rain; and I’m not most pleased! Millions of Americans will have this same experience, but few of them will perpetrate a mass casualty incident. One differentiator is the presence of a pre-existing psychiatric condition. So there are four ‘I-beams’: Identity loss - a fading sense of personal identity. Who am I? Isolation – a deterioration in one’s social support network. Impotence – I’m frustrated by everything that’s going on around me, but I have no one I can share this with and, worse, there’s nothing I can do about any of it anyway. Illness – a pre-existing psychiatric condition, psychological problem. Imagine you’re a Hollywood mogul charged with making the next Lawrence of Arabia . Here’s what you’ve been given to work with: “A person with psychiatric issues loses the daily ‘identity confirmation’ of a trusted partner. In response, our anti-hero withdraws from society and isolates himself from everyone in his orbit. In the background, you can hear the drone of the CNN anchors.” You take it from there! Who among us would fail to turn an opportunity like this into a blockbuster? By seeking to understand the psyche of the mass shooter, I in no way mean to justify these horrible acts. However, I think we do ourselves a favor when we try to see the world through the eyes of others. I am hoping that properly labeling the four pillars of alienation – identity loss, isolation, impotence, and illness will contribute toward the development of more effective, comprehensive, and holistic therapeutic strategies. Keep an eye on this space! Keep the conversation going! 1. Click here to comment on this TWS. 2. To subscribe (at no cost) to TWS and ATM, follow this link . 3. We encourage new articles and reprints from freelance writers ; click here to view out Writers’ Specs. 4. Aletheia Today Magazine (ATM) will be devoting its entire fall issue (released 9/1/23) to artificial intelligence (AI). What are the philosophical, theological, cultural and even spiritual implications of AI powered world? If you’d like to contribute to the AI Issue, click here . Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! 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< Back Re-Imagining the Magnificat Tawnie Olson "In our zeal to project our conceptions of The Ideal Woman onto this enigmatic first-century figure, we’ve strayed a bit from the little we do know." Considering how important she is to Christianity, it is surprising how little information the New Testament provides about the Blessed Virgin Mary. This is despite the fact that, even during Jesus’s lifetime, people held strong opinions about her. According to St. Luke, Christ’s preaching was once interrupted by a follower who shouted: “Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you!” To which Jesus gave the quelling reply, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it!” (Luke 11:27,28 NRSV). Over the centuries, Jesus’s suggestion that Christians focus on our relationship with God, rather than speculate about Christ’s earthly family, has been widely ignored. Theologically, artistically, poetically, and musically, we have not been able to resist filling in the enormous gaps in the Gospels’ accounts of Mary with our own ideas about what a woman worthy of bearing the Son of God must have been like. Sometimes, in our zeal to project our conceptions of The Ideal Woman onto this enigmatic first-century figure, we’ve strayed a bit from the little we do know. Sandro Botticelli’s Madonna of the Magnificat, for example, portrays Mary as a stylish blonde Florentine aristocrat, surrounded by refined angel/courtiers as she coolly pens the Magnificat with one hand and dandles the infant Jesus in the other. It is a beautiful painting, far beyond my ability to praise adequately, but somehow, I just can’t imagine the woman it depicts giving birth in a barn. To finish the Re-Imagining the Magnificat, click here . Image: Madonna of the Magnificat, Sandro Botticelli. (Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons ) **This is a republication without modifications from blog.oup. Canadian composer Tawnie Olson is inspired by politics, spirituality, the natural world, and the musicians for whom she composes. She is the winner of the 2018 Barlow Prize, a consortium commission for The Crossing, Seraphic Fire, and the BYU Singers, and the 2021-2023 National Opera Association Dominick Argento Chamber Opera Composition Competition (for Sanctuary and Storm, libretto by Roberta Barker). She is currently working on a new piece for Grammy-nominated Sandbox Percussion, funded by a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts. Return to Yuletide 2023 Previous Next

< Back God is Eternal David Cowles Jan 10, 2022 According to the Trinitarian model, God is relatedness, dialogue, love. Therefore, God is process, the process that animates the spatiotemporal world and the process that constitutes His own Being. But when we think of process, we think of something that unfolds across time. God, however, is eternal; He exists outside of space and time. So how can God be both pure process and atemporal? How is that possible? According to the Trinitarian model, God is relatedness, dialogue, love. Therefore, God is process, the process that animates the spatiotemporal world and the process that constitutes His own Being. But when we think of process, we think of something that unfolds across time. God, however, is eternal; He exists outside of space and time. So how can God be both pure process and atemporal? How is that possible? You might expect that this proposition would have to be accepted on the basis of Faith alone. Fortunately for us, that is not the case. We have actual examples of atemporal process in our sensible world: the subatomic processes illustrated by Feynman Diagrams, the Collapse of Schrodinger’s Wave Function in Quantum Mechanics, the phenomenon of Non-locality (John Bell) and finally the drawings of Escher. Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back JD Salinger vs Wally Shawn David Cowles May 18, 2026 “Rather than reject Salinger’s derogatory depiction, Shawn leans into it… He dismisses the Gregory/Salinger aesthetic and lifestyle as fantastic, illusory, arbitrary and magical.” Any mildly competent Intellectual History of the US post WW II would have to recognize the contributions of J.D. Salinger (JD) and Wallace Shawn (Wally). (Although we’ve never met, I feel as though I grew up, culturally, alongside Mr. Shawn so referring to him as ‘Wally’ does not seem irreverent.) JD, of Catcher in the Rye fame, is known for his eccentricity, his physical isolation, and his meagre, if cherished, literary output. Wally, on the other hand, seems to have two fingers in every cultural pie. Actor, director, author, critic, and TV celebrity, Wallace Shawn is an iconic member of the post-War literary scene. Respecting your time, dear reader, I will mention just a few of Shawn’s many credits: My Dinner with Andre , Vanya on 42 nd Street , The Princess Bride , voice roles in Toy Story and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , and of course, the olive in every martini, Young Sheldon . He’s collaborated with everyone from Woody Allen (6 films) to Louie Malle ( Atlantic City ), Bill Cosby ( The Cosby Show ), and Noam Chomsky. Nor did the apple fall far from the tree. For several decades, Wally’s father, William Shawn, edited America’s literary magazine of record, The New Yorker . During that period the elder Shawn was close friends with Salinger and they dined regularly at the Algonquin. JD was not yet 25 when Wally was born. It is likely that he followed his maturation closely and was no doubt aware of his emergence as a cultural icon in his own right. How JD felt about that, however, is unknown, at least by this commentator. In 1961, in the third of his four published works, Franny and Zooey , Salinger gives Wally a cameo role that I don’t think was meant to be flattering. JD presents Wally as unmemorable, as someone who looks, talks, dresses and acts like everybody else. He has the sort of face that you keep seeing, but not seeing, in every crowd. Salinger presents Wally as a charmer and a gossip, one who drops a name only to disparage its nominee. “It’s not just Wally…it’s everybody. I mean everything everybody does is so…tiny and meaningless,” says Franny Glass, JD’s anti-hero. According to Franny, Wallace Shawn is a poster boy for banality; but worst of all, Wally is introduced to us, and to Franny, as a friend of Lane, Franny’s foil, a shallow, entitled, prep-school frat boy living a life utterly devoid of authenticity. 20 years later (1981), almost to the day, the world got Wallace Shawn’s reply in the form of a full length feature film, My Dinner with Andre (Louie Malle, director). As you know, the film consists almost entirely of conversation over dinner between Wally and fellow director, Andre Gregory. Trust me, you’ll be on the edge of your seat for the full 110 minutes. There is no direct connection between Gregory and Salinger, except for a shared eccentricity that borders on the anti-social and a total disdain for the ordinary and the everyday. However, there are certainly notes of similarity between Salinger’s version of Wally and Malle’s kinder, gentler treatment. That said, Wally’s apparent identity across 2 decades begs us to seek a parallel identity between his interlocutors, Salinger and Gregory. In a style fully suggestive of Salinger, Gregory savages the mundane. For an hour and a half, Gregory holds court, only briefly interrupted by the baffled Shawn and their slightly annoyed waiter. But reminiscent of Molly in Ulysses , Wally gets the last word with a 10 minute virtual soliloquy that shreds the Gregory/Salinger aesthetic: “I’m trying to earn a living. I’m trying to pay my rent and my bills… I have a list of errands and responsibilities that I keep in a notebook, and I enjoy going through my list and carrying out the responsibilities and doing the errands and then crossing them off my list… I don’t feel the need for anything more than this… A delicious cup of coffee and a piece of coffee cake, why is it necessary to have more than this or to even think about having more than this? “You seem constantly to be finding a significance in these things that to me are just facts…that things in the universe are there for a purpose, to give us messages. Whereas I believe that things in the universe are just there. They don’t mean anything.” Here, Wally is aligning himself with such luminaries as Epicurus, Voltaire (“tend your own garden”) and Solomon (traditional author of Ecclesiastes ): “I know that there is nothing good for man (sic) except to be happy and live the best life he can while he is alive. Moreover, that a man should eat and drink and enjoy himself in return for all his labors is a gift of God… “Go to it then, eat your food and enjoy it, and drink your wine with a cheerful heart; for already God has accepted what you have done… Whatever task lies to your hand, do it with all your might.” Rather than reject Salinger’s derogatory depiction, Shawn leans into it. He turns vice into virtue and in the process he dismisses the Gregory/Salinger aesthetic and lifestyle as fantastic, illusory, arbitrary and magical. Truth to tell, there is much to admire in the works of Salinger and Gregory… but no more than in the work of Wallace Shawn. Ecclesiastes can be read as a commentary on Deuteronomy : “I set before you life and death…” becomes “I set before you the fantastic (nihilism) and the mundane (quietism); therefore choose…” What world do you live in, dear reader? ‘Wally World’ (Solomon & Shawn) or its ‘Anti-World’ (Salinger and Gregory)? Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.