A good week for religious thought by philosophers

Platinga has some interesting things to say about religion in general. First, all of us must accept some things on faith -- logic cannot take us everywhere:

After all, one of the main lessons to be learned from the history of modern philosophy from Descartes through Hume is that there don’t seem to be good arguments for the existence of other minds or selves, or the past, or an external world and much else besides; nevertheless belief in other minds, the past, and an external world is presumably not irrational or in any other way below epistemic par.

Are things different with belief in God?
--Philosopher Alvin Plantinga, Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism, on the faith all of us have

The .Plan also cites the restored Wikipedia on Platinga's arguments regarding the problem of evil and their general acceptance in the philosophical community

Plantinga's argument (in a truncated form) is that "It is possible that God, even being omnipotent, could not create a world with free creatures who never choose evil. Furthermore, it is possible that God, even being omnibenevolent, would desire to create a world which contains evil if moral goodness requires free moral creatures."
--Wikipedia on an example of progress in philosophy

Then Webb (who is not LDS) comes out with an impressive article on Mormonism. It is impressive partly because of some great one-liners, but more for giving me new and accurate insight into my own religion. First some one-liners:

Deriding Mormonism pulls off the neat trick of making the devout and the godless feel as if they are on the same side. ...
Mormons are more Christian than many mainstream Christians who do not take seriously the astounding claim that Jesus is the Son of God. Mormonism is obsessed with Christ ...
The Book of Mormon has to be one of the most lackluster of all the great works of literature that have inspired enduring religious movements. Yet it is dull precisely because it is all about Jesus. ...
Still, the Book of Mormon raises a question for Christians. Can you believe too much about Jesus? Can you go too far in conceiving his glory?
Mormon metaphysics is ... Christianity divorced from Plato.

The main point Webb draws out that I had not appreciated as much before now has to do with how we perceive matter:

More First World Problems

The number one search on this blog lately has been First World Problems.

I am thinking about problems I no longer have, now that I live in Nigeria:

I don't worry about the escalating price of gasoline because I don't have a car anymore.

I also don't worry about finding parking places, or paying for parking.

I don't worry about paying doctor bills to half a dozen doctors because I don't have specialists out here.

I don't worry about finding a place for stuff that doesn't fit inside my home, because I don't have most of my stuff anymore.

I don't worry about 75 degrees feeling too hot to go to sleep.

I don't worry about snow, or getting a good winter coat, or making sure the kids are warm enough. (Though some of our maintenance staff do worry about children being too cold.)

I don't worry about trying to fit in. I stick out like such a sore thumb, there's no hope. (Not that there was ever much hope for me blending in.)

Here are some from tonight's Twitter feed, in case you wanted something slightly more humorous:

The clasp on my string of pearls broke. (courtesy Texas in Africa)

Not being able to read because my book ran out of batteries.

My dogs keep sitting in front of my DVR and I'm having a hard time fast forwarding through the commercials.

I was expecting something I bought online to arrive today, but it didn't.

Health issues prevented me from wearing high heels. This is a problem because I own 30+ pairs.

Weight Loss :: Development

It feels hypocritical to write about health and nutrition policies without considering my own policies governing myself. Every so often then I send my internal auditor over to Sparkpeople.com to take an accounting and do some reading on better practices. A guest blogger there shares an excerpt from Dayna Macy's book Ravenous, which has a number of deep thoughts that apply to a wider range of life experiences than weight loss.

Consider these two very different thoughts on the value of measuring and making quantitative the unseen:

Measuring, by its nature, requires me to pay attention to every portion. Measuring forms a container for my longings and boundaries for my lust. Without boundaries, I cannot find balance. Without limits, I cannot hope to be free....


In our culture, the number on the scale enforces a cruel hierarchy. Weight separates the worthy from the unworthy. But the truth is, it's difficult to be in a body, period. Witnessing this in myself and in others, I've begun to see through the delusion so many of us share -- that when we reach a particular weight, we will automatically be happy. 

Measuring is empowering and measuring is enslaving. What is being measured? Why? Does the measurement accurately correspond to the concept we're attempting to measure? Is GDP/capita or the poverty headcount development? Are inputs aid? Is BMI health? Is years of schooling education or square feet per person housing? These are not new questions, but they deserve to be asked and pondered occasionally. As Aid Thoughts brilliantly put it: "The evidence never lies. Unless the synthetic categories we create to compartmentalize and analyze the human world distort or misinterpret the world."

The process of economic development is not easy, in part because it 1) gives us liberty to consider and 2) makes it more imperative that we consider other tensions:

Weight can obscure many things, including lust, sadness, loneliness, anxiety, and anger. As I lose weight and my buffer loosens, I am forced to grapple with these states more directly.

Might the experiences in the Middle East be trying to tell us: "Income poverty can obscure many things, including marginalization, inequality, lack of opportunity, racial and religious tensions, entrenched interests, and poor governance. As economic growth occurs and our constraints loosen, we are forced to grapple with these conditions more directly."

Progress in any area of life, if it is real progress that loosens the constraints that have bound us, forces us to meet other binding constraints that we may not have acknowledged. Personal and economic development is not for the faint of heart.