Yoshi Touch and Go

So, I recently got a Nintendo DS game system and my wife and I have been wasting all our time playing Yoshi Touch and Go. YTG is a nifty game that's completely stylus-driven (a unique feature of the DS). Many of the reviewers have given it low marks because it's too simple and lacking in depth. But for us, such games are perfect. The idea is to get addicted to a mindless, repetitive game which is easy to pick up but difficult to get high scores. And then, we compete! We've been fighting over the game, playing it into the wee hours of the night to beat one another's scores. There are four games. In three of them, the object is to get the highest scores. In the Time Attack, the object is to get the lowest time. Here are our best scores so far.

Ang's best scores
Score Attack: 535 573 598
Time Attack: 2:02:4 1:56:2 1:51:7 1:50:9 1:47:3 1:46:8
Marathon: 19148 22130 25820 28646 31038
Challenge: 12390 24374 26641

Karen's best scores
Score Attack: 553 594 629 711
Time Attack: 2:17:1 1:59:6 1:51:7 1:49:7 1:47:7 1:45:1
Marathon: 16139 20759 31833
Challenge: 14157 18195 25561 31460

I looked up high scores on the 'net for this game. Check out GameFAQ's forum:
Score Attack: 799 - Marco-Big-Bro
Time Attack: 1:48:5 – DarkYoshi1990
Marathon: 41,256 - Marco-Big-Bro
Challenge: 25,589 - Marco-Big-Bro

So it seems we're starting to rock the kiddos...

Derren Brown: Messiah

I recently ran across this link, the Channel 4 homepage of a British psychological illusionist named Derren Brown. Clearly, the man is highly skilled as a magician: intelligent, confident, eloquent, and quite charismatic. Very entertaining stuff.

But Brown is a magician with a cause. In his recent (January, 2005) TV special, Derren Brown: Messiah, he tries to cast doubt on the paranormal. His technique is simple. He goes undercover and seeks out "expert" psychics, new-age mystics, UFOlogists, and spiritualists. He claims that he has some relevant paranormal power and then, using his illusionary techniques, as he puts it,

demonstrates to each of them an ability I have which is somehow proof to them of my talents in that particular field. I allow them to decide how much they are going to endorse it and embrace it. If, at any point they ask me if this is some sort of trick I will confess and tell them. The aim is to get pledges of support.

Invariably, the experts are unable to detect that he is a fraud. They endorse him as possessing supernatural powers. A fairly thorough description of what goes on in the program can be found here.

As it turns out, Brown used to be an evanglical Christian, and part of his mission is to discredit that faith as well. As he puts it:

I used to be a full on, happy clappy Christian until my mid 20s, and then I started to realise that my belief was just as prone to circular logic and self fulfillment as all the new-age nonsense which bugged me. And then reading the New Testament as a historical document finally rid me of any religeous belief.

Now Brown's methodology is to show that he can reproduce, using purely naturalistic means, phenomena which "experts" classify as paranormal. It seems, for instance, that he can make an avowed atheist believe in God simply by touching her on the side of her head, and he can make a roomful of atheists believe in God by telling them to close their eyes and feel God's spirit move within them.

OK, I know I'm dealing with a TV program that has been edited for entertainment purposes, not scientific accuracy. But let's assume all this is real and not a hoax. Let's assume that Brown is really using psychological techniques to achieve these effects in real people who are being honest about what they say they believe. What, exactly, does Brown's demonstration prove? Well, for the person who already disbelieves in the supernatural, Brown's demonstration provides a plausible explanation for the phenomena of religious conversion. It shows how an entirely humanistic, psychologically-based system could account for the existence and spread of religious belief.

How should we as Christians react to this? Well of course, none of it does anything to prove that Christian belief is false. Counterfeit conversions do not prove that there are no genuine conversions any more than counterfeit money proves that there is no genuine money. But even so, Brown's demonstration does undermine the idea that a conversion experience can be, by itself, sufficient evidence for the truth of what one believes. It seems that a subjectively satisfying conversion experience can be produced through psychological techniques. It would be wise, then, for us not to base our faith on something as shaky and manipulatable as human experience. Our mystical perception of God is not self-authenticating.

Things I wish I learned in Seminary, pt. 1

I've been making a list of Big Questions which I wish were answered during my two years studying theology at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. One of them is: What is the Christian view on how the law ought to reflect morality?

This question, of course, is prompted directly by issues, such as abortion and same-sex marriage, which seemed to factor so significantly in the 2004 presidential election. And there seem to be no simple answers. First, it seems that most Christians are opposed to legal positivism---they think that the law ought to reflect morality to some extent. But the details on how are murky. I have yet to find any Christian who thinks that all our moral standards ought to be legally enforced.

I would, of course, be interested in any scriptural basis for an answer. For while much of scripture is devoted to how Ancient Israel's law ought to be formulated, I find nothing that directly speaks to the laws of a pagan nation (like the USA). I cannot, in fact, even think of anything which forbids legal positivism.

Perhaps the answer is simply pragmatic. For example, take Thomas Aquinas, who said in articles 2 and 3 of question 96 in his Summa Theologica:

Now human law is framed for a number of human beings, the majority of whom are not perfect in virtue. Wherefore human laws do not forbid all vices, from which the virtuous abstain, but only the more grievous vices, from which it is possible for the majority to abstain; and chiefly those that are to the hurt of others, without the prohibition of which human society could not be maintained: thus human law prohibits murder, theft and such like....

Human law does not prescribe concerning all the acts of every virtue: but only in regard to those that are ordainable to the common good---either immediately, as when certain things are done directly for the common good---or mediately, as when a lawgiver prescribes certain things pertaining to good order, whereby the citizens are directed in the upholding of the common good of justice and peace....

In other words, we should use our rational judgment to determine which vicious acts should be punished and which virtuous acts should be rewarded.

Of course, even if we accept this answer to the question and were able to come to an consensus regarding the content of the law, there are more follow-up questions as well. Should Christians work to reform the laws of their society? And if so, what measures and methodologies are appropriate to use?

Welcome

I'm going to give this blogging thing another try. Perhaps I might be able to use it to keep a record of what I'm working on. Today, I read chapter 3 of Dupre's work, The Disorder of Things, Sober's article on the philosophy of biology in The Blackwell Companion to Philosophy, 2ed (ed. Bunnin and Tsui-James), and Sober's 1980 article in The Philosophy of Science, "Evolution, Population Thinking, and Essentialism" 47, 350-83.