le parcours des blogueurs

je blogue
tu blogues
il blogue
nous bloguons
vous bloguez
elles bloguent

il bloguait
nous avons blogué
bloguer, c'est méga-chouette
elle n'a aucune intention de cesser de bloguer
on adore bloguer, même en se branlant
tout le monde a son putain de blog
nous sommes tous bloguériens
blogué soit qui mal y pense
l'blog, c'est moi
qui blogue tout pardonne tout

[with sincerest apologies to John Eckard; I had to get the above out of my system]

I hope Richard isn't pissed with his new logo on my sidebar. I found the pic for the world-famous Duck Chang's restaurant, which is the arguable inventor and/or popularizer of Peking Duck. Then I thought to myself, "You know, this photo would look much more exciting if we had Pinhead from the Hellraiser series serving the duck. Along with one of his victims, of course."

Richard notes that hope for China's "new and improved" openness grows dim.

Justin is worth $30.

Spam meditation and scary fuckin' topiary at Justin's brother's blog.

Over at Gweilo Diaries: Bad news for cunnilingus lovers who tongue too many crotch notches. And check out "An Min Goes Ape."

Hat tip to Anticipatory Retaliation, who links to this essay by a woman who's spent many years in France but is now having her doubts about les Français. AR also provides another crotch-related link here.

Ryan explores interesting parallels between gay marriage and Irish divorce. He's also pumped about the upcoming Buddhist Studies conference. I can only envy him.

The very conservative Bird Dog at Tacitus writes on the newly-signed Iraqi Constitution... and the evil that is John Kerry.

Happy Blogiversary, Annika!

one year at your blog
putting up with guys who shout,
"Come on! Flash dem tits!"

Annika rated "Obi-wan Kenobi" when she took the Star Wars test. I rated Qui-gon.

Dan Darling on the hijab question (among other things).

A paper by Dr. Bill Vallicella: "In the Absence of Knowledge, May One Believe?" This is relevant to some of the same epistemological issues I've dealt with (superficially) in my posts on Alvin Plantinga and Philip Quinn.

KBJ receives a letter constructing a case against Christianity. The argument against a God who allows his own son to be brutally murdered is a familiar one; I don't really dispute it because my own problems with our theological imagery-- and the question of how literally to take it-- have led me to become a nontheist (NB: not atheist!). The letter also speaks at length to the issue of the unverifiability of Jesus' existence, but it may be overstating the case. There is indeed a school of thought that forcefully questions whether Jesus existed, and their central argument is a good, scientific one: we have, at present, no direct evidence for the historical Jesus. But in the wider scholarly world, this school of thought isn't that prominent. It might become so; who knows?

But what happens if we find Jesus' body?

Read Tom Robbins's Another Roadside Attraction for the answer.

I'm sure the Maximum Leader has seen this. I saw this a while ago myself, but Jay writes a fun post about the Shakespearean insult generator and lists his three faves:

Thou churlish beef-witted foot-licker!
Thou art so leaky that we must leave thee to thy sinking.
Methinks thou art a general offence, and every man should beat thee.

I love "beef-witted." Quite redolent. But first prize goes to the third quip, which I think would serve well as a Naked Villainy tag line. In my mind, I hear this line being uttered by a thoroughly drunk Peter O'Toole. Try it out in your head:

Methinks thou art a general offence, and every man should beat thee.

The story of Lorianne as laid out in her blog is an interesting one. Having read through her archives from the beginning, I thought for a while that I was seeing a sort of gleeful morphing from Jekyll to Hyde as the "fuck" word count began to spike in more recent blogs. But Lorianne is in the final stages of her doctoral career; at the same time, she's an English teacher, journalist, naturalist, writer, blogger, wife, and of course, Zen teacher-- all these obligations doubtless weigh on her and produce a certain nuttiness during crunch periods. My own academic experience was filled with punchy moments, and I think a blog is the perfect place to give those moments voice. Lorianne gets back to original form in her most recent blog, but check her out in these two posts.

In that last link, Lorianne talks about "Kill Bill," which I have yet to see. I wrote about Tarantino (and David Carradine, and Bjork) here; my own take is very different from Lorianne's. Vive la différence! God bless variety! Variety is what makes my underwear skid marks endlessly fascinating.

Steven Den Beste captures why I can't stand Kerry. I don't love Bush, I don't love Nader... I'm probably going to vote for Daffy Duck-- but Kerry must not be allowed to wrap his moldy dick around the neck of American foreign policy.

We here at the Hairy Chasms like our posts chunky-style, so it was with some regret that we noted the Maximum Leader's new "short blogs" program. The ML's (and his guest posters') long essays on history and politics are some of the main reasons why I visit his blog-- along with the old, cobwebbed Mafia-loyalty that comes from knowing Mike since we were both 8 years old. I'll take this moment to express a fervent wish that, assuming the ML has the time and inclination, he will break away from the new program now and then to publish much lengthier screeds.

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le parcours coréen

JOB UPDATE: No yang without yin. This morning I received a call from my agency contact telling me that the schedule isn't Monday through Friday but Monday through Thursday. However, the agency head is looking for English tutoring lessons, so this would give me another private class to go along with my already-in-place Friday evening class. Folks, you just have to roll with it. Here in Korea, schedules are subject to change without notice; items in your plan book may have to be scratched out, but other items might well have to be pencilled in. Because I have experience living in both Korea and Switzerland, I can confirm that Koreans and Swiss folks have a lot in common as fellow montagnards, but when it comes to their respective appreciations of the space-time continuum, well... the Koreans have, shall we say, a more fluid conception of space and time. This has its merits and demerits; you just have to be adaptable to the changing terrain, like a skier on a slope full of moguls.

[Note to concerned friends: TAKE NO ACTION, PLEASE. As with the previous job-related blog, this is merely me airing out thoughts-- not a frothing rant, and definitely not a call for mini-jihad. The dominant emotion here isn't anger-- just amusement and some therapeutic cynicism, as with last time. Because this job is going to be a large part of my existence as of March 24, I will be blogging about it regularly. I need to be free to blog about it without worrying about the adverse consequences of well-intentioned "corrective measures." Muchas gracias for your concern and friendship.]

Let's go through my Koreablogroll from the bottom up this time, shall we? Lots going on, as always.

One upshot of the recent 5th International Conference on NK Human Rights and Refugees in Poland was this joint statement, found at the Free North Korea! blog. Chris also wants to hear your opinion about whether Kerry would be tougher than Bush on NK, so leave comments. Chris's own stance seems to be that the hype against Kerry is unfair. I disagree. I don't think Kerry would have had the balls to make NK this nervous to begin with. NK now sweats because it's on a short list called the Axis of Evil-- a truly stupid label, but rhetorically useful, and one that a person like Kerry would be horrified to apply.

I'll grant that Bush's "actions" regarding NK haven't really been all that proactive (and as Kevin at IA recently showed, this administration isn't above coddling NK, either), but that inactivity in itself is a good thing: it's a hell of a lot better than extracting empty promises like the 1994 Agreed Framework, which allowed people to feel good about themselves without actually doing shit for either the NK people or our side. Who are the big losers at every "deal"? We are.

So I'm sorry, Chris-- love your blog, but I think you're dead wrong. Kerry's NK policy will be a massive limp dick, impressively hung but unable to fuck shit up. It'll just dangle there, flaccid, stinky, and veinless, with no more fuck-value than the meat from a can of Spam. The end result of Kerry's policies will be a slew of benefits for NK and nothing for us. John Kerry probably wouldn't allow a loudmouth critic like John Bolton to say, in public, that North Korea is a "hellhole." Kerry would be too worried about NK accusations that he's a "scumsucker." Come live here in SK a while and you'll see why so many of us expats, liberal, conservative, and otherwise, feel this way.

To us, the routinely Spam-fucked, I say: stop dealing with NK at all. Reduce the issue to its security elements and leave humanitarian responsibilities entirely in the hands of the people who claim brotherhood with the North: the South Koreans. Hold NK hostage with a once-and-forever pronouncement: a single NK warhead, a single load of WMDs, found anywhere outside NK will be cause for all-out war. The same policy applies should an American city be hit by a WMD attack, nuclear or otherwise. Then let's sit back and worry about all the other domestic and international problems we need to address.

The Party Pooper follows up his love letter to the Triply chocolate candy with a hilarious piece of "fan fiction" based, it seems, on Dungeons and Dragons and the Baldur's Gate 2 computer game. You might not get all the inside jokes if you never played D&D, but you'll nevertheless thrill to some of the pungent imagery of the Pooper's piece: "meat puppets," a Shocking Grasp spell applied to the balls, and then there's the standard "hobbit bedroom and bathroom invasion procedure," which deserves quoting here:

I do the standard "Hobbit Bedroom and Bathroom Invasion Procedure," which you should know very well if you've ever been burglarized by a halfling. Short-sheet the bed, shit in the slippers, pee in the shampoo bottle and masturbate into one of his clean socks and/or gloves. I’m not sure why we [hobbits] do this, and only this. It's just an ancient tradition that borders on the sacred for us.

The stuff Tolkien never told you...

It snowed rather heavily just before the previous weekend-- the first time in 100 years that Korea has had such weather at this time of year, from what I've heard. Thousands of cars were stuck on the road... and Polymath was in one of them.

At Overboard, we've got bath houses and the movie "T'aegeukgi." Maybe a better way to market this post is "NAKED WHITE CHICKS AND GUNS." G. Gordon Liddy would approve. Andi also has a short post on gay marriage in Korea. And she sports a tattoo... somewhere. Ahem.

Rathbone Press does its own riff on education in Korea: surprise, surprise, it appears that South Koreans don't acquire a love of learning. I think this is largely true, though I've been fortunate enough to meet Koreans who break the stereotype. The RP also registers annoyance at congratulatory Korean articles touting Korean achievements in other countries, the central problem summed up thus:

The final reason articles like those mentioned above annoy me is that the Korean media likes to bash the US and Japan, yet when a Korean does well in these countries it is viewed as a great triumph. If a Korean succeeds in the US or Japan, that is seen as real success. My question is "why"? If the US and Japan are so bad, why give so much attention to Koreans who succeed there?

Two words: subjugation mentality. One part of you wants to resent The Man. One part of you wants to be his friend. South Korea's been through hell, it's true, but it's not going through hell right now compared to the past, and the young folks seem to have forgotten most of that misery, anyway-- plumping up like Americans, listening to American-style rap, gorging themselves on fast food, skating by on the sweat of the previous generation. My older Korean relatives also shake their heads at this. For Korea to move ahead, it has to stop living the lie that it is any longer a helpless victim. A strong economy, a strong place in the field of technology, and a more-than-strong-enough military all give the lie to the notion that this is some third-world backwater. Sure, parts of Korea are still primitive by Seoul standards, but hell, parts of America are rather rusticated, too. SO?

Finally, RP is all over the recent incident in Iraq in which Korean journalists were "manhandled" by American troops during a security procedure. Yes, it's true that a broom handle up the ass isn't the best way to look for a nuclear warhead, but conditions in Iraq are delicate, so I think our troops can be forgiven their thoroughness.

[BTW, that was a JOKE. Please read the linked posts to learn the actual situation.]

The Yangban has the goods on the journalist/troops story, predicting that the Korean media will overreact. A subsequent post informs us that, yes, as predicted, people here are overreacting.

Budae Chigae covers the wrangling going on over some Korean real estate. But what's more important is that the KimcheeGI reveals what the Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, have really encountered on the Red Planet's surface.

The Infidel poo-poos South Korean pseudo-capitalism. On a non-Korea-related note, the Infidel also mentions a major blind spot in our current foreign policy. This is a valid concern: if we're going to argue that the countries surrounding North Korea need to be more mindful of what's going on in their back yard, then the same applies to us and our own back yard.

Over at Oranckay (which, if you can't figure it out from my sidebar, means "barbarian" according to Mr. Schroepfer): a note about the death threats now being received by Hwang Jang Yop, the octogenarian NK defector (and former NK ideologue) whom South Koreans resent for telling the truth about what a shithole NK is. Also not to be missed: this bizarre Noh Mu Hyon impeachment flap, which Mr. Schroepfer claims to be "too !@#%(% angry" to write about coherently right now.

Aside: I have no goddamn clue about the minutiae of Korean politics. As things stand, I'm a political ignoramus when it comes to American politics, despite our relatively easy-to-understand two-party polity. In Korea, the problem is compounded by the Protestant Impulse gone mad: mitotic splits, Frankensteinian fusions, and John-Kerryish realignments. Along with that, you've got deals and dealbreaking... and the whole sordid thing is buried under the fetid ass-dandruff of corruption. I suppose an expert on Korean politics must possess acute powers of discernment-- the same powers that allow crotch fanatics to collect and categorize dingleberries (hey, each one is unique like a snowflake!).

[BTW, the snowflake contention is empirically unprovable, goddammit. The things melt too fast, and you'd have to collect all the snowflakes from the beginning of time and run them through a machine to determine whether there have been any snowflake doppelgängers. Even then, there's always the chance that a future snowflake might match a past one. As Judy Tenuta, that prophetess of stochastic phenomena, knew so well: It could happen!]

Schroepfer also notes that some Koreans-- who claim to work on behalf of human rights-- aren't happy with our North Korean Freedom Act of 2003. Read the usinkorea comment to that post as well. Yep.

Mike Ferrin's granddad passed away recently. Please leave him your condolences, especially if you are, as I am, a devoted reader of his excellent blog.

Via the Marmot: you all know by now that North Korea's government, among other unsavory governments, is eagerly awaiting the arrival of John Kerry in the White House: Oh, goody! Another dupe! And he won't ever embarrass us in public like that Bush sonofabitch and his Bolton-dog!

And quite the flame war is being waged in the comments thread of this post about the plight of female NK refugees. You might want to just stick to the post. The flame war itself doesn't remain interesting for long.

And in just a week's time, on March 15, South Korea will yet again abstain from voting against its North Korean brother at the UN Commission on Human Rights Convention in Geneva. That's moral backbone for you.

On that lovely note, I bid you... fart well. Fart long. Fart accurately.

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Sunday comic: COSMIC IMPORT

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check it out, geeks

In case you missed it, I finally posted that essay on The Philosophical Challenge of Religious Diversity, evaluating the final chapter by Philip L. Quinn, "Towards Thinner Theologies," and adding some overall remarks about the book as a whole and the religio-philosophical discussion in general.

Scroll down to the post titled "'Towards Thinner Theologies'?"

Enjoy.

UPDATE: Dr. Vallicella wrote to say he's seen my post and is formulating a reply, which will eventually appear on his blog, though not right away. Seems like a very nice fellow, though I still suspect I'm in for a royal ass-kicking. Check out his main site as well; parts of it are still under construction, but there are plenty of interesting articles to read.

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Korean blogroll logos DONE

You'll notice my sidebar's gotten a lot longer and wider since I started playing with it. The Koreabloggers all have logos now; I just finished Pythi Master's (I assume that's pronounced "pie-thigh," as in the "pyth" from "python" and the "i" from "Jedi," per your specs?). That was the last one-- no logo for the Korean Blog List. I'll be starting on other parts of the blogroll in the coming week-- am very much looking forward to doing Flying Chair's "Beat You Death Like Chicken" logo.

BTW, the logo I'm using for Regnum Crucis is shamelessly stolen from a Peugeot ad I received by email a couple years ago.

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Saturday Swag anyway!

With fond thanks to Digital Pixi who, for no reason at all aside from simple kindness, made me the following tee shirt design:

Now available at my CafePress shop. And shop at the Pixi's while you're at it.

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"Towards Thinner Theologies" ?

The Philosophical Challenge of Religious Diversity has proved to be an enriching, difficult, and often frustrating read-- but enjoyable all the same. Although the chapters were written by many contributors with diverse backgrounds and agendas, the book's major focus was on two scholars: John Hick and William P. Alston. Hick is arguably the most famous formulator and defender of the standard "convergent" religious pluralist position (but I'd still place Raimondo Panikkar at the top of the pluralist pantheon, keeping in mind that Panikkar is probably a "nonconvergent" pluralist). Alston, heretofore unknown to me, is apparently a huge defender of religious exclusivism. Alvin Plantinga's chapter defending exclusivism (which I review here), while important in itself, seems to serve, in this book, as something like an introduction to the concepts used by Alston in his defense of exclusivism. Many of the book's other contributors are defenders and/or critics of Hick's and Plantinga/Alston's positions. There's very little discussion of inclusivism (cf. S. Mark Heim for more on this; although Heim offers a "more pluralist" hypothesis than Hick, his own personal stance remains firmly Christian inclusivist).

The final chapter of Philosophical Challenge is by Philip L. Quinn. It's titled "Towards Thinner Theologies"-- a title suggesting that Quinn might be in the same camp I'm in with regard to a "groundless pluralism" that minimizes-- or does away completely with-- philosophical formulations.* The chapter is a fitting end to the book because it examines both Hick's and Alston's positions, finding merits and demerits to both.

[*NB: The link to this post is highly unstable, thanks to Blogspot's awful software. The post's title is "The Question of Religious Pluralism," and is dated July 13, 2003. Please search via my dated archive links if the direct link doesn't work.]

Alston introduces a term that's new to me: doxastic practice. Doxastic practices are, according to Alston in his own chapter (p. 195), "practices of belief-formation," and we employ a plurality of these practices in our daily lives. If different doxastic practices are brought to bear in order to produce similar results, it's possible to compare their relative merits and demerits. Alston uses weather prediction as one example. Some people take a scientific, meteorological approach to this; others use the pain in their joints; still others watch groundhogs. Because these practices all aim at the same goal (weather prediction), it's possible to judge them according to their efficiency.

Alston feels, however, that it is disanalogous to compare religious doxastic practices this way, because there are real questions as to whether religious doxastic practices share enough common ground for firm comparison. This is the grounds on which Alston critiques John Hick, whom Alston sees as engaging in this disanalogy. Alston also feels that Christian religious doxastic practice's justifiability arises from its overall self-consistency and self-support-- an important criterion, according to Alston, for judging the reliability/justifiability of any doxastic practice. Such justifiability runs counter to Hick's and other pluralists' arguments against the justifiability of an exclusivist stance.

[NB: the potential circularity of a self-supporting doxastic practice is discussed in Philosophical Challenge, and the conclusion seems to be that some degree of circularity is inevitable. In the end, one's dependence on a doxastic practice boils down to whether "it works," or more exactly, whether "it works for me."]

As with Plantinga, Alston seems to be fighting a defensive action, giving exclusivism some breathing room without going further to claim that the exclusivist way is, objectively, the right way. While it's true that the reality of religious diversity can be problematic for the sincere religious practitioner, the questions arising from that diversity need not undermine the overall religious practice, to the extent that that practice is able to remain self-consistent and self-supporting. In fact, Alston believes that, in the face of religious diversity, a practitioner's most rational course of action is merely to "sit tight" and continue on with his/her current practice.

Quinn, in his chapter, disagrees that "sitting tight" is the only rational course available: it is also possible to adjust one's stance in accordance to what one learns from interaction with other religious perspectives, i.e., alter one's own religious doxastic practice (see especially pp. 240-242, passim).

Quinn takes Hick to task on the same grounds as George Mavrodes: inconsistencies in Hick's schematization and treatment of absolute reality, which Hick names "the Real." Hick's Real is that toward which religions are aimed, and of which they are imperfect and/or culturally mediated expressions. Following Kant's distinction between noumenon and phenomenon, as well as advaita vedantic Hinduism's distinction between nirguna and saguna brahman (Brahman [Absolute reality] without and with qualities), Hick sees religions as vessels for the phenomenal Real, but what they are really hinting at is the noumenal Real.

At times, Hick seems to attribute no qualities at all (or, at best, certain formal qualities) to this noumenal Real. Quinn's objection to Hick is the classic one, highlighting the dangers of positing something about which nothing can be said: what's to distinguish this "something" from nothing at all?

But that's not the objection that interests me. What interests me more is Quinn's (and Mavrodes's) questioning of Hick's use of Kantian notions, and here I made an interesting discovery about Kantian theory.

There are, according to Quinn and Mavrodes, two primary ways in which to view the relationship between Kantian noumenon and phenomenon. (I'll use Mavrodes's typology here, since Quinn borrows it.) The first and far less popular way is the "disguise model." Mavrodes offers this analogy: suppose a medieval prince wants to move about his father's kingdom undetected so he can see what life is like for the kingdom's subjects. He disguises himself as a monk in one place, as an artisan somewhere else, etc. The people who encounter the prince experience him as a monk, an artisan, etc.-- but not as a prince. However, there is nevertheless an identity between monk and prince, or artisan and prince, because if the monk were to fall into a lake and drown, then the prince would also fall into a lake and drown.

The second, more widely accepted way to understand the noumenon-phenomenon relationship is the "construct model." Here Mavrodes gives us a different image: several abstract artists sit side by side in the outdoors, painting the same landscape. The buildings, the hills, the sheep, the people, the trees, the sky, etc.-- all of these things figure somehow in each artist's painting, but because these are abstract paintings, the various components of the landscape may be difficult or impossible to recognize. What's more, the artists' paintings will all be different from each other. However, if asked, each artist will insist that the actual landscape did indeed play a real role in the creation of the artwork. Had the landscape been different, the paintings would also have been different. Thus the paintings are constructions of the landscape. There is a definite relationship between painting and landscape, but no necessary identity: if I slash one of the paintings, I don't thereby slash the real landscape.

According to Mavrodes and Quinn, there are moments in Hick's writing when he favors the disguise model for understanding the noumenal and phenomenal Real, and other moments when he favors the construct model. To move back and forth between the two models is inconsistent, and both Mavrodes and Quinn provide plenty of Hick-quotes to substantiate their claim that Hick is doing this. I came away convinced that they're onto something, but I've sensed from the beginning that Hick's schema has problems, so their observation comes as no real surprise.

The fundamental confusion in Hick's project may be a product of Hick's "dual career," as some scholars argue: Hick is both a theologian and a philosopher, and his attempts at a philosophical articulation of his religious motives may be self-undermining. I think the dual-career argument is correct, because I too see a division between Hick's ethical/religious and philosophical projects. Ultimately, I side with Hick for ethical reasons (I think pluralism is morally right), but I can't subscribe totally to his philosophical model. However, for those interested in pursuing the philosophical angle, I think Hick's model's rigor comes from the nebulousness of its central concept, the Real. Is the Real numerically singular, or is it more like the advaitic nondualist "one without a second"-- i.e., not countable? The answer seems to depend on which Hick you're reading. This oscillation creates many of the inconsistencies on which scholarly critiques of Hick focus, but it may also be a necessary feature of Hick's model, and one reason why the model remains in use-- and largely intact-- despite constant, often blistering, critique since the mid-1980s.

I thought that Quinn's chapter would lead to a conclusion similar to my own. I thought he would conclude that the pluralist project's best hope is to move toward a "groundless pluralism" that takes the form of a kind of mutual inclusivism, one in which practitioners can, if they choose, remain fully rooted in their own practice, fully justified in viewing others through the lens of that practice, and yet paradoxically (groundlessly) willing to allow themselves to be reinterpreted by the Other. The Rahner-Nishitani dialogue in which Karl Rahner pronounced himself "honored" to be thought an "anonymous Buddhist" is paradigmatic here. This mutual inclusivism can't be willy-nilly; it can and should involve Panikkar's "dialogical dialogue," which occurs both internally and externally. The benefits of such a mutual inclusivism are very practical, in that metaphysical and dogmatic questions are bracketed in favor of addressing immediate ethical-practical issues of external and internal human flourishing. This isn't to say that the speculative, philosophical, and theological aspects of religious practice should simply be closed off; obviously, that's impossible. But a truly "religious view of religion," to borrow Hick's phrase, needs to be sourced in the heart-- not in the textbook, nor even in the holy scriptures.

In the end, Quinn's own conclusion doesn't take this path; he gives no hint of what a "thinner theology" might look like. He simply claims that there is nothing irrational about proceeding in the direction of "thicker phenomenologies and thinner theologies, even if [practitioners] are not yet ready to go all the way to the Hickian view that it is nothing but phenomenology almost all the way down."

A large portion of The Philosophical Challenge of Religious Diversity is focused on the "Plantingan" questions of justification, warrant, and rationality. These issues are in turn intimately interrelated with questions of epistemology. As I argued in my post on Plantinga, I don't find this "justification/rationality" aspect of the larger discussion all that relevant: the issues that concern pluralists are, I think, much more practical in nature (though I know this isn't the case for all pluralists, by any means). Plantinga ends up neutralizing pluralist accusations of arrogance (etc.) against exclusivists on rational/epistemic grounds, but he also neutralizes accusations of arrogance against pluralists (and "liberal arrogance" is a much-loved phrase of conservatives, and often justified!-- do religious conservatives really want this rhetorical weapon taken from them?). Alston's argument seems to be little more than a fancier version of Plantinga's; it too relies on epistemological considerations. Hick's pluralistic hypothesis has been described by Stephen Kaplan as "epistemological pluralism," which I suppose means he views Hick's Real mainly through the "construct model," but this also means that Hick's argument, like the arguments of his critics, has a large epistemological component: how do people know the Real?

So while I might not have much truck with justification/warrant issues, it's a matter of brute fact that questions of epistemology nevertheless arise in current discussions of religious diversity, and perhaps this is as it should be. For a Christian to talk about his own religious experience, or for a Buddhist to talk about what she gains from meditative practice, is necessarily to invite epistemology into the room.

This leads me to one of my greatest frustrations: with so many theorists of religion taking an "epistemological turn" these days, why aren't more scientists involved in this discussion? One of the things that bugs me to death about theories of knowledge is that those theories have been and still are propounded by thinkers who had (and have) little to no notion of how the physical brain and body actually interact with their surroundings. Neuroscience has a lot to offer to the religious discussion; the discipline wasn't born yesterday. Religious thinkers need to be weaned from the abstruse vocabularies of "percepts" and "hyle" and glib Lonerganian formulations like "experience, understand, judge, decide"-- as if these schemata provided the only sound means for analyzing the nature of thought and knowledge. My prediction is that, here as elsewhere, religion will find itself retreating in the face of scientific discovery. The more technologically adept we become, the more it makes sense for us to view ourselves and our surroundings less in an analog manner than in a digital one.

In the meantime, the fact of religious diversity will present plenty of grist for religious (and scientific, political, etc.) discussion, speculation, and praxis. The Philosophical Challenge of Religious Diversity is one highlight of that discussion. If you're not afraid of often-dense material and have some hankering for philosophical and religious questions, I highly recommend this volume. My only real disappointment with it is that it takes no consideration of Raimondo Panikkar's enormous contribution to religious pluralism, and says nothing about S. Mark Heim's Rescherian orientational pluralism.

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contra Vallicella

I was introduced to Dr. William Vallicella's interesting website, IndependentPhilosopher, by Dr. Horace Jeffery Hodges, who sent me an email with Dr. Vallicella's URL.

Dr. Vallicella's self-intro describes his personal stance thus:

My philosophical position may be described as onto-theological personalism: I defend the view that individual persons form an irreducible and ultimate ontological category, and that within this category self-subsistent existence is the prime person. This is the theme that unifies my seemingly disparate investigations. Thus my critique of the anatta doctrine of Pali Buddhism subserves this end, as does my rethinking of themes from the great but now neglected native Californian philosopher, Josiah Royce. The same goes for my critique of Heidegger's phenomenological approach to Being, as well as my critique of the logical approach to existence found in Frege, Russell, and Quine.

This immediately caught my interest, because his stance is the polar opposite of my own. I certainly don't see persons or personhood as "an irreducible and ultimate ontological category" because I agree with the Buddhist contention that people, like all phenomena, are dependently co-arisen-- or to borrow Thich Nhat Hanh's "interbeing" terminology, people inter-are with all of reality.

Today is Thursday-- Buddhism/Zen Day on my new schedule, so I wanted to devote this blog to critiquing Dr. Vallicella's interesting paper on Buddhist metaphysics, found on his site here. Dr. Vallicella's paper is titled "Can the Chariot Take Us to the Land of No Self?" The "chariot" is a reference to a dialogue between a Buddhist monk, Nagasena, and a Greek (many say "Indo-Bactrian") king, Milinda (or Menander), as recorded in the Milindapanha. As the dialogue between the monk and the king progresses, the monk demonstrates (or Dr. Vallicela might say "demonstrates") that the chariot contains no inherent chariotness. By extension, the monk contends, people contain no inherent personness (personhood, selfhood, etc.). A transcript of the classic dialogue can be found here, with some typos.

Dr. Vallicella describes his paper's thesis:

The [chariot] argument [by Bhante Nagasena] aims to show that no (samsaric) being is a self, or has self-nature, or is a substance. My thesis will be that, successful as this argument may be when applied to things other than ourselves, it fails when applied to ourselves.

Here is how Dr. Vallicella sums up the dialogue early on in his paper:

The issue dividing the interlocutors [i.e., the king Milinda and the monk Nagasena] seems to be this. Although both agree that there is a reality independent of mind and language, they disagree about its nature. Milinda claims that it contains unitary and self-same individuals corresponding to such proper names as 'Nagasena.' It is this claim that Nagasena denies. For the latter, reality consists of radically impermanent and insubstantial momentary entities that we, wielding words and concepts, group together into unities for our purposes. Thus the issue is whether in reality there is an ontological unity corresponding to the linguistic unity of the name 'Nagasena,' or whether there is no such ontological unity but only disconnected momentary entities that we collect for conventional purposes under the name 'Nagasena.'

Dr. Vallicella then lays out how he will critique Nagasena's position:

It is no part of Milinda's position as I shall reconstruct it that the individuals denoted by proper names be absolutely permanent entities: they could well be relatively permanent. Thus one is not forced to choose between saying that 'Nagasena' has no referent in reality and saying that it has an absolutely permanent referent. Charitably construed, Milinda's position is that the unitary and self-same individuals corresponding to names like 'Nagasena' are relatively permanent entities possessing relative self-nature. If Milinda's position so construed were correct, then of course Nagasena's would collapse.

I'm still a tyro when it comes to Western philosophical terminology, so I had to wonder what "relative permanence" meant. Luckily, Dr. Vallicella provides a definition in his footnotes:

An absolutely permanent entity is one that exists at all times, while a relatively permanent entity is one that exists at some, but not all, times. An absolutely impermanent entity is one that exists in a radically momentary fashion.

Unfortunately, this sounds like a bogus notion to me: permanence strikes me as a yes/no proposition: things either are or aren't permanent. This is certainly the frame of reference from which the Buddhist makes the claim that all phenomena are impermanent. I don't know who first introduced the notion of "relative permanence," but it seems to be a convenient redefinition that allows one to claim permanence where no permanence is to be found.

Dr. Vallicella (or whoever) is free to redefine permanence as he sees fit, but the question then becomes whether his critique of the Buddhist position is still aimed at the actual Buddhist position. On the assumption that the strongest critique of a position is one that employs that position's own terms, I don't think Dr. Vallicella has started well.

I also think that quite a few Buddhists would take issue with Dr. Vallicella's phrase, "radically impermanent and insubstantial momentary entities." There have indeed been Buddhist philosophers who speak in these terms (corresponding, perhaps, to the process theological notion of "concrescence"-- discernible phenomena arising and falling in the larger process of things), but in general the entire Buddhist metaphysic is a critique of the term "entity." The Buddhist thinker Nagarjuna introduced the idea of "two truths," conventional and ultimate, to allow us to understand how to deal with just this problem: on a conventional, practical level, I can distinguish discrete entities like cats and cars-- a necessary skill that allows me to avoid taking the cat in for new brakes and an oil change. But at the ultimate level, we see that, because of the dependently co-arisen nature of all phenomena, the distinction between apparently discrete entities doesn't hold-- and this ultimate truth is operating at the same time as the conventional truth. The very doctrine of "two truths," as Nagarjuna himself would probably agree, is itself simply a construction for helping us deal with reality. The ethical purpose of Nagarjuna's formulation is to keep us from positing exactly the kind of radical ontological differences advocated by people who, like Dr. Vallicella, view the world through the prism of onto-theology. These differences are seen, from the Buddhist perspective, as poisonous for how they affect our behavior toward ourselves, others, and the world.

Dr. Vallicella writes:

So has Nagasena won the debate? Has he established the doctrine of no-self? I can’t see that he has.

The underlying argument seems to be as follows.

P1. No concrete partite thing is identical to any one of its proper parts.
P2. No concrete partite thing is identical to the mere(ological) sum of its proper parts.
P3. No concrete partite thing is identical to something wholly distinct from each of its parts.

Therefore

C. Singular terms denoting concrete partite things, useful as they are for counting and classifying, do not refer to anything real.

The premises of this argument are exceedingly plausible. Thus it is surely obvious that the king’s chariot is not identical to its right wheel, or to any other proper part, or to any two proper parts, etc. It is also obvious that the chariot is not identical to the mere sum of its parts: the sum of the chariot’s parts can exist even if the chariot does not exist, as when the chariot is disassembled. It is the same sum whether the chariot is assembled or disassembled. As for the third premise, it also seems quite clear that there is not, in addition to the parts, some further physical or metaphysical entity that is the ‘real chariot’ or essence or substratum of the chariot which could subsist in splendid isolation from the parts. That is no more the case than that there is a little man – a homunculus – inside my head looking through my eyes, and hearing through my ears, etc.

Then Dr. Vallicella lets fly:

The premises, then, seem to be true; but does the conclusion follow? One obvious response is that the argument is a non sequitur since it ignores a fourth possibility: that terms like ‘Nagasena’ and ‘this chariot’ refer to wholes of parts in a definite arrangement, where this arrangement is a feature of reality and is not introduced by our use of such terms as ‘Nagasena’ and ‘chariot.’ Thus a chariot is neither a sum of disconnected chariot-parts, nor something wholly distinct from the parts, but a sum of parts connected in the right way.

And perhaps this gives us some insight into where Dr. Vallicella is coming from.

I think we're looking at a form of Platonism here. The definition of "chariot" implies the arrangement of the chariot's component parts. In other words, there's a cosmic category called "chariot" that's waiting for material reality to arrange itself in a manner corresponding to the dictates of that category.

In simpler language: think of the cosmic category as something like a cookie cutter, with reality as squishy cookie dough. You don't get a "cookie man" until the dough is in conformity with the cookie cutter's shape. The cutter has to be there already (a priori) for this to occur; the dough's conformity with the cutter's shape is what allows us to see the "cookie man."

By the same token, squishy physical reality, when it coalesces into the chariot shape, gives us a glimpse of the cosmic category (cookie cutter) of chariot-ness. This is pure Plato. Or, hell-- it could also be Aristotelian "formal cause" (think: the blueprint of a house and not the house itself). A physical chariot is an instantiation (i.e., a realized instance) of the formal chariot.

To a Buddhist, such thinking is ass-backward because it ignores the mind's role in producing these categories. The move Dr. Vallicella makes here is simply one of postulation, not argument. However, Dr. Vallicella is aware of this objection (and I won't quote him here; he actually surveys a couple possible objections, but it's a lengthy survey). What's more, he provides a fair summary at the end of his paper's first section:

Thus one can see that the Chariot is an intriguing argument that cannot be easily dismissed. We want to say, with King Milinda and with common sense, that a whole of parts is more than a mere sum of parts, and that this something more -- the unity of the parts -- is something real as opposed to something introduced by our conceptual or linguistic activities, or by our craving for permanence. But since we cannot find this ‘something more’ by analysis, the pressure is on to write it off as illusory.

At some point, people who want to argue on behalf of permanence or self-existence (aseity) have to posit the "something more" referenced above. It's a bit like positing a soul to explain the continuity of selfhood. Dr. Vallicella's argument is about to move in a similar direction.

Section II of his paper begins:

But even if the Chariot succeeds in showing that nonpersons lack self-nature, does it also show that persons lack self-nature? It may be that to argue by analogy as Nagasena does, applying to persons what is true of nonpersons, is a mistaken procedure. Indeed, I will now argue that the analogy is mistaken, and that a person is a whole of parts in an importantly different sense than that in which a chariot is a whole of parts.

Vallicella argues that we have successive mental states (moving from pleasure to pain, or perceiving a series of musical notes, or hearing two musical chords), but that we are also conscious of this succession, implying that something must "perdure" as we pass from one mental state to another-- something that allows us to be conscious of how previous mental states relate to each other. To wit:

...since there is consciousness of mental change, mental change is alteration and thus requires a substratum that is numerically identical across the change. The point was appreciated by Kant, who wrote that “A coming to be or a ceasing to be . . . can never be a possible [object of] perception.”

Vallicella is here positing the "I" that remains throughout the succession of mental states, but here again, I think he has severely misinterpreted the Buddhist position. By mistakenly viewing the Buddhist notion of process as one in which successive states are both radically impermanent and unrelated, Vallicella passes by the notion of continuity (cf. my essay on emptiness here for a fuller explanation). For any given phenomenon (from the Buddhist perspective), so-called "successive moments" are, first, not discrete moments, and second, they are connected by causation, each "moment" leading to the next. The momentum driving this continuity is what Buddhists name karma.

For a Buddhist, the "I" is itself a construction, and because it's a construction it's a contingent phenomenon-- no different, therefore, from all other phenomena in its contingency, its dependently co-arisen status. The "ultimate" truth, then, accords this "I" no greater (or more fundamental) ontological weight than would be accorded to any other phenomenon-- say, a daisy or a chariot or my present desire for some Doritos (I may have to hit the local 24-hour mart after I finish this essay).

Dr. Vallicella thinks, then, that he's established the self as something ontologically significant:

What [this argument] shows is that there is direct awareness of the self as that in which the two distinct states are united. The fact of experienced mental change refutes the anatta [Pali, no-self] doctrine. There is not just an awareness of one state followed by an awareness of a second; I am aware of myself as the transtemporal unity of the two states. Unity, of course, is not identity: so talk of the unity of the pleasurable and painful states is consistent with their numerical distinctness. The self, therefore, is directly given in the experience of mental change; but it is of course not given as a separate object wholly distinct from its states. It is given in and through these states as their transtemporal unity. The self is not one of its states, nor the sum of all of them, nor something wholly distinct from all of them; the self is their self-unifying unity. Thus one must not think of the substratum of mental change as wholly distinct from its states. It is not like a pin cushion into which pins are stuck. A pin cushion without pins is conceivable; a self without conscious states is not. The self is not an unconscious something that supports consciousness; it itself has the nature of consciousness. Consciousness/self-consciousness is a sui generis reality that cannot be understood in terms of crude models from the physical world.

So what he's saying is: the "I" is not reducible to the mental states of which it is conscious. It is, instead, the ground of such states-- their "transtemporal unity," having coherent existence over time.

You know, I don't really see anything wrong with the idea that the above argument is conventionally true, but Dr. Vallicella has provided no convincing reasons to believe that selfhood has any ultimacy-- the best we can do is fall back on the problematic notion of "relative permanence," a notion I find fishy.

Overall, Dr. Vallicella seems to have made the circular mistake of defining "self" or "personhood" a certain way, then "discovering" it in an examination of human consciousness and positing it as a rebuttal to a Buddhist argument. But because of the notions he employs, I'm not convinced he's responded directly to the Buddhist argument. Instead, he's simply laid out his own position, not so different from staring at the color black and declaring, "This I call black." The same thing is happening when we look at the difference between a car's components strewn about the ground, and a fully assembled parked car. We look at the pieces and declare/define: "Those are pieces (of a car)." We look at pieces assembled in a way that conforms to our preconceptions and declare/define, "That's a car." The fact that the difference between "car" and "not-car" is a function of our preconceptions is what keeps the car's car-ness from having any fundamental significance, from the Buddhist perspective. What applies to the car also applies to people, who are also contingent, impermanent, and dependently co-arisen.

Further along, in his paper's third section, Dr. Vallicella writes:

Now if there is the unity of the chariot, but this unity derives from the unifying power of the mind, then minds must be self-unifying unities. In other words, if the unity of the chariot derives from the unity of a concept which subsumes a manifold of data, and this concept expresses the unity of a conceiving which is itself a synthesizing of a manifold of data, then the synthesizer or unifier must be a self-unifier: it must be the ground of its own unity. How then could minds lack self-nature?

You'd think the answer to this question would be obvious: human brains and bodies (I say this to avoid unnecessary debate about where a mind is "located") are material and therefore contingent. This funnels directly into the larger Buddhist argument that applies to all phenomena, with "mind," "brain," and "bodies" all being subsets of the supercategory "all phenomena."

On his website, Dr. Vallicella calls his own position onto-theological, i.e., he wants eventually to come to rest on a firm ontological ground-- preferably God, I assume, since this is onto-theology. I get the feeling, while reading this paper, that Dr. Vallicella would very much like to posit a soul, because ultimately, that's the only way to confront the Buddhist directly: as long as Dr. Vallicella is unable to de-link his notion of "I" or "consciousness" from materiality, then his "I" will always be subject to the Buddhist charge of contingency, impermanence, and no-self. As far as I can tell, the only way to agree with Dr. Vallicella's argument is to take seriously the notion of "relative permanence." If you can't take that notion seriously, the rest of his argument is completely unpersuasive.

Does Dr. Vallicella posit a soul in this paper? No, but he sure seems to move in the same direction as St. Thomas Aquinas' cosmological proofs:

If, in reality, Nagasena’s mind -- call it M1 -- were just a bunch of disconnected momentary data, then its unity would have to derive from some other mind, call it M2. (Don’t forget: the difference between a complex entity and the sum of its constituents is real and must be accounted for on pain of nihilism; this principle applies to minds and non-minds alike.) The unity of M2's mind, in turn, would require for its unification M3, and so on into a regress both infinite and vicious. To avoid this regress, we must say that at least one mind possesses an intrinsic principle of unity. We must say that at least one mind is a self-unifying unity of consciousness and self-consciousness.

In the above we again see the insistence on mischaracterizing Buddhist process ontology as disconnected moments (keep in mind that not all Buddhist thinkers take this approach, though some arguably do). I'm not sure Dr. Vallicella has any understanding of what karma is. His own notion of the transtemporal "I" actually fits rather nicely into the Buddhist outlook, because such an "I" would indeed possess a certain unicity and distinctness-- just not on a fundamental level. Vallicella's "I" would also be transtemporal from the Buddhist point of view, because like all dependently co-arisen phenomena subject to the law of karma, that "I" would be continuous over time. But continuity is not the same thing as permanence, and as mentioned before, the only way out of the Buddhist argument is to take seriously the notion of "relative permanence."

Vallicella's paper makes a bizarre move toward its end: a critique of both David Hume and the Buddhists-- both of whom find no discrete self at the end of the day. I'm not quite sure why Hume suddenly got brought into this; Vallicella spends most of his paper confined to the specific question of Buddhist metaphysics as laid out in the Milinda-Nagasena dialogue. Hume seems to be here to provide a comparison between the Buddhist "mistake" and a similar "mistake" being made by a Westerner, but when Vallicella concedes that the Buddhist mistake isn't as grievous as Hume's (I encourage you to read the paper to see what I'm talking about), he doesn't turn back to the Milinda-Nagasena dialogue: he turns instead to the no-self discourse found in the Anattalakkhana Sutta of the Samyutta Nikaya, which isn't discussed anywhere else in the paper.

I mention this because it shows that Dr. Vallicela's argument employs a rather dubious strategy: since the Milinda-Nagasena dialogue doesn't go into the nitty-gritty of Buddhist notions like karma, and doesn't cover other aspects of Buddhist process ontology such as continuity, Dr. Vallicella may have felt free to construct a Buddhist straw man based almost entirely on the limited scope of the Milinda-Nagasena dialogue. This obviously isn't going to work, because to critique the anatman (Skt. "no-self") doctrine, you'd have to consider more than just this one dialogue. I think Dr. Vallicella knows this, which explains why his paper suddenly expands in scope toward the end.

So the inconsistency is this: Dr. Vallicella conveniently miscontrues Buddhist process ontology as a series of disconnected moments with no thought to karma and continuity, because this particular Milinda-Nagasena dialogue doesn't deal with karma, continuity, etc. Much of his argument then proceeds from this misunderstanding, deliberate or not-- but by the end of his paper, Dr. Vallicella ropes in more Buddhists than just Nagasena because he recognizes that, for his critique to have any weight, he does indeed have to consider more than just this one Buddhist dialogue.

And finally, I don't think Dr. Vallicella has convincingly stated his case for a self or "I" whose ontological status is not dependently co-arisen. His argument has weight only if we take "relative permanence" seriously, and if we take "relative permanence" seriously, we're no longer seeing things from the Buddhist perspective. If we fail to take this perspective into account, then any critique of that perspective will also fail, because the critique will have falsely reconstructed matters-- i.e., produced a straw man. Further, the Buddhist metaphysic, which Dr. Vallicella rightly points out is very empirical, will take material reality into consideration when discussing phenomena. Because human brains and bodies lack permanence and exist in a dynamic of processual interbeing or dependent co-arising, then whatever epiphenomenal "self" or "I" arises from that karmic swirl will itself be dependently co-arisen. While I find Dr. Vallicella's argument fascinating (and to be honest, I'll need to re-read parts of it and perhaps revise this essay according to what I learn), I don't find it cogent.

[NB: check out this reference to the Anattalakkhana Sutta, where the commenter writes: "Thus Buddhism does not teach that "you" are "soul" which is "reborn" (although certain forms of Hindu teaching may be understood in this way). Rather, Buddhism teaches [that] "Mind" and "Mindfulness" exist, and that there is a karmic continuity between incarnations of mind. The link then is karmic, not essential." The part in boldface is what Dr. Vallicella is glossing over.]

UPDATE: Dr. Vallicella sent me an email in recognition of my linkage to his site... but I don't think he'd had a chance to read this critique of his paper yet. Heh. I expect to be thoroughly flayed in reply, but my feeling is, if you're going to test yourself philosophically, you may as well test yourself against the big guns: it's a better learning experience, and you find out your many weaknesses faster. For what it's worth, while I doubt I'll ever agree with Dr. Vallicella's basic position, I'll continue to visit his very educational site for the same reason I keep going back to AnalPhilosopher: great writing, lots to learn, and a different perspective.

UPDATE 2: Sperwer's blog offers incisive comments and critiques.

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Islam's Civil War

Your Maximum Leader received this link from the AirMarshal this morning. It is a clear statement of that which has been said time and time again in this space and throughout the blogosphere. Islam must defeat their militant strains. Your Maximum Leader hopes that Iraq will show the way for other Islamic states.

Carry on.

religious propaganda I serve unto thee

I can't do the Marmot's Chosun job because a small pamphlet like this takes me about eight hours to translate, and there's no guarantee I'm doing it right. Yeah, yeah-- call me a dumb shit. I already said my reading skills were poor. Anyway, I now present to you this pamphlet, which comes to us courtesy of the Jehovah's Witnesses (you don't find out who these people are until the fourth page out of six-- but you get suspicious around page 2 or 3). I've tried to translate it as best I can. As far as I can tell, I've inadvertently done a reverse translation of an English-language original, because this sounds exactly like the literature the JWs pass out in America.

Jehovah, it turns out, is "Yeo-ho-wah" in Korean. You learn something new every day. What follows is translated entirely from the Korean text you see on your monitor. The pamphlet was folded in thirds, and thus is composed of six small pages. I start at the title page and work forward to the fill-me-out address form.

Do you want to know MORE about the BIBLE?



WHY SHOULD YOU READ THE BIBLE?

The Bible is different from other books. It contains teaching about God's love. (1 Thessalonians 2:13) If you apply the Bible's teachings (to your life), you'll benefit. If you attain God's love, "All good and perfect gifts" will come to you. (James 1:17) You can approach God through prayer. When you find yourself in a time of difficulty, you can experience God's help. If you live up to the principles found in the Bible, God will grant you eternal life. (Romans 6:23)

The Bible contains illuminating truth. In coming to know the Bible, many people find direction in their lives, and are released from incorrect thoughts. For example, when we find out the truth about what happens after we die, we are released from harmful fear on behalf of our dead relatives and friends, however they may have suffered. In the Bible's teaching about resurrection, these loved ones, and the ones they leave behind, will be uplifted. (John 11:25)

[NB: In the last sentence, the phrase in question is "wi-ro ga dwaemnida." "Wi-ro" seems to mean something like "consolation, comfort, solace." I've chosen the deliberately vague "uplifted," because this is in connection with resurrection (cf. the Son of Man will be "lifted up," OT reference as well as crucifixion/resurrection image), along with the emotional "uplifting" implied by solace, comfort, etc. Bad translation, I know... write in with a better way to handle this, especially if I've misunderstood the entire paragraph, which I suspect I have.]



When you learn the truth about demons (ak-han ch'eon-sa = wicked angels), you become aware of the danger and you come to understand why there is such trouble here below.

[NB: I've chosen "here below" because it's a hymnic reference to our terrestrial existence. The Korean word "ddang" literally means "ground" or "soil" or "land."]

The fundamental rules God gave us in the Bible are a formula for healthy living. For example, "moderate habits" are conducive to good health. (1 Timothy 3:2) We avoid harming our bodies when "flesh and spirit are made clean." (2 Corinthians 7:1) What's more, if you follow God's counsel, as found in the Bible, your married life becomes happier, and your self-love is greater. (1 Corinthians 6:18)

When you live according to God's word, you become a happier person. Knowing the Bible brings inner peace and contentment; it gives us hope. This knowledge helps us cultivate a heart full of compassion, love, happiness, peace, kindness, and faith. (Galatians 5:22,23; Ephesians 4:24,32) These special qualities make us better husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters.





Have you ever worried about the future? The biblical prophets, speaking (to us) from deep within the stream of history, tell us of profoundly meaningful times. These prophets weren't talking only about today's world, but about the paradise into which the world will be transformed. (Revelation 21:3,4)

THE HELP WE NEED TO UNDERSTAND THE BIBLE

Maybe you've tried reading the Bible and found it difficult to understand. Maybe, even though you have questions, you don't quite know where in the Bible to look for answers. You should know that you're not the only one who's felt this way. We all need help to understand God's word. Jehovah's Witnesses in 235 countries and territories offer free Bible education, and these people will gladly assist you.

Generally, it's most desirable to start from basic teachings and move gradually into Bible study. (Hebrews 6:1) Continuous study provides "solid nourishment," i.e., you will come to internalize deeper truths. (Hebrews 5:14) The Bible is our guide, but using the (JW) "What does God ask of us?" pamphlets and other Bible-based publications will also be helpful to you in finding and understanding Bible passages about various topics.




WILL YOU VOLUNTARILY SET ASIDE TIME EACH WEEK FOR (STUDYING AND) UNDERSTANDING THE BIBLE?

[NB: the verb "study" doesn't appear in the title, but it seems silly to translate the above as "setting aside time to understand the Bible," because that's not how anglophones usually phrase that.]

You can arrange to study the Bible (with us) at a time and place that are usually convenient for you. Many people do this comfortably at home. There are also people who do their Bible study over the phone. Study courses can be arranged to occur not in a class environment, but in a private setting where lessons are paced according to a person's knowledge and educational level. There won't be any tests or confusing work to do. Your questions about the Bible will be answered, and you'll learn the way to get closer to God.

You don't need to pay anything for this kind of study. (Matthew 10:8) This arrangement is a free offer for all religious people, as well as for people who don't have a religion but sincerely desire to improve their knowledge of God's word.

Who can participate in these discussions? Your whole family can. If you'd like to invite friends along, they can participate, too. And if you prefer, you can also start your progress alone.

Many people willingly devote one hour a week to Bible study. Whether you can devote more than this amount of time, or less, Jehovah's Witnesses can set up a program to fit your situation.



YOUR INVITATION TO LEARN

We would like you to meet with the Jehovah's Witnesses. One way to do this is to fill out the form below and send it to one of the listed addresses. When you do this, one of us will make arrangements for free home Bible study with you.

[NB: The word I translated "one of us" is "nu-gun-ga," which I suppose should be rendered as "someone" or "some people." But the phrase "someone/some people will make arrangements for Bible study with you" sounds either sloppy or sinister. "One of us" also sounds sinister in a drone-like way, but maybe that's unavoidable, given how the JWs operate from the hive-mind of Jesus.]

So that's it. I'm not translating the address form. This has already taken way the hell too long. Korean-literate people are encouraged to write in with corrections, suggestions, and invective about my puny translating skills. The above rendering sucks ass-- this was nothing like translating French, which is a hell of a lot easier for a former French teacher. I can render printed French into spoken English at almost normal talking speed, plus some strategic "uh"s and "er"s.

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blogging = big head

Jay has put his Kensho Godchaser blog on hiatus, but he's blogging away at The Zero Boss. Choice quote from a recent post, regarding how few actual active bloggers there are:

News for Bloggers: you're more special than you think. A new report from the Pew Internet and American Life Project argues that only a small minority of Internet users blog - and an ever smaller group actually keep their blogs up-to-date.

Given what I've seen while cruising the Web, that's not surprising. There's a lot of dead wood out there. Blogging consistently takes time, patience, and no small degree of talent. Not to mention a high degree of megalomania and self-importance.

Did I just write that?

This is consistent with Glenn's "blogging is narcissism" theme. Yep.

It's Wednesday. Anything goes. I'll be slapping up some poor Korean translations much later this evening. When the Marmot says his translations might not be perfect, he's just being modest-- the guy's a beast with the language, really spot-on, at least from where I sit as an advanced-intermediate-level speaker and low-level reader/listener. When I say my translation is bad, however, I'm just being honest.

In that spirit, I invite correction from any and all Koreabloggers. Stick comments in Vile Vituperation on the sidebar, or email me. And give thorough explanations for your corrections, please; the object of the game is to learn. I can't afford Korean class right now, so I've decided to work on reading and translating skills this way. In fact... I'm wondering whether I shouldn't change Anything Goes Wednesdays into Korean Translation Wednesdays. The discipline would do me a lot of good.

Hmmmm. Yes, it's certainly a thought.

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le parcours des blogueurs (général)

Brief one this evening... I'm working on a translation project for the Wednesday Anything Goes blog (a Christian leaflet, in case you're wondering).

Top billing goes to the Maximum Leader, who caught Keith Burgess-Jackson's attention by remarking that Christopher Hitchens calls everyone names, and that women can flaunt their bodies for a cause if they like (at least provisionally... and since when has the ML been "troubled by pornography"?? That sounds more like something Bill Bennett would say!). The ML managed to slip in a professed love of meat-eating, too. Ouch, KBJ, that's gotta hurt.

Also check out two posts re: Leni Riefenstahl at Naked Villainy.

The ML leans pretty strongly rightward, but he also hosts a few left-leaning bloggers as well, along with megafreaks who don't quite fit the whole left/right paradigm. The resultant mix of opinions is very Tacitus-like. Check out Naked Villainy and make it your second home. Buy some Maximum Leader products while you're at it.

People who saw my Gweilo Diaries tittie link may have noticed a slight change: I had to correct an embarrassing misspelling: the tittie link originally read "Gweilo Diairies." I think the picture may have caused me to combine "diary" with "dairy." Sorry 'bout that, Conrad. Boy, I'm milking this...

Peking Duck has the roundup about the pro-independence human chain in Taiwan that may have been composed of as many as 1-2 million people. Some say this is the next looming crisis. I say China's displeasure is evidence of longstanding imperialism-- the vintage kind, before people began to reunderstand "imperialism" as "only what America does, whatever it may be doing right now and always." One of the blogs to which Richard links, A Better Tomorrow, is more than a little circumspect about the pro-independence event and the "Taiwan yes! China no!" rhetoric. Check out the post and the ensuing comments.

Go read Ryan's looong post on gay marriage (that's how he describes it), and here again, be sure to look over the comments thread.

Bravo Romeo Delta of Anticipatory Retaliation thinks out loud. Also of note is an interesting exchange on AR about the merits of brutality. Start with this post by CVE and work your way forward in time, up the blog. Along the way, you'll encounter an essay on gay marriage that I think will be worth your while.

Annika tells her fellows whom to vote for and presents a very thoughtful review of "The Passion of the Christ."

Keith Burgess-Jackson offers an example of an English class writing assignment gone wrong. I laughed my ass off, mainly because I've done tandem writing before, years ago and on a lark-- and this looked awfully familiar. Trust me, ladies: in tandem writing, a guy will try to "lead" as if he's dancing with you. If you introduce new characters or situations he finds uninteresting, he'll be sure to undo your entire storyline when it's his turn. Why? Because as Howard Dean can attest, men are dicks. KBJ also posts a list of amazing anagrams.

But the reason I'm not always keen on KBJ is that he also posts silliness like this:

Marriage always has been, is, and always will be a childrearing institution. It is too important to be monkeyed with. Most Americans, thank goodness, understand that.

This is an essentialist position I've watched KBJ formulate on his blog. His larger argument isn't the most empirically-based one, either, which immediately loses it my sympathy. The above contention comes from history, but with little acknowledgement of the perfectly empirical fact that times change, and no phenomenon remains static. As I've contended on this blog a gazillion times, marriage is a term applied to a reality in flux. KBJ can ignore what's happening in society if he wants to; the changes will occur with or without his consent because, well, reality moves.

If people need a refresher on my own position, which has evolved somewhat thanks to the blogs I read at KBJ and elsewhere, my sidebar has plenty of links to essays on pluralism, gay marriage, and Buddhist process ontology. Such an ontology, coupled with the nondualistic position laid out in my "right and wrong" post, makes KBJ's assertions about the "definition" of marriage untenable to me. Marriage isn't a reality graven in the universe; it's what we make of it, and it's how we practice it.

So in terms of KBJ's statement above: I agree that marriage "has been, is, and always will be" about children, because that, at least, conforms to empirical and biological fact. But what KBJ conveniently ignores here is the simple question being asked these days: is this all marriage is? i.e., Is this all marriage has to be? And here again, homosexual marriages are already being performed at many liberal churches (temples, etc.), so the term is being redefined, slowly but surely, on a religious level. Since religions are incarnated in people, then as this meme spreads through people's religious consciousness, it will manifest itself as political will-- as we see already happening.

Given this wider context, KBJ's protests about what marriage "has been, is and will be" make little sense. There's more going on here. Blink and you'll miss it.

So some crotchety folks cry, "Where does it all stop, then? Will people be marrying their dogs and sisters and cacti next?" To which my nondualist answer is: let's deal with these questions calmly as they become relevant to the national consciousness, and let's stop pretending we can set absolutes into a reality that moves.

[For those who at this point think I'm advocating some sort of anarchy or the willful ignoring of rules/laws, I again refer you to numerous essays on my sidebar that lay out where I stand on the subject of rules, laws, absolutes, and all the rest. Cf. especially the "right and wrong" essay. If you still don't get where I'm coming from, please email me.]

Think about this: the field of bioethics is way behind actual technology. Sexuality is already a highly complex phenomenon, not neatly described by the hetero/homo dichotomy. No fixed typologies of human sexuality are possible given not only this complexity, but the constantly evolving character of the phenomenon. Technology may very well move human sexuality into wildly unexpected directions. Donald Sensing's own essays bemoan the divorcing of the sexual act from its natural consequences (while rightfully acknowledging that this is only going to continue), but Sensing's hinting at the tip of the iceberg: in a century or two, there will be radically new and different sexual mores, sexual subcultures-- and in a few centuries after that, who knows? Perhaps even different biological sexes as humans get inventive and impatient (yes, it's only speculation; calm down).

Will all this spell doom for humanity? I doubt it. Will it mean the dissolution of old paradigms? Well, of course. And while all this is happening, human societies will find their own answers to the questions posed by rapidly mutating (bio- and nano-) technology and culture-- no one's going to wait around for pronouncements from stodgy academe. South Koreans apparently didn't wait around to start cloning humans, and it's a sure bet that private interests are working on their own bioengineering projects.

There's a kong-an for the evening: what will sex look like in 300 years? Anyone got a camera?

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le parcours coréen

Some Hominid notes first: Today, the teacher placement agency with which I now work decided to pull a fast one on me by assigning me a 9AM class after I'd put my pawprint on a contract stating that teaching hours were to be 11AM to 5PM. A few years back, a situation like this might have stressed me: as Westerners, we tend to expect the contract's conditions to be honored. But all it takes is a few experiences in Korea to teach you that not everyone approaches contracts the same way. In a situation where it looks like you might be getting shafted, you just hold firm. No need to kick and scream (though I've seen plenty of foreigners who get results this way, at the cost of their own dignity)-- just politely keep to the literal wording of the contract, and if the bosses think you're being unfairly inflexible, just remember: it's not your fuckin' problem. Go home and sleep well. Luckily for me, my new boss seems a very friendly sort who immediately said the 9AM class was her mistake and she'd erase it from the schedule. But know that, if I'd been willing to teach that class, she'd have found students for it, because money for me means money for her. I'm now on my guard.

The second bit of Hominidal news is something you may have already noticed: the sidebar is being prettified (or uglified, depending on your point of view). I've already taken care of several of the Koreabloggers and will be placing even more pics up. The graphics load is hell on people with dialup connections, and I apologize (sorry, Dad), but I think dialup's on its way out, and broadband allows us a lot more graphical freedom. So here, as with the gay marriage issue, I'll ride the wave of progress into the sweaty, heaving cleavage of the future. Yes, even if it means leaving my poor Dad back in dialup hell. Heh.

Speaking of cleavage, you may have noticed that the new logo for Gweilo Diaries is a tittie pic. In fact, it's the very tittie pic I mentioned earlier: the "Heineken tits" lady. I've placed this pic on my sidebar on the assumption that (1) the people who visit my site regularly are all grown-ups, and (2) they are all grown-ups with a sense of humor. If you seriously believe that the Heineken tittie pic is titillating, then I submit you've got a problem. In my opinion, the Heineken lady is stare-worthy for the same reason that a man with a 20-pound tumor hanging off his face is stare-worthy. Freakish dimensions earn stares-- ask any foreigner in a Korean subway. In the meantime, just to show I put in some effort at Muslim modesty, I tried to create the effect of lazily-applied "censorship bars." They don't quite cover the lady's boobaliciousness, But Oh Well.

And finally, to Americans who've never lived in Europe and have trouble with exposed titties: relax. This kind of pic can be seen on huge billboards in some European countries, or on TV-- in commercials. Kids in these countries grow up with a blasé attitude about sexuality; they stop reproducing and allow unassimilated Muslims to move in. These Muslims in turn make up the population deficit and write angry rap songs about how ugly Whitey is, thereby reinforcing the Old Country Whitey urge not to reproduce. But my point is that Europeans don't form puritanical complexes about mammaries. Neither should you, iguana. So stop licking and cursing your monitor, you confused, conflicted soul.

And now-- on with the parcours.

I'd normally want to start off with something from the Marmot, but this fantastic Goldbrick post gets top billing because the message for all expats is loud and clear:

Don't do drugs. If you do them, don't come to Korea and do drugs here. Wait until you're back in Canada, or the Netherlands, San Francisco, Seattle, or wherever it is that trained you to think there are no consequences to violating drug laws. Combating drugs is a big deal to the Korean government, and picking on relatively defenseless and isolated potsmoking teachers is a lot easier than catching violent criminals. We understand that college campuses, dance clubs and gay bathhouses (not that there's anything wrong with that) are full of hip Korean people who are carefree about their drug use, but don't let that lull you into a false sense of security. For most of our criminal clients, $10,000 is about all they could save in a year of cup ramyeon lunches. And although we'll try like hell to keep you out of jail, it's possible that the effort will be for nought. Don't throw away your future over a momentary high.

I don't do drugs or smoke or drink alcohol-- my vice is food, and there's plenty of food to be had in South Korea. Luckily, self-indulgence is only a crime in the karmic sense, and from the point of view of Buddhist (and Christian) moderation. For the rest of you fuckers with your drug habits: listen to Mr. Carr's advice, lay off the weed, and no one'll have to charge your lame ass $10,000 to keep you out of jail. And lay off the weed because it's assholes like you who confirm to Koreans everything that's bad about us Flying Yang-nom.

Kevin at IA gives me the shout-out for the new logo and seals his fate: I imagine he'll be getting even more hate-filled comments from some of his regular parasites, now that he's stuck the logo on his blog.

The Marmot fisks a speech by SK President Noh Mu Hyon, who uses the occasion, stupidly, to slam Japan. March 1st is a national holiday, commemorating the March 1, 1919 speech in which oppressed Koreans declared their independence from their Japanese occupiers (go to Google and do a search on "March First Movement" or "Samil Undong"). It was a ballsy speech that immediately resulted in more than a few deaths. The most recent Japanese occupation ran for 36 years, from 1910 to 1945, ending with the end of World War II and the postwar division of the Korean peninsula. President Noh, in the meantime, is just being a bitch.

See also the Marmot's take on the "brown-shirt" PRO-American demonstration, and his view of the recently-concluded six-way talks.

The Vulture is the best place to go for "snarky comments" about this whole "hot patriotic wind" blowing out of South Korea's crack.

Seeing Eye Blog on the trendy dangers of half-body bathing (a.k.a. sitz baths).

The Infidel on SK's crazy prez:

The more ROK President Roh Moo-hyun tries to sound tough, the more he sounds like Granny on The Beverly Hillbillies.

This cracked me up. Also check out the Infidel on the March First Movement.

Historians take note: Budae Chigae has the goods on March First, as well as an excellent post on "Pungsu, Power, Glory, and Gulbi." Pungsu (poong-soo) is the Korean pronunciation of "feng shui" (which, in case you didn't know, is pronounced, roughly, "fung shway," not "feng shooee" or "feng shwee"), a type of geomancy. Gulbi is that humble-looking fish that gets strung together in chains (see photo in the KimcheeGI's post) and can be massively expensive. It's got another meaning, too, which Charlie covers in his post.

The Flying Yangban kicks Bruce Cumings in the nuts and reluctantly advocates voting for the corrupt, conservative, but still redeemable GNP.

Kirk notes that South Korean saegyehwa (globalization) isn't working out too well.

Polymath has a different take from the Marmot on today's pro-America demonstration, and writes an interesting post on military guys and their Korean wives.

Mingi on Korean racism (cf. the "typical black man" phrase) and the question of whether it was "worth it" for Americans to shed their blood on Korean soil. In a word: no, given how ungrateful South Korea now is.

At Brian's behest, I read the Party Pooper's recent post, in which the Pooper waxes rhaspodic about a Korean's newest confectionary creation: the Triply. Go and read. The sarcasm is rich and creamy, yet surprisingly crunchy in the middle.

Ian posts his last entry from Korea. Buddhist statues-- how apropos. Bon retour au Canada, vieille branche. Ian doesn't know me, but I feel a certain solidarity because he's a fellow cartoonist-- but unlike me, he's doing it as a métier, for a living.

Next week, for the Korea roundup, I'm going to have to find something about Korean reactions to Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ." I honestly have no clue what people are saying about it now, and don't know when it's going to be released here. I was pissed off to see that many (if not most) French theaters are refusing to show the film, for fear of spurring antisemitism. This is wrong on so many levels... maybe I'll comment further tomorrow when I do the Otherblogger roundup.

UPDATE: Peter Schroepfer writes in to tell me (and others) that he's FINALLY posted on what an "oranckay" is. Go read! I now know exactly what's going on the sidebar as a logo. Heh. Heh heh.

UPDATE 2: I'm such a shit. How could I have neglected this one!? Jeff in Pusan has a great post using Richard Feynman to illustrate the problems endemic to the Korean educational system. A must-read.

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the mirror of stupidity

Atrios, the very liberal blogger, says:

In a related note, are conservative [sic] all idiots or liars? Sometimes I can't tell.

Meanwhile, Dr. Keith Burgess-Jackson, a conservative atheist philo prof, writes a post with the following title:

Are the Democrat Candidates Stupid, or Just Dishonest?

Deep thinking there, fellas. You may have more in common than you realize. Interpretive charity, my ass.

And FYI: This marks the last of my unscheduled posts. We now leave the realm of spontaneity and plunge headlong into scheduled existence.

Next up: a Koreablogger roundup.

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more sidebar doodie

This time we've got two possible logos for Cathartidae, and one for Incestuous Amplification.

The two Vulture logos are:

and

I know Brian's an avid Bush-hater, so I thought the eye-pecking would appeal to him, but to be frank, I find the second vulture (which is from a sketch based on a photo) much cooler. Brian? Was denkst du? Que pienses? Oddokgae saeng-gak heyo? Qu'est-ce que tu en penses?

The Incestuous Amplification logo caused me no end of trouble, because the concept is abstract, rooted in language and communication. My first thought in crafting any logo is to keep dialogue out of it, if at all possible. So I racked my brains for days but couldn't come up with anything.

Eventually, I thought about skirting the issue entirely by drawing "bombtits," but those turned out gross: one sketch shows a woman with huge bombs hanging off her chest; in another draft, I've got falling bombs with nipples on them. Very Terry Gilliam. And in yet another draft, a woman with huge tits and a bomb wedged between them (somewhere on my hard drive is a picture of a real woman doing this with a can of Heineken... and NO, I did NOT go searching for this pic, dammit-- it was GIVEN to me as a GIFT!). All of my IA scenarios are overpoweringly sexy, of course, but I didn't want to hypnotize the masses with mammary allure. The object is to get people to click the logo, not stare longingly at it.

So my thoughts turned to compromise: how to portray "incestuous amplification" with just a little bit of dialogue. My very first idea in this vein was sheep doing a flash-mob thingie, all baaa-ing together. But the "sheep in a flash mob" image is kind of redundant; incestuous amplification makes more sense if you understand it as apparently different people who end up singing the same tune, each reinforcing the other, but baselessly and/or ironically (cf. the term's definition on Kevin's site). And so, finally, I decided to pair up a wolf and a sheep, each growling or bleating the same false meme: "One people!" Maybe if we all say it together enough, it'll become true.

Unless Kevin suggests otherwise (and I'll always entertain suggestions), I'm sticking with the following image:


(technically, it says "same people,"
not "one people," but I've heard
this expression, too)

The only real problem I foresee is that some nationalist Koreans might not take too kindly to this image. I'm a relaxed, pluralistic American and can deal with George Bush's eye being pecked out; many Koreans can't deal so maturely with symbols (I keep thinking of Carlin saying "I leave symbols for the symbol-minded").

One way or the other, I'm going to stick these on the sidebar for now. For Cathartidae, I plan on using the crueler-looking vulture, but if you think the Bush-eye-pluck pic is better, Brian, I'll switch to that one. Or maybe... just maybe... I can try to create my very first ANIMATED GIF and have these flash alternately. That won't happen until Wednesday, though, what with my new blogging schedule.

OK... enjoy.

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