I just found a cool tool called W.Bloggar for posting to Blogspot. It’s a client side application, which is especially nice for me with my crappy internet connection. Check it out.

Yes, I know I haven’t posted in a long time. Get off my back.

I felt guilty for a while for not posting. And then I remembered- Oh, that’s right- this is a hobby. I do this for free. Why should I be a slave to my Sitemeter? I haven’t had anything to say. So why say something just for the sake of saying it? Also my internet connection is absolutely ridiculous, and it takes a long time to upload even a simple article. I hopefully will be getting a new connection soon.

If anyone really wants me to post, send me a check for $20. For $50, I’ll post on whatever subject you want. For $100, I’ll even advance your position on the issue, pretending it’s mine.

I will surely post again soon. I sense the checks flowing in now. Check back soon.

The title evokes a deadly killer, moving through the shadows of twilight to hunt his victim. He is an implacable foe, who blurs the distinction between the Samurai, honorable knight of the Japanese feudal period, and the ninja, the feared assassin and spy. This is not what this movie is about at all.

The Twilight Samurai is about a petty retainer in a Japanese clan, a bureaucrat who works in the storehouses of his clan’s castle. His wife has died of consumption and he is left to care for his two daughters and senile mother on a small salary. He has little ambition, and all he wants to do is enjoy his daughters and live in peace.

People try to change him. Family members try to get him married off to different people, and his co-workers are embarrassed of him because all he ever does is work and he doesn’t present himself the way a samurai ought. They call him “twilight Seibei” because Seibei never stays out with them at night but always goes home at twilight. But he doesn’t care about any of that. He just wants to make his way in the world. He even considers giving up the title of samurai and becoming a peasant farmer. He causes trouble for himself by protecting an old childhood friend from her cruel husband, revealing that he is a skilled swordsman. He tries to downplay the attention this draws to him, not wanting to be thought of as a warrior.

But with the death of the clan lord, the man becomes unable to avoid the bloody times he lives in. The clan comes calling on him, drawing on his skills as a swordsman from the past, skills he has almost forgotten. And as much as he’d like to, the clan will not allow him to refuse.

The Twilight Samurai is a beautiful movie, about a man caught between his duty to his clan and his duty to his family and himself. The lead, Hiroyuki Sanada, brilliantly plays the part. He plays a humble retainer just trying to avoid trouble, and his face and posture is that of a scraping servant when he is in front of his masters and a loving, dignified father when he is with his family. But when he rises to the challenge forced on him by his clan, we see him become something else- a hardened warrior.

This characterization is mirrored by the role played by his childhood friend, the battered wife. She demonstrates herself to be a very unusual woman by pushing for a divorce from her cruel husband, and seeking out Seibei. She makes her intention clear, that she would like to be with Seibei, but she comes from a richer family than Seibei and he is worried that she would suffer from the loss of station. Like him, she just wants to be part of a kind family and lead a simple life, but she, like him, is trapped by the expectations of the times.

The pacing, direction, writing and cinematography are all very well done. I have to judge the writing through the subtitles of course. But the subtitles appear to have been done with care. I can’t speak to their accuracy, except they certainly matched the mood of the actors and moved the story along clearly. And they were thorough. Sometimes you can tell a cheap subtitle job by a few written words used to translate a great deal of speaking. Of course, misspellings and bad grammar are a big giveaway too.

This is not a martial arts movie. There are a few fight scenes, and they are gripping. But this is a drama, about a man just trying to make his way in a world that will not leave him alone. Highly recommended. Parts of it are pretty bloody, but there’s nothing else at all objectionable in it. I got it from Netflix. I don’t know if you could find it at Blockbuster or Hollywood, though.

5/5 stars.

A few of the responses to the Vox Apologia seem to focus on the fact that God is outside of the physical universe and therefore discussions of the physical universe don’t need to include God. Blogotional especially is making this argument in his post.

Isn’t this an explicit denial of the incarnation? God is both transcendent and immanent- He is outside the system, but He created the system and works in the system constantly. To deny God’s immanence is to deny the incarnation and the resurrection of Christ.

When Thomas doubted that Christ had risen from the dead, Jesus didn’t say, “well, it’s just a matter of faith, it doesn’t ultimately matter what happened in the physical world”. No, he said, “Touch the nailprints on my hands, and feel the wound in my side.” Yes, God is outside the world, but He explicitly claims to be working in the world, and calls us to bear witness to that. The foundation of the faith, as expressed in the Apostles’ Creed, is historical events- things that happened on earth, which could be demonstrated scientifically. Science is not and never will be the basis of our faith, but if we say that faith and science don’t agree and don’t need to agree, we have just denied the importance of the incarnation. We are saved because God works in the universe, in history.

It’s one thing to say that God doesn’t require scientific support for faith, and that is of course exactly true. That’s a big part of my argument here. But if my scientific theories directly contradict the Bible, then that is a problem for faith, a big one. If I say that God is great and I love Him but then deny that He created the universe in the way that He said that He created the universe, then I am belying my claim to faith. How can I worship God, but not believe what He said?

The question, then, is fundamentally a hermeneutical one. What is Genesis 1-2 saying? If a reading of Genesis can be produced to show that God did not actually create the world in six days about ten thousand years ago, then we’ve got a basis for discussion. But I’m not interested in such a reading that is designed to simply accommodate the text to the opinions of atheists. Start with the text, limit your concerns to the text and have as your goal the understanding of the text. Blogotional’s whole discussion never once even references what Genesis 1 says, which tells me his concerns lie elsewhere.

“Has God really said?” Yes, He has.

Some more thoughts regarding this issue:

From the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, Luke 16:29-31:
29 “Abraham said to him, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.’
30 “And he said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’
31 “But he said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead.’ “

It’s not about evidence. It’s about being willing to listen to the word of God, or not.

I missed this week’s Vox Apologia, although the topic is one that interests me a great deal. I just ran out of time. It was on the subject of evolution vs. creation, and whether it matters. There are a number of excellent posts up. Here’s RazorKiss’ entry, for example:

We dare not, we must not, and we cannot look an enemy in the face – and turn away as if it is irrelevant. We made that crucial mistake when this enemy first appeared – and we dare not continue. We cannot look at naturalism – at evolution – and spit in our Creator’s face by saying “so what if they deny you?” Romans warns us what excuses exist, for those who deny their Creator. None. His Creation, regardless of attempts to deny it’s Creator, stands as a testament to His power, His majesty, and His creativity – as do we. Despite the philosophical dexterity accompanying the devaluation of man, while simultaneously exalting his attributes – we should take it as a warning. If we exalt the natural – we dethrone the supernatural – we dethrone God – and take His place as the pinnacle. When we take over the pinnacle – we set ourselves up as God.

I’m going to argue that the evolution vs. creation debate does matter, which of course comes as a surprise to no one. But while many who defend the Christian perspective on the matter are content to argue for some theistic hand involved in the existence of the world, while not really disagreeing with a great deal of the popularly believed science on the matter, I intend to argue that any account of the origin of the universe that doesn’t conform to the Genesis account creates the exact same philosophical and theological problem as a completely atheist account of our origins.

I have argued before that people hold to their view of the origin of the universe for entirely other than scientific reasons, and that this is just as true of the so-called defenders of science as it is of anyone else. I make this claim because I have a high level of confidence that nobody, literally nobody, has seen enough data to actually have observed enough to take their position purely on the basis of science. Certainly nobody I’ve ever argued with has. What they have done is that they have heard other people talk about what they’ve seen, and what their interpretation is, and they’ve read books and seen pictures, all of little bits and pieces of work that other people have done, and they are told a certain story about what all of it means, and they accept that story. Certainly many individual scientists have done a great deal of hands-on work on certain fields. But one guy knows a lot about biochemistry, and accepts the story on astrophysics, zoology, botany, and the rest. Another guy might be a great astronomer, but know nothing about living things. Check out this post by PZ Myers, for example, a die-hard defender of evolution:

Don’t ask me about the subject of the title; I know little about it. I’ve confessed before to my zoological bias, which means plants and bacteria don’t get the attention they deserve here. Fortunately, I can tell everyone to go read the summary of angiosperm phylogeny at Niches. While I don’t know as much about flowering plants as I should, I can at least appreciate their importance and recognize an interesting evolutionary story when I see it.

He doesn’t know much about the subject, but he likes the story. That’s what ties them all together- the story. There is a certain story about how everything happened that they all like, and so all of their data is interpreted in terms of that same story. Details might be adjusted from time to time; question marks left where the data and the story don’t match; but fundamentally the story stays the same.

It reminds me of the debate about systematic theology sometimes. Some theologians say systematic theology is bad, because you force Biblical data into an interpretive grid instead of letting the data speak for itself. My answer to that has always been that that’s what everyone does; it’s just how humans think. The difference is, if you own up to a system, then at least you have the opportunity to check your system against the data, and adjust the system if necessary. If you are unconscious of your system, you will distort all of the data to fit, while never being aware that you’re doing it.

I want to start my system with one simple premise: “Thus says the Lord”.

This will of course render me ignorant, insane, and dangerous in the eyes of many. That’s OK. But we all have a choice between building our thinking on the word of God, or on my own mind. These are the only two options, and I choose the first.

After I’ve chosen the first, and then I read Genesis 1-2, there’s only one choice- the world was created in six days by the supernatural power of God. And if I read more of the Bible, I discover that this all happened probably less than ten thousand years ago. As I argued here, I believe Genesis because I love Jesus, because He saved me from my sins, and Jesus always assumes the absolute truth of the Jewish Old Testament, everywhere He speaks. This is why I am a creationist, because I choose to accept a particular authority.

But this is the dirty secret- that’s what everyone does. PZ Myers accepts the authority of the article he quoted above, because it tells a story that he likes. All people, including all scientists, do this all the time, because no scientist has access to all, or even more than a tiny fraction, of all of the relevant data. Even a biologist doesn’t dig up all the fossils himself. And he never even sees many of them. He sees pictures in books, and takes someone’s word for it that they look like what the book says they look like, and mean what the book or the journal says they mean.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with doing this. Again, it’s what we all do, all the time. I believe that there are some interesting political events going on in Lebanon right now, but I have no first-hand information of that at all. I have chosen to accept the authority of the news reports I have read. And where I suspect a bias, that is, where the reporting of facts and interpretations does not fit the story I have chosen to believe, I adjust accordingly.

Now to the self-appointed priests of rationalism and empiricism, this is an extremely foolish and blinkered way to think. But all that means is that they are ignorant of their own thought process, and therefore unable to adjust the story they have chosen to believe.

Every attempt I have ever read or heard to interpret Genesis 1-2 in any way other than a young-earth, six-day interpretation has been an attempt to accommodate the biblical account to the “facts” of modern science. The interpretation of the text are always discussed, but when you dig into it, you discover that interpretation is always a secondary concern, and the primary concern is making the text “fit” the science. But accommodations of that nature never work, because what is being attempted is to accommodate two stories, two philosophies that fundamentally contradict each other. One philosophy is the one that says that we think God’s thoughts after him, and that all truth is learned by first submitting myself to God’s proclamation of truth. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”. The other philosophy says that man is the measure of truth, that I decide the facts and the meaning of things; that I decide what is right and wrong. You have to make a choice. You have to pick one of these stories; you cannot have both. This is the choice to worship the creature rather than the creator. If the Bible is true, then the atheists and unbelievers who claim to be scientists have no ability to tell me anything relevant about the origins of the universe. They have no wisdom; their minds are given over to darkness as punishment for their rebellion; they are fools. And why should I attempt to modify the holy Word of God to acoommodate the ravings of fools? They may be very good at describing things that they can see. They may be good at building things. But they have nothing to say about any issue to which the Bible speaks.

Of course, the other implication of this train of thought is that while it is immensely important whether I believe evolution or creation, it is not all that productive to argue about it, except when there is already a broad agreement on the philosophical underpinnings of the debate. But if someone does not believe the Bible, then I do not expect to convince them of creation, any more than I could convince them that Jesus actually walked on water. Both he and I believe what we believe because of issues that have nothing to do with science.

Doubt me? Go read some of those blogs that are written by supposed defenders of science. They spend almost their whole time raving about philosophy, and they attack people like me not in scientific terms but in philosophical terms. They hold a level of hatred toward people like me that cannot be explained by simple differences in scientific opinion. They claim that defenders of creation are liars and evil people. But if science is their concern- the simple aggregation of knowledge- why would they care about a disagreement over a fact, or even about a liar? If a man is a liar, then real scientists will have nothing to do with him, as they constantly claim. Then the development of knowledge will not be affected at all by that liar. He might fool some rubes; he might get some government money or get some stickers put on some textbooks, but so what? No, their hatred can only be explained by the fact that their philosophy is being attacked; their religion; their God.

The first thing that the devil ever said to man was, “Has God really said?” Satan’s attack has always been an attempt to twist the word of God to mean something other than what it means. We must not accommodate that attack at all. So, creation vs. evolution is important primarily because the word of God is important. We must understand that the real point of attack is not on science, but on the credibility of the word of God. The devil’s always been good at arguing, and the defenders of evolution are too. But if we remember what the attack is really about, and what we stand to lose, then we will not be fooled.

UPDATE: Thanks to Ed “What the” Heckman for posting my late entry to Vox Apologia VII. Go check it out- lots of good red meat there.

ANOTHER UPDATE: One more quick related thought, here.

Joe’s got a great post on EO about Walmart.

The biggest change was that we now had choices. Before, if we needed consumer products we had to travel thirty miles down the road to Paris. The members of the local retail oligopoly offered a limited range of products at outrageously inflated prices (that seems to be forgotten in the hagiographic idealization of small retailers). Options that were taken for granted by people who lived in urban areas – the ability to buy a Sony Walkman and the latest Duran Duran cassette – were completely closed to our rural community. Sam Walton, though, changed all that.

In fact, it would be hard to underestimate the impact of “everyday low prices” had on how rural Texans. Even low income families like mine were able to afford items that were once considered luxuries. For example, I was able to purchase a weight lifting set for less than $20 dollars which allowed me to transform within a matter of months from an 85 pound weakling to a 98 pound he-man. On the surface, such changes may seem inconsequential. But when viewed on a macro level the broadening of consumer choices had an incredibly transformative impact.

The role of Wal-Mart in creating economic conservatives should also not be underestimated. Employee profit-sharing was a foreign concept for most citizens of Clarksville. For many people, the first stock that they ever owned (that didn’t come with hooves) was that of Wal-Mart, bought while working for the company. People who had formerly viewed stocks as the province of “Republicans” and other wealthy folk suddenly began to take an interest in Wall Street. The concept of company ownership suddenly became a reality for people who had previously never considered it a possibility.

I don’t shop a whole lot at Walmart, because I have to drive into Colorado Springs to find one, and when I get there, there are a lot of other choices. If there was a Walmart here in Limon, you bet I’d shop there.

There is one grocery store, one drugstore/hardware store, and one larger hardware store here in Limon. All but the larger hardware store would likely be put out of business by a Walmart here in Limon. People talk about the sad local businessman put out of business, but you’re talking about two or three people. And they’re not poor. The guy who owned the grocery store before I got here sold it and was able to move to Hollywood and pursue an acting career for his son with the proceeds. Their prices are wildly inflated and their selection stinks. Walmart would provide lower prices, better quality and better selection for everyone in town, without having to drive 70 miles for it. If you dispute that, you’ve got nothing to worry about. If they didn’t do better than the other stores, people wouldn’t shop there. So two or three people lose out, and a few thousand benefit.

Even if employment went down, it would only do so because they were able to produce the same or better product with less manpower. That’s a good thing, not a bad thing. If that happens, then everyone’s got more money in their pocket (because of having to spend less for so many things) to spend at other local businesses. More people come to Limon for shopping instead of the Springs or Denver, and then they eat at Limon restaurants and see a movie at the Limon theater. Those businesses hire more people. Everyone does better. Who knows- maybe they’ll even go to church at a Limon church.

Blocking the Walmart from coming to a small town like this is all about protecting privilege. It’s about protecting wealthy business owners from competition, and wealthy landowners from the possibility of the store lowering land values (which it never does.) Hating Walmart is another liberal cause du jour and like all the other liberal causes, it masquerades as being for the little guy, but it’s all about protecting the status quo, in favor of the privileged and stomping all over the average joe. Nobody forces anyone to shop at Walmart or work at Walmart. Even if Walmart comes and puts the grocery store out of business, you can still drive to Colorado Springs like everyone already does.

My one hesitation is the tax incentives. I don’t think anyone should be getting a tax break over what other businesses get. The market should determine those things and businesses- small or large- should be treated the same under the law, as much as possible. But that’s just one concern, and not a central one.

Walmart, if you’re listening- come build a store here. Make it a Superstore. I don’t care how ugly it is. The Superfoods isn’t exactly eye candy anyway. If you do, I’ll shop there. And a bunch of other people will too.

Good post, Joe. Thanks.

From my comments on Belgic Confession Article 34:

Baptism replaces circumcision in this respect- both ceremonies identified members of the covenant people. There has always been a nation, though in Old Testament times that nation was a political and ethnic body, and now it is a church. But there is still a nation which is the covenant people of God, and this covenant people include believers and their children. Acts 2:39 says that the promise of salvation in Christ is to “you and to your children”. 1 Peter 2:9 says that the church is a “holy nation”, just as Israel was supposed to be. Being the covenant people means being the people who possess the word of God and the promises of God.

In the Old Testament, if anything came into contact with unclean things, such as dead bodies, unclean animals like pigs, or lepers, they were unable to enter the temple until they were cleansed. This cleansing was accomplished by sprinkling water. There is a whole ritual associated with this, given to us in Numbers 19.

In Ezekiel 36:23-28, God talks about the restoration of Israel, which would come in the time of the Messiah. In that passage, God promises to “sprinkle clean water” on the people, to take away their idols and filthiness, and to give them a new heart. This promise is the promise given to us in baptism. When John the Baptist came, he taught the “baptism of repentance”, and told people that they needed to get baptized in order to prepare the way for the Lord. God (Jesus) was coming into their presence, and they were filthy, so they needed to be cleansed. John made it clear that their baptism had to be accompanied by repentance, because their problem was their internal sin, not outward ceremonies. If they turned away from their sins, then baptism promised they would be forgiven. We need to be careful to distinguish between the sign and the thing signified. Baptism is not the forgiveness of sins; baptism promises forgiveness of sins, if the promise is believed by faith.

Col. 2:11-12 makes the case that baptism points to a more comprehensive reality than circumcision, and therefore takes its place. Circumcision shows us our sinfulness and the need to cut off the sinfulness of our nature. Baptism shows us the reality of forgiveness, and our death and resurrection in Christ. ur baptism therefore shows us the “circumcision of Christ”; that Christ was cut off (killed) for sins, and we died in Him, and rose again in Him, and therefore we never have to worry about cutting off sin again.

Baptism is therefore something God says to us, not primarily something we say to God. It is the sign of a promise. That promise is given to the whole covenant people, which include children, just as the promise of circumcision was to the whole covenant people, including children.

Summary:
Baptism is a promise of the covenant of grace, that God has freely offered forgiveness of sins in the death of Jesus. Receiving the sign means receiving the promise of the covenant, and marks me as a member of the covenant. Receiving the sign does not mean that I am saved. I must believe the promise, not just receive the sign, in order to be saved. The covenant people are the church, which is a holy nation, and includes our children, and therefore our children receive the sign of that covenant just as adults do.

Lee at Two Edged Sword has been posting a very useful series on the Federal Vision controversy. His latest is an analysis of the Mississippi Valley Presbytery report, which came out recently criticizing the Federal Vision / Auburn Avenue / Norm Shepherd / New Perspectives issue. That’s a lot of issues to criticize in one report, which is one of Lee’s criticisms of the report.

They tried to take on too much. This report examines The New Perspectives on Paul, Bishop N.T. Wright, Norman Shepherd, and the Federal Vision. This would have better been split into several papers. One of the chief complaints made by the Auburn Avenue Church is that the report does not recognize the nuances of their argumentation, and it does seem to overlook some.

This is a helpful analysis, and I’d recommend it to anyone trying to understand this difficult and complicated issue.

Terry Schiavo is going to die soon. Scratch that- she’s going to be murdered.

She’s committed no crime. She suffers from no terminal illness. She can be saved. She wants to be saved. But she’s going to be killed. By doctors. Jollyblogger has an excellent summary of the situation- check him out for more.

What Terry’s husband isn’t telling you and what the media won’t tell you is that Terry is not in a persistent vegetative state. Other doctors have seen her and have concluded that she is not in a persistent vegetative state. She still responds to stimuli, she shows joy when she is around her mother and has given the family indications that she knows her life is threatened and doesn’t want to die.

You can read all about this at the website Terri’s Fight.

The devaluing of life continues. We are rapidly entering a world where the high priests of science tell us who’s worthy of life and who’s not. A Down’s Syndrome baby, who frequently will show more loyalty, more compassion, more moral judgment than a normal person, is judged unworthy of life. A person who is not yet independent of his mother is judged unworthy of life. Or just a woman who had an accident and needs medical care, but who’s husband is after her money so he can go on living with his mistress, is judged unworthy of life.

Some people, some of whom have promised never to come around here anymore (oh well), will accuse me of hypocrisy because I support the war and the so-called murderous Bush administration. And to that I’d answer that if you can’t distinguish between killing enemy combatants in war time, or accidental deaths in war time, on the one hand, and killing a helpless woman in a hospital bed whose only crime is difficulty expressing herself on the other hand, then remind me never to do business with you, and if you move in next door, let me know so I can put in a security system. You’re clearly unable to make the most basic moral judgments.

UPDATE: More thoughts here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: For those in the comments who keep saying I’ve got no evidence, here’s a very interesting post from a medical doctor examining the CT scan. I can’t judge the accuracy of what he’s saying, not being a medical doctor, but it certainly adds some question to the idea that “doctors agree” she must be PVS.