This has been a pretty mixed week and weekend. Janelle came down with something Tuesday putting her out of commission. It was some sort of stomach bug or something. So while she was down I did my best to take care of Belle and by Tuesday night and Wednesday Janelle wasn't fully recovered but she was doing well enough to help with Belle. Thursday I started to feel pretty sick, sort of like Janelle did before. I was nauseous and my stomach hurt. I didn't have much of an appetite and got a pretty bad headache. Friday morning came and I actually passed out while leaning against a door in my office and fell down. I went to the doctor's and they said I was severely dehydrated and probably had some sort of food poisoning. After eight tries they got an IV in me and put a liter of a saline solution in me to get me rehydrated.
Upon returning from the doctor's in the afternoon I holed up on the couch, having developed a fever. Sometime later that evening the fever broke and I was left with just the nasty feeling in my stomach and no appetite. I've downed numerous gatorades and eaten countless flavorless breadsticks and bowls of applesauce since then. All Friday and Friday night Janelle took care of Belle solo because I was feeling so ill. Usually she does most of the work anyway but she did it all during this time. Keep in mind during this time Janelle is having some stomach pain and not feeling great herself. Saturday night and Sunday (today) morning I was committed to singing at Crossroads so I was gone. I'm still unable (or afraid) to eat regular food and Janelle is feeling progressively worse.
This afternoon when I got home Janelle had some pretty severe stomach pain. After a while it became obvious she was having some real trouble and I encouraged her to go to the ER. By 5pm she agreed and her sisters came to take her there. Janelle just called and they think they found a gallstone and they're having her drink some solution to test if she has pancreatitis, which is some sort of pancreas infection that may be caused by gallstones. She's hooked up to an IV and morphine and all that. At the earliest they'll do the test on her in a couple hours. She may need some sort of surgery that will require a 1 week or so recovery time.
I just got Belle to go down to sleep and she was fussier than she's been in a long time. I think she's missing Janelle. Janelle has been really good with getting Belle on a schedule of sorts and Belle's been great the last few days. I hope I'm able to take care of Belle and not screw that up. And I hope Belle sleeps well tonight, I hope Janelle's okay and gets well quickly, and I hope my stomach issue clears up soon. Most of all I feel sort of clueless trying to take care of Belle. Janelle has taken the lead with it and I feel she has a much better clue on how to do it.
I'm also not sure how in the world I'm going to get stuff done that I need to get done this next week, especially if Janelle has a surgery or something. It's the end of the school semester and I'm supposed to preach after Thanksgiving...we'll see I suppose. It's just a lot of stuff all at once. This isn't a great time for all this stuff to go down successively. Not that it ever is, of course.
At least the 49ers won today. Mike Nolan looked awesome in a suit, even if it was Reebok issued.
11.19.2006
11.07.2006
i saw something on the freeway last night
Last night I was driving home from school and the traffic was pretty bad. It took me about forty minutes to cross the Richmond-San Rafael bridge, something that shouldn't take more than a few minutes. After that traffic thinned out and things were moving well until I got to the vicinity of the Oakland Coliseum. Things started to get backed up and I thought it was due to the Rolling Stones concert. I discovered that the two or three faster lanes were closed off and had to stop and merge. There was some sort of accident in the leftmost lanes. I saw a lot of cars stopped on the right shoulder, and a few cars in the left lanes. None of the cars looked particularly damaged so I wondered what was going on.
As I crept forward I noticed something in the road, it looked like someone laying down. Upon further inspection it looked like a mangled body with its entrails spilling out. My heart sort of jumped. Once I realized what I was looking at I looked away. It was pretty strange looking. When I got home I didn't see anything on the news about it and didn't find anything on the web about it. Just now I did a search and found out that what I saw was indeed a man's body with his guts spilling out. It was an older guy on a motorcycle who had swerved to avoid a dead dog's body. He flew off his motorcycle and was subsequently run over by a truck. And to think I was upset about having to sit in traffic.
As I crept forward I noticed something in the road, it looked like someone laying down. Upon further inspection it looked like a mangled body with its entrails spilling out. My heart sort of jumped. Once I realized what I was looking at I looked away. It was pretty strange looking. When I got home I didn't see anything on the news about it and didn't find anything on the web about it. Just now I did a search and found out that what I saw was indeed a man's body with his guts spilling out. It was an older guy on a motorcycle who had swerved to avoid a dead dog's body. He flew off his motorcycle and was subsequently run over by a truck. And to think I was upset about having to sit in traffic.
jessica's law
Upon further reflection I have decided to vote no on Prop 87, also known as Jessica's Law. I've reached the conclusion that it hasn't proven terribly effective in the places it's already been passed and if we're going to create a $500 million bureaucracy we should make sure it's effective. Just spending this kind of money on stuff that's of dubious value (other than to make us feel safer) isn't a good way to go about things.
Go vote today!
Go vote today!
11.05.2006
jackson's voter guide
This Tuesday is Election Day, so in order to encourage you to vote, even if only to cancel out my votes, I'll let you know how I'm voting on some of the stuff. For some I will provide more reasoning than for others. Politically I'd say I'm probably fairly conservative, especially fiscally, but I prefer my thinking and my votes to inform your opinion on y political leanings rather than any words like "conservative" or "liberal" or "moronic."
I largely consider all Props to be, unless I somehow learn otherwise, plays by certain groups for power or money with little regard to the bigger picture. So unless I see a compelling reason to vote "Yes" on a Proposition my default position is no. With candidates I'm largely ignoring the candidates outside the established two because I'd rather have my vote count for something other than a protest. I think the only time I'd seriously consider going third-party with my vote is if (1) I really believe in what they say or (2) I really hate the other options and think my vote would contribute to some point being made. If there's a serious third candidate for President in 2008 I may vote for them.
I would consider myself semi-informed. My information is coming from the California Voter Guide and any commercials I've seen (none of which I take seriously)...other than that I'm just following what I think and I may be missing some large pieces of information but I'm going with what I have.
Governor - Voting for Arnold (R)
I watched a debate between Arnold and Phil Angelides and was duly unimpressed by Angelides. I am not the biggest Arnold fan but I am less excited about Angelides plan to rebuild California by redistributing income. Granted, I'm not in the tax bracket he'd be raising taxes on but I am generally of the opinion that the government does not need more of our money but rather it needs to manage the money it already has more efficiently. This view on government/money plays a large role in my voting decisions on every level.
Lt. Governor - Voting for Tom McClintock (R)
Garamendi says that Al Gore and Dianne Feinstein share his vision. That's enough for me. Also according to Garmendi Tom McClintock wants to "dismantle our public schools." I'm curious to see how he'd do that so I want to give him the chance.
Controller - Voting for Tony Strickland (R)
Strickland says he believes what I do - that the government has enough money and needs to manage it better. Chiang, his Democratic opponent, says he wants to "fight for full funding for quality schools." To me that translates "we need more money." No you don't.
Secretary of State - Bruce McPherson (R)
He's supported by the California Teacher's Association, which is pretty liberal. He's also the incumbent and it doesn't seem like he's screwed everything up.
Insurance Commissioner - Steve Poizner (R)
If you Cruz, you lose. Seriously - Cruz Bustamante actually has a commercial saying "I was fat! But I promised I'd lose weight and I did. I keep my promises."
Propositions
Prop 1A (Limits on how gov't can spend gas tax money) - Yes
If you take my money and say you're going to use it on roads, use it on roads.
Prop 1B - 1D (Sell bonds for various things) - No
That's an awful lot of bond money. Over $32 billion in interest? Too much cost, find another way to do it.
Prop 1E (Bonds to fix levees) - Yes
We need to fix the levees. It does suck that we're going to pay 3.9 billion in interest but I think the costs will be greater if we have some more flooding and aren't ready for it.
Prop 83 (Jessica's Law) - Yes
I am somewhat persuaded by the argument that this law hasn't been helpful in the places it's been passed. I'd want our law enforcement agencies to not be tied down with unimportant stuff, and I'd like to not waste money. But in my opinion anything that makes life harder on sex offenders, whether violent or not, is probably worth voting for. So I vote yes but I'm not totally excited about it.
Prop 84 (Money for Drinking Water etc) - No
Ten Billion dollars? No thanks. Also I hate children and don't want them to have clean drinking water.
Prop 85 (Parental Notification for Abortion) - Yes
Yes I do think the doctor should have to tell me if my teenage daughter wants to get an abortion. I realize some kids have terrible parents and whatnot, but the idea that a 13 year-old could get an abortion without her parents knowing about it is ridiculous. And if a parent is bad enough the child can try to get an exception so they don't have to tell their parents if Prop 85 passes. Yes it sucks but I think it sucks more to not allow parents to know what's going on with their kids.
Prop 86 (Cigarette Tax) - No
People sure are greedy.
Prop 87 (Oil Tax for Alternative Fuel) - No
Take more of my money and give it to some governmental agency tasked with pursuing alternative fuels? What happens if they don't do a good job? What happens if they inefficiently handle my money? Will they repeal the tax later? Riiiight... I'd rather let the private sector take care of this.
Prop 88 (Parcel Tax for Education) - No
Take more of my money to fund some education programs? Use the money you already have more efficiently. Stop trying to raise taxes, people!
Prop 89 (Changes money-gathering for elections) - No
It looks shady to me. I'd rather not vote something like this into law. Why is the Nurses' Association the primary backer of this thing? I'd rather not have a special interest group defining rules of campaign contribution.
Prop 90 (Constitutional Amendment to Eminent Domain Stuff) - No
Looks like some butt-hurt people trying a short-sighted fix to a problem.
Wow, that was a lot of stuff. If you think I've got it all wrong, make sure you head out to vote and cancel out my contribution to the democratic process!
11.04.2006
sorry to see
Unless you've been completely ignoring the news over the past few days you've heard about Ted Haggard, the prominent evangelical Christian leader who has experience a massive impact between the fecal matter and the proverbial fan. He's a very political figure, well-known for his opposition to things like gay marriage. If the accusations are to be believed, he has carried on a relationship with a male prostitute/meth dealer for the past few years. The prostitute didn't know who this guy was until he saw Haggard denouncing gay marriage on TV one day. Apparently this horrendous hypocrisy prompted the man to go public.
I'm not entirely sure what the facts of the matter are. Jones (the male prostitute in question) failed a polygraph test about the alleged sexual nature of their relationship. Today, however, Haggard's church fired him, citing "sexually immoral conduct." As far as I know Haggard has publicly admitted to purchasing meth from Jones but says he didn't use it. Haggard also admitted contacting Jones in order to get a massage. The whole thing is pretty shady.
I have to wonder what Haggard is thinking. Politically I am not quite a member of the so-called Religious Right and was only vaguely aware of who Haggard was before this. This almost seems fake. I mean, one of the most influential anti-gay-marriage political figures is patronizing male prostitutes for gay sex and crystal meth? It's so bizarre. I think the biggest victims here are Haggard's family, who have to be absolutely devastated. Of course there is collateral damage to things like the message of Christianity, the integrity of Christian leaders, Haggard's disillusioned followers, and so on.
I don't suppose I have any original thoughts on this. It sucks for Haggard and his family. It's also pretty weaksauce that someone would work so hard to keep gay marriage illegal while at the same time carrying on this kind of relationship with a guy (if the allegations are true). I'm personally of the opinion that gay people should have the same legal rights as others. I do think that marriage is something between a man and a woman but that others should be allowed the same legal status and perks and all that.
But anyway, this Haggard thing is a reminder that if you let some little secret thing linger it can grow into a monster that destroys your life, and you'll have nobody to blame but yourself.
I'm not entirely sure what the facts of the matter are. Jones (the male prostitute in question) failed a polygraph test about the alleged sexual nature of their relationship. Today, however, Haggard's church fired him, citing "sexually immoral conduct." As far as I know Haggard has publicly admitted to purchasing meth from Jones but says he didn't use it. Haggard also admitted contacting Jones in order to get a massage. The whole thing is pretty shady.
I have to wonder what Haggard is thinking. Politically I am not quite a member of the so-called Religious Right and was only vaguely aware of who Haggard was before this. This almost seems fake. I mean, one of the most influential anti-gay-marriage political figures is patronizing male prostitutes for gay sex and crystal meth? It's so bizarre. I think the biggest victims here are Haggard's family, who have to be absolutely devastated. Of course there is collateral damage to things like the message of Christianity, the integrity of Christian leaders, Haggard's disillusioned followers, and so on.
I don't suppose I have any original thoughts on this. It sucks for Haggard and his family. It's also pretty weaksauce that someone would work so hard to keep gay marriage illegal while at the same time carrying on this kind of relationship with a guy (if the allegations are true). I'm personally of the opinion that gay people should have the same legal rights as others. I do think that marriage is something between a man and a woman but that others should be allowed the same legal status and perks and all that.
But anyway, this Haggard thing is a reminder that if you let some little secret thing linger it can grow into a monster that destroys your life, and you'll have nobody to blame but yourself.
10.29.2006
unsportsmanlike conduct
I really enjoy playing flag football. I wouldn't say I'm particularly good. I'm not as big or strong as the really effective guys we have on the line, and I'm not fast enough (nor do I have good enough hands) to be a very good receiver. I've QB'd only a couple times and done okay but others are better at that as well. But I do enjoy playing for one reason or another.
I do not enjoy, however, how competitive the games often become. I find myself becoming pretty immature in-game, and my friends doing so as well. It's funny, we can be best of buds off the field but when we're playing we become competitive and are pretty short and sometimes quite rude to one another. When someone does well and they're not on my team I am mad about it instead of happy for them. I mean, in any other situation I'd be trying to encourage them or say "wow good job" but on the football field I'm thinking "they're not so great" or whatever. I think that's something I need to work on, because too often I find myself saying something and thinking "wow that wasn't how you want to be, Jackson." An area to grow in, I suppose.
I do not enjoy, however, how competitive the games often become. I find myself becoming pretty immature in-game, and my friends doing so as well. It's funny, we can be best of buds off the field but when we're playing we become competitive and are pretty short and sometimes quite rude to one another. When someone does well and they're not on my team I am mad about it instead of happy for them. I mean, in any other situation I'd be trying to encourage them or say "wow good job" but on the football field I'm thinking "they're not so great" or whatever. I think that's something I need to work on, because too often I find myself saying something and thinking "wow that wasn't how you want to be, Jackson." An area to grow in, I suppose.
10.27.2006
the little things
I'm sitting in Panera Bread working on an assignment due this Monday. Two people walk in the door - one quite large, the other rather normal. Near the entrance is a bowl of cut up baked goods for you to sample. The large man beelined straight for the bowl and helped himself to a morsel or two. The smaller man walked by. It's the little things, I think. Easy to recognize in others, harder to keep track of yourself.
10.25.2006
it's here
Today I went grocery shopping and was greeted to one of the most wonderful sights I am graced to see each year. The presence of that most glorious of beverages, Egg Nog, in the dairy case. Let the rejoicing begin. Yea verily, Egg Nog is awesome. You should also be able to find Peppermint Ice Cream as well as Pumpkin Ice Cream at the store now. I love the holiday season. Bring it on.
10.20.2006
Perdue Family blog thing
In order to keep those who wish to be updated updated on stuff about Belle, Janelle, and myself, I've started a blog that will be your place for one stop shopping on infos related to us.
If you want to bookmark the site you can head over to
http://theperdues.blogspot.com
and do so.
I also have a list setup to where you can get automatically e-mailed with the blog updates if you 'd like that so you don't have to keep checking back. If you want to do that, then e-mail me or something and then I'll send you an invite to the e-mail list. Then you'll get whatever I post on the blog in your e-mail and you won't have to bother checking the site, etc.
Peace out homeskillets, &c.
If you want to bookmark the site you can head over to
http://theperdues.blogspot.com
and do so.
I also have a list setup to where you can get automatically e-mailed with the blog updates if you 'd like that so you don't have to keep checking back. If you want to do that, then e-mail me or something and then I'll send you an invite to the e-mail list. Then you'll get whatever I post on the blog in your e-mail and you won't have to bother checking the site, etc.
Peace out homeskillets, &c.
10.14.2006
a's swept in the alcs
So the A's lost the ALCS officially today, they got swept 4-0 in the best of seven series. All I can say to my A's is: at least you never gave us the false hope that you actually COULD win this series. Thanks for keepin it real from the beginning of the ALCS and sparing us the heartbreak of a collapse late in the series or stretching it out to a seven-game elimination.
Next year will be ours!
Next year will be ours!
10.11.2006
dude
All I can say is it's a good thing I have a beautiful wife and daughter because Sweet Freakin Moses the A's are doing everything they can to throw away the ALCS and make me want to sit in a corner and weep uncontrollably.
Yes maybe I care about sports a little too much.
But come on, seriously. Last night they set a record for GIDP in an ALCS game, and tonight the starting pitcher once again gives up 5+ followed by an anemic offensive night (Milton Bradley excepted). Then they go and get everyone's hopes up in the 9th before the Big Hurt pops out. They showed a stat during the game tonight - the road team has won the first two games of the ALCS eight times, and every single time that team advanced to the World Series. I hope the A's can make it one of nine times but something in me strongly doubts that.
Yes maybe I care about sports a little too much.
But come on, seriously. Last night they set a record for GIDP in an ALCS game, and tonight the starting pitcher once again gives up 5+ followed by an anemic offensive night (Milton Bradley excepted). Then they go and get everyone's hopes up in the 9th before the Big Hurt pops out. They showed a stat during the game tonight - the road team has won the first two games of the ALCS eight times, and every single time that team advanced to the World Series. I hope the A's can make it one of nine times but something in me strongly doubts that.
10.06.2006
Pictures of Belle
Belle with Grammy
Originally uploaded by actionjax.
We actually got her to sleep in her bassinet a little bit. We were totally freaked out about leaving her to sleep and then having something happen to her. We want to keep our eye on her 24/7...but she did go down to sleep a bit and Janelle and I both got to sleep a little. I think I slept a little more soundly than Janelle.
You can click on the picture to check out a link of some more pics of Belle. I have some awesome ones on my Treo but I'm having a hard time figuring out how to get to them. Enjoy, and embrace the cuteness.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jperdue/sets/72157594315469163/
baby
I just sent an e-mail out on Janelle's e-mail with the following text, which more or less fills you in on what's up with us. Words cannot express how tired we are. It's a little daunting being at the very beginning of this long journey and being so worn out. Anyway, to the e-mail:
Janelle went into labor Tuesday night, she was induced around 10:30ish, and Belle Elizabeth Alana Perdue was born at 3:20am on Weds October 4th. Janelle did awesome and assured her place atop the throne of "toughest one in this marriage" with the labor. She's amazing. Belle appears to be totally healthy, not to mention ridiculously adorable. We have a followup appt on Saturday where they will check her a bit for jaundice, they said she looks a bit jaundiced but that's pretty common so we're not too worried about it. Other than that she's healthy and doing well.
It was been an incredibly exhausting couple of days. Janelle is getting the hang of feeding Belle, Belle is getting the hang of eating, and we are trying to find time to sleep inbetween everything. Janelle has probably had less than five hours of sleep since Belle was born. I've had a bit more but am still running on fumes myself, I don't know how Janelle keeps going.
Apart from the occasional family member coming by we're not really ready for any visitors yet. We are completely wiped out and Belle isn't on any sort of schedule yet. We're hoping that all that gets worked out soon...and we hope to show her off real soon to everyone in person. We're just not ready for that quite yet. Once we're ready to have visitors and all that we'll send out another e-mail letting you know about it. Until then we appreciate your prayers (it's a little overwhelming how much there is to be done and how there are no breaks...Belle is a relentless eating/pooping/crying/attention-needing machine).
Thanks for all your love and well-wishes and all that good stuff...we hope to send along a picture when we get the chance.
Jackson and Janelle (and Belle)
Janelle went into labor Tuesday night, she was induced around 10:30ish, and Belle Elizabeth Alana Perdue was born at 3:20am on Weds October 4th. Janelle did awesome and assured her place atop the throne of "toughest one in this marriage" with the labor. She's amazing. Belle appears to be totally healthy, not to mention ridiculously adorable. We have a followup appt on Saturday where they will check her a bit for jaundice, they said she looks a bit jaundiced but that's pretty common so we're not too worried about it. Other than that she's healthy and doing well.
It was been an incredibly exhausting couple of days. Janelle is getting the hang of feeding Belle, Belle is getting the hang of eating, and we are trying to find time to sleep inbetween everything. Janelle has probably had less than five hours of sleep since Belle was born. I've had a bit more but am still running on fumes myself, I don't know how Janelle keeps going.
Apart from the occasional family member coming by we're not really ready for any visitors yet. We are completely wiped out and Belle isn't on any sort of schedule yet. We're hoping that all that gets worked out soon...and we hope to show her off real soon to everyone in person. We're just not ready for that quite yet. Once we're ready to have visitors and all that we'll send out another e-mail letting you know about it. Until then we appreciate your prayers (it's a little overwhelming how much there is to be done and how there are no breaks...Belle is a relentless eating/pooping/crying/attention-needing machine).
Thanks for all your love and well-wishes and all that good stuff...we hope to send along a picture when we get the chance.
Jackson and Janelle (and Belle)
10.02.2006
biblical inerrancy and stuff
Janelle has not had the baby yet. We're still waiting, I'll be sure to keep this space and probably my myspace updated when we go to the hospital, or at the very least when we get home. I can actually post from my Treo so I might even take a picture of the baby and put it up to share with the world after she's been cleaned up a little, who knows. But anyway, Belle is still in utero.
This morning I took a test for my Old Testament Intro class, and it was mostly good. The first few parts of the test were matching stuff that we've learned. Tests where you can match the definitions with the terms are high on my list of tests that I enjoy because they're typically pretty easy, and you can use the process of elimination to help you out. There was an essay portion to the test, which ended up taking a fair amount of time and I used every bit of space available to answer it. The question was something along the lines of: "Take into account the issues of inspiration, revelation, inerrancy, and authority as they relate to the Old Testament and scripture. Discuss how any claims to the authority of the OT are legitimate in view of the things we have discussed in class." Something like that - it was a pretty open-seeming question and fairly difficult to go about answering.
In that class up to this point we've discussed very little actual content of the OT but we have discussed the various views on inerrancy (the idea that the bible is free from error), inspiration (the idea that the bible is inspired by God), infallibility (the idea that the bible accomplishes what it is meant to accomplish without error), etc. I won't get into all of it here, but basically there were a number of differing views with regard to teach of these topics.
For example, on the question of inspiration there was a range of approaches. The "Illumination View" holds that the bible contains the noble thoughts of great people of faith, and is on par with any other piece of literature. The Dynamic view of inspiration says that God inspired the authors of the bible but there is some non-inspired stuff in there that you need to sort out. Mechanical Dictation states that humans were little more than stenographers, writing down exactly the words God wanted them to and serving only as hands and pens for God, who essentially did the writing himself. Then there's the Plenary Verbal view of inspiration which states that everything in the bible is as God intended it - that he inspired the authors and he kept his "hand" on the whole development of the scriptures. I am of the opinion that this last view best interacts with the available evidence, at least if you're going to believe that some sort of God exists and does stuff to reveal himself to humanity.
My basic idea was that if a god exists and he (I use that out of convention) does not want to reveal himself to humanity, then we can't know about him. We may have some sense that there is a god or gods if we look at the world around us, but we can't know much of anything about said god(s). Is he/are they calm and serene like a placid lake, or violent and angry like whitewater? Nature itself does very little to inform us of the nature of god, if in fact there is a god. As many believe it could just be a testament to natural processes.
But if a god did exist and chose to reveal himself to humanity it would make sense that, unless he were some sort of capricious and fickle god interested only in tormenting humanity and not in actually disclosing himself, he would reveal himself in a consistent manner. That is, god would not tell someone in China he was one way, and then tell someone in Israel he was another way, and then tell someone in South America he was something else. One might say God was disclosing various parts of his nature to humanity, but so much of what the various holy books and religions say about the supernatural and how the universe came to be is incompatible. One could also say that perhaps god is playing a joke on everyone and telling everyone these differing stories to see what we do - but if that's the case we have no way of knowing and can only go by what we see. There's no good reason to make such an assertion. You can't prove we're not all brains in jars, either.
So as I was saying, if God did reveal himself to humanity in a specific way it would make sense that he'd reveal himself in a consistent and meaningful way. If we were intended to get anything out of his revelation it probably would not line up with the idea of the Illumination View or the Dynamic View as listed above. Such views on inspiration relegate revelation to something rather arbitrary. "Good thoughts" about faith and life are not in need of inspiration and revelation to exist. And a view where we have to sift through revelation and strip away the "uninspired" portions to get to the "inspired" portions seems a rather untoward way for a deity to reveal himself to humanity. It also makes it rather difficult to say which is inspired and which is not, especially if you're making judgment calls based on nothing other than your own thoughts about the text in question. If the bible is where you learn about God and the bible is partly inspired and partly uninspired then how can you determine which is which? So it is my contention that if the bible is inspired, then it must be wholly inspired - if God can inspire part of the scripture to say something when one person is writing it down, he can make sure that the bible as it went through its processes of editing and compilation says what he wanted it to say.
A view like the Mechanical Dictation view which says God just wrote it down through people doesn't really stand up well when you look at the bible and see pretty clear evidence of later editing, inexact quotations, round numbers, and apparent contradictions. As much as Christians would like to believe that the bible is completely free from any sort of blemish, it simply isn't so. Holding to a view that says "God wrote it down exactly like this" when it is demonstrably questionable at some certain points (not even taking into account translation) makes one appear rather foolish. And in reality if you hold to a view like that you either (1) don't believe it yourself and are fooling yourself or (2) are putting your head in the sand. If humans were simply God's writing instruments, couldn't he have done a better job? I'd like to think so.
The concept of inerrancy - that the bible is free from error - is quite apart from the concept of inspiration. If the bible is inspired - that is, if God inspired the bible to say what it is he wants it to say, and there is some human interaction but the words are what He wants to communicate to humanity - then one might again assume a certain degree of inerrancy. That is, there should not be errors in something God communicates to humankind if he is deserving of the name God. Unless he is playing tricks on people, which is something I mentioned earlier. There are also a number of views on inerrancy. Pietistic Inerrancy is the most common one among Christians these days, which is the idea that everything the bible says is true, with no critical thought applied. This is also the view of inerrancy most ridiculed and rejected by critics of Christianity. This view's primary problem is that it looks more at the what a particular verse says than what the same verse means. There is no regard to authorial intent.
For example, someone holding to the idea of pietistic inerrancy might look at Genesis and see a story about God creating the world in six days. They may then look at the scientific evidence we have to date and see that it appears that things didn't unfold that way. You might add up the numbers and years in the OT and come up with something saying that the earth is 6000ish years old, but the universe appears to be a whole lot older than that. But if you consider whether the author actually meant "24 hour day" or was being poetic then you might come up with a different conclusion. Or you may read the story of a flood that flooded the "world" and assume the bible is hogwash because there's no evidence of such an event. But when you consider that to the people of that time, "the world" was basically Mesopotamia...you may reach a different conclusion regarding the veracity of the passage. So it's important to consider more than just the face value of a passage when you're considering the inerrancy of scripture.
Also of note, the doctrine of inerrancy properly describes the original autographs of scripture rather than the bible you or I can pick up from the store. Properly understood inerrancy allows for things like copyist errors, round numbers, and so forth. It is unfortunate that most Christians are led to believe that the bible is a document akin to Joseph Smith's golden plates, which supposedly descended from heaven with the words of God written on them. The bible is clearly a document with human influence, from evidence of editing and compilation to some apparent inconsistencies. But there are also some qualities to it that suggest divine inspiration, and if the bible is inspired in any meaningful way then God must have preserved his message through it all. Perhaps it is because of these very human elements that we can trust the bible - not because it is the fanciful story of God teleporting his magic words into the hands of people, but because for some reason he chose to use human beings to transmit his word and despite that we still have a consistent record and teaching. Despite human interference we have a collection of scripture that has remained astoundingly consistent, with none of the copying errors affecting any major teaching.
This is not likely to convince anyone that is unconvinced, and in reality I'm writing this more for myself than anyone else and not trying to convince anybody. As I continue to work through the idea of what I mean when I say "I trust the bible" a lot of things go through my mind. It isn't this fairy tale book free from blemish. There is evidence of editing. There are numerical differences. It does raise some difficult questions with regard to many things. But I think looking at inspiration and inerrancy that the bible is either the inspired, authoritative word of God and must be recognized as such, or it is the collected and mangled writings of a nomadic group of people and some misguided Greeks that should be relegated to the heap with the rest of humanity's unfruitful graspings for a greater meaning that doesn't exist. From my perspective it more resembles the former than the latter, but your mileage may vary.
All I know is that it's important for everyone, whether they're a devout Christian or staunch Atheist, to honestly put the thought and effort into working through some of this stuff. Dismissing the bible because it says or teaches something it doesn't is as foolish as trusting blindly in it and believing Satan put fossils here to test our faith. I'm not saying any rational person will believe the bible is inspired and inerrant, but I'm saying there's more to it than most of us ever consider and we do ourselves a disservice by ignoring these things, wherever we stand on the spectrum of faith and belief.
I doubt you read that whole thing - but these are just some of the thoughts running through my head right now. I don't know if that makes sense or not but it does in my head. Kinda. It's a lot of stuff to sift through. Once Belle gets here you will be subjected to pictures of a cute baby and probably my whining and complaining about not much sleep and how stinky diapers are.
Also - Go A's! They face the Twins in the first round. Not a very favorable matchup, but I suppose they never are in the postseason. This team is different than the four-year-consecutive-chokers of the past, so we'll see what happens.
This morning I took a test for my Old Testament Intro class, and it was mostly good. The first few parts of the test were matching stuff that we've learned. Tests where you can match the definitions with the terms are high on my list of tests that I enjoy because they're typically pretty easy, and you can use the process of elimination to help you out. There was an essay portion to the test, which ended up taking a fair amount of time and I used every bit of space available to answer it. The question was something along the lines of: "Take into account the issues of inspiration, revelation, inerrancy, and authority as they relate to the Old Testament and scripture. Discuss how any claims to the authority of the OT are legitimate in view of the things we have discussed in class." Something like that - it was a pretty open-seeming question and fairly difficult to go about answering.
In that class up to this point we've discussed very little actual content of the OT but we have discussed the various views on inerrancy (the idea that the bible is free from error), inspiration (the idea that the bible is inspired by God), infallibility (the idea that the bible accomplishes what it is meant to accomplish without error), etc. I won't get into all of it here, but basically there were a number of differing views with regard to teach of these topics.
For example, on the question of inspiration there was a range of approaches. The "Illumination View" holds that the bible contains the noble thoughts of great people of faith, and is on par with any other piece of literature. The Dynamic view of inspiration says that God inspired the authors of the bible but there is some non-inspired stuff in there that you need to sort out. Mechanical Dictation states that humans were little more than stenographers, writing down exactly the words God wanted them to and serving only as hands and pens for God, who essentially did the writing himself. Then there's the Plenary Verbal view of inspiration which states that everything in the bible is as God intended it - that he inspired the authors and he kept his "hand" on the whole development of the scriptures. I am of the opinion that this last view best interacts with the available evidence, at least if you're going to believe that some sort of God exists and does stuff to reveal himself to humanity.
My basic idea was that if a god exists and he (I use that out of convention) does not want to reveal himself to humanity, then we can't know about him. We may have some sense that there is a god or gods if we look at the world around us, but we can't know much of anything about said god(s). Is he/are they calm and serene like a placid lake, or violent and angry like whitewater? Nature itself does very little to inform us of the nature of god, if in fact there is a god. As many believe it could just be a testament to natural processes.
But if a god did exist and chose to reveal himself to humanity it would make sense that, unless he were some sort of capricious and fickle god interested only in tormenting humanity and not in actually disclosing himself, he would reveal himself in a consistent manner. That is, god would not tell someone in China he was one way, and then tell someone in Israel he was another way, and then tell someone in South America he was something else. One might say God was disclosing various parts of his nature to humanity, but so much of what the various holy books and religions say about the supernatural and how the universe came to be is incompatible. One could also say that perhaps god is playing a joke on everyone and telling everyone these differing stories to see what we do - but if that's the case we have no way of knowing and can only go by what we see. There's no good reason to make such an assertion. You can't prove we're not all brains in jars, either.
So as I was saying, if God did reveal himself to humanity in a specific way it would make sense that he'd reveal himself in a consistent and meaningful way. If we were intended to get anything out of his revelation it probably would not line up with the idea of the Illumination View or the Dynamic View as listed above. Such views on inspiration relegate revelation to something rather arbitrary. "Good thoughts" about faith and life are not in need of inspiration and revelation to exist. And a view where we have to sift through revelation and strip away the "uninspired" portions to get to the "inspired" portions seems a rather untoward way for a deity to reveal himself to humanity. It also makes it rather difficult to say which is inspired and which is not, especially if you're making judgment calls based on nothing other than your own thoughts about the text in question. If the bible is where you learn about God and the bible is partly inspired and partly uninspired then how can you determine which is which? So it is my contention that if the bible is inspired, then it must be wholly inspired - if God can inspire part of the scripture to say something when one person is writing it down, he can make sure that the bible as it went through its processes of editing and compilation says what he wanted it to say.
A view like the Mechanical Dictation view which says God just wrote it down through people doesn't really stand up well when you look at the bible and see pretty clear evidence of later editing, inexact quotations, round numbers, and apparent contradictions. As much as Christians would like to believe that the bible is completely free from any sort of blemish, it simply isn't so. Holding to a view that says "God wrote it down exactly like this" when it is demonstrably questionable at some certain points (not even taking into account translation) makes one appear rather foolish. And in reality if you hold to a view like that you either (1) don't believe it yourself and are fooling yourself or (2) are putting your head in the sand. If humans were simply God's writing instruments, couldn't he have done a better job? I'd like to think so.
The concept of inerrancy - that the bible is free from error - is quite apart from the concept of inspiration. If the bible is inspired - that is, if God inspired the bible to say what it is he wants it to say, and there is some human interaction but the words are what He wants to communicate to humanity - then one might again assume a certain degree of inerrancy. That is, there should not be errors in something God communicates to humankind if he is deserving of the name God. Unless he is playing tricks on people, which is something I mentioned earlier. There are also a number of views on inerrancy. Pietistic Inerrancy is the most common one among Christians these days, which is the idea that everything the bible says is true, with no critical thought applied. This is also the view of inerrancy most ridiculed and rejected by critics of Christianity. This view's primary problem is that it looks more at the what a particular verse says than what the same verse means. There is no regard to authorial intent.
For example, someone holding to the idea of pietistic inerrancy might look at Genesis and see a story about God creating the world in six days. They may then look at the scientific evidence we have to date and see that it appears that things didn't unfold that way. You might add up the numbers and years in the OT and come up with something saying that the earth is 6000ish years old, but the universe appears to be a whole lot older than that. But if you consider whether the author actually meant "24 hour day" or was being poetic then you might come up with a different conclusion. Or you may read the story of a flood that flooded the "world" and assume the bible is hogwash because there's no evidence of such an event. But when you consider that to the people of that time, "the world" was basically Mesopotamia...you may reach a different conclusion regarding the veracity of the passage. So it's important to consider more than just the face value of a passage when you're considering the inerrancy of scripture.
Also of note, the doctrine of inerrancy properly describes the original autographs of scripture rather than the bible you or I can pick up from the store. Properly understood inerrancy allows for things like copyist errors, round numbers, and so forth. It is unfortunate that most Christians are led to believe that the bible is a document akin to Joseph Smith's golden plates, which supposedly descended from heaven with the words of God written on them. The bible is clearly a document with human influence, from evidence of editing and compilation to some apparent inconsistencies. But there are also some qualities to it that suggest divine inspiration, and if the bible is inspired in any meaningful way then God must have preserved his message through it all. Perhaps it is because of these very human elements that we can trust the bible - not because it is the fanciful story of God teleporting his magic words into the hands of people, but because for some reason he chose to use human beings to transmit his word and despite that we still have a consistent record and teaching. Despite human interference we have a collection of scripture that has remained astoundingly consistent, with none of the copying errors affecting any major teaching.
This is not likely to convince anyone that is unconvinced, and in reality I'm writing this more for myself than anyone else and not trying to convince anybody. As I continue to work through the idea of what I mean when I say "I trust the bible" a lot of things go through my mind. It isn't this fairy tale book free from blemish. There is evidence of editing. There are numerical differences. It does raise some difficult questions with regard to many things. But I think looking at inspiration and inerrancy that the bible is either the inspired, authoritative word of God and must be recognized as such, or it is the collected and mangled writings of a nomadic group of people and some misguided Greeks that should be relegated to the heap with the rest of humanity's unfruitful graspings for a greater meaning that doesn't exist. From my perspective it more resembles the former than the latter, but your mileage may vary.
All I know is that it's important for everyone, whether they're a devout Christian or staunch Atheist, to honestly put the thought and effort into working through some of this stuff. Dismissing the bible because it says or teaches something it doesn't is as foolish as trusting blindly in it and believing Satan put fossils here to test our faith. I'm not saying any rational person will believe the bible is inspired and inerrant, but I'm saying there's more to it than most of us ever consider and we do ourselves a disservice by ignoring these things, wherever we stand on the spectrum of faith and belief.
I doubt you read that whole thing - but these are just some of the thoughts running through my head right now. I don't know if that makes sense or not but it does in my head. Kinda. It's a lot of stuff to sift through. Once Belle gets here you will be subjected to pictures of a cute baby and probably my whining and complaining about not much sleep and how stinky diapers are.
Also - Go A's! They face the Twins in the first round. Not a very favorable matchup, but I suppose they never are in the postseason. This team is different than the four-year-consecutive-chokers of the past, so we'll see what happens.
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