Technology in Education

Well, I've decided to take a short break from the Discovering the Philosopher in You series.  First a little background...

As part of my training to lead workout sessions, I've taken the certification training for CPR.  Also, I've taken general first-aid and even been an instructor for those first-aid classes.  Well, on Wednesday morning this last week I took a class on teaching CPR and I noticed a couple things.

First off, the most annoying thing in general about CPR training is the seeming total reliance on videos.  Even the training to teach CPR by video, is taught by video!  The thing that bothered me about this in this situation started with the preliminary training videos, it was actually full of great information. They had a variety good instruction tips, with good examples and help on how to deal with all types of situations.  One of the scenarios they dealt with was how to teach and deal with a break down in your technology.  But, apparently the only option for teaching CPR is with a video course.  They're inconsistent!  Here's how to deal with technology, but the only option available for teaching CPR is a video.

Here's another thing that gets me, they said at the beginning of the instructor training video that they've done research and that it showed how video instruction is just as effective as more traditional instruction.  I'd be interested to see what that study covered.  And as a hopeful future teacher, I died a bit inside when they said that!

I've discussed my opinion on technology before, but this is a serious question for educators and students.  A fellow blogger/former teacher that I've discussed various topics online with, Jason Robillard, wrote an entry about this very topic.  I've thought about this as an online learner and in general I've noticed that I don't really like the online "environment."  Though online teaching is less like the integration of technology in education so much as lectures broadcast for a wide audience.

In all the online courses I've taken, especially the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) I've taken at Coursera.org, the biggest shortcoming is in testing.  Especially with the topics I've taken classes in, philosophy, logic, etc., there's no way to test EVERYONE.  Though I heard this the other day and really liked the idea: tests aren't for the teacher, the teacher (should) already knows if the student has been studying.  The test is for the student, to test to find out if one really knows (in a measurable way) what one thinks one knows.

How does the integration of technology look in today's education world?  I don't really know, though what I do know is that it's still not to that point where education should be taken over by machines.  It's an exciting and scary prospect as I someday hope to make a career of teaching.  Maybe someday (God forbid) we'll be at the point where teachers are replaced by machines, but hopefully I'll be ready for that day by educating myself on the best integration of technology in my own teaching (when I get to that point).

Don't look too close, there's some dust spots... but a beautiful sunset nonetheless

Faith and Philosophy Blog Carnival, May 2013, 4nd Edition

Jana presents How To Slow Down Recurring Unwanted Manifestations, Our Work in Manifestation: How To Focus More On What Is Wanted, How To Drop The Ego and Attachment: A Spiritual Conundrum : Wisdom Ink Magazine all posted at Wisdom Ink.

John Williams presents 10 Reasons Christian Parents Should Enroll Their Kids in Christian School posted at Live-In Nanny.

Jonathan Grant Jonathan Grant presents How to Read the Bible (And Stick With It!), God Doesn’t Want Us to Avoid Evil, He Wants Us to Shine His Light Into it! and The Devil’s Favorite Tactic! (He’s Using it on you Right Now) all posted at Questions & Answers About Life.

Linda Donegan presents 4 Tips to Help You Pray Continually posted at Grow Thru Adversity.

Joshua Tilghman presents Three and a Half Coils, Kundalini, and Revelations Chapter One posted at The Spirit of the Scripture.

Tia Ramsey presents Check Your Ego at the Door, Bloom Where You Are Planted, and You Want Me to Do What, Lord? all posted at Olive Valley.

Mark I Rasskazov presents POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGICAL MOMENTUM posted at TRANSEGOIST DAILY JOURNAL.


Ron Moser presents Old Testament Prophecies of the Second Coming: Still future?–Part One posted at Where Eagles Gather (and other sayings of Christ).


Robin Bremer presents 3 Secrets to Easy Prayer & A LIST of What to Pray in Our NEW COVENANT posted at Robin Bremer.net.

John presents What is Manliness? posted at Fearless Men.

Mantas presents Have Some Hope posted at Life and Thoughts of an Ordinary Guy.

Thank you to all those that have submitted their work for this month's edition. The standard caveat applies, I don't necessarily agree with all the ideas presented but I hope you all enjoy reading the various perspectives regarding faith and or philosophy.  Next month's edition will be posted here on the 6th of June.

Discovering the Philosopher in You Part 2: Knowledge: How Should Knowledge Be Analyzed?

For those of you that missed my last entry, I'm working my way through a series of philosophy lectures by Prof. Colin McGinn of Rutgers University.  I find it kind of interesting that Prof McGinn chose to lecture in this order because in lecture one about skepticism the idea that we have knowledge or certainty (I'll be using the term knowledge for this entry but the two are more or less interchangeable in this context) is assumed.  I would think it might have made a little more sense to cover what is knowledge before questioning and being skeptical that one can have knowledge at all.  Nonetheless, we're on lecture two now about analyzing knowledge.  I apologize in advance because some of this stuff is considered dry compared to some other topics within philosophy.

Some of the first things we must consider when starting a philosophical analysis of something is what are the necessary conditions and what are the sufficient conditions for the idea being considered?  In this case, what is necessary for one to have or do to know something?  And, what is sufficient for one to have or do to know something?  The traditional answer to this question goes back to Plato's time (though I haven't personally studied Plato's epistemology), that is, a true, justified belief.  Belief, in this sense isn't the same as a religious or political belief (per se), rather a stab at the truth in thought.  One cannot think something is false and yet believe in it.  So, belief in its nature includes at least the attempt at truth, though one can guess at something and end up getting it wrong.  Justification is important for knowledge because, if one is to be rational, one cannot just say, "I believe this or that just because" or if one refuses to consider objections to one's beliefs they're being irrational.  Also, without justification things can end up being true by guessing and that's not complete knowledge either.  These things seem to be necessary conditions for knowledge, but as we'll see with the examples they aren't necessarily all the sufficient conditions for knowledge.  Let's move on to those examples because, to me, they're the fun parts of this concept.

Example number one to show how having simply true, justified beliefs are not enough to claim knowledge.  Suppose my brother comes to visit me every Tuesday afternoon, and it's a Tuesday and I'm expecting him and my friend, who is generally trustworthy, tells me my brother is at the door.  However, for whatever reason, my friend happens to be lying this time (the reason for the lie is not important), and my brother is not at the door.  At first we have an untrue, but justified belief that my brother is at the door.  However, as I'm going to meet my brother at the door, unbeknownst to my friend, my brother shows up at the door.  Did I know my brother was at the door?  No, not really even though it was true that he was at the door and I was justified in that belief.  But, no I didn't know that he was at the door at any time.  The second one is better (at least I think so).  You're driving through the countryside and you're seeing all the typical things one would expect to see, fields with bales of hay or straw, barns, livestock, etc.  Then, without realizing it, you are driving along and the things you've been observing, are now all fake.  So here we have justified beliefs (that the things we're seeing are real) but they're not.  Then, without your knowledge of it being so, there's a real barn in amidst the fake.  There, you have a true (at least about that one real barn) justified belief.  But that doesn't seem to be enough for knowledge in this case.

So there you have it, true, justified beliefs are required to have knowledge of something, but apparently are not the only things necessary to know something.  There have been many arguments and there doesn't seem to be any clear answer to what else needs to be added to true, justified beliefs to comprise true knowledge.  I certainly don't have the answers, again I'm just bringing up the question.  According to Prof McGinn's lecture it seems that there has to be some kind of causal relationship the truth and the belief(s) to be true knowledge.

Here's my only divergence from Prof McGinn.  I'm not saying that it's true knowledge, but I would posit that having a justified belief can lead to one believing that something is true to the point that it's true to that person.  Take the characterization of the mathematician, John Nash, in the movie A Beautiful Mind, the character played by Russel Crowe is plagued with delusions so powerful that he truly believes that they're real.  So, in effect, they become real to him.  It may not make any difference in reality, but to the individual things that are not true, with enough justification and powerful enough belief it can become real to that person.

What does this mean to you and me?  Honestly, not much.  I believe that there's a personal creator God.  There are many different justifications for that belief, they're generally covered in apologetics.  No one can prove or disprove the truth of that claim, but at least two of the necessary conditions for knowledge have been met for me.

Hiji Falls

Discovering the Philosopher in You Part 1: Intro and Skepticism: What Do You Really Know?

I'm going to try something I've never done in this blog before.  That is, write a series of posts along the same vein.  This idea was sparked by a philosophy podcast from learnoutloud.com entitled "Discovering the Philosopher in You."  Well, the introductory podcast was very interesting, it's a series of lectures from a professor Colin McGinn about all the "big questions" in philosophy.  So, I've decided to write parallel blog entries for each of the lectures.  I downloaded the study guide as well, so I'm referencing that guide as well as the lectures. Without further ado, introduction and lecture one, Skepticism: What Do You Really Know?

By way of introduction I'll mention that these lectures and parallel blog entries are not in chronological order.  That's intentional, as Prof McGinn says, because all of the questions in philosophy are ancient questions that can't be answered.  It's not like we're coming up with new issues for philosophers to ponder over all the time.  Though I would say that doesn't mean that new problems don't come up every so often, but I'd say that these new issues are just new twists of old problems. Some of these questions include, what the ultimate nature of the world is, what the self is, whether we have free will, how our minds relate to our bodies, whether we can really know anything, where ethical truth comes from, what the meaning of life is, and whether or not there is a God.  These are some of the topics that I'll be covering over the next fourteen (or so) entries.

One thing of note in the lecture is how Prof McGinn describes Plato's famous cave parable.  The way it reads in the Republic is pessimistic.  It's like someone has chained the poor people in the cave and are manipulating their perceptions by walking behind them with stick-borne puppets making shadows on the cave walls.  The way Prof McGinn describes it is much more optimistic, that they aren't chained and that the people casting the shadows are just passersby.  I don't know the reason for his oversight, perhaps it's not oversight and that's the way it's described in other platonic writings.  I don't really know, but I thought that minute mistake, if it was one, was interesting.

The skeptical questions of what do I really know, leads down a long path ending with solipsism, and the other minds problem.  If you don't want to read those links, I'll summarize those ideas, solipsism is the idea that nothing else exists other than your own mental state.  There's also a temporal version of solipsism where we cannot know for certain that there was anything in the past or that there will be anything in the future.  All we can know for sure (sort of) is that we are knowing something right now.  The other minds problem is related to solipsism though more specific.  It's the idea that one cannot know that anyone else's mind exists.  We see others' bodies and actions and assume that they are analogous to our own minds but we can't know for sure that they're not just cleverly devised automatons or robots.  The problems that the skeptics, like Descarte raise, are many and there aren't complete answers to all of their questions, and on the surface it may seem like madness that can neither be proven nor disproven.  Prof McGinn talks about an interesting problem that skepticism can bring with its questioning all knowledge.  I'll try to summarize his points.

Suppose you had $10,000 in the bank, then when you check your balance, you suddenly find, without reason or expenditure that you actually only have $.10.  How would that make you feel?  Consider knowledge in the same manner.  We think we know so much, we think we have an intellectual bank account with 10,000 pieces of knowledge and with just a few jabs from skeptics we find that we actually only know 1 thing.  As Descarte argued "I think therefore I am."  Doubting is thinking, which is an action that only something that exists can do, therefore I exist.  But, with solipsism and the skeptical issues that's all we can know for sure.  Prof McGinn seems to say that these skeptical issues are detrimental to a one's intellectual wellbeing.

My personal views on this problem are a bit contradictory.  I love to play around with skepticism, but it's just childish play to me.  Are you reading my blog?  How do you know you're reading my blog?  How do you know you're not dreaming?  (Maybe because in a dream the writing would be better, haha!?)  The Matrix brings a scifi twist to skepticism.  How do you know that you're not plugged into some supercomputer that's feeding you all you think you're sensing?  Can you trust your senses?  Are you sure you're seeing red as I'm seeing red, or are you just calling purple red because that's what you've always been told?  These are fun but silly to me.  On the deeper issue of skepticism intellectually bankrupting people, I don't really see how it changes things or people for that matter.  I mean think about it, what if right now, the only thing that you actually know and can know, is your current thoughts?  So what?  Are you going to behave differently?  I presume not.  Therefore, if not knowing anything that you thought you knew doesn't actually change your life why worry about it?  I certainly don't and I hope you don't either.

Time

WOW deep stuff!  There's a whole Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article (sixteen pages long in 12pt type!) about time.  Needless to say, my entry won't be anywhere near as comprehensive.  Which I'm sure you'll all agree that's a shame.  Ha!  Well, here goes.  As usual this discussion was inspired by the History of Philosophy podcast, this time it was an episode about Aristotle's view of time.  I've done a quick search on my blog alone and found that I've used the word "time[s]" approximately 126 times (before this entry of course, I've used the word six times in this entry alone!).  Of course not all those usages were the simple noun, time.

We use the word all the time, but what do we really know about time?  "I don't have enough time."  "I ran out of time."  "A stitch in time saves nine."  "Time flies."  Numerous other casual references to time pop up in conversation all the time.  What do they all mean?  Is time measurable movements as Aristotle seems to define it?  Is time an empty void to be filled as Plato seems to define it?  Both seem to be acceptable ideas/definitions of time.  And when it comes down to brass tacks does it really matter?  The argument is, sort of, moot.  It's a discussion piece but it ends up in the same regression to which epistemology eventually runs, there's the skeptical answer that no matter how you slice it, you can never know for certain that you're experiencing what you're actually experiencing and that it's not all a figment of your imagination/dream/Matrix/brain-in-a-vat.  It's very similar when it comes to time.

We can number or measure time, we call it a watch or clock.  We experience the passing of time, assuming that we can trust our senses, at least we can see change over time which is how we perceive as time changing.  Is that what time is?  Change?  Something more substantive?  Does time actually exist?  If there weren't any minds to perceive time, would it still exist, if it exists in the first place?  I certainly don't have any answers, in fact, I really only want to bring up the questions about this.  What do you all think?  Do you have the answers?  Sorry to be pessimistic, but philosophers have been arguing/considering these thoughts for years and no one really has all the answers, so I doubt you (though you altogether form a formidable intellectual force) will be able to answer these questions.

One parting thought, these questions of the existence of time bring up the concept of infinity that I've discussed before.  Aristotle, because his concept of time relates to movement requires that time be infinite.  Here's my synopsis of the argument.  If time is the measurements related to movement then it has to be infinite, because if there was something that moved the first movement of time, then there had to be time before time.  So, if time is something moving or at least related to movement then it must be infinite.  I'll sum up my view, as I've already mentioned.  Infinity in time is related to space in that physical universe cannot be infinite and therefore time cannot be infinite.  God, however, is outside space and time and is the infinite unmoved mover, and uncaused first cause of all causes.  That's just my view, no real answers just what I think.  Good luck with your search for your answers.

If the tsunami/waterlevel ever gets this high, pretty much the whole island is screwed.

Teleology and Chance

Sorry (again), for the long time between entries!  I've been so busy.  It sucks too because I've been trying to focus on reading a book I borrowed from a coworker and I haven't been prioritizing well and my Bible reading has been suffering.

Anyways, in the course of my listening to the History of Philosophy podcast, I've recently come across a couple recordings talking about Aristotle's ethics.  Well, two of the ideas Professor Adamson has mentioned about Aristotle that I've enjoyed learning about are the ideas of chance and teleology.  I'll cover chance first because it is the most interesting and in my mind the most controversial.

According to the podcast talks about Aristotle defining chance being only intelligible in the light a final cause or goal.  In general, I enjoy this professor's impartiality, however, in this particular podcast Professor Adamson makes it abundantly clear that he is completely convinced that Darwin's theory of Evolution is completely true and unquestionable.  Aristotle clearly believes in a teleological view of nature and that chance as something that is NOT the norm, incredibly exceptional.  Aristotle wouldn't have any concept of how nature, which is uniform (in many ways) and has predictable processes, could come about through random chance, since chance is NOT normal.  To this concept, Prof Adamson says that Darwin has since proven that random chance does lead to nature/life as we understand it.  I'm sorry Prof but I have to disagree with you, no one has yet to prove that random natural occurrences/changes can lead to the diversity/complexity of nature.  I'm not stupid, there appears to be some evidence, and I certainly don't have answers to all the evidence and some of my answers are based on faith, but it's certainly not proven beyond a shadow of a doubt.  What bothers me is that Prof Adamson takes Darwin's ideas one-hundred percent on faith as truth.

The other concept that I can get behind from the lectures on Aristotle I've already somewhat alluded to, teleology.  If you're not familiar the idea revolves around the concept of a sense of purpose.  The main argument for God that comes from this concept goes like this.  Do your eyes have a purpose?  Do your ears?  Do all you separate organs/body parts?  How can it be that each disparate part could have a purpose and come together as a random assortment.  Life does have purpose.  I feel that Aristotle and so many others have missed that purpose, or as the Bible says "[they have] changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen."  (Romans 1:25 KJV)  I'm not usually one for ceremony but I like the way the Westminster Shorter Catechism states this final end for which man was made by God, "What is the chief end of man?  Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him for ever.  If one lives with that in mind the teleology of Aristotle is clear, that God made mankind with the purpose of loving God forever.

I love this beautiful place

Faith and Philosophy Blog Carnival, Apr 2013, 3nd Edition

Jana presents The Way Of The Zen Master: What Causes Stress & Tension & How To Rectify It and How To Find A Direction In Life both posted at Wisdom Ink.

Alicia Smith presents Letting Go…and Holding On | Inspirational Christian Blogs posted at Inspirational Christian Blogs.

Paula Tan presents Creationism inspires faith; evolution destroys it posted at Paula's Blog.

Ashley Reid presents An End to Lent & Easter 2013: It's Not Enough to Understand Grace, We Must Live In It - Romans 14 posted at The Real.

Jonathan Grant presents I’m Too Fat for My Husband and 5 Skeptics Who Tried to Disprove Christianity (and got saved)! both posted at Questions & Answers About Life.

Rose presents Does God Give Us More Than We Can Handle? posted at Rose Godfrey.

Ryan Smith presents To Tattoo or Not To Tattoo… posted at Arise - Procaiming the Life of Christ.

John presents 10 Myths for Why God Loves Us posted at Fearless Men.

Ron Moser presents Does “soon,” “at hand,” “shortly,” etc. really mean “nearly two-thousand years and counting”? and Can God Keep Time? (More on the Bible’s time-specific statements) both posted at Where Eagles Gather (and other sayings of Christ).

Graham Stoney presents How To Look Spiritual, Even When You're Not posted at Graham Stoney.

Jessica Clark presents 10 Famous Preachers Proudly Named Ken posted at Kenney Myers.

Tehra Burton presents sex will save us. posted at sex will save us.

Adrienne Morris presents Rich Like Rockefeller posted at Books at Middlemay Farm.

Olga Rezo presents What is the Higher Self posted at Metaphysical light rays meditation.

Sarah Bernstein presents Hedonists and Hula Hoops posted at YourZenFriend.

As more entries come in, I'll update this edition. Thank you to all those that have submitted their work so far.  The standard caveat applies, I don't necessarily agree with all the ideas presented but I hope you all enjoy reading the various perspectives regarding faith and or philosophy.

Philosophy of Language

Plato's Cratylus again Plato shows his uncanny aptitude for inovation by discussing a part of philosophy that is generally considered modern.  Once again, he's ahead of his time.  Here's the two primary lines of argument.  First, language is more or less arbitrary, words get their meaning based on arbitrary assignments or convention.  Second, language comes from a source like nature or god and our use of it is an imperfect reflection of true language.  In general, Plato, using Socrates' voice argues both sides of the issues and then ends up supporting neither.

Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you look at it, I pretty much side with Plato on this one.  I don't think either side of the coin answers reality.  I mentioned this before, this is a stereotypical giraffe:

What if I told you I have a beautiful giraffe that has short legs and a short neck and looks like this:

So, what say you?  Is that a giraffe?  What if lots of people all started calling this a giraffe?  What if EVERYONE started calling this a giraffe? People in Korea call it a 기린 (gilin--kīrīn), people in China say 長頸鹿 (chángjǐnglù), people in Japan say キリン (kirin--kīrīn, not surprising that it's nearly identical to Korean), people call it kameelperd in certain versions of Afrikaans.  If we're to subscribe to a source for our language why don't we all call it a kameelperd?  We probably should, if there's some ethereal language source out there by which all languages are derived.  If language is completely subjective and reliant to what people prefer then it makes sense that we now call that first picture a giraffe at least in English speaking places.  Obviously it makes sense that that we use just the word giraffe rather than always saying, wow look at that nice long-necked, long-legged, 16-20ft tall, approximately 3,500lb, mammal, etc. etc. just to describe a giraffe.  Obviously it's much easier to just use the word which apparently comes from Arabic, zarafa (زرافة).

I believe that God created human and taught Adam and Eve how to speak.  Perhaps not the way we think of teaching per se, but rather like the Matrix where information is just uploaded into the subject's mind.  I think (just an assumption, since the Bible includes Adam and God communicating) that God must have made Adam and thereby Eve with language.  Though Adam may have taught Eve how to communicate.  So, I believe the answer is both, God taught Adam language and that language has changed over the years since.  Also, the verses in Genesis about the Tower of Babel are telling.  Obviously God saw fit to use the power of language to enact change.  Then, over the six thousand some odd years since language has changed.  It's interesting that we seem to be following a cycle.  According to biblical history humans all started out with the same language then everything changed so that there are many different languages but we seem to be heading towards globalization of a single language again.  That idea happens to be prophesied in the Bible as well, though it seems quite a long ways in the future.

What say you?  Is there some magical source of language?  Is it merely convention?  Is it both?

Favorite Modern Preacher/Teacher

I'm usually not a big fan of mainstream speakers/teachers/pastors etc., but I do have two favorites, Alistair Begg of Truth for Life and Ravi Zacharias.  I recently listened to a podcast from Pastor Begg and the first thing that hit me was how nice it was to be taught something or in other words I focussed on learning something not analyzing some philosophical treatise by someone that I don't agree with (on metaphysical issues) taught by someone that I totally disagree with on metaphysical issues.  It was nice to be able to just relax and learn from this eloquent man of God that I respect.

I don't really remember (now, it's been a few weeks and I haven't listened to him at all since) what the message was about, but it brought to mind how much I've been listening to stuff that I pretty much completely disagree with.  I like thinking about the deep subjects brought up by the various philosophy podcasts to which I regularly listen, but it's sometimes difficult to find the gems of truth that are sometimes buried in their texts.  I'm not so stubborn and close-minded to think that the Bible is the only source of knowledge and truth.  But sometimes it's nice return to the well of truth especially when it's expounded upon by such an orator as Pastor Begg.

Do you have a favorite teacher/speaker/pastor?

Update on New Year's Goals

In case you've forgotten or missed that entry here's my goals for this year:

• Read through the Bible cover-to-cover and post about it on Facebook
• Read 50 books throughout the year
• Train for and complete at least a half ironman triathlon

Well, if you follow me on Facebook (there's only one Samuel Ronicker on Facebook, there's a Sam Ronicker but that's my dad) you'll know that I'm not really keeping up with my daily Bible reading and commenting on my progress, but I'm not too far behind and I'm fairly sure I'll be able to catch up completely soon and that I'll be able to finish the year.  Of course it's still early, but it's actually not that tough of a goal I don't know why I haven't done it before.  I've read all of the Bible at one time or another but never from cover to cover over the course of a year.

On the second goal, here are some of the other ground rules I've added to just "read 50 books."  I won't count (nor read) books that I've read before unless I never read the whole book or it has been so long ago that I don't remember any of it.  I also won't count the children's books I read to the boys at night for their bedtime stories, I might in the future but in general I read things to them that I've read before so it's discounted by the first "rule."  I will attempt to read a wide(er) variety of works.  I generally read nonfiction, but there's some worth to some fictional works so I've tried to add some to my reading list.  If you look on the right border of my blog you'll see my current reading list.  It's in the order that I added them to the list so they're not in any real preferencial order or anything like that; basically, they have been added as I find them and decided to read each one.  Also, I won't quit reading any book I start.  I have only done that a few times anyways so it shouldn't be a problem.  I quit Hugo's Les Misérables because it was just too heavy and long, maybe I'll finish it someday.  I also quit Nabokov's Lolita because it made me sick to my stomach.  I DO NOT recommend that book to anyone.  It was sickening.  My progress is quite behind schedule on that front also.  I should be at about eleven books and I'm only at four!  I am about half-way through one other and I'm told Red Phoenix will be a quick read.

On the triathlon preparation...  This is turning out to be the most difficult one of all.  I know that may not be a surprise to most of you but that is a bit surprising to me.  I've done sprint-distance triathlons before (two of them, about four years ago) and I am an avid runner and I, prior to my trip to Southwest Asia, regularly rode with a serious biking club.  I couldn't keep up with the club, but I was working on it before my duty so rudely interrupted me.  Since I've returned little inconveniences have gotten in the way of me rejoining that club.  Namely, sleep and the desire to do sleep rather than ride on Saturday mornings.  I'm doing okay with my running preparations though I need to do more long runs.  My desire for sleep has hampered that as well.  Also, the club that I was meeting on Sunday mornings seems defunct.  I'm considering starting my own club or seeking out a new one.  I hope I can find one closer to home as the previous club was about a 30 minute drive (one way) to meet up for the run.  I'm signed up to do a half-marathon on 7 April, though I'm really not ready I'm sure I'll at least be able to complete it.  Though I'm intending to do it barefoot and that'll be the first time I've attempted that distance barefoot.  I've done as much of my training runs barefoot but unfortunately I can't run barefoot for official unit physical training because of the uniform rules.  Over this week I'll try to get in more barefoot time to be completely ready for the half in two weeks.

One last thing not really related to my goals for 2013.  I would like to start working on a book.  I've mentioned it before and I've been encouraged by my friend Steven Specht's success with Notes from Afghanistan.  I think I'd like to just start with writing about 100 words a day about learning a new language.  I'm a bit worried that it'll be very easy at first, then I'll completely run out of things to say long before I get anywhere close to enough to fill a book.  My attempts to work on updating that other book, How To Learn Any Language: Quickly, Easily, Inexpensively, Enjoyably and on Your Own, have hit a dead-end.  That is, I have NEVER heard anything back from the author or publisher about my desire to write an update to that work.  So, I've decided that I'll just start work on my own book and with the goal of writing somewhere around 100 words a day hopefully I'll have something to start with next year sometime.

So there you have it, I'm doing okay on one of three of my new year's goals.  How are you doing?  Did you even make any goals?

This place has such beautiful flora

The Multi-Million Dollar Question

Matthew 16:15 "[Jesus] saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?"

I've recently read a couple blogs that mention making choices, but this is the only choice that really matters.  To buy this car, or that.  To take this job or that.  To live in this place or that.  Eggs over easy, sunny side up, over medium, scrambled, poached, etc.  Or like the quote from You've Got Mail:

"The whole purpose of places like Starbucks is for people with no decision-making ability whatsoever to make six decisions just to buy one cup of coffee. Short, tall, light, dark, caf, decaf, low-fat, non-fat, etc. So people who don't know what the hell they're doing or who on earth they are can, for only $2.95, get not just a cup of coffee but an absolutely defining sense of self: Tall. Decaf. Cappuccino."

So, you have so many decisions to make but this is the only one that really matters, what is Jesus to you?  So many people talk about Jesus as just a great moral teacher and about how the Bible is just a story made up about this teacher's life and how he went around teaching people to love each other and to all get along etc. etc.  My favorite answer to that idea comes from CS Lewis:

"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: "I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God." That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic - on the level with a man who says he is a poached egg - or he would be the devil of hell. You must take your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse." 

"You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."

There are many answers to this trilemma and it doesn't really appeal to committed atheists/agnostics.  It's not really a powerful logical dilemma because there's so much riding on Jesus' claims.  So, the difficulty in this argument is that so many people take issue with whether or not Jesus actually claimed to be God.  I can understand that it's a complicated issue and not everyone agrees.  Even among people who are wholly committed to faithfully interpreting the Bible according to God's will, there's some disagreement as to Jesus actually claiming to be GOD.  I feel the issue is clear and that Jesus really does claim to be God.  However, I don't feel that a 100% strict interpretation of Jesus being God as opposed to Lord or having some other form of Godhood that gives Him the power and authority of God in certain aspects is somehow required to truly receive salvation through God's forgiveness.

Even after all that, the most important question in life still stands, "Who is Jesus to you?"  Whatever your choice, make sure you know what the repercussions are for that choice.  Think carefully about your choice and don't ever give up on pursuing why you believe what you believe.

One last word on dogmatism.  If you have truly done this, made all the inquiries you can into your beliefs and searched out all avenues of your beliefs and the contrary beliefs, then you have every right to be dogmatic (to a point).  If you truly, I mean truly, believe what you believe after making every effort to seek out the truth from multiple points of view then you have every right to feel you're right.  I believe what I believe after years of inquiry into the Bible and various interpretations and alternate views.  I have every right to believe that what I believe is true.  Am I going to shove it in everyone's face all the time?  No.  I'm not rude.  I share my thoughts here because that's what this blog is about, my thoughts on various subjects relating to faith and philosophy and the like.  The problem I have is when people call me dogmatic as a slight.  I believe what I believe and you're welcome to believe what you believe, but don't hate me because I'm faithful to what I believe.  I certainly don't resent you your beliefs don't resent me mine.

Cape Hedo, the northernmost tip of Okinawa

Aristotle on Logic

When it comes to learning logic Aristotle is one of the founding fathers.  If you want to study logic a great place to start is Aristotle's collective work called the Organon traditionally made up of 8 different books: The Categories, On Interpretation, Prior-Analytics, Posterior-Analytics, Topics, Sophistical Refutations, Rhetoric*, and The Poetics*.  The last two are the ones that many modern philosophy/logic students often don't consider logical works, and it seems like these last two were just kind of thrown into the mix.  Sophistical Refutations is kind of like a text on anti-logic, a kind of how to spot the sophistical, empty arguments.  Of course, these works cover a wide range of logic and Aristotle's works in general cover a very broadly defined concepts of logic and philosophy.  There's no way I or anyone else could even try to attempt to cover every bit of these works but I've been listening to the History of Philosophy podcast, and Professor Adamson gives a nice overview of these works.  He talkes about how ancient philosophy students would start their foray into logic and philosophy with these works.

So far the podcast, as I've been going through it, has only given a broad overview of the logical works. To me, the most interesting book is the first one listed, The Categories.  In general, it's about categorizing various things.  The categories for different objects are listed as: substance, quality, quantity, relation, place, time, position, state, action, and being acted upon.  How certain parts a thing are essential to that that thing, and some are accidental.  It may seem silly but there's a problem I have with this.  One of the concepts within the philosophy of language is that words are given their meaning through a somewhat arbitrary process.  Prof Adamson uses the example of a giraffe quite often, so I'll follow his example.  I'm assuming everyone of my readers knows what a typical giraffe looks like.  One of the examples is a giraffe painted blue, so we have a blue giraffe, but that's just an accidental characteristic of that particular giraffe, or if there was a giraffe with a broken foot.  Those are accidental characteristics of giraffes.  So here's my question, one would assume that a long neck and legs would be considered essential characteristics of giraffes.  However, what if I told you that I had a short-necked short-legged giraffe?  What makes what I'm calling a giraffe?  Me calling it a giraffe?  According to some concepts of linguistics that's part of what makes it a giraffe.

The next on the list, On Interpretation is also quite interesting.  To me, it has one of Aristotle's most important contributions to logic and philosophy.  I've always heard it called the "Law of Non-contradiction" though Prof Adamson doesn't specifically mention it.  In general, this particular text is about negation and how to make statements and syllogisms.  I don't have the space to explain all that but I would like to talk a little about non-contradiction.  According to the professor of the logic course that I was taking through https://www.coursera.org/ negating a statement isn't as easy as it appears.  The most straightforward method is to append the statement with "it is not the case that..."  So, the non-contradiction idea is this: two statements that are contradictions of each other cannot both be true at the same time.  For example, the statements "giraffes exist" and "it is not the case that giraffes exist," cannot both be true at the same time.  Obviously, at some time in the future or in the past giraffes may or may not exist, but at the same time they cannot both exist and not exist at the same time.  Though according to Prof Adamson, it seems that Aristotle leaves an exception to this idea, namely, for statements about the future.  For example, the statement "I will win the lottery tomorrow" is about the future and it is both true and not true at the same time.  Tomorrow, when I'm taking a bath in gold and jewels like Scrooge McDuck, I still can't say that statement was true or false just because it ends up coming true doesn't mean that when it was made it was true.

Plato's Republic Book 10 and 11

Wait for it... oh sorry, you've been waiting for this for several weeks now.  It's my final entry at least for now, on Plato's Republic; specifically, books ten and eleven.  As before I have a couple caveats to my entry before I begin.  First, my thoughts that fall under the 'Book 10' portion of this entry aren't really a commentary on what that particular section is about, more like my thoughts on Plato and Socrates' concepts of God and my imagined response they might have had to Jesus.  Secondly, if you're reading these notes, I hope you understand that these are just my reactions to listening to Plato's work in audiobook format, NOT some in-depth study or analysis of Plato's works or philosophy.  I like to think I have some good insights into his work, but I'm probably just one of thousands of people (most of which are MUCH smarter and better read than I) that have said their opinions about what Plato meant when he wrote this work.

Book 10.  When listening to this section I wasn't really all that focused on Plato's idea of the "forms" (I'm going to dispense with the use of quotation marks to refer to Plato's idea that there's an ideal representative thing for everything that exists), as much as I was thinking about how Plato would have responded if he had met Paul or Jesus or C.S. Lewis or some other great Christian teacher/apologist.  Plato is expanding some of his concept of forms and all I can think is "the God of the Bible is the God that you're describing!"  If Plato had the chance to sit down with Paul and discuss theology and Paul had taught Plato about the God of the Bible, that I serve, and shared with Plato that which Jesus had taught him, I think Plato would have become a great apologist himself.  Plato already talks about a god that made the universe and made the forms of all things and then he goes astray from this great god and still believes in Zeus and Athena and the like.  If he could have dispensed with all that mythology and just stuck with the idea of one God that made all things including the ideal forms of all things then his theology and his philosophy wouldn't have been that far off the mark.  As his book affirms Plato was totally caught up in the Greek mythology of his day.  His concept of this originator god that created the forms of all things is novel and borderline blasphemous.  Sadly, Plato lived hundreds of years before Christ and it doesn't appear that he had any influence or interaction with any Jews or anyone else that believed or followed the biblical texts as they existed at the time.

Book 11.  This is the final section of the Republic and in some ways the most distressing.  He has mentioned a few times previously about the illegitimacy of poetry and various poets.  He even suggested that art and poetry be completely regulated and censored.  Then, after blasting the poets for making up fairy tales and twisting the truth.  What does Plato do in book 11?  He makes up a fairy tail mythology to support his concept of how the soul is immortal and how it pays to be a wise philosophical person, both for this life and the next.  One other thing I dislike about this last section, Plato makes it clear in his fairy tale that souls are immortal and just pass from this life into the next then come right back (a bit similar to Hindu reincarnation).  However, (unless I heard wrong) in book 10 he said that god creates souls.  So which is it Plato?  Are souls immortal or were they created by god?  It seems that he wouldn't have such a glaring internal inconsistency given that he's basically a genius and one of the greatest fathers of all western philosophy.

Alex whale watching

Test Done!

Well, that's done!  At least until next year.  I'm assuming I didn't pass.  I studied some but I don't really think I studied near enough and the test is quite tedious.  I like my job in the military and I'm glad promotion is (at least) somewhat proficiency related.  I mean, in some jobs all it takes to gain a position of leadership is knowing the right person.  And, let's be honest that's not a good criterion for choosing a leader.  Now that I'm done with the test at least I'll have no excuses not to catch up on my Bible reading plan and my 50-books-in-a-year goal.  As I said before I have some topics for entries brewing/simmering, and I'll get them written up, hopefully, sooner rather than later.

These beautiful egrets are everywhere

Faith and Philosophy Blog Carnival, Mar 2013, 2nd Edition

Jana presents http://www.wisdom-ink.com/?p=1637 DECIDING..And It's Significance To Creation and Manifestation::Because Life is Effortless::Wisdom Ink and http://www.wisdom-ink.com/?p=683 The Good Stuff of Life both posted at http://www.wisdom-ink.com/blog.

Ashley Reid presents two entries one, http://ashleyreid88.blogspot.com/2013/02/lent-2013-giving-up-vengeful-spirit-and.html Lent 2013: Giving Up a Vengeful Spirit and Accepting Grace and the other, http://ashleyreid88.blogspot.com/2013/02/lent-2013-where-are-your-accusers.html Lent 2013: Where are Your Accusers? both posted at http://ashleyreid88.blogspot.com/ The Real.

Rob Graumans presents http://theyoungsocrates.com/2013/02/15/a-defence-of-relativism/ A Defence of Relativism | The Young Socrates posted at http://theyoungsocrates.com The Young Socrates.

Joshua Tilghman presents http://www.spiritofthescripture.com/id1238-meditating-into-the-god-within.html Meditating into the God Within and http://www.spiritofthescripture.com/id1442-will-the-esoteric-jesus-please-stand-up.html Will the Esoteric Jesus Please Stand Up? both posted at http://www.spiritofthescripture.com The Spirit of the Scripture.

Jocelyn Crawley presents http://jocelyncrawley.blogspot.com/2012/09/some-suppositions-on-spiritual-death.html Some Suppositions on Spiritual Death posted at http://jocelyncrawley.blogspot.com/ Jocelyn Crawley.

Terence Stone presents http://urbanspiritual.wordpress.com/2013/02/25/realizing-the-divine-within-embracing-presence/ Realizing the Divine Within: embracing presence posted at http://urbanspiritual.wordpress.com urban spiritual.

Ron Moser presents http://lastdaysunraveledblog.com/2013/02/28/the-key-to-unlocking-bible-prophesy/ The Key to Unlocking Bible Prophesy posted at http://lastdaysunraveledblog.com Where Eagles Gather (and other sayings of Christ).

Jonathan Grant presents several entries, http://askawiseman.com/how-can-i-know-gods-will/ How Can I Know God’s Will?, http://askawiseman.com/the-secret-to-never-being-wrong/ The Secret to Never Being Wrong!, http://askawiseman.com/most-important-thing-to-do-in-an-argument/ The Most Important Thing to Do in an Argument (which no one ever does), http://askawiseman.com/climate-change/ The truth behind global warming and climate change (It's not what you think), http://askawiseman.com/worry/ How to Stop Worrying, and http://askawiseman.com/church-brainwashing/ Is the Church using brainwashing techniques? all posted at http://askawiseman.com Questions & Answers About Life.

Ashumi Shah presents http://thesaltysardines.com/?p=680 The Hero of our Age. (Part 1 of 3) posted at http://thesaltysardines.com The Salty Sardines.

Byteful Travel presents http://byteful.com/blog/2013/02/why-non-attachment-is-key/ Why Non-Attachment is my Key to Happiness posted at http://byteful.com/blog Byteful Travel.

John presents http://fearlessmen.com/honor-god-honor-yourself-and-honor-others/ Honor God, Honor Others and Honor Yourself posted at http://fearlessmen.com Fearless Men.

Justin Allison presents http://bible-tech.com/tech-thoughts-on-the-religion-of-innovation/ Tech Thoughts on the “Religion of Innovation” posted at http://bible-tech.com.

These are the final entries for the second edition of the Faith and Philosophy blog carnival for March 2013. Any further entries will be added to the April edition.

Same caveat as last month's iteration of the blog carnival, I don't necessarily agree with everything said in the entries, in fact I outright disagree with some of them but as they are about having faith or some part of philosophy they met the criteria for inclusion in the carnival. One other note, future carnival editions will NOT include pictures from the various entries. That process makes the prep time for the carnival about double what it would be if I left the pictures off so next edition won't include any photos from the entries, though I might share one of my own photos just to liven up the edition. Thanks for all the submissions and all the future submissions; I look forward to more editions with many more entries about faith and philosophy.

Writer's Block

Sorry for the lack of entries lately.  I've sort of been busy.  Not that I've truly had writer's block per se, but rather I haven't had time.  I have several blog notes for entries I just haven't had time to sit down and put virtual ink to virtual paper.

Next couple entries, in no particular order: finish up with Plato's Republic, an entry about an Alistair Begg podcast message, and one about the philosophy of language.  So that's three (possibly four) entries I have brewing I just need to get some time to sit and type them all out.  What are you doing right now you ask?  Well, I only have time to say that I don't have time because I have to get to studying for my promotion test in a little over a week.

So, see you again (virtually speaking) in a little over a week.

Panoramic Photography

I've enjoyed photography for many years now; it started when I was in middle school and my neighbor "Bud" taught me how to use his manual SLR (single-lens reflex) camera.  He taught me the basics of metering, shutter speed, f-stops, and many other things.  Well, that enjoyment has grown and changed with time.  Now I have a very expensive hobby with a couple expensive cameras and several expensive lenses.  This is quite fortunate now that I live in one of the most beautiful places in the world.  I now have lots of beautiful things to photograph!

Here's my first attempt at stitching photos together to make a large panoramic:

Here's one of my best (so far) with a super-wide angle fisheye lens:

I'll try to always have a photo to share.  Hope you enjoy.

A Daily Account: Journalism at its Finest

A Daily Account: Journalism at its Finest
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By stevenspecht / February 11, 2013 / Military Service, Notes from Afghanistan / Leave a comment

The military service member is on the front lines of history. Whether we are the special operators, aviators, or support crews, our stories are like no others and they need to be told. However, all too often, we allow the civilian journalist to do our reporting for us. In the era of social networking, self-publishing, and online blogging, there is no reason to allow others to interpret our stories.

You may ask yourself, “why is my story special?” I would respond with the obvious statement that, at any given time, you are a member of the mere one percent of the total population that makes up the all-volunteer force, and with a rapid decline of living WW II vets, you are among the steadily shrinking number of Americans who have served at all. Each story is a precious documentary. Some are fortunate (or unfortunate) to be thrust into amazing events such as those in Lone Survivor by US Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell, but many publications have been about gut wrenching boredom and lack of action such as Jarhead by US Marine Scout Sniper Anthony Swofford, which detailed concerns of irrelevancy and separation from loved ones that are often left out of many war books. One need not be a scout sniper or SEAL to write a great work as proven by myriad publications about Southeast Asia from the perspective of the average draftee such as If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home by Tim O’Brien.

The idea of writing a book is daunting if you’ve not done it, but the method I used to complete the rough draft of “Notes from Afghanistan,” was to write down 100 words on what happened each day. This doesn’t sound like a lot, and it isn’t. However, when multiplied by the length of a year-long deployment, it grows into 36,500 words, which, is nearly 100 pages of material for a standard book that can be fleshed out into something amazing with the right amount of effort.

The importance of writing each day cannot be over-emphasized. With time, all events become fuzzy, and we have a tendency to editorialize or dramatize events to make them look better or worse depending on our attitudes. With the technique of 100 words a day, we need take only a few moments to chronicle the who-what-where of our day, and we can leave the introspection of how and why for a later time.

This is an example of 100 words:

“I got up at 0400 today to the sound of a low flying jet. This was the third day in a row I’ve been woken up prematurely. I went to the gym for an hour of weightlifting before eating and prepping my kit for an uneventful patrol. Some locals gave us intel on the location of a weapons cache in the area that we will report later on. I was able to get online today and call my wife on Skype. She is having difficulty in getting my W-2 for taxes, but there isn’t anything I can do right now.”

While not Shakespeare, this provides the basis for elaboration later on when there is time for reflection. When you write every day of being woken up early, it will begin to form a pattern that indicates frustration with the poor sleep schedule. The daily activities of weight lifting and chow stand alone, but if the intelligence on the weapons cache turns out to be valid, then you now have the ability to connect the dots between two events that might not be remembered a year from now. Every one of us has dealt with the stress of trying to manage events back home that are largely irrelevant in the moment but important to those we have left behind.

Nothing I write is meant to suggest that every single service member will write the next Jarhead, but even if you never publish a sentence of your work, you leave behind a legacy for those that come after you. Your story begins now. Don’t wait until you are in the middle of something to begin furiously scribbling down the half-remembered details. Don’t wait until your kids start asking you about your time in Afghanistan or Iraq 20 years from now. Some of the memories you will never forget, but a lot of them you will.

“Notes from Afghanistan” by Steven Specht is available on iTunes and Amazon at:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/notes-from-afghanistan/id600538159?mt=11

http://www.amazon.com/Notes-from-Afghanistan-ebook/dp/B00BEIFN9U/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1360793305&sr=8-1&keywords=Notes+from+Afghanistan

Plato's Republic, Book 9

I think it's funny, my last entry about Plato's Republic Books 1-3 has the second highest views of all my entries.  I'm relatively certain it doesn't have anything to do with the skill with which that particular entry was written, rather it's a popular search topic on Google as people are still reading and researching Plato and his writings even today.

A couple notes before we begin.  First, I don't plan on doing any entries about Books 4, 5 or 7, 8 I had a short(ish) comment on Book 6 here.  I listened to those audio recordings too long ago to adequately analyse their content.  Second, every once in a while I actually get a little proud of myself.  Let me explain, I've been listening to the history of philosophy podcast and I've recently come across the podcast entry pertaining to Plato's Republic and sometimes I come to the same conclusions or have the same insights as the maker of that podcast.  It makes me proud to think that I thought of the same things this scholar came up with.  It's silly, since it should naturally come from whatever text we're both consulting, but I still feel that way nonetheless.

Without further ado:

Book 9.  Plato (via Socrates of course) lays out the other types of human governance, and he proceeds to tear each one down to show how they are inferior to his "Republic."  Incidentally, the word 'republic' is not used in the text (at least other than the title, that I heard as I listened to the whole text read); it seems that the word 'republic' is given by scholars in describing Plato's ideal state (i.e. body politic).  It may surprise you to know that Plato lists the types of states in order from best (closest to his ideal) to worst (farthest from his ideal state), and that Democracy ranks third out of four!  The type of governance that we hold so dear, is to Plato, second to LAST in quality.  There is one huge caveat to this that I've come up with, namely, that Plato's idea of democracy is very different from our modern idea of democracy.  While the people did hold the power, from the meaning of the Greek words, the leadership was chosen by lot.  So, if you were a citizen of Athens, you could hold a position of leadership if your lot was chosen.  That means the leadership is not chosen by merit, skill, ability, persuasiveness, charisma, money or any other desirable or undesirable trait.  What we think of in the US is a representative democracy, we choose the representative leaders democratically.  We're supposed to choose based on merits or skills NOT on the negative traits.

The ninth book is quite long because it details not only these four different types of state: oligarchy, timarchy (timocracy), democracy, and tyranny, but it also describes the character of the man in relation to each of the state types.  I won't go into all the details of each group because that would take more than you or I have time for!  I will give a short personal definition of each type because not all of them are familiar.  Oligarchy, is where the rich or affluent rule.  One can buy leadership via money or winning popularity or influence.  Monarchy fits within oligarchy because it's a state run by the few and of course the monarchy would be rich and powerful, though in hereditary monarchy of course power is handed down via lineage.  There are other simple types not very many of which are very positive for the ruled classes, because they are generally in servitude to the leadership.  Though of course Plato doesn't seem to spin it that way, because oligarchy is set up as second only to his Republic as a form of governance.  Then comes timocracy (or timarchy), which is difficult to describe without referencing Sparta, because Sparta is the primary example used by Plato for this type of governance.  I've always thought Sparta was ruled by the military, which is actually not far from the this idea.  Timarchy comes from the Greek word for honor.  So, leadership is based on love of the state and honor, which one would assume comes from military prowess.  Then comes democracy, where anyone and everyone rules.  Then last and easiest to understand is tyranny, where the tyrant rules.  Generally, tyranny is considered the worst form of governance because as most people know, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

One key point of book nine that I'd like to point out before concluding this entry is how Plato (again) makes the argument against wrongdoing.  The other characters in the dialogue with Socrates have tried to make the argument that behaving badly is actually the best course of action.  Plato argues and quite persuasively shows how the tyrant is actually the LEAST happy personality of all the archetypes associated with each form of government.  This seems odd because one would think that a tyrant, who, by virtue of being a tyrant, can have anything and everything he or she wants at any time, would be the most happy type of person.  Plato points out that such freedom is illusionary and is actually the deepest and most sincere form of slavery; that is, slavery to oneself and one's passions.  This deeply entrenched slavery shows that the tyrant is actually the least content, happy, honorable, good, etc. type of person among all the types.  My own interpretation of this point is that we need to avoid all types of tyranny in our lives.  Don't be too obsessed with any one pursuit, even in contradiction with my blog title, the pursuit of happiness can also lead to a slavery to one's passions. Contentment is the key here, as 1 Timothy 6:6 says, "6 But godliness with contentment is great gain."

I had originally intended to cover both book nine and ten but as this entry is getting quite lengthy I'm going to break them in to multiple entries.  So stay tuned for the next entry and possibly the closing of my entries about Plato's Republic.

Throne room (or sorts) at Shuri Castle here on Okinawa in Naha city

Guest Post by Steven Specht on Beardedness

Satire from my friend and fellow blogger/writer Steven Specht (also read here):

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My Lifestyle is Not a Choice: Fighting for Survival in a Godless Society
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By stevenspecht / February 4, 2013 / Daily Diatribes, Satire, Social Commentary / 2 Comments

I and those like me are under a constant pressure to conform to a society that has lost its way. My lifestyle is called “a choice,” and because of that “choice,” I am often disenfranchised. I am tired of being a second class citizen in the so-called “land of the free.”

Of course I’m talking about having a beard.

When I walk down the sidewalk, people move to the other side of the street. Mothers hold their children close as I pass. Police stare me down and stop me to ask me where I’m going and where I’ve been. Evidently I “fit a profile.” When I try to order soup, the waitress glares at me and asks, “are you sure it’s a good idea for one of you people to eat the clam chowder?” I am more than my beard and I deserve more than soda through a straw and pretzels without condiments.

The worst part of it all isn’t the open hatred from those who don’t understand our way of life. It is the demeaning stereotypes applied to us by those who mean well. When I go to a job fair, I’m given information on construction and plumbing jobs, but no one ever assumes that I just might be an accountant or a neurosurgeon. I am sick and tired of being approached on the street and asked if I am a Navy SEAL or an unemployed hipster living with my parents.

I feel so alone.

We should have known that the moment the secular progressives began taking God out of our classrooms that beards would be soon to follow. There was a time when our nation was guided by a higher power that commanded his followers to not trim their beards like the heathens. God is out of our classrooms and our beards have been shorn. The next thing to go is our guns.

We were the men of Gods and Generals, but we have become divided and relegated to the sideshow of reality TV. The persecution is endless, but just as Jesus of Nazareth had his beard pulled and torn out by his tormentors, we must turn our cheeks—turning our cheeks while not hiding from the shame and the spitting.
We can and must fight for our freedom.

All is not lost—not yet. Join me my bearded brothers. I am bearded, hear me roar, with whiskers too large to ignore!

It is time to demand our rights! To take back our country! To take back our freedom! Join me on our day of triumph on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on February 29th. Join me as we rally around the famous beard of our 16th president. Bring your crossfit workouts, your drum circles, your harleys, and your bongs. The day is ours if we seize it.

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NOT from the blog, but a prime example of a Steven Specht beard: