The Internet Monk Archives

Your Neighbourhood Atheist

Your Neighbourhood Atheist
By Klasie Kraalogies

It appears that a lot of people have no idea what it means to be an atheist. Here is the secret – there is no such thing as a typical atheist. But here are some brief windows into the life, loves, and musings of this atheist.

Here I am
I get creakingly up, and stumble into some exercise wear (weekdays only). After an hour or so of sweating, I take a shower, dress, and start breakfast. I like variation with breakfast – sometimes it is just toast and coffee, other times an omelette with fiddleheads or chanterelles fresh from the boreal forest (when they are in season) – once again with coffee. Or crumbly porridge, which is like a dry, crumbly grits, served with butter, sugar and milk, the breakfast of my forefathers. Surprisingly, with coffee. Basically, breakfast is coffee with food. My morning coffee is always a homemade Americano – 2 shots of espresso from freshly ground beans. During the summer I take it outside, my aging dog accompanying me, and we enjoy the morning.

“Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?” (Douglas Adams, *The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy*)

• • •

Morality
Two and a half years ago I published a series of posts on this website, detailing my journey to atheism. I have no need to rehash that – and I have no desire to be proselytizing for unbelief. Attacks on religion is, by and large, quite boring, and often motivated by the same insipid lifestyle choices that make people attack others for their political beliefs or choice of sports team. If one is truly confident, as I am, that there is no deity or transcendent entities of any sort, then religion becomes a way that humanity as expressed itself over time, and therefore rather interesting. It is a way of expressing world views and beliefs about morality. It has often been pointed out even here, those beliefs have changed and will continue to change. No one takes everything in say Scripture literally, because (1) they won’t be able to, and (2), there are multitudes of literal readings. What is real is a shared, by and large, understanding of morality. And that understanding is shared across boundaries. Only extremists shout that one can kill left, right, and centre – most of humanity do not agree. Morals have evolved and continue to evolve. So, in my day to day life, rational thinking about moral questions is de rigueur.

For example – do I enter this business deal or not?

First the easy ones:

Is it legal?
Can I perform my part?
Can I trust the other party?

Then the ones that require more thinking:

Will this harm anyone?
Will this harm the environment?
What are the long term affects?

These questions require deeper thinking because they are not simple and require nuance.

I often find that some religious people assume that once you are an atheist, you do what you want irrespective of morality etc. That is balderdash – because morality is evolved behaviour (with some humans a bit behind), and, rationally considered, harm to others harms me too, as everything is interconnected. The chickens will come home to roost.

• • •

Joyful existence
I love both gardening and cooking, and nature in general. Being able to harvest something, albeit even something as simple as some thyme and rosemary from the garden, and use it immediately in a dish, is wonderful. In addition, exploring recipes and ingredients, flavours and more from all over the world, and recombining them in interesting ways, is a delight for the soul.

slightly amended recipe from Yotam Ottolenghi & Sami Tamimi’s Jerusalem – a cookbook co-authored by a Jewish and a Palestinian chef. Roasted sweet potato with green onions, chevre and pomegranates, and a balsamic reduction

Potjiekos – a traditional South African stew cooked in a potjie (three-legged cast iron pot) over coals. This one was a pork belly and shrimp potjie.

Food is glorious. I love sharing it with those I love. Wine and beer and scotch, when I can afford it, a delight for the palate and a blessing for the soul. But so is the beauty of gardens, of flowers and bees and vegetables and birds.

“Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what’s for lunch.”

• Orson Welles

The History of every major Galactic Civilization tends to pass through three distinct and recognizable phases, those of Survival, Inquiry and Sophistication, otherwise known as the How, Why, and Where phases. For instance, the first phase is characterized by the question ‘How can we eat?’ the second by the question ‘Why do we eat?’ and the third by the question ‘Where shall we have lunch?

• Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

• • •

The joy of Asiatic lilies and the first Black Prince tomato of the season

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more

• Byron

• • •

Meaning
What is the meaning of life? There are many religious answers to this, though I am not dealing with those in this post.

Let us look at some of what helps me get to the answer. The Stoics said that the goal in life is living in agreement with nature. Humans, unlike all other animals, are constituted by nature to develop reason as adults, which transforms their understanding of themselves and their own true good. Good so far. By nature, of course they don’t mean the modern wild and untamed wilderness, but the nature of things, the material world. But they do go on to say:

…that virtue is the only real good and so is both necessary and, contrary to Aristotle, sufficient for happiness; it in no way depends on luck. The virtuous life is free of all passions, which are intrinsically disturbing and harmful to the soul, but includes appropriate emotive responses conditioned by rational understanding and the fulfillment of all one’s personal, social, professional, and civic responsibilities. The Stoics believed that the person who has achieved perfect consistency in the operation of his rational faculties, the “wise man,” is extremely rare, yet serves as a prescriptive ideal for all. The Stoics believed that progress toward this noble goal is both possible and vitally urgent.

A bit of an overstatement, maybe?

Epicurus on the other hand promoted a life free of fear and anxiety:

He regarded the unacknowledged fear of death and punishment as the primary cause of anxiety among human beings, and anxiety in turn as the source of extreme and irrational desires. The elimination of the fears and corresponding desires would leave people free to pursue the pleasures, both physical and mental, to which they are naturally drawn, and to enjoy the peace of mind that is consequent upon their regularly expected and achieved satisfaction.

The Stoics tended to be somewhat religious, the Epicureans promoted atheism. In my view, both got hold of some corner of the truth, but missed out in other ways.

Spinoza placed happiness in the realm of understanding God, but Spinoza, being something of a panentheist, defines God in a way that makes him synonymous with nature, with the Cosmos.

On the other hand you have Max Tegmark who states:

… when people ask about the meaning of life as if it were the job of our cosmos to give meaning to our existence, they’re getting it backward: It’s not our Universe giving meaning to conscious beings, but conscious beings giving meaning to our Universe.

Max gets close to the real thing here, but we need to abandon what the Stoics, Epicureans, Spinoza and other said. Assembling partial insights into coherent bigger insights is the luxury of us who came later in human history. Shoulders of giants and all that.

We give meaning, but our given meaning is so much better when we understand more of the cosmos – and ourselves. Then, placing ourselves within that realm, we find how to live. True pleasure demands virtue, as I highlighted in my marriage post recently. The pleasure of deep connection and companionship cannot be bidden just from desire. Similarly, producing a good meal requires time to select plants, the bountiful yield of this earth, the knowledge of experienced cooks, the testing of the palate, the patience of bringing the meal to fruition. And as everything is interconnected, making that pleasure, that joy, sustainable, requires spreading the knowledge, the care for others and the good earth, the lifting up of society, etc. Pleasure demands virtue, virtue demands empathy, and the understanding of an evolved yet intelligent, analyzed morality. Empathy requires the understanding that we humans have different tastes and gifts. One is the cook, the other the artist, yet the other the farmer.

• • •

The dying
Life is most often difficult. Yet most of its difficulties are the things we do to each other, mostly because of fear and ignorance. Understanding drives out fear. Grasping what is in your control, and what is not, can go a long way to bringing peace.

I’d take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day.

• Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt

And then we die.

If the ages that came before we were born do not bring us fear, why should the ages that pass after we expire install us with dread? If one looks up at the night sky, and see the wonderous cosmos, remember that we came from the stars. We are made from “star stuff”. And eventually we will return to being star stuff.

The sparkling centerpiece of this fireworks show is a giant cluster of thousands of stars called Westerlund 2. The cluster resides in a raucous stellar breeding ground known as Gum 29, located 20,000 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Carina. Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 pierced through the dusty veil shrouding the stellar nursery in near-infrared light, giving astronomers a clear view of the nebula and the dense concentration of stars in the central cluster. The cluster measures between six light-years and 13 light-years across. [Image Credit: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), A. Nota (ESA/STScI) and the Westerlund 2 Science Team]

So we live
Atheism is not a solution to everything. You still have the same problems as you have had before. The same struggles with love and loss, with finances and your own weaknesses. It does not make you better or worse as any other human. In preparing this post I did a bit of googling and man, the demonization out there of those who do not believe is frightening. But like most of these things, it is all nonsense. Humans are humans are humans. Hate will make us all less human, less than the joyous, intrigued, virtuous creatures we can be.

We already know that the language of the cosmos is mathematics. If we are but one universe in a multiverse, mathematics would be not only the lingua franca, but also the source code. As such, each of us are a set of equations, living in a in a world of infinite sets. Living in harmony with each other and the cosmos (and the multiverse?) – now there is a goal worth striving for. Be a giant on whose shoulders other giants can place their feet.

There have been times, lately, when I dearly wished that I could change the past. Well, I can’t, but I can change the present, so that when it becomes the past it will turn out to be a past worth having.

• Terry Pratchett, I Shall Wear Midnight

• • •

And the greatest of these
I found myself late in life, well past the age of 40. It transpired that I had to wait till my mid forties before unconditional love presented itself. Regret at the lost years does not arise though. Loving someone for who they are, and being loved for who I am.

The soft bonds of love are indifferent to life and death. They hold through time so that yesterday’s love is part of today’s and the confidence in tomorrow’s love is also part of today’s. And when one dies, the memory lives in the other, and is warm and breathing. And when both die — I almost believe, rationalist though I am — that somewhere it remains, indestructible and eternal, enriching all of the universe by the mere fact that once it existed.

• Isaac Asimov, It’s been a good life

But the last words can go to the Immortal Bard, Sonnet 116:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand’ring bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me prov’d,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.

•

Kylemore, Galway, Ireland. Taken on one of the most memorable and meaningful days of my life

Reconsider Jesus – Introduction: Why Mark?

Reconsider Jesus – A fresh look at Jesus from the Gospel of Mark
A devotional commentary by Michael Spencer
Compiled and Edited by: Michael Bell
Table of Contents

Introduction: Why Mark

Out of all the books in the world, why read this one? With a hundred other activities and interests to pursue, why devote your mind to some religious text out of the Bible? How is it going to help you?

Obviously the reasons to study Mark are many, but let me suggest what persuades me. Hopefully it will persuade you as well.

The most influential person in history is also the most misunderstood and misrepresented. Two thousand years later, Jesus of Nazareth is still a mystery to most people. When your name is common enough to be both a curse-word and a word of worship, then it’s safe to say many people who talk about you are missing what you were all about. Whether you admire Jesus, worship Jesus, despise him or simply don’t know about him, you can’t deny that no single person has more continuing influence on our world than Jesus. But is there any way to get beyond the misunderstanding to a true understanding?

You could turn on a religious television or radio channel. You could listen to Christian music where people talk about Jesus. You could listen to Christians that you know –– some of them talk about Jesus all the time, even in ways that seem a lot more real than the way I talk about Jesus. What you do have to do is make sure that the Jesus you know is the Jesus of the Gospels, because the only real Jesus is the Jesus of the Gospels. The only way to know the real Jesus is to meet him in the books that are there to bring him to us.

The Gospels claim to be records of the life and words of Jesus. The Gospels themselves are tremendously misunderstood. After hundreds of years of intense study, they puzzle the experts. Neither biographies nor news reports, neither mythologies nor scientific explanations, the Gospels are records of what the first Christians believed was significant about Jesus and what must be preserved and communicated into the future. They are both records of Jesus’ life and words and records of the response of those who experienced him.

What you will discover, when you undertake to know and appreciate Jesus in the Gospels, is that he is the most surprising person you’ve ever met! Jesus doesn’t do what normal religious people do. Jesus doesn’t act like normal religious people act.

You will also find that Jesus is the most attractive person you’ve ever met. Jesus is not somebody that you can meet in the pages of the Bible and find him to be dull. He’s not. When Jesus does the things he does, and when the character and the personality of Jesus begin to come out of the pages, you will, like everybody else, say, ‘That’s somebody that I wish I could be with.’ You’ll start to understand why crowds followed him, and why people dropped their jobs and went after him.

Yet, you’ll also find that he is the most disturbing person you’ve ever met. Jesus will say things that will distress you, and things that will haunt you. Jesus will say things that will shock you, and make you uncomfortable.

You’ll find that undertaking the study of Jesus in the gospel of Mark is like going on a trip that you never anticipated: a trip where every day the itinerary is new and there’s a whole new world to see. You will find that sometimes you’re awestruck, and sometimes you’re laughing, sometimes you’re weeping, and sometimes you will feel like hiding, but it’s never, ever dull, and it’s never small. This is part of the reason why we have four gospels in the Bible. God inspired the writing of these four by these particular people to begin to give us just an introduction to this incredible person from four different perspectives. One perspective would never suffice.

So of the four gospels, why look at Mark? Well, let me give you five quick reasons:

The author of Mark was probably not the first person to write about Jesus, but he was the first to produce what we now call a gospel. We owe a lot to those who decided to finally write down the story of Jesus so that we would have it. Most of the scholars of the past 30 years accept Mark as prior to Matthew, Luke and John. It seems possible that there was a collection of oral or written stories about Jesus that may have preceded Mark, but it was the writer of this Gospel who first put the words, works and last week of Jesus’ life into a coherent whole. Matthew uses almost every verse of Mark verbatim in his Gospel, and Luke uses more than half of Mark in his Gospel. But Mark is the first, and the other Gospel writers felt he was dependable.

Mark is the closest in time to Jesus himself. Jesus was crucified in the early thirties, and the current dating of Mark in the late sixties means that, of the New Testament writers, only Paul was writing before Mark. The early church believed, and there’s good evidence to support this, that the Gospel of Mark was written by a young man named John Mark, who was the companion of the apostle Peter. John Mark wrote down the remembrances of Peter that he heard in his preaching, as well as collecting other stories and sayings of Jesus. So what we have in the Gospel of Mark is the closest, humanly, we can get to standing and hearing the voice of Jesus.

The Gospel of Mark is the rawest of the gospels. It is the most unpolished, with a lot of rough edges. The emotions of Jesus, like anger and compassion, are still found within its pages. Jesus makes surprising and shocking statements that puzzle his listeners. The Gospel of Mark has not been polished and fancied up so that it is acceptable without any questions. It gives us the real deal. One commentator¹ said that it is Mark who gives us Jesus as a character, as a whole person that we can understand as a person, and not just as an object of belief. We study Mark to take in this portrait of Jesus at the source, to get as close to Jesus as the New Testament can take us.

It is the most focused of the gospels. It is obvious that Mark wants to emphasize the crucifixion of Jesus. Everything he says in his gospel about Jesus is said in the shadow of the cross, as if Mark were standing in the Roman world saying: ‘Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life, yet all the world knows about him is that he was a crucified criminal. How can that be? What does that mean?’ The Gospel of Mark is meant to show us how Jesus Christ is the Son of God, but he’s not the Son of God in the way the Roman world thought. He’s the Son of God that came to die for sinners.

Finally, Mark is the shortest gospel. It ends, I believe, in chapter sixteen verse eight. You may not think it’s the shortest when you finally get through this book, but it is much shorter than the others!

The difference that Christianity makes in your life depends entirely on how well you know Jesus. So this is why I have undertaken the biggest assignment of my life, because what I want for you, what I want for your family, what I want for our children, and for our churches, is for us to simply know Jesus. What I want for my own life, and my own faith, and my own service, is to know Jesus.

So I’m going to ask you to immerse yourself and invest yourself in something huge and wonderful that will absolutely change you. I want you to engage with me as you read this book, but I also want you to engage day by day, and week by week in reading this gospel and the other gospels so that you become personally and deeply acquainted with this person of Jesus Christ.

Here is my prayer for us as we begin this journey together:

Father, as we begin this journey, we begin in humility. There is so much in front of us that is wonderful, but also so much that is beyond what our human minds can comprehend. Give me the ability to communicate this book of Mark in a way that is interesting and real. My prayer is that we would come to know this person Jesus who makes everything different. This person Jesus, who came for every person, of every culture, of every time, in every place. This person Jesus who who came to save the world by living a perfect life, and dying a death for every one of us. Help us to believe this good news, to be deeply changed by it, and begin to live it out. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

—————————————-

Footnotes:

[1] Michael Spencer passed away on April 5, 2010. Some of his original sources are unfortunately lost to us. If not otherwise stated or footnoted, we use the rather anonymous term of “commentator” to indicate places where the source of the original thought could not be found.

Notes from Mike Bell:
1. What questions or thoughts come from your mind from what you have just read?
2. Would you be interested in a paper or Kindle version of the book when it is available? Please email us at michaelspencersnewbook@gmail.com so that we can let you know when it is ready.
3. Find any grammar or spelling errors, phrases that are awkward or difficult to understand? Also send these type of comments to the email address above.

Reconsider Jesus – Table of Contents

Reconsider Jesus – A fresh look at Jesus from the Gospel of Mark
A devotional commentary by Michael Spencer
Compiled and Edited by: Michael Bell

Table of Contents:

Foreword and Preface
Introduction - Why Mark?
Mark 1:1	The Beginning
Mark 1:1-3	Roots
Mark 1:4-8	The Forerunner
Mark 1:9a	From Nazareth
Mark 1:9-11	The Baptism
Mark 1:12-13	The Temptation
Mark 1:14-15	The Message of the Kingdom
Mark 1:14-15	The Response
Mark 1:16-20	The Calling
Mark 1:21-28	The Teacher
Mark 1:21-28	The Exorcist
Mark 1:29-45	The Compassionate One
Mark 1:29-45	The Healer

More to come...

Links will be updated as the material is posted.

The Lost World of the Torah (2) — How ANE Laws Work

The Lost World of the Torah (2)
How ANE Laws Work

We are considering John Walton’s book, The Lost World of the Torah: Law as Covenant and Wisdom in Ancient Context. Walton is a professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College, and an editor and writer of many OT studies and commentaries, focusing attention on comparing the culture and literature of the Bible and the Ancient Near East. In this book, Walton aims to help us understand the meaning and purpose of the law material in the Torah (Genesis-Deut) in the light of its ancient context and genre.

The Torah was intended to give the king wisdom for doing his job. The Torah (like the legal lists in the ANE) embodies wisdom; it does not establish legislation. (pp. 38-39)

John Walton devotes several chapters and propositions to helping us understand the nature of law codes in the Ancient Near East. The ancient Israelites shared the “cultural river” of their time, and Walton suggests that they way they viewed “laws” was different than the way we do today. He begins by comparing one of the most famous of the ancient law codes.

The most well-known, most extensive, and the first to be found, in 1901 in excavations at Susa, is the stele that preserves 282 legal sayings embedded in a royal inscription of Hammurabi (ca. 1750 BC), hundreds of years prior to Moses. Hammurabi was a Babylonian king contemporary with Israel’s patriarchs. (p. 26)

When first found, scholars thought Hammurabi’s stele was a “law code” — a body of prescriptive legislation to be enforced within Babylonian society. But one thing soon became clear. The “laws” included were not comprehensive. There were major gaps in the content of the law, areas of legislation that would have been expected in a body of laws.

The collection of legal sayings was then reinterpreted as Hammurabi’s demonstration that he was executing justice in his kingdom—a role that the gods had appointed him to carry out and for which they held him accountable.

Given this interpretation, it became less fitting to interpret the document as codified, prescriptive legislation, but adjustments in thinking continued to occur. Scholars began to suspect that these collections were the result of the scholarly creativity of the scribes rather than solely the work of legislators ruling on cases brought before them. (p. 28)

It appears that “law codes” like that of Hammurabi were designed to provide examples of the king’s wisdom, “not to define law but to offer guidance for discerning wise justice so that order might be maintained in society” (p. 33) by those responsible for executing justice. These laws were pedagogical models, not legal statutes.

The list is not comprehensive because it is intended to circumscribe, not legislate. It provides illustrations of justice and order. As judges and magistrates absorb what it communicates, they will be better able to recognize wrongness and rightness and make decisions appropriately. Since the list is not intended to regulate or legislate, there is no need for it to be comprehensive. The items in the list provide descriptive instruction, not prescriptive legislation. (pp. 35-36)

Those who study the legal sections in the Torah come to a similar conclusion. The sections of laws therein are in no way comprehensive. My professor of Old Testament in seminary, John Sailhamer, used to remind us that the Torah is primarily a narrative, and “bags of laws” have been dropped in at certain places in service to that narrative. In other words, they are not legislation for the reader to obey, rather they are examples of the laws God gave to Israel to help readers understand the story of Israel and God’s dealings with them better.

Walton puts it this way:

[T]he legal lists in the Pentateuch are…couched literarily in narrative or in speeches (such as Moses’ sermons in Deuteronomy), as well as in what eventually became canonical books, each using the Torah to accomplish its own individual literary objectives. That means that none of these are in a literary context of legislation; they have been adopted for secondary (or even tertiary) use. (p. 39)

Furthermore, he notes that the Torah could not be used to legislate Israel’s life, otherwise they would not have needed to extrapolate from it in so much detail in additional works like the Mishnah. Furthermore, even in the Bible itself, Walton notes occasions when people and leaders made decisions and cited “laws” or known rules that are nowhere found in the text of the “Law.” And so, he concludes,

The Torah was intended to give the king wisdom for doing his job. The Torah (like the legal lists in the ANE) embodies wisdom; it does not establish legislation.” (pp. 38-39)

Israel’s judiciary system, like that throughout the ANE, was based on the wisdom of the judges, not on legislation. It involved a dynamic integration of custom, divine revelation (including oracles), and intuition, rather than static codes. The legal collections found in the Torah and other legal collections embody that wisdom by providing an aspective mosaic of sayings that manifested the sponsor’s wisdom, instructed the judges, and helped the people to understand order in society. The people are to “heed” this wisdom and “preserve” it. In this view, the expected response to the Torah is far different from a response to legislation. Legislation carries a sense of “you ought”; instruction carries a sense of “you will know.”

Consequently, we will propose that Torah in biblical usage is an expression of wisdom, not of legislation. It refers to a collection of examples that combine to form a description of the desired established order. We will be using the term to refer to the corpus of legal sayings found throughout the Pentateuch and will seek to demonstrate that these sayings embody standards of wisdom for the ordering of society within the covenant relationship that Yahweh had with Israel. (pp. 44-45)

The IM Saturday Monks Brunch: August 15, 2020

BANGKOK, THAILAND: Thai kindergarteners wear face masks as they play in screened in play areas used for social distancing at the Wat Khlong Toey School on August 10, 2020 in Bangkok, Thailand. (Lauren DeCicca/Getty Images)

The IM Saturday Monks Brunch: August 15, 2020

• • •

•

In honor of one my all-time favorite character actors (and diabetes spokepersons)…

•

Is this what the future of American religion looks like?

From RNS:

Kamala Harris filled two criteria that Joe Biden wanted in a running mate: She is a woman and she is Black, two critical Democratic constituencies ahead of the November elections.

But Harris, the 55-year-old junior senator from California, has other advantages in the 2020 presidential race. She embodies the future of American religion: In a time of expanding religious pluralism, the country’s younger generation, many of them children and grandchildren of immigrants, will recognize in Harris a kind of multifaith and spiritual belonging unfamiliar to the mostly white Christian majority of past decades.

Harris, who was born in Oakland, California, to a Jamaican immigrant father — Donald Harris — and an Indian immigrant mother — Shyamala Gopalan — is both Black and South Asian. She grew up in a home that accommodated both Christian and Hindu religious practices.

As an adult, she married Douglas Emhoff, a Jewish, Brooklyn-born lawyer.

“There are a lot more young Americans who, identity-wise, are like Kamala Harris — mixed race, with a background of lots of different cultural, ethnic and religious experiences,” said Eboo Patel, founder and president of the Interfaith Youth Core. “That’s just a demographic fact.”

•

What of college football 2020?

From Sporting News…

The 2020 college season remains uncertain because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in the United States.

COVID-19 concerns contributed to four of the 10 FBS conferences canceling their season in 2020. The Big Ten, Mid-American Conference, Mountain West Conference and Pac-12 are out. A total of 54 schools have postponed their fall football season.

That leaves 76 of the 130 schools still in. The ACC, American Athletic Conference, Big 12, Conference-USA, SEC and Sun Belt, along with a few independents, still planning on playing.

What does that mean for the college football landscape?

•

Johne Riley walks down Main Street whie showing off his chest, painted with a portrait of President Donald Trump, during the 80th Annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally on Aug. 7 in Sturgis, S.D. (Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images)

•

Nature strikes back…

From The Guardian:

A nudist bather who chased a wild boar near a Berlin lake after it stole his laptop was applauded by onlookers after a successful pursuit.

The photographer who captured the drama said the unidentified nudist was happy for her to share the images, which show him in bare-bottomed pursuit of the boar and her two piglets while fellow bathers look on in amusement.

“Nature strikes back,” wrote Adele Landauer, a personal coach, on Facebook. “I showed the man the photos, he laughed heartily and gave me permission to make them public.”

The man was sunbathing naked at the Teufelssee in west Berlin, a popular and perfectly legal practice in the German capital as part of what is known as FKK, or Freikörperkultur (free body culture).

•

Now here’s where people have every right to fear the government…

From Reuters:

HONG KONG – Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai became the highest-profile person arrested under a new national security law on Monday, detained over suspected collusion with foreign forces as around 200 police searched the offices of his Apple Daily newspaper.

…His arrest comes amid Beijing’s crackdown against pro-democracy opposition in the city and further stokes concerns about media and other promised freedoms when it returned to China in 1997. China imposed the sweeping new security law on Hong Kong on June 30, drawing condemnation from Western countries.

…Apple Daily posted on its Facebook page a livestream of police officers roaming through its newsroom and rifling through files, and asking staff for identity documents.

Some executive offices were sealed off with red cordons. The police later wheeled in stacks of empty plastic containers. Lai himself was brought back to the office, initially in handcuffs.

“We can’t worry that much, we can only go with the flow,” Lai said, before being escorted into a police vehicle.

Police said around 200 officers entered the premises with a court warrant and collected 25 boxes of evidence after finishing the search. The law allows police to search premises without one “under exceptional circumstances”.

•

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris arrive for their first joint appearance as a presidential ticket in Wilmington, Del., on Aug. 12. (Olivier Douliery/AFP – Getty Images)

•

MLB Play(s) of the Week…

Three in one game!!!

•

Mr. Q goes to Washington…

A supporters takes photos with construction executive Marjorie Taylor Greene, late Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2020, in Rome, Ga. Greene, criticized for promoting racist videos and supporting the far-right QAnon conspiracy theory, won the GOP nomination for northwest Georgia’s 14th Congressional District. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

QAnon is an online movement fueled by an anonymous poster (“Q”) that subscribes to a baseless, shameless conspiracy theory. It alleges there is a “deep state” run by political elites, business and cultural leaders, and Hollywood celebrities that are engaged, in cooperation with governments around the world, in a worldwide child sex-trafficking ring and are working tirelessly to bring down President Trump.

If that sounds like kooky and idiotic fringe thinking to you, well, it is. Well, then again, maybe it isn’t.

This week, QAnon supporter Marjorie Taylor Greene won a Republican primary runoff election in Georgia. She will likely end up in Congress. According to research done by Politico, Greene has:

…suggested that Muslims do not belong in government; thinks black people “are held slaves to the Democratic Party”; called George Soros, a Jewish Democratic megadonor, a Nazi; and said she would feel “proud” to see a Confederate monument if she were black because it symbolizes progress made since the Civil War.

…In recordings obtained by POLITICO, Greene described Islamic nations under Sharia law as places where men have sex with “little boys, little girls, multiple women” and “marry their sisters” and “their cousins.” She suggested the 2018 midterms — which ushered in the most diverse class of House freshmen — was part of “an Islamic invasion of our government” and that “anyone that is a Muslim that believes in Sharia law does not belong in our government.”

In other videos, she directly compared Black Lives Matter activists to the neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan members who marched at a white nationalist rally three years agoin Charlottesville, Va., denouncing them all as “idiots.” And Greene forcefully rejected the notion there are racial disparities in the U.S. or that skin color affects the “quality” of one’s life: “Guess what? Slavery is over,” she said. “Black people have equal rights.”

In a tweet congratulating Greene for her victory, the president called her “a rising star in the Republican party,” even though many Republicans have condemned her rants and have tried to distance themselves from her. A recent story in the Washington Post describes how the Trump campaign has been actively courting and legitimizing this band of crazies. Another WaPo piece observes that:

So far this election cycle, more than 50 supporters of the conspiracy theory have run or are running for national office. Most QAnon-supporting candidates are unlikely to win. But several have attracted supporters — even though they are endorsing a conspiracy theory that the FBI considers a domestic threat and that has spurred alleged acts of terrorism and violence.

•

And now, let’s hear from the Christian conspiracy theorists…

From WTMJ, Milwaukee:

BROOKFIELD, Wis. — The Elmbrook School District will reopen five days a week to in-person learning. The decision came after three and a half hours of discussions by school board members.

Along with returning to in-person learning, the board also made a decision on requiring students to wear masks. However, not everyone liked that idea.

“Six-foot distance and wearing masks are pagan rituals of satanic worshipers,” said parent Heidi Anderson. “My kids are Christian they are not subject to wearing masks.”

•

Canary in the coal mine…

A fishing vessel sails in the ice fjord near Ilulissat, Greenland September 12, 2017. Picture taken September 12, 2017. (REUTERS/Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen)

From Reuters:

Greenland’s ice sheet may have shrunk past the point of return, with the ice likely to melt away no matter how quickly the world reduces climate-warming emissions, new research suggests.

Scientists studied data on 234 glaciers across the Arctic territory spanning 34 years through 2018 and found that annual snowfall was no longer enough to replenish glaciers of the snow and ice being lost to summertime melting.

That melting is already causing global seas to rise about a millimeter on average per year. If all of Greenland’s ice goes, the water released would push sea levels up by an average of 6 meters — enough to swamp many coastal cities around the world. This process, however, would take decades.

“Greenland is going to be the canary in the coal mine, and the canary is already pretty much dead at this point,” said glaciologist Ian Howat at Ohio State University.

…“We are still draining more ice now than what was gained through snow accumulation in ‘good’ years,” said lead author Michalea King, a glaciologist at Ohio State University.

The sobering findings should spur governments to prepare for sea-level rise, King said.

“Things that happen in the polar regions don’t stay in the polar region,” she said.

•

Music, the elixir of life…

Please, take time to breathe deeply and let this generous gift of music soothe your spirit today.

Reconsider Jesus – A fresh look at Jesus from Gospel of Mark

Today marks a radical departure in my writing for Internet Monk.

One of my greatest desires over the last ten years has been to bring Michael Spencer’s study of the Gospel of Mark into the hands of his readers. While I have had some initial starts on it over the past decade, the time has come to focus my attention and bring it to its conclusion. Each Monday and Friday for the next number of months I will be bringing a mini-chapter from Michael’s Devotional commentary to the pages of Internet Monk. There are approximately eighty mini-chapters in total. The hope/plan is to be able to have completed the first half of them by Christmas of this year as Volume 1: Mark 1 – 8. We will be seeking a publisher for this, so that we can get properly printed copies into your hands or the hands of your friends and family.

Here is what I would like you to do:

1. Interact with the weekly material.
What questions does the material prompt in your brain?
What questions would you put into a study guide?
What is unclear and needs further editing or clarification?
Can you find any grammatical or spelling errors?

2. Promote the series.
Let others know that there is a great book out there to be read.
I will create a website where you can express your initial interest in receiving a published copy and where you will be able to eventually be able to buy the book.
For now, expression of interest can be sent to: michaelspencersnewbook@gmail.com

Let’s jump right in. I will do my best to answer any questions or comments as they arise.

Foreword

When Michael Spencer passed away in the spring of 2010, there was a consensus among the many readers of his popular blog that he was just hitting his stride as a writer. Michael’s life’s desire was to know Jesus better. The tool that he used more than any other to accomplish that task was his study of the Gospel of Mark. Through scouring Internet archive sources, and through the assistance of his wife, Denise, I was able to find the following source material originally composed by Michael Spencer:

Thirty five written Bible studies covering Mark 1-8
Twenty seven hours of audio Bible studies covering most of Mark
Five sermons covering portions of Mark 9, 10, and 13
Fifty blog posts referencing significant sections of Mark.

When all was gathered, transcribed, and collated, I ended up with about 800 pages of material. Massaging and editing this material into what you see in front of you was a monumental task. Michael really varied his writing style and content depending upon his audience. A sermon to a rural Kentucky church reads quite differently from a blog posting on internetmonk.com. To bring it together into one cohesive whole has been a challenge, but one that I felt I needed to take on.

The voice that you will hear as you read this book will be overwhelmingly that of Michael Spencer. When you read the word “I”, it is Michael Spencer who is speaking in the first person. I have done my very best to not project my own thoughts and ideas into the text. Although we were able to gather so much source material, there were still some outstanding gaps. The most significant of these were the latter half of Mark 13, and most of Mark 16. I have filled in these gaps in as best I could, while aiming to be consistent with Michael’s teachings on the rest of Mark.

The book you are about to read is best described as a devotional commentary. I have merged Michael’s folksy spoken material with his more formal written style to produce something that I hope is both meaningful and easy to read. If you are interested in learning more about Jesus, but have been turned off by the words and actions of others, this may be just the book you are looking for.

In April of 2009, Michael Spencer welcomed me on board Internet Monk as his “co-pilot” and “first officer.” Through the completion of this book I am glad that I have been able to continue in this role, and bring his life’s project in for a safe landing.

Michael Bell

Preface

In 1982, I returned to seminary and took a job as youth minister at a church near the seminary. Because of some of my studies in seminary that semester, and because of an encouragement to make one book a life’s project, I determined to make my life’s project the Gospel According to St. Mark.

At the time, many years ago, it seemed like many other resolutions that I made but probably wouldn’t keep. Surprisingly, I have kept that resolution, much to the chagrin of all those around me who have come to hear far more sermons, lessons and talks from Mark than any other Gospel, and especially to the regret of my Bible students, who have come to view my annual trek through Mark as the great mountain to be climbed in my Bible survey class.

This began with seeds planted by Dr. G.R. Beasley-Murray’s introduction to the New Testament, and Dr. David Garland’s class on the Gospels. It continued in my own studies of the New Testament and building an extensive library on Jesus studies, particularly regarding the literary aspects of the Gospel of Mark.

In my ministry, this turned into something I love to do: Cover the entire Gospel of Mark in the setting of a retreat or 3 sessions. A large part of this is asking everyone to read Mark and then, working with a group, graphically present the Gospel of Mark. I’ve now led studies of the Gospel of Mark dozens and dozens of times. I go through the book 3-4 times a year with my students, and have done so for 15 years. I’ve concentrated on Mark in my preaching and teaching. I can be annoying about my interest in Mark, but I hope it’s been helpful to my students and congregations.

This was in real contrast to my own church experience. The Gospels were never addressed as texts other than to say “The Bible says” or to preach from various verse combinations. Obviously we sang about, taught about and preached about Jesus, but little of this was rooted in the Gospels. Most of what we believed and preached were expansions and exaggerations based on Paul.

I believe Paul accurately (and in an inspired way) taught the same Christ and the same message that the Gospels present. (Many of his books were in fact written before the Gospels.) But I believe the Gospels have a specific intention in regard to Jesus himself, and especially his ministry, that Paul does not have. If we want to be intentional about understanding or following Jesus, then the place to start is not with the writings of Paul, but with the first book that was written about the life of Jesus, the Gospel of Mark. We will begin this journey by asking the question, “Why Study Mark?”

Michael Spencer – May 17, 2009.

Is Genesis History?

Is Genesis History?

On the August 4^th BioLogos Forum, commentator “o9rady” gives a lengthy defense of the 2017 movie “Is Genesis History” and a lengthy critique of the BioLogos response to that movie, “A Geological Response to the Movie “Is Genesis History?”. From the Wikipedia entry on the movie:

The film was written, directed, and produced by Thomas Purifoy Jr., who said he was inspired to make it after his daughter watched the Bill Nye–Ken Ham debate in 2014 and began asking him questions about the creation–evolution controversy. Del Tackett, the creator of Focus on the Family’s “The Truth Project”, narrates the film. Interviewing thirteen creationists, the narrator of the film argues that Genesis portrays real historical events.

I have not seen the movie, but by all accounts, it is a well-produced, well-filmed, and the cinematography is excellent, with creative artwork at each transition, beautiful landscapes, and technical prowess. The movie is probably the single most compellingly presented argument for the Young Earth Creationist (YEC) viewpoint of earth history. I won’t use the term “propaganda” because I believe that term implies a willingness on the advocate’s part to knowingly deceive the target public. I don’t believe Del Tackett et al are trying to deceive—they are, in fact, true believers of what they present.

Although commentator “o9rady” tries to pass off his remarks as irenic, and ends his comment with, “Y’all have a great day and I hope that you don’t take my little post in the wrong light. I love you, I really do”, his comment really implies bad faith on the part of the BioLogos response. Which I totally understand. If I read the “A Geological Response to the Movie “Is Genesis History?” as a YEC I would likely feel there is a condescending tone. And there kind of is—because the BioLogos responders don’t take the YEC argument seriously—and that is offensive to the YEC.

If you read into the August 4^th Forum, you can see several BioLogos responders try to interact with “o9rady” in a tone of reasoned response. To which “o9rady” keeps shoveling out the YEC rhetoric which he thinks is “scientific” and purports to present himself as a “math guy” who understands all too well the science of evolution, DNA, and so forth—as if the BioLogos responders were all high-schoolers and not the credentialed experts they are.

Finally, Moderator Christy Hemphill gives “o9rady” a point by point response, which sails right over his head. It’s all a distressingly familiar exercise in frustration. So why do you keep at it, Mike? The film spends most of its time in the Grand Canyon trying to make the case that the formation of that feature, from initial deposition to final form, has its only reasonable explanation as a “catastrophic flood”. The Grand Canyon is a well-known feature of the American landscape—practically iconic. So my problem is well expressed in this quote from “A Geological Response to the Movie “Is Genesis History?” –

This film will undoubtedly make its way into church libraries, homeschooling and Christian school curriculums, and youth group movie nights, convincing Christian youth that they can safely reject “secular” notions of deep time and evolution. When they go to college or start investigating the evidence themselves and discover they have been misled, the natural tendency is to assume that it is Christianity itself that has failed them. Unbelieving seekers who see this film will likewise be confronted with the confounding association of the truth of Christ with massive misrepresentations about natural history. An enormous stumbling block to faith is laid at the feet of these poor souls, standing between them and the cross.

I did a series blogging through the book, The Grand Canyon, Monument to an Ancient Earth: Can Noah’s Flood Explain the Grand Canyon? By Gregg Davidson, Joel Duff, David Elliott, Tim Helble, Carol Hill, Stephen Moshier, Wayne Ranney, Ralph Stearley, Bryan Tapp, Roger Wiens, and Ken Wolgemuth. That book conclusively and in great detail lays to rest the YEC argument for the Grand Canyon’s formation. I’m not going to recount all the evidence, read my series, or better yet, buy the book. You can get a nice capsule summary in the BioLogos article, ““A Geological Response to the Movie “Is Genesis History?”

Christians who are scientists have a responsibility and a duty to remove the enormous stumbling block to faith that is laid at the feet of these poor souls, standing between them and the cross, by the movie “Is Genesis History”. As the book that I based the series on put it — the Grand Canyon is a monument to an ancient earth. As Joel Duff, one of the author’s said in the introduction about the need to propagate this truth among Christians (particularly evangelicals):

“I believe that there is such a need because there is an audience which needs to hear the testimony of the Grand Canyon: much of the modern Christian church. That audience has different concerns than many that peer into the canyon. The Grand Canyon forces Christians to confront questions of the age of the Earth and biblical authority…”

And as the “A Geological Response to the Movie “Is Genesis History?” article concludes:

We long for the day when the church will realize that the gospel and the authority of Scripture do not need to be propped up with convoluted arguments and misrepresentations of the natural world. When nature is allowed to proclaim its message without preconceived notions of its history, it declares the glory of God just fine (Ps 19:1, Rom 1:20).

The Lost World of the Torah (1) — Introduction

The Lost World of the Torah (1)
Introduction

Though [it] is a popular view, we will contend, in contrast, that Scripture is not a body of information containing propositions that are always valid in all places and times. Instead, we will find much greater need to resist the thinking that there is a divinely inspired silver bullet to resolve the complicated questions we face. (pp. 4-5)

We begin today to examine John Walton’s book, The Lost World of the Torah: Law as Covenant and Wisdom in Ancient Context. Walton is a professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College, and an editor and writer of many OT studies and commentaries, focusing attention on comparing the culture and literature of the Bible and the ancient Near East.

In this book, Walton aims to help us understand the meaning and purpose of the law material in the Torah (Genesis-Deut) in the light of its ancient context and genre. He outlines a fundamental finding that will be explored throughout the book.

At the core of this book is the understanding that the ancient world was more interested in order than in legislation per se, and authorities were not inclined to make what we call laws (though decrees are commonplace) to regulate everyday life in society. Instead of relying on legislation (a formal body of written law enacted by an authority), order was achieved through the wisdom of those who governed society. (p. 5)

In brief, the Torah was not intended to be legislation. If this is true, we must not read it as such. But then, how then should we approach these texts?

Walton’s first proposition is: The Bible is an ancient document. We must not read it through modern Western eyes but recognize that there are ancient cultural perspectives embedded in these passages that are often difficult for us to grasp.

Like all people, we live in “cultural rivers” whose features and currents are more familiar to us, while the landscapes of those who lived long ago look like strange lands. In the Ancient Near East those landscapes contained such features as “community identity, the comprehensive and ubiquitous control of the gods, the role of kingship, divination, the centrality of the temple, the mediatory role of images, the effectual and essential role of sacrifice, and the reality of the spirit world and magic” (p. 11). The understanding reader must make an effort to make his mind and eyes adjust to the unfamiliar features of that world and culture if he wants to grasp what the literature is trying to say and do. God’s “word” comes encased in challenging packages.

Modern Bible readers need cultural brokers who can move beyond the translation of the ancient legal sayings of the Torah (e.g., Deut 22:11: “Do not wear clothes of wool and linen woven together”) to offer an explanation of the thinking behind those sayings (why would wearing such clothes of mixed materials have been a problem in the ancient world?). A cultural broker helps build bridges between people of different cultural backgrounds in order to facilitate communication. The resulting negotiation could involve spoken words, terminology, or texts. A cultural broker must understand the values and beliefs of both cultures and be willing and able to bridge the given cultures’ belief systems. This interpretive approach works on the primary assumption that various cultures do not simply have different words for the same basic ideas; they have fundamentally different ideas that they use their words to convey, and those words often have only a superficial similarity to the words another culture might use. (p. 13)

The problem, John Walton remind us, is that “we are naturally inclined to read the biblical text intuitively. When we do so, we unconsciously impose our own cultural ideas on the text. We cannot help but do so—no reading is culturally neutral” (p. 14).

Furthermore, we must recognize that texts are written with intention, for a purpose. They are meant to achieve something in the lives of its readers. Communication attempts to accomplish something, even if it is as simple as passing on information. It also intends to evoke a response, even if it as simple as making the reader more knowledgeable of that information. In the case of Torah, if we presume that these texts are “laws” in the sense that we understand legal statutes in our time and culture, then we will discern a certain intention behind them and view them as commands to be obeyed and/or strictures set down to order society.

However, what if the ancient Israelites had a different view of “laws” and what they were meant to accomplish for individuals and communities?

Tuesday Open Forum — Plus…

Tuesday Open Forum

We were having some site problems last night and I was on the phone with tech support until long after midnight, so today’s post ain’t gonna happen as planned, folks.

Many apologies.

On the other hand, this will give you a chance to have an open conversation today.

Make good, healthy, and wise use of your freedom.
Exercise it in love and consideration for others.
Try not to dominate any given discussion.
I know the world is preoccupied with a few topics these days — I’d love it if some of you would lead the way into helping us explore some other areas of interest and conversation.
See you tomorrow with a new post.

PLUS…

Some hot Latin music to energize you in the dog days, courtesy of Rodrigo y Gabriela…

Rights, Risks, Regulations, and Responsibilities

This week I am following up on my post “You Are Killing Me!“

As I turn right out of my driveway, and approach the end of the block, there is a large red octagonal sign which displays the letters “STOP”. If I turn right at that point and proceed another block, there is an intersection with another road. There is a light suspended above the center of the road that cycles between the colours of Green, Yellow, and Red. Proceeding across the intersecting road I immediately see a rectangular sign that displays the word “MAXIMUM”, the number “40”, and a series of symbols “km/h”. Just past the third sign is the entrance to my children’s elementary school.

We would of course recognize these as a stop sign, a traffic light, and a speed limit sign. The third might require a little translation for some, as might the first if I lived one province to the east.

What these signs do illustrate is the relationships between rights, risks, and responsibilities.

The signs are there because of competing rights. What do I mean by that?

Going way, way back, I remember my grade 11 Law course teacher, Mr. Thorne, teaching us about rights. “In general”, he said, “you have the right to do whatever you want. And that right ends and the end of someone else’s nose.”

That comment has stuck with me through this 40 years. I have the right to do whatever I want until it impacts someone else. At that point my freedom to enjoy that right absolutely, ends.

The problem comes when my right to do something conflicts with your right to do something.This is known as “competing rights.”

Let us imagine for a moment that the signs and traffic light did not exist.

Let us also assume for the moment that driving a car is a right. (We will avoid the right versus privilege debate for now, although that ties into the discussion.)

You have the right to drive your car. You need it to get to work.

My child has the right to an education. He does not have a car and so he walks. He has the right to arrive at his school alive.

We have a potential collision of rights at that intersection, not to mention a potential collision of child with car.

The right of the driver to drive to work unencumbered comes in conflict with the right of the child to arrive at school alive.

This is where the concept of “the greater good” comes in. When you have conflicting rights, they have to be weighed up against each other to determine which is of higher value.

In this case here, it was long ago determined that the driver’s right is superseded by the child’s right, and so regulations and restrictions were put into place to mitigate the risk that the child’s rights might be breached.

Libby Jones wrote this creative post back in May. You can see how it start to tie back into last week’s post.

“This is a new invention, it’s called a traffic light. When it’s green, you can drive through it. When it’s red, you have to stop and wait for it to turn green.”

“Sounds like the government thinks it knows more than I do about how to drive my own car!”

“Well, people are dying in intersections. At a very sad rate. And getting hurt pretty badly, too. And this is something pretty easy we can all do together to keep people from dying and getting hurt.”

“But I haven’t died in this intersection. And I actually don’t know anyone else who’s died here either. You sure people aren’t maybe, like, falling off their roofs and you’re just saying they died in this intersection? To make us scared so you can control us?”

“People are definitely dying in this very intersection. But just look at the light, and go when it’s green. Stop when it’s red. We’ll add a yellow one so you know when it’s about to turn red.”

“But if I have to stop when it’s red, I won’t get where I’m going as fast. Sounds like you’re infringing on my freedom. Sounds like you don’t want me to get to work to earn a living and you want me to rely on the government for everything.”

“That’s….no. No one wants that. Look, we know no one’s going to like stopping at the red light. It’s going to be a small inconvenience for everyone. But again, if we all do this perfectly, together, we can keep people from dying in this intersection.”

“Well if people are so scared of this intersection, maybe they should just walk! Leave the cars to those of us who don’t want to live in fear!”

“That’s the thing – many of the people dying *are* pedestrians.”

“Look, how about if someone wants to stop at the light they can, but if someone else doesn’t want to stop, they don’t have to. It should be my choice. This is a free country, you know.”

“Again, this will work if everyone does it together. Just one person doing whatever they want has the potential to kill other people.”

“Just one person doing whatever they want has the potential to kill other people.”

That is what I was getting at last week. The significant number for the spread of Covid-19 is the reproduction (R) value. In short it is the number of people on average that each infected person in turn infects. “The reproduction number is not fixed. Instead, it changes as our behaviour changes, or as immunity develops.” The number has to be below one to stop the increasing spread of the virus. In hindsight, here is what it looked like in the U.K. as measures were taken to control the virus. (Modelling courtesy of Mathematical modelers at the Imperial College of London.)

Clearly there were a number of actions taken over a short period of time that resulted in a dramatic drop in the R value. We can’t really judge the individaul results of each of those actions in this case as they were taken very hastily to combat a very bad situation.

Looking back at the discussion of rights: If your actions impact other people, including their right to life, then we have a competing right. In those circumstances, regulations are quite reasonable. We put in stop signs, and traffic lights, and speed limits to reduce deaths on the road. It is reasonable to do the same to reduce deaths due to Covid-19. Has there been overreach? Sure. The more we learn, the more we can get it right.

What about risk?

Justin made the comment last week:

… We fool ourselves to think we can control any of it. Covid makes the number of threats reach 1000+1. I check off several of the high-risk factors myself, so the number soars to 1007.

No one is killing anyone else…

This is where I disagree with Justin. Covid-19 does not have a fixed R value. It does not take us from 1000 to 1001. It rises and falls with our actions. The number of people dying from Covid-19 is totally controllable. Look at the graph from the U.K. above.

Those who ignore, skirt, or flaunt those regulations, are like those who run red lights, or speed through school zones, or might I add drive drunk. They increase the risk to those around them. They increase the deaths around them.

I have long felt that driving under the influence should warrant a much more severe penalty. It is like playing Russian Roulette every time you get behind the wheel. Maybe you won’t kill a pedestrian this time… or maybe you will.

I agree with Justin that I face risks every day. But I reject his contention that those risks are unavoidable and uncontrollable. The data shows that when it comes to Covid-19 that simply isn’t true.

And that brings me to my fourth word: Responsibility.

Being a member of a society involves responsibility. Being responsible to follow traffic guidelines and drive safely. Being responsible not to drive drunk. And doing your best to not spread Covid-19 to others.

My wife tells of one speaker she heard on a radio show who was commenting on a crowded Toronto park: “I would love to go to the park. But I have a nice back yard. So while I have every right to go to the park, there are others who don’t have a nice back yard, and I would like to give them the ability to enjoy the park without my extra presence.” This is acting responsibly. I would encourage us not only to obey the letter of the regulations at this time, but where we are able, to go above and beyond. There are lives (including mine) that depend upon it.