The Dawn Treader

I had the opportunity to take a job as a part time teacher in a Christian High School this past spring.  I taught Christian apologetics to thirteen seniors, all of whom were suffering with a bad case of senioritis.

We just returned from Lookout Mountain, TN.  This weekend was pre-orientation at Covenant College.  It was an opportunity for incoming college freshmen to beat the opening day rush at college and get some things done early (get the Scots card, register for classes, meet the roommate, meet the adviser, get registered for work study etc etc).

For parents it was an opportunity to gain perspective on this thing called the college years.

College has frankly been a shock to my system.

The cost of college is beyond staggering when you have four kids bound for private Christian education at institutions with small endowments and few scholarships.  Paying for college looks close to impossible.  In my darker moments, I have questioned all of my convictions and wondered what in the world I am embarking on.

So how does one keep from freaking out?

Various people have tried to encourage me.  I have heard things like "focus on one semester at a time."  "Don't do the math (four kids x four years)."  "We could not afford it either, but God provided."  "You get more help when your second kid is enrolled."

None of these things have helped.  Here is what has helped me keep my sanity.

When I remain focused on the purpose of college and keep my eyes fixed on the overall goal, then the joy is not sucked out of life.  In fact, I can actually enjoy this experience ... even as I sign on for ten year Parent plus loans!

So what is the purpose?

College is about equipping minds and shaping souls to grow in wisdom.  These years are about transitions.  My kid is transitioning to adulthood.  I am transitioning from parenting a high schooler to parenting an adult.  I am entrusting others to come alongside my wife and I to mentor my kids in how to discern truth from falsehood and walk in the way of wisdom.  College is about learning how to look at and understand reality.  Are job skills a part of that reality?  Yes, but they are only a part.  Job skills are part of learning about your calling and responding to that calling.  While that is no doubt important, I am far more interested in the development of their souls during these transition years.

Are there cheaper options out there?

Absolutely.   State schools in Virginia are far cheaper than private college in Georgia at a school with little endowment and few scholarships.  I get that.  If job skills were the whole purpose of college, I would happily send my kid to some cheap state school to get a degree.

However, I don't want to entrust the shaping of the souls of my kids to someone who holds a false view of reality no matter how cheap it is.  The thought of paying someone to teach my kid a false way of thinking is completely ludicrous.  I could not do it.

Will my convictions mean that I could possibly be paying off school loans until I am 76?  Yes, it could.

And it is worth every penny.

Suppose A says, "No Scotsman puts sugar in his porridge." B replies, "But my uncle Angus puts sugar in his porridge." A responds, "Your Uncle Angus is no true Scotsman!"

The argument above illustrates something called the No True Scotsman fallacy.  It has long interested me.  I posted on it in 2005 at the Cadre Comments.

Is it a fallacy or not?

It is a form of circular reasoning that makes the underlying belief unfalsifiable.

The problem arises when one defines a term or a group by some specific trait or belief.  When a counter-example is supplied to refute the definition, then the trap is set.  Rather than withdrawing or revising the definition, the apologist dismisses the counter-example as a false counter-example.  The effect is to make his position unfalsifiable.  All counter-examples are explained away.   However, the effect is to make the underlying belief look less and less credible and more of a tautology.

I am not convinced this is a new fallacy.  I think it is just a clever title for describing an example of circular reasoning.  Fallacy or not, it exposes a flaw that can be avoided.

We get into trouble when we overuse labels.

For example, the label "Christian" has become so broad that is becoming less and less meaningful.

Polls supposedly show that something like tw0-thirds to three-quarters of American claim to be Christian.  But what exactly does the term Christian mean?

Are the Hutaree Militia truly Christian militia, for example?

It seems to me that the way to avoid this trap is to either to avoid labels, or carefully define them.

In the case of Christianity or Christians, I think it is wiser to talk in terms of the content of the teaching of the Bible rather than resort to descriptions or labels like "true" Christian or "authentic" Christianity.

Rather than saying "no true Christian" would think or do such and such, we should point out how beliefs or behavior is inconsistent with the teaching of Christ.

I know it is easier said than done.  I realize it is difficult to avoid labels.  Labels are shortcuts, and shortcuts make life easier.

I would be interested in hearing your ideas.

"Could we be on the verge of a revolution of the type we saw in physics a century ago? The world's largest experiment into the fundamental forces of nature has begun in silent pursuit of the answers to some of the most esoteric questions of science, hitherto addressed by spirituality and philosophy. "

~ DK Matai, Chairman, Asymmetric Threats Contingency Alliance (ATCA) & The Philanthropia

The Large Hadron Collidor (LHC) in Europe has a lot of physicists in a tizzy these days.

I found two nice web sites that explain what the LHC is and why physicists would spend billions to crash proton beams into each other.  Both sites also discuss the poorly named God particle, otherwise known as the Higgs boson.

This elusive subatomic particle has been theorized but never observed.  If it exists, it only exists for a fraction of a second before decaying into other particles.

Basically the idea is to recreate the conditions shortly after the Big Bang and see if some of the missing puzzle pieces of standard physics can be filled in.

The God particle has no religious significance.  It is good at grabbing headlines, but I cannot find any philosophical or spiritual meaning to this thing.  Oh well.

I predict that one of the outcomes of this experimentation is that we will discover that the constants of nature are even more finely tuned than we imagined.

I am particularly interested in seeing if the LHC sheds any light on string theory.  String theory is a contender to help explain in a consistent way the physics we observe on a large scale and the physics we observe in the quantum world.  Right now, standard physics produces some anomalies when the physics of the very large (i.e. relativity) is applied to the physics of the very small (quantum mechanics).  No one knows why.

If string theory turns out to be true, then one of the predictions of the string theory is that the universe is 10 dimensional versus 4 dimensional.  This has spiritual significance, in my opinion.  It dovetails nicely with the extra-dimensionality expressed in various places of the Bible (e.g. the expression "before time").

Ostensibly the LHC has the potential to create high-energy environments that would possibly enable particles to jump in and out of the extra six dimensions predicted by string theory.

That would be an exciting find.

Take a good long look at it. Stare at the dot for any length of time and then try to convince yourself that God created the whole Universe for one of the 10 million or so species of life that inhabit that speck of dust. Now take it a step further: Imagine that everything was made just for a single shade of that species, or gender, or ethnic or religious subdivision. If this doesn't strike you as unlikely, pick another dot. Imagine it to be inhabited by a different form of intelligent life. They, too, cherish the notion of a God who has created everything for their benefit. How seriously do you take their claim?

~ Ann Druyan, widow of Carl Sagan.

I love this photograph taken by Voyager 1 twenty years ago when it was 4 billion miles from earth.  Earth is that beautiful, exquisite pale blue dot.

To answer Ann Druyan's question, I would take their claim no more or no less seriously than I take any of her claims.  If I fail to take a claim seriously, by the way, does that make it false?

Two questions follow from any claim.  Is it true?  How do you know?

Whether Ann or myself take a claim seriously is irrelevant to the truthfulness of the claim.  So is the likelihood of the claim.

In fact, it is unlikely that out of billions of earth's inhabitants, and the billions of things they could be doing, that any of them would be reading this blog post right now.  Yet, here you are.

Let's be honest.  There are far more unlikely things that have happened than that.  Unlikely things can and do happen.  Just because they were unlikely, it does not follow that they did not happen.

While we are at it, from 4 billion miles away, Ann or any of us appear as a speck.  Does the fact that she appears as a speck of dust mean her claims or my claims are false?  Or, that we ought not take them seriously?