Mathew 3:13-4:11
no beer 'til April 25th, and so...
The Father declared Jesus the Beloved at his baptism. But rather than using the divine display of approval as a launchpad for inaugurating the Kingdom of God, given the excitement generated amongst the people not only by the mind-bending trinitarian theophany but also the ministry of John the Baptist, Jesus follows the Spirit's guidance into the wilderness, into fasting, wandering, prayer, and temptation. The narrative is bookended with God's word- the divine blessing and approval followed by the recollection of scripture in the wilderness.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Sunday, March 6, 2011
There is no random
This blog has been silent for a few months as I've been busy grinding out yet another term at ye old G of U. I've decided to revive it for at least one post. Politics? ... no. God? ... kinda but not really. Math? Hellz yeah! Below, is the result of a simple probability experiment.
The probability space consisted of two games of Settlers of Catan. The first, with our good friends Gerry, Ryann, Aaron, and Megan, was played Friday night. The second, with family, Jim, Madelyn, Marjorie, and Eric, was played Saturday afternoon. For those who don't know, Settlers is a board game with a dice-rolling component. Like other games involving dice, your success in Settlers is largely dependent on the roll of the die. Which brings us to the trials, which were the outcomes of the roll of two dice. These were meticulously recorded on sticky notes, likely to the mild consternation of friends and family. Below is the MATLAB code I wrote to process the data and generate meaningful results.
Conclusions:
1. For game 1, and game 2, note the deviant 9s and 11s, respectively. Each in their own game had a large part in me not winning... or so I tell myself.
2. Notice how, for the sum of the two games, the dice rolls are already beginning to converge on the normal distribution. That is, the deviation decreases for increasing numbers of trials.
Enjoy!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
% Random data vectors collected from the dice rolls of two separate games
% of Settlers
dataVec1 = [ 8 6 6 8 8 6 3 7 4 9 6 10 5 4 11 10 10 9 4 9 3 7 9 ...
4 7 5 9 5 9 7 4 3 4 2 5 9 7 6 8 9 3 6 9 10 2 2];
dataVec2 = [ 6 8 4 8 12 10 5 5 4 11 7 11 7 10 11 6 3 6 7 6 6 6 ...
8 3 5 11 7 4 7 6 7 6 11 12 10 11 8 4 4 7 6 3 7 7 6 ...
5 4 4 8 11 6 9 5 9 11 3 8 8 11 7 7 11 5 7 6];
%The range of valid results. That is, dice rolls can only sum to
%values between 2 and 12
range = 2:12;
%Psuedorandom data generated to simulate normal distribution over
%a miilions dice rolls.
bigNum = 10^6;
die1 = randi(6, 1, bigNum); %die1 is a vector of length bigNum
die2 = randi(6, 1, bigNum); %containing values between 1 and 6
randVec = die1 + die2;
%the normal distribution vector
distNorm = histc(randVec,range)/length(randVec);
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%the distribution corresponding to game 1
%the distribution vector for game 1
dist1 =histc(dataVec1,range)/length(dataVec1);
% the distribution deviation vector
dist_dev = -abs(dist1 - distNorm);
% the matrix whose columns are distribution vectors
dist_matrix = 100.*transpose([dist1 ; distNorm; dist_dev]);
% bar graph
bar(range, dist_matrix );
% instructions for format
title('Probability Distribution of Dice Rolls');
xlabel('value of the roll');
ylabel('resultant probability associated with given roll, as a %');
leg1 = 'distribution for game 1';
leg2 = 'Normal distribution- based on one-million psuedo-random rolls';
leg3 = 'deviation value';
legend(leg1, leg2, leg3, 'Location', 'SouthOutside'); grid; pause;
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%the distribution corresponding to game 2
dist2 = histc(dataVec2,range)/length(dataVec2);
dist_dev = -abs(dist2 - distNorm);
dist_matrix = 100.*transpose([dist2 ; distNorm; dist_dev]);
bar(range, dist_matrix );
% plot format
title('Probability Distribution of Dice Rolls');
xlabel('value of the roll');
ylabel('resultant probability associated with given roll, as a %');
leg1 = 'distribution for game 2';
leg2 = 'Normal distribution- based on one-million psuedo-random rolls';
leg3 = 'deviation value';
legend(leg1, leg2, leg3, 'Location', 'SouthOutside'); grid; pause;
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%the distribution corresponding to the sum of games 1 & 2
%concatenate data from both games
dataSum = (horzcat(dataVec1, dataVec2));
distSum = histc(dataSum,range)/length(dataSum);
dist_dev = -abs(distSum - distNorm);
dist_matrix = 100.*transpose([distSum ; distNorm; dist_dev]);
bar(range, dist_matrix );
title('Probability Distribution of Dice Rolls');
xlabel('value of the roll');
ylabel('resultant probability associated with given roll, as a %');
leg1 = 'distribution for sum of games 1 & 2';
leg2 = 'Normal distribution- based on one-million psuedo-random rolls';
leg3 = 'deviation value';
legend(leg1, leg2, leg3, 'Location', 'SouthOutside'); grid;
 |
| GAME 1 |
 |
| GAME 2 |
 |
| Both of 'em |
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Fascinating!
build your own fun-ness at http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/
... you're welcome.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Schisms: mental, national, and political
Because I cannot help but add my small voice to the fray:
I read in a New York Times editorial this morning the coalescing response of the Left to the apparently unique frequency of mass killings in the US. It focuses on three primary contributing factors:
1. “The easy, unfettered access to guns.
2. The difficulty of obtaining health care for the mentally ill.
3. The toxic and inflammatory political rhetoric in this country.”
My thoughts:
Gun control
Sure, more restricted access is probably a good thing (the automatic weapons that tend to make their way into Mexico, facilitating their mounting death toll, come to mind), and the lobbying power of the NRA is kinda scary to me, but I feel that gun control is a small facet of a more complicated issue. So, es, but not the whole story.
Health Care
Sure, had Loughner found some treatment, through self-concern, familial pressure, or court-order, even if mostly ineffectual, he would have been much less prone to psychotic delusions leading to murderous rampage. This point is probably intended as a strike in favor of the health care bill, though I’ve read at least one opinion that suggested even increasing involuntary commitment procedures- scary! But, even in a universal health care world, treating the mentally ill is not like treating cancer. Science, even on a good day, is mostly inept at curing mental illness, and resorts to treating symptoms through therapy, or more commonly, medication. Most people are still against the idea of institutionalization, probably for very good reason, so then what would the Left suggest for the mentally ill?
One major problem I see here is that we can’t, as a society, agree on a moral foundation from which to confront mental disease. Not that there are no physiological factors in psychopathy, but I say there are moral, even spiritual, factors as well. And in a necessarily metaphysically neutral psychological climate even the mention of spiritual factors in cases like Loughner’s is rejected out of hand by professionals –more than rejected, it’s strongly criticized as unhelpful and damaging. But, mainstream news (NBC Nightly with Brian Williams, sorry no link) has no difficulty in reporting on Loughner’s apparent emotional demons. While “demons” may be used by news types in a more prosaic sense than technical, still, it is used because it resonates with the vast majority’s perception of reality. It’s like we acknowledge the reality of the force of evil, yet make no formal room for it.
It seems that this national schizophrenia in regards to the treatment of such horrors is as much to blame as is the lack of valid mental health care support. If mental illness, such as Loughner’s, is purely neurological, then it should be more likely to result in benign psychopathy –a person perceiving his/her self to be a butterfly, for example –as in a killing spree. This points to the presence of evil as a force in this case –which, I think, only the cynical, militantly rational, would deny. So, if evil is present and more than physical, then purely physical treatment is negligent. This seems to be a blind spot in society’s response to mental illness and killing rampages, not to mention our health care system.
Politics
Yes, I agree that the current state of political rhetoric is toxic –often hyped and orchestrated to generate response with little to no concern for possible ramifications. Surely the Right is more overtly venomous, as the Left is gleefully noting, but that the Right carries all the blame is naïve. I say this, knowing that most people who know me also know that I have little patience or love for the bombast of Glenn Beck or the absurdity of Sarah Palin. The case, to me, is analogous to a dysfunctional marriage where the husband is loud, rude, and bullying in his manner while the wife is passive, manipulative, and self-righteous in hers.
Conclusion:
The alleged murderer apparently suffers from a severe mental schism, while our response to such people suffers from schismatic denial and avoidance of complete treatment, while our political dialogue suffers from a kind of marital schizophrenia, and only One Person I know is able to integrate the divided self –be it individual or corporate—the Same reconciled the greatest divorce – creature from Creator –through the Crucifixion, and more than reconciled, provided for unshakeable hope through the Resurrection. I believe that the further an individual or community distances themselves from Jesus, the more schismatic they become. And sometimes this divorce from the self results in treatment, sometimes in tragedy, and sometimes in quiet desperation.
Saturday, January 8, 2011
will
“A man ought to eat because he has a good appetite to satisfy, and emphatically not because he has a body to sustain. … The food will really renovate his tissues as long as he is not thinking about his tissues. … Let us, then, be careful about the small things, such as a scratch or a slight illness, or anything that can be managed with care. But in the name of all sanity, let us be careless about the important things, such as marriage, or the fountain of our very life will fail.” (G.K. Chesterton, Heretics, pg. 30)
Were I merely an elegant machine, a product of determined processes, I should tell myself what to eat, when to exercise, who to marry, what to buy, how much to save, all according to the most rigorous scientific counsel, and, crucial, be successful at doing so. But it turns out that I, knowing in large part what is good for me, have mixed success in these and other disciplines. I believe it’s not difficult to show that this is true in the general case as well. It seems obvious that I am not moved like a digital machine- by dull command. And neither does it seem that I am motivated like a natural machine- by individual or communal welfare. Rather, I seem to be driven by a mix of desire, duty, love, hunger, and lust, among other things, which, to varying amounts, constitute my will. For example, I want a healthy body, but I also want a Reese’s peanut butter cup, and I do not want to go running. Or I want to be a loving faithful husband, but I also want the option to indulge lust from time to time.
In the above quote, Chesterton is building an argument for H.G. Wells who, in Utopia, starts with disbelief in sin, and proceeds to outline a perfect society, achieved through the triumph of reason, apart from any Creator or faith. This fanciful, positivist, Enlightenment-influenced philosophy was common and popular before the atrocities of World War II, and Chesterton has no difficulty in politely ripping it to shreds. But my thought is concerned only with the will. Though I may deny God’s existence, yet I cannot, rationally, deny my own existence, or more appropriately, that of my unreliable will. And for human will, in all its varied subtlety, there seems to exist no natural explanation. Therefore a source beyond nature seems wanting. Not only does the Christian worldview provide the Source, it also provides cogent explanatory evidence for the sometimes divine, sometimes capricious, and sometimes diabolical, nature of the will.
In the above quote, Chesterton is building an argument for H.G. Wells who, in Utopia, starts with disbelief in sin, and proceeds to outline a perfect society, achieved through the triumph of reason, apart from any Creator or faith. This fanciful, positivist, Enlightenment-influenced philosophy was common and popular before the atrocities of World War II, and Chesterton has no difficulty in politely ripping it to shreds. But my thought is concerned only with the will. Though I may deny God’s existence, yet I cannot, rationally, deny my own existence, or more appropriately, that of my unreliable will. And for human will, in all its varied subtlety, there seems to exist no natural explanation. Therefore a source beyond nature seems wanting. Not only does the Christian worldview provide the Source, it also provides cogent explanatory evidence for the sometimes divine, sometimes capricious, and sometimes diabolical, nature of the will.
“15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. … For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. … 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! … .” (Romans 7:15-25, ESV)
Going back to the examples above, some fad diets try to get the dieter to trick themselves into believing they are a machine, that is, only eating when and what is appropriate. Behave according to specifications (eat well) and receive a reward (health). But a person must first want to eat right else any program to motivate them otherwise will fail. Of course, I can start not wanting a thing and over time begin to want it, but the kernel is that I eventually and truly do want it. Similarly, some people think of Christians as participating in something like history’s longest-running (and therefore most deceptive) fad diet. That is, like machines, believers induce themselves to behave according to specs (biblical morality) in return for earning a reward (eternity). Input instruction: do not display anger. Output behavior: “Well Gladys, we’ll just have to agree to disagree.” But the truth is that if one’s will does not line up, at least sometimes, with their behavior, then their religion is vain at best and demonic at worst. That is, if Christians believe that God’s will is good and perfect, then the realization of His will, individually, corporately, and globally, provides the singular path to peace, joy, sustainability, etc- i.e., H.G. Wells’ Utopia. Far from the frequently referenced image of the religious hypocrite critiquing the moral decay of society, while secretly engaging in illicit behavior, a Christian has a heart, broken, yet healed, and somehow filled with desire for whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely (Philippians 4:8, ESV). And this new heart, rooted in the love of God, produces behavioral fruit organically. That followers of Christ engage in a morality diet is too shallow. Christians may be deluded, but they do believe they are partakers of a joyous feast and inheritors of wealth beyond imagination, all to no one’s credit save their Benefactor. That people can be forced, manipulated, or somehow incentivized to behave according to socially profitable and scientifically ordained strictures is naïve. The existence of human will (free, determined, predestined, or some mixture) is a thorn in the religion of naturalists and an incorrigible mystery for anyone who tries to subject it to reason. So, outshining positivism and determinism, and shattering caricatures of religious types, the Christian worldview provides a Source, an explanation, and a restoration of human will.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Mastiff or Shih Tzu?
<“When Jesus had spoken these words, he went out with his disciples across the Kidron Valley, where there was a garden, which he and his disciples entered. [2] Now Judas, who betrayed him, also knew the place, for Jesus often met there with his disciples. [3] So Judas, having procured a band of soldiers and some officers from the chief priests and the Pharisees, went there with lanterns and torches and weapons. [4] Then Jesus, knowing all that would happen to him, came forward and said to them, “Whom do you seek?” [5] They answered him, “Jesus of Nazareth.” Jesus said to them, “I am he.” Judas, who betrayed him, was standing with them. [6] When Jesus said to them, “I am he,” they drew back and fell to the ground. [7] So he asked them again, “Whom do you seek?” And they said, “Jesus of Nazareth.” [8] Jesus answered, “I told you that I am he. So, if you seek me, let these men go.” [9] This was to fulfill the word that he had spoken: “Of those whom you gave me I have lost not one.” [10] Then Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it and struck the high priest's servant and cut off his right ear. (The servant's name was Malchus.) [11] So Jesus said to Peter, ‘Put your sword into its sheath; shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given me?’ ”(John 18:1-11 ESV, highlighting added)
“Jesus has always many who love His heavenly kingdom, but few who bear His cross. ”
(Thomas A’Kempis, The Imitation of Christ)
In God’s perfect and sovereign wisdom, the joyous, secure, and permanent, socio-political order of the Christ, Jesus, (a.k.a. the kingdom of God) is and yet is not. There is presently war on earth, and there will be no justice or peace until God’s “will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Mathew 6:10 ESV). To that end, his followers are called to bear, not a sword, as Judas, in betraying Jesus, nor even as Peter, in forcing the kingdom, but a cross, as Christ himself, in willingly drinking the cup of his passion. Yet Jesus prayed, on the night of his betrayal, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” (Luke 22:42 ESV, emphasis added)
Christ doesn’t call me to participate in his suffering because there is intrinsic worth in pain. So I don’t seek for affliction or marginalization as something of value, neither do I provoke non-believers and then whine when I am persecuted, nor do I mope about in morbid navel-gazing. But I am called to bear the cross of Christ because there is being waged violent war with eternal consequences, because the kingdom of God is not yet realized, and because the greatest weapon in this conflict is humble obedience to the rightful King. And this joyful “Yes!” to God will always seem foolish to non-believers. How can it not seem so if they are blind to the Resurrection and its implications? But I think there is a link between believers following Christ, even to the cross, and the power of their testimony to a lost, broken, and dismissive world. So then, if the zeitgeist categorizes Jesus’ followers as judgmental hypocrites, or religious neat-niks, or as striving for post-modern relevance chances are good that the Church is playing the enemy’s lapdog. But if it labels Christians foolish, obsolete, or deluded by myths, then the Church is more likely being a Mastiff than a Shih Tzu.
Monday, December 6, 2010
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