Origo

I've been trying to diagnose a sick washing machine. Something is dreadfully wrong with its circulatory system. I'm not sure whether the cost of a service call is warranted on a 10-year old machine, so I've been talking to Amana and looking up do-it-yourself washer repair web sites.

Something is dreadfully wrong with printed and online trouble-shooting instructions. They say things like, "If your washer shows symptoms of being unplugged, insert prongs of electrical cord in wall socket." And, "If the water faucets are turned off, turn them on and that may solve the problem of your washer not filling."

This does not help me at all! I need clear and detailed instructions on how to address problems like "Why do only 50% of the socks that go in come out?" and "Why does the washer shrink all my jeans during the holiday season??!!!"

I did something fun yesterday.

I built a ruin.

A basilica ruin.

A ruin so you can see inside where the columns are, and altar, and throne in the apse. And you don’t have the roof blocking your view. It’s more authentic as a ruin, anyway, since so many of the classic basilicas are in exactly that state.

But here’s the fun part. I built it on the computer and then ordered it from LEGO! Yeah, you can go to http://factory.lego.com/ and download the Lego Digital Designer. Then you can build whatever you want using digital bricks and accessories in a 3-D environment. When you’re finished you can turn your creation to all angles and take screen shots, with different backgrounds. AND you can order it online, and even customize the LEGO box that it comes in! Is that cool, or what?

Now I’m on pins and needles hoping my ruin will arrive before I need it for class in two weeks! Ahhh!

I’m ruined either way...

I had a great experience today. I went to Sports Authority, and once inside the store I cut through the women's department. As I was walking through the bathing suits I saw myself in a mirror that made me look slim and tall! On my way back out of the store, I paused at the mirror again to see if I had been imagining things. Sure enough, it made me look slim and tall! I've decided there is a government conspiracy permitting consumers to buy only mirrors that make them look short and stocky. Somehow, one of the accurate mirrors slipped out and somehow Sports Authority got it. I am now on a quest to find one of those rare mirrors that reflect the true me!

In spite of the disheartening coverage of our media, returning vets continue to report to their friends and families that the Iraqi people are very glad to have us in their country. Some soldiers here in Tacoma are even discouraging their families from watching the news coverage, insisting that it is fatally biased. I'm in no position to judge, but I take note that there is a different viewpoint out there.

On this Independence Day of 2004, I salute all members and veterans of our armed forces: Thank you for the sacrifices you've made on behalf of our nation and the nations of many others. I don't take it for granted!

In The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Matt Damon as the disadvantaged title character, steals the identity of a rich playboy and then proceeds to murder each person who comes close to exposing his ruse and ending his lavish lifestyle. With increasing urgency, the Ripley character fulfills the George Bernard Shaw observation, “Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.” Damon's Tom Ripley quickly evolves from a low-income piano player in New York to a well-to-do serial killer in Rome, confessing in the films narration, “I thought it would be better to be a fake somebody, than to be a real nobody.”

What a statement for our Darwinian culture! Our Darwinian philosophy persuades us that we are chance chemical entities (i.e., real nobodies), but we do anything and everything to maintain the illusion that our lives have meaning and purpose (i.e., we fake being somebodies). Whenever someone reminds us that we fake emperors "have no clothes," and that our pretense to meaning has absolutely no basis, we grab whatever argument comes to hand to censor that troublemaker, whatever the cost to reason or integrity!

Theodicies
Speaking of death as "philosophy's only problem," Camus was pointing, at least indirectly, to the enduring "Problem of Evil": If there is a Good and Almighty God, why is there evil in the world? Attempts to answer this problem are called theodicies, i.e., attempts to justify or exonerate God from guilt (or from weakness) for the evil He apparently allows.

Gnosticism was (and is) a theodicy that solves the problem of evil by positing demiurges, secondary gods who are responsible for creating the material world and its evils (the rascals!). Darwinism is also a theodicy, originally focusing on natural evil, i.e., the viciousness and waste perceived in nature. Darwinism solves the problem of natural evil by putting natural laws between God and nature. More Gnostic than atheistic, Darwinism nevertheless distances God far enough from creation to make Him irrelevant.

While American Christians may frown upon Darwinism, many have unconsciously adopted a similar theodicy, the one taught in one of Charles Darwin's favorite works, namely, John Milton's Paradise Lost. Milton popularized the theodicy that distances God from moral evil by positing a God who places a high premium on the autonomy of the creature. As in Darwinism where God creates the universe with its laws of physics and then backs off to let things run on their own, so in "Miltonism" God creates perfect humans, and then backs off to let them make their own choices, whether good or evil. The bottom line of a Miltonian theodicy is human autonomy. We Americans love that!