Did the typewriter influence Nietzsche's philosophy?

Interesting thoughts here. Robert Hassan is not a philosophy professor, but one of communications, it should be noted. Nonetheless, he appears to have made some informed criticism about how adopting a modern (for his day) portable typewriter, by the different mechanics from pen and ink, and the different writing speed, may have influenced Nietzsche's thought process, and his thoughts.

That said, this is not implausible. Professors of literature, creative writing and psychology, along with those of neuroscience at times, talk about how journaling — when done with pen and ink — can have influence on our own mental attitudes.

Now, that means the question actually is, did it influence him THAT MUCH?

Here, I am at least moderately if not highly skeptical.

And, the idea that switching — albeit, a forced switch — from pen to typewriter "restructured his consciousness"? True, but in the sense of being a truism. ANYTHING we do restructures our consciousness, contra quasi-New Agers.

Beyond that, any change in Nietzsche's style of philosophizing may be correlational only, or correlational first, causal second. And, the growing tumor causing his growing blindness may have been the primary causal agent.

The "patron saint of the internet" — including the Sacred Heart of Acutis!

No, really, in a "you can't make this shit up."

Francis the Talking Pope has decided there should be a patron saint of the Internet, and per that link, he's got his boy.

Carlo Acutis, who died of leukemia in Italy in 2006 at age 15, will be canonized during the Jubilee for Adolescents on April 25-27, according to Vatican News. The church has attributed two miracles to Acutis, who was born to Italian parents in London and was informally known as “God’s influencer.”

I remember that, at one time, the Vatican was having outsiders, allegedly at least somewhat skeptical, look at the two alleged miracles.

I guess that's out the door, and instead, the miracles are marked "Top Secret":

The church has not detailed the miracles.

I think part of the deal is that Rome feels it needs a patron saint for everything.

In that case, per Monty Python:

Who's the patron saint of sperm?

Indeed, Rome DOES feel that. And per this Guardian piece on the modern canonization process, it started with — who else? — John Paul II.

Until 1983, when Pope John Paul II attempted to modernise the process, a Cause could not even be opened until the candidate had been dead for 50 years. (He reduced the waiting period to five years, halved the number of miracles required, and did away with the office of the “devil’s advocate”, established in 1587, whose role was to raise objections to every case.)

That last part gets back to what I said above. Before JPII, these "devil's advocates" wouldn't be members of the Vatican hierarchy and could theoretically not even be Catholic.

Other changes have happened over the decades and centuries. The need for an "incorrupt body" was tossed eons ago, for example.

Essentially, like a "god of the gaps," you have "saints of the gaps" now. Their "miracles" are far fewer because of modern scientific knowledge. And, it doesn't allow for further medical and scientific advances, nor in the case of medicine, does it allow for secularly "miraculous" spontaneous remissions.

Here's Jacalyn Duffin, a historian, and a hematologist, on that:

“The truth is that sometimes things happen that have no scientific explanation. If I can’t explain it, who am I to tell the patient, who believes that she can explain it, that she is wrong?” Duffin said. “Why can’t we have miracles and not believe in God? Wonderful things happen that cannot be explained.”

Exactly.

Acutis? He even has a sacred heart, like Jesus!

This autumn, a fragment of Acutis’s pericardium, the sack that encircles the heart, toured North America.

Oy.

And, this is why Spanish Catholics mocking Aztecs for human sacrifices with bleeding hearts, and their modern successors, have no room to talk.

If a patron saint of the internet isn't enough, surely a patron saint of social media is next. Besides saints of the gaps, you get sainthood of the gaps.

Finally? To switch from systematic or dogmatic theology to exegetical theology, per divisions within religious studies and religious criticism? How can you talk about patron saints for issues not mentioned in the bible? This is kind of like originalism vs non-originalism in US constitutional studies, but cutting across fundamentalist vs non-fundamentalist modes of exegesis.

Re-reading and rethinking Aron Ralston

 Per my Goodreads review, which I am expanding even more than I normally do on some of these blogged reviews, I read "Between a Rock and a Hard Place" nearly 20 years ago, soon after it came out.

This book hasn't aged that well. Or Ralston hasn't aged that well. Or, besides the accident recovery itself, my view of Ralston is different. Or, all of the above.

Between a Rock and a Hard Place by Aron Ralston
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I first read this nearly 20 years ago, not too long after it came out, as noted above. I might have written a review on my now-defunct Amazon account that I never transferred over here.

Anyway, had I rated it back then, it would have been 5 stars.

Today? 3.5, rounded downward.

Per others rating it 3 stars or less, obviously, and more noted by me on second read? The one-upmanship. The nearly getting two friends drowned in the Colorado below Havasu Falls. The nearly getting two friends killed in an avalanche just months before this happened, and having them both become ex-friends, and per Ralston, as of the time of the book, having never contacted him again.

I remember reading all of that on my initial read, but I don't think that stood out as much as it did with a second pass.

The accident itself? An accident. (I've gotten lost way backcountry in the Needles District of Canyonlands and had to spend an overnight on a canyon floor.) The not telling people details of his trip? Understand. But, there still seems to be a bit of arrogance behind it. Not a lot. But a small bit.

Beyond that? I'm more of a secularist, if I would, than at the time I read this book or got lost in Canyonlands. That was in 2004, and arguably partially my own fault. I saw someone high above me, exiting the particular canyon, after I first got lost, coming back out. I couldn't tell if they were ascending or descending, and didn't want to wait, so continued to try to find my own way. Fortunately, I remembered some tinajas with water in from the last monsoon rain (it was late July, obviously a lot hotter than for Ralston).

I remembered those tinajas after running through prayers to the Christian god, including Jesus, then Yahweh, Allah, Buddha, Krishna, and even a Zeus or other ancient deities, as I recall correctly. Then, I stopped, and said that, I'm an atheist, and if I'm going out now, I'm going out my way. Shortly after that, I remembered the tinajas, hiked a mile, maybe a mile and a half, back down trail, and drank water with tadpoles in it. For whatever reason, I couldn't find my way back out that day. I did try crossing a bouldered area to the south, to try to get to a trail that would lead to one campground, then realized it was getting late in the day and I didn't need to sprain an ankle, let alone tear up knee ligaments or break a leg, so I wound up spending a night on the canyon floor.

But, I got out the next day. No rescue needed, fortunately. No book to write about it. No motivational speaker fees. (I have incidents more serious than that in my life, by far, which could have a book written about them, but that hasn't happened. Perhaps there is a small degree of bitterness, and not just toward Ralston. So be it.)

The one-upmanship is also reflected by a few other issues in the book.

Per places like 14ers.com, and Wiki, using USGS standards, there are 53 not 59 14ers in Colorado. (I've climbed six myself.) Tree line in much of Colorado is 11,500, not 11,000; it can push 12K in spots. Air at 14,000 feet is more like 62 percent of sea level than 50 percent. I checked out of curiosity eons ago, after either my second or my third 14er. It doesn't drop to 50 percent until you get above 18,000 feet. I noticed all of this when first mentioned, something I wouldn't have done on first reading of the book, when I had done only two 14ers, counting the drive up Pikes Peak a decade earlier, then hiking down 300 feet (per USGS) and back up.

Then, the motivational speaker part? His newest video on his speaker for hire website, his "hire me," is four-plus years old. The newest news, from when Obama made Browns Hole a national monument, is nine years old. Off YouTube, his Shitter page is almost 3 years old since last post; ditto on Facebook. And here, we're getting to the not aging well, with more ahead.

Per his Wiki page? That unborn son he thought was calling? Does he have much visitation right, having divorced his ex-wife 12 years ago after 2.5 years of marriage? Eighteen months later, he and his then-girlfriend filed mutual assault charges against each other. That might have dried up the motivational speaking.

In other words, the post-accident part of this book hasn't aged well. Also, I don't believe the hyperbole at the end that, because of everything he gained, he wouldn't trade getting his hand back. (I was in a car wreck eight years ago; fortunately, my shattered left arm healed to near 100 percent of normal. But, had I lost it, yes, today, I'd still want it back.)

Per Neil Young, maybe he has faded away more than burning out. If he's reasonably content with that, fine.

Finally, I note what one other lower-star reviewer noted: Aron hiking with the Discman and headphones. Would he have heard the chockstone shifting more quickly without that? We don't know. We do know that he wasn't experiencing all of nature because he couldn't hear it.

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Top blogging, third quarter of 2024

 It's a bit late, but, here goes.

We're going to start with the top two, then drumroll from 10-3, for a specific reason.

No. 1 is from Oct. 31, 2019, my "Gun Nuts in the name of Luther" piece about Armed Lutheran Radio.

No. 2 is from June of 2023, my take on the "Lutefash" troubles in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. I posted the first to an ex-Lutheran sub-Reddit, and dropped the second in comments to another post, both in late September, or maybe early October, just after the transition to a new quarter.

And, both are election-related, too.

Now, 10-3.

No. 10? From February, dropped on r/secularism about two months ago, my piece about how secularists take the climate crisis more seriously than either fundagelicals or "liberals" not just of Christianity, but any world religious tradition.

No. 9 is definitely from October, a new, brief piece about the latest dumbery at r/AcademicBiblical.

At 8, an oldie but a goodie from 2007, more proofs that the Buddha was not the Buddha.

No. 7, early November, a highly critical review of Steven Mithen's "The Language Puzzle."

No. 6? Based on a chance encounter at Redwood National and State Parks, my thoughts, with photos, on that old Latin phrase about aesthetics: "De gustibus non disputandum" in natural beauty.

No. 5? I dropped the link to this piece from a year ago into a biblical criticism blogging circle. It's my thought, riffing on Paul Davidson, about how Josiah probably wasn't Josiah, tied with how Moses Wilhelm Shapira probably DID find a proto-Deuteronomy.

No. 4? Also put on a biblical criticism blog circle, my 2009 piece on Paul, Passover, Jesus, Gnosticism.

And at No. 3, from September, my critical review of a book allegedly about refugee musicians and select other artists.

Nature's God: Apparent Gnu Atheist's bad history

Nature's God: The Heretical Origins of the American Republic by Matthew Stewart
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This book caught my interest at the library, but at the same time, grokking the introduction made this secularist see enough for the skeptical antennae to go up. With that, let's dig in, on another extended version of my Goodreads review, to look at just what is wrong with this book

First, I knew most of the Ethan Allen story. Interestingly, Stewart does not relate the Allen deathbed anecdote, whether it's true or not. Supposedly, an "orthodox" minister told Allen that the angels were waiting for him, and he replied: "Waiting, are they? Well, goddammit, let them wait!"

I also knew a bit of Thomas Young's history, though I did learn more about him in this story. And, yes, "story" is a good name for this book. (Stewart, per another Goodreads reviewer, makes historical mistakes covering the pair of them and smallpox inoculation, too; that's another reason this is "story" and not "history" at bottom line.)

First of all, Stewart appears to be not just an atheist but quite possibly a Gnu Atheist, with all that entails. (I can't tell if he thinks this for sure, but his latest book, on U.S. slavery and emancipation? He may be one of those people who claims Lincoln was an atheist.) That gets you dinged right there, because it's totally not true. Second: His "The Truth About Everything" book makes me wonder how much of a scientism person he is. I think the first-in-order reviewer is themself.

Secondly, much of what I said about Epicurus and Epicureanism in my review of “The Swerve” deserves repeating.

First, the inventors of atomic theory, Democritus and Leucippus were pre-Epicurean and even pre-Socratic. Greenblatt never mentions this. Nor does he mention that Greek philosophers in general were anti-empirical, and therefore antiscientific, as we know science today. (Indeed, one could argue that Archimedes and Eratosthenes were the only two real scientists the Hellenistic world produced.)

Ergo, especially if we start "modernity" with the Enlightenment and not the Renaissance, Epicureanism was not "how the world became modern." Not even close.

Second, he cherry-picks who was influenced by Lucretius, and how much, and how much influence they had. The late Renaissance world didn't see a flowering of Giordano Brunos.

Extending on that? Epicureanism may be a very good moral philosophy. As some kind of philosophy of science? Bupkis. As a political philosophy, tohu w’vohu, as it just doesn’t really say anything. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy offers more on how not just Spinoza, but 17th century philosophy in general, was still mired in the Socratic world on many issues, and yes, mired is correct, and hence, Whitehead's encomium to Plato is wrong.

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, in its Epicurus page, further tackles the issue of "the swerve," which may or may not have originated with Epicurus; details of it are only discussed in Lucretius and Cicero. Related to that are larger issues with the atomism of Democritus and Leucippus, and why their ideas should in no way be conflated with today's atomic theory world. Basically, Epicurus, if one were to reference cosmology of the last century, was the Hellenistic version of steady-state Fred Hoyle or something kind of like that. Also per SEP, on its Democritus page, it should be remembered that whole atomism project was philosophical, not scientific.

Related? Stewart’s note that Bruno became so infatuated with Lucretius that he couldn’t explain Copernican theory correctly. Gassendi had that problem, too. See here.

AFAIK, Copernicus himself was uninfluenced by Lucretius and Epicurus. Besides, heliocentric theories existed back in ancient Greece. It wasn't until Ptolemy's version, which also through in epicycles to try to make planetary motion all based on perfect circles, that geocentrism took off, later boosted by the Christian church. (Copernicus' theory, as Kepler got more and more precise information on planetary motions, actually required MORE epicycles than Ptolemy. Then he had the light bulb moment to think of ellipses and poof.)

Also related? While Galileo’s discovery of Jupiter’s moons didn’t invent them into existence, nonetheless, it certainly offered the idea that Epicurean cosmology wasn’t the final answer. Even more so for Herschel's discovery of Uranus. I'm sure that if Napoleon had asked him about Epicurus, Laplace, whose nebular hypothesis of the solar system's origins put a wrap on Enlightenment-era science, would have said he had no need of that hypothesis, either.

 

All of this is important to note because the Enlightenment was about extending the world of science. The term "scientist" wasn't coined until post-Enlightenment 1833, but, the idea of a "natural philosopher" being called something that didn't have "philosophy" as part of the title extends into the 1700s. But, really, not into the 1600s. So, in that sense, Epicurus, Lucretius, Spinoza and Locke are all at least somewhat irrelevant to trying to scientifically ground what would eventually become political science. Ditto for Hobbes. Even today, 250 years later, you can have David Graeber and David Wengrow postulating a theory of everything that is largely wrong, and that also, per Stephanos Geroulanos in "The Invention of Prehistory" is also wrong on its "framing."

Next? The idea that Spinoza was more important of an influence on American deism, the revolution, etc., than, say, Locke? Laughable. He may have been an influence THROUGH Locke; different story. And, it doesn’t fit with his Epicurean thesis, anyway; Epicurus had no real influence on Spinoza. That’s per a place like the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, where Epicurus isn’t even mentioned in the entry on Spinoza.

Per Gilbert Ryle, I could say that Stewart is committing something kind of like a category mistake, but that’s too charitable. Rather, he’s committing something kind of like a category conflation, which entails much greater willfulness.

Side note? Spinoza's first name actually is neither "Benedict" nor "Baruch." It's "Bento," from the Ladino.

Related? The idea that Locke was a sekrut radical is laughable. To riff on Cervantes, it’s tilting at Gnu Atheist skyhooks. And, it's no wonder that Stewart has to repeatedly talk about how other academics disagree with him. Later on, Stewart accepts that most American deists were the “clockwork god” folks, the “Newtonians” (this sets aside that Adam Smith was a “clockwork god” deist at the time of the American Revolution, which not only undercuts Stewart but is also generally hated by classical liberal economists, no matter that it’s true.) But Stewart never extends that same courtesy, or whatever we should call it, to Locke. Why not? IMO, it’s because it upsets Stewart’s program. If Locke really was a Newtonian, that means American deists weren’t dissembling in their Newtonianism, nor that they "really" had some Spinozist semi-atheism as their Ultima Thule.

Somewhat related? The American Revolution, and Constitutional revolution, was a moderate, and politically focused, revolution. The Articles of Confederation took a pass on a federal state church, and the Constitutional finalized that. That’s it.

The French Revolution didn’t IMMEDIATELY attack and abolish religion in general. But? By the time of Robespierre and Danton, though, it did. 

To put it another way, as I repeatedly told a British Gnu Atheist who commented at some of Massimo Pigliucci's old philosophy sites? None of the American deist founders were interested in anything close to what became laïcité in France. (Oh, and contra some French intellectuals and Francophile intellectuals in the Anglosphere, laïcité is not hard to grasp. It's just something that I reject.)

With that?

To the degree I determine a thesis in an ill-focused book, it’s that the founders wanted to inculcate a Spinoza-like semi-atheist deism, not just the Newtonian mechanical clock type, of god winding up the universe. IF SOME of the founders (Jefferson, maybe Franklin) wanted this, let alone tried to get it, it was as private individuals, not as founders of the American state.  Even there, the all caps is deserved. There’s a second part to Stewart’s thesis, and that’s the insinuation they halfway succeeded. Anybody who’s read Antonin Scalia’s pronunciamentos from the Supreme Court bench about “civic religion” knows this is to laugh, as far as the American state. Anybody who knows most “Nones” are not atheists or agnostics knows this is to laugh in terms of private belief.

Related? Being long-listed for a book prize is nowhere near as big a deal as being short-listed. And, the use of the word "heretical" in the subhed is another — this time provocative or click-baity — instance of fluffery.

Per one other reviewer, who said this would make a great 300-page book or a great 800-page one? A la Paine, it might make a good but not great 150-page screed. And Stewart, IMO, could never write this into a great, quasi-academic 800-page book. That’s simply not his interest, and I doubt he would change that. He could have dropped his philosophical incorrectnesses, though, and perhaps written up a straight 300-page history of deism and the American Revolution.

 

Note: For quotes from Allen that may not be in this book, and references to the likes of Elihu Palmer who is not at all in this book, go to this piece from non-Gnu secularist Ed Buckner.

Anyway, despite me grokking around here and there, it's not a total meh, because it had me doing some philosophical mind-honing. That's the main reason it's not one star for me. And, it's not a disappointment, per what I said at the top of the review. I wasn't expecting five stars when I picked it up, and by the time I grokked the intro, I wasn't expecting much more than a high three stars. Getting Ethan Allen better known, and Thomas Young much better known makes this book worth more than one star for other readers, or it should.

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And, per the editorial blurbs for "The Courtier and the Heretic," his calling Leibniz "foppish" and claiming late 1600s Amsterdam was "licentious" is enough reason right to pass on anything else he's written.

This, near the end of that blurb?

For Stewart, Leibniz's reaction to Spinoza and modernity set the tone for "the dominant form of modern philosophy"—a category that includes Kant, Hegel, Bergson, Heidegger and "the whole 'postmodern' project of deconstructing the phallogocentric tradition of western thought.

That one word, in case you're wondering? Invented by Derrida. Nuff ced.

Well, no. Unlike the scene of "Wittgenstein's Poker" or the ongoing action of "Rousseau's Dog" in the David Edmonds treatment, nobody knows what Leibniz and Spinoza said to each other, so this is historical fiction at best anyway in that book. And, the two one-star reviews of it make clear that Stewart is a "good" strawmanner.

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Yet more biblical criticism problems at the subreddits

A briefer one than normal here, but just a few thoughts on the latest nuttery at the biblical criticism subreddits.

It is interesting that Colossians leaves out part of a Galatians parallel, but no, dood, it was not Pauline, and not written 60-64 CE. (And, that's the correct year nomenclature, too, of course.)

No, John didn't die circa 100 CE, and this guy has also apparently never heard of pseudepigrapha.

A good question here about the man of lawlessness vs the beast vs antichrist(s). Since I'm blocked there, I can't give the OP the answer he seeks, which is here. (That said, it's the same guy as in paragraph above.) Sadly, the only answer as of a month ago was from a fundagelical talking about different interpretations of millennialism. R/AcademicBiblical is going downhill on number as well as types of responses, as well as moderator actions, apparently.

Critiquing the book review

This piece by Ben Yagoda is seven years old but still worth a read. Yagoda asks why, in many cases, reviewers, that is, critics, and the general public can dramatically differ on books, as well as movies and such. He lists four types of critics, per traditional breakdowns.

His focus, though, is on what he calls "soft touches" and "logrollers," along with related puffers.

"Soft touches" are also "review sluts," in the pockets of public publishers and movie studios. "Logrollers," to extend from him, would be those who puff in hopes of good reviews back. I suspect this is primarily a fiction problem.

Rather, the big problem, he thinks, is more than that. It's that familiarity breeds just the opposite of contempt. To that end, and more, he quotes Orwell:

It is almost impossible to mention books in bulk without grossly overpraising the great majority of them. Until one has some kind of professional relationship with books one does not discover how bad the majority of them are. In much more than nine cases out of ten the only objectively truthful criticism would be “This book is worthless”, while the truth about the reviewer’s own reaction would probably be “This book does not interest me in any way, and I would not write about it unless I were paid to.” But the public will not pay to read that kind of thing. Why should they? They want some kind of guide to the books they are asked to read, and they want some kind of evaluation. But as soon as values are mentioned, standards collapse.

Well put. Or is it?

Yagoda actually thinks Orwell and Ellen Hardwick are wrong on WHY this happens:

Orwell and Hardwick present the “gross” overpraise as calculated; I think it usually is not. As a friend of mine suggests, critics fall prey to a sort of hermeneutic Stockholm syndrome. They experience so much bad work that they get inured to it. They are so thankful for originality, or for a creator’s having good or arguably interesting intentions, or for technical proficiency, or for a something that’s crap but not crap in quite the usual way, that they give these things undue credit.

Even better put, perhaps. I think it's probably 65-35 non-calculated, rather than almost always more or less semi-conscious.

In either case? It's part of why I have a "touted by reviewers unduly" bookshelf at Goodreads, for books that get a particular downvoting when they're not what they are. "The Eastern Front" lost at least one extra full star, if not 1.5 or so, because of this. Here, at least, I think it is semi-conscious, not semi-unconscious. I personally rated Lloyd's "Passchendaele" at 5 stars. I suspect many critics, whether more conscious or less, bank-shotted off that to overrate this. Happens elsewhere, such as Major League Baseball players winning undeserved Gold Gloves.

It's worth noting that Yagoda's book-world focus is on fiction, where a focus on creativeness of craft — even if not good, just creative — is part of what drives this. That's also why I suspect this is more conscious in the non-fiction world.

I know in fields like history, or biblical criticism, "hot young bucks" come to notice, and if nothing else, critics don't want to look like they're missing the boat if they do a truly critical review. So, they may pull punches.

The brain is still not massively modular for language

 And thus, Noam Chomsky is still wrong.

But, that's about all you'll learn from Steven Mithen's new book. Actually, if you, like me, knew the former a decade or more ago, you're not even "learning" that.

The Language Puzzle: Piecing Together the Six-Million-Year Story of How Words Evolved by Steven Mithen
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Maybe a 2.5, but I just can't round up it up.

First, the subhed isn't true, or not fully. To use British English, the conclusion chapter is a damp squib. (There is no "the answer" on the origin of language ability. Any body who has claimed so in the past is lying; and, anybody who claims so in the next 20 years, minimum, will also be lying, IMO.)

That wouldn't be so bad, the "big reveal" not really existing, if Mithen had moved the ball forward in some ways with an incomplete answer, either in the conclusion or earlier in the book.

He doesn't.

Chomsky's massive modularity of the brain being dead? That's been known for years, and accepted by about everybody other than bitter-end Ev Psychers. Within the world of linguistics and language evolution, Michael Corballis said so seven years ago, in his much better book — extended review of it with the Chomsky angle, based not just on his book, is here. Indeed, Corballis hoists Chomsky by his own petard.

A "soft" version of Sapir-Whorf being true? Yes, but that's also been known for some time, if we keep the emphasis on "soft," as I've discussed in brief. However, Mithen appears to go beyond a soft version.

Take page 139. Here, he claims in English that many words signifying slowness begin with "cr": that is "creep," "crawl" and others. Took me 30 seconds to think of the "sl" word of "sleek" and "slalom." True, the second is a modern formation off a skiing-specific term, but that's how new words develop.

Side note: There's a moderate to moderately-high, but not extremely high, level of anecdotalism in this book.

On S-W, there is the one good idea, supported by some research, that it is right-eye dominant, with language control being in the left hemisphere the cause. BUT! He has no studies on people for whom language areas in their brain are distributed across both hemispheres, which Mithen says earlier is not uncommon.

Back to the conclusion. I doubt his claims that Homo erectus was using so-called "iconic" words as early as 1.6 million years ago. Even if they did, outside of Africa, such proto-languages went nowhere anyway, and thus are evolutionary dead ends. Also, even if they were using such words, it was only as a proto-language and not an actual language. Maybe proto-proto-language is more exact.

(Side note: Mithen is basically "hominid evolution 101," as far as modern understanding of the hominid family bush's development. There's no deep dives here, whether connected to linguistics or not.)

Conclusion gets worse. Mithen claims that H. heidelbergensis was using words for specific minerals, spears and other implements, etc, by 200,000 years ago. Evidence? None. Because there isn't any, and won't be. At this point, even without a "big reveal," we're starting to get into territory critiqued and criticized by Stefanos Geroulanos in "The Invention of Prehistory." Related to that, I think Mithen may have a semi-saltationist mindset for language development stages as well as its alleged earliness. Read Corballis for other angles.

Also, and also noted by a few other reviewers, the book is highly digressive. Lots of it is about the evolution of words within modern languages, etc., and has basically nothing to do with the evolution of language per se.

Finally? An issue that reared its head in the introduction, but is not unique to Mithen.

That is an essentially axiomatic exclusion of cetaceans from having developed language. No proof is ever offered; just an assumption is made.

Yes, I know that it's harder to study orcas and dolphins, than primates, in the few places where humans still enclose them in cells, and that it's a lot harder to study them, and humpback and other whales, in the wild. But, studied they have been. See Wiki's page on animal language for more. Even if cetacean communication, whether a proto-language or less than that, would not fall in line with human evolution, it could still provide discussion for linguistic development in general, and the philosophy thereof. 

Corballis also falls short on this issue.

Update: These researchers say the laryngeal theory of speech origins is yesterday's news. Via other pieces at PopSci, other ideas of Mithen also appear to be less than firm.

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Problems at the biblical criticism subreddits again — OT festivals, Bart Ehrman, Luke-Acts

At the two where I'm banned.

At Ask Biblical Scholars, someone asking "How can you debunk Unitarianism?" Violates sub rules on invoking theological belief, but had been up there for 3 days when I saw it. Poster is a thrown-off Jesuitical heretic hunter.

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Also there, somebody talking about "Fulfillment of Leviticus 23." (That's about, per the P author, Yahweh designating various festivals.) Claims parts of it have been fulfilled in light of a Rapture. Poster is a premillennialist of some sort, possibly a Messianic Christian to boot. (The "Feast of Trumpets" is today's Rosh Hashanah, and that's proof of being a Messianic Christian.) Post had been removed from other subs, but up at ABC for 3 days. See his video at another sub. Dude, you ARE nuts.

And, I can be banned there and mods don't do shit about stuff like this.

++++++++

At r/AcademicBiblical?

A question about the status of women in antiquity in general, based on Augustine's Confessions. Breaks the rules.

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Here, some general nutter claims that Bart Ehrman does NOT do critical source analysis, then doubles and triples down on that in comments.

==

Here's someone confused. They claim Luke and Acts must have different authors because Acts contradicts Paul's letters. Totally irrelevant. Just as irrelevant is a commenter claiming that Luke never indicates in Luke that he intended to write a sequel, quoting a JVM Sturdy:

Nothing in Luke’s Gospel suggests the author intended to write a sequel. The prologue (1:1-4) certainly does not advocate this view. Acts does, however, suggest at an early point – in its prologue, no less – that it is the work of the author of Luke. I regard this as a fictitious attempt to claim a literary relationship with Luke through deliberate stylistic imitation.

And? Hundreds, if not thousand of authors have written books not intending to write sequels, but eventually doing so.

And, there's the introit to Acts, despite what the author says. JVM Sturdy, you're wrong. The book is actually called "Redrawing the Boundaries: The Dating of Early Christian Literature," and appears Not.Even.Wrong.

Per this link, I think that the Luke-Acts differences on relationship to the Jews is some issue, but not insurmountable. I disagree on Acts using the Pastorals. The piece cited for that uses the Westar Institute as point of takeoff, making it a bit dubious IMO right there. (I mean, I know how Westar sucks.) And, it claims all the letters inspired Acts. Erm, how do you explain the contradictions between Acts and the genuine Paulines? And, the idea that a post-Trajan final version of Revelation circulated enough to be used by the author of Acts (and occurring before it)? Laughable.

It's more examples of what I've said before: Some hot young bucks with "out there" ideas attract too many r/AB commenters like moths to the flame.

A few updates

Mainly blogroll, links list, etc.

On the blogroll, I got rid of Gary the ex-Lutheran. Had enough of him. It wasn't quite Gnu Atheism, but most of his stuff lacked that much depth. And, he overrates Bart Ehrman. And, a couple of his fanboi commenters got to be quasi-Reddit chud types.

I added Aeon when I discovered it had a feed.

And, I just added Thoughts on Papyrus, the site of someone who follows my Goodreads reviews. They read mainly fiction, but they also write about classical music.

Top blogging, third quarter

 Since I don't post here as often as my main blog, I don't do a monthly update of the most-read items.

But, I do post a quarterly roundup, and here we go.

With all of them, I'll have a bit of explainer, but more with ones more than a few months old, as well as nothing their original time provenance, etc.

No. 10? Aeon, in a piece puffing John Rawls and puffing the author's new book about Rawls, ignored that, at the time, Walter Kaufmann crushed Rawls. I helped Aeon out.

No. 9? From not quite a year ago, with the help of Paul Davidson of "Is That in the Bible?", I riffed on Idan Dershowitz about the development of the book of Deuteronomy and other things.

No. 8? From more than a year ago, but timely for upcoming US elections, I talked about fascism in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.

No. 7? A recent book review. Tim Alberta's "The Kingdom, The Power, and The Glory" was sadly lacking in several areas, above all, a failure to discuss eschatology, millennialism and US support for Israel.

No. 6 was another recent book review. "Catastrophe Ethics" was wrong from the start.

No. 5? Back to biblical criticism, and again, bank-shotting off Davidson. My "Paul, Passover, Jesus, Gnosticism" piece from back in 2009 takes a critical look at 1 Corinthians 11 and the institution of the Eucharist by Paul.

No. 4 is my takedown of Chris(sy) Hanson, someone who isn't totally what they claim, but with whom the AcademicBiblical subreddit is infatuated.

No. 3 looks at some other r/AB stupidities, like the burial of Jesus.

No. 2? Another extended book review! Joseph Horowitz butchers what could have been a great concept about 20th-century musicians exiled to the US.

And ... No. 1

Inspired by my summer vacation this year?

Per the old philosophical bon mot, indeed, de gustibus non disputandum on natural beauty.

Non-wingnut conservative-to-moderate evangelical Christianity ain't dead

The Texas Tribune recently offered a pointed comparison-contrast to Tim Dunn's political-religious quasi theocratic compound just down the road, by profiling Connection Christian Church in Odessa. Here's pastor Dawn Weaks: 

"Christian Nationalism is an example of this kind of arrogance parading as Christianity,” she said. “There is nothing Jesus-like about that."

That's the bottom line.

The church, a member of the Disciples of Christ, has a history far beyond the Dunns' independent church. And, that itself is important. That said, the Trib perpetuates some stereotypes. I lived in Hobbs for a little less than two years, and nobody asked me my religion at H-E-B. That said, I didn't introduce myself to others. (I still think it's a stereotype or cliché; I'm sure that even when two strangers introduce themselves, it comes up far less than 100 percent and probably less than 75 percent. Maybe less than 50 percent, which definitely makes it stereotype, not generalization.

This is something Tim Dunn, other than brief speculative thought about the future of the Southern Baptist Convention, simply missed in "The Kingdom, The Power and the Glory," per my review. Denominations, even one as loosely congregational as Southern Baptists, ride at least a bit of herd over individual churches and their pastors.

That said, the story is nowhere near perfect. It's got clichés, such as claims that people in Odessa ask strangers in the supermarket what their religion is. From personal experience, I can say this never happened to me.

There's also a BIG contextual failure on this:

This year, Pew Research reported that 80% of Americans believe religion is losing influence in American life. And nearly half of those who say religion is losing influence said it is bad for society.

In fairness, it later cites this from the same survey:

In the same survey, less than a third, 27%, of white Evangelical Protestants wanted Christianity declared the official national religion.

While that's not the same as "losing influence," it does offer some framing. But, it's a further one-third the story down. In addition? NO URL for the Pew story. THAT's not acceptable.

And, reporter Nic Garcia's not a newbie. These things aren't excusable.

Here's how to butcher a book about early 20th century American classical music

 Now, I'm not a former music critic of the New York Times, unlike Joseph Horowitz, but when I was a Dallas Symphony Orchestra season-ticket holder years ago, I regularly conversed by email with Dallas Morning News critic Scott Cantrell. And, I've read plenty of in-depth books on various specific composers, histories, etc. Plus, I work in the media business myself, and know something about editing as well as writing.

So, I'm not speaking out of nowhere. First, my expanded-from-Goodreads review of "Artists in Exile," then my comments on how, IMO, this could have been made better.

Artists in Exile: How Refugees from Twentieth-Century War and Revolution Transformed the American Performing Arts by Joseph Horowitz
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

One of the best two-star books I’ve read, but, it’s a two star book, in large part due to authorial framing combined with deceptive title.

Loses a star for deceptive title if not more. Not all the classical musicians were exiles and a majority of the film actors and directors were not. Started grokking more by page 250. “Artists” turns out to be selective. Other than briefly referencing Thomas Mann and Vladimir Nabokov as one last attempt to prove his thesis that “Russians” were flexible in exile, Germans not,” no authors are included. No painters or sculptors are included at all, besides a fleeting mention of de Kooning and one other. No architects are included. So, that’s really close to two full stars there. (Yes, he says that in his subtitle, the book is about "performing artists." But, he does mention, if briefly, non-performing artists, and again, Mann and Nabokov are dragged in to push a thesis that IMO isn't tenable.)

Some sort of physical-racialist essentialism by talking about a Balanchine body type that is “itself Africanist.” For a Jewish author writing about people who were, when actually exiles, largely Jewish, this seems dangerous territory.

Claims symphony and opera aren’t frequently revitalized in modern America? Really? Never heard of John Adams? (I’m not a big opera buff, to be honest.)

Stravinsky was in Paris before WWI and wasn’t “expelled.” Balanchine may be considered an economic refugee from 1930s Paris, but wasn’t an exile.

Stravinsky didn’t “capitulate” to Schoenberg. Also, why would an alleged “Germanophobe” regularly visit Weimar Germany?

Balanchine seems used as a foil to beat Stravinsky over the head. Insinuating he was unoriginal by being stimulated by Balanchine after Diaghilev and before Craft.

I didn't care for what seemed to be dissing of Stravinsky's later-life composing work in general. (He deserves fire for any antisemitism, and an epic firefight between Craft and Cal-Berkeley music professor Richard Taruskin shows just how bad it was, while at the same time showing that it can arguably be made even worse than it was.) Being an aficionado of both "Threni" (which may have been borrowed from Krenek's "Lamentatio" with its own serial technique mixed with Renaissance counterpoint that would have grabbed Stravinsky's ear — even he says it might have) and "Abraham and Isaac" (see link above) he wrote some good serial music. Maybe Craft gave him a nudge into that, but I think Stravinsky had long been interested in the idea. Craft discusses that more in an interview.

Having read Craft’s bio (or extended biographies) of Stravinsky, and articles about the Craft-Stravinsky relationship and the bio (a good overview here), let’s just say I’m not totally solid on Horowitz’s thesis.

I’m no more sold, if even as sold, on Horowitz's inflexible Germans and flexible Russians thesis. Perhaps that’s why authors are largely left out, and painters, sculptors and architects totally are; they would upset the thesis. In addition, exiles from places like Francoist Spain (Dali, for one) would further muddy the waters. Add in Duchamp (France) and Mondrian (Netherlands, but in France when he fled for Britain, then the US). I'm sure this would upset the thesis. This is just tagging a few names. To tag another, in music? Darius Milhaud.

Varese was clearly even more than Balanchine not an exile. Boris Aronson wasn’t, either. Rouben Mamoulian MAY have been an exile, but it was from Georgia more than Tsarist Russia per se. Don't forget that Georgia in all of its subsections did not become Russian imperially owned until the late 1820s; ditto for Armenia. So, considering Balanchine and Mamoulian "Russian" is a stretch; Horowitz seems to admit this by calling Mamoulian "deracinated." Of course, he also calls Hungarian Jews "German." Again, there's a thesis at work that he's determined to push, true or false.

Most the actors and directors, although eventually forced to remain in the US during the war years, weren't exiles, either. They freely came to the US in the late 1920s.

A few good things?

Arthur Farwell? Had never heard of him. Through the miracle of YouTube, I played Navajo War Dance No. 2.

Beyond the efforts of WRR every January, had not heard of one-third or more of Black composers mentioned.

That American modern classical music has suffered due to failure to follow Dvorak’s urging to ground itself on Black music is has a fair amount of truth. 

That said, I am not as big of a Dvorak fan as Horowitz appears to be. His American Suite, for example, has some generic descending fourths "American Indian chants." And, I don't think it's as "little-known" as he claims.

Also, jazz, its roots ultimately but not solely African-American, DID have some effect, of no little means, on American classical composers. So, too, in smaller degree, has the blues.

Going beyond Dvorak to the literary, calling James Fenimore Cooper an "Indianist"? Mark Twain is laughing in his grave.

Update: With further thought, I also think Horowitz's sub-thesis, that the "cult of the performer" is purely an American thing, is also overstated. Paganini comes immediately to mind. Joachim, for whom Brahms wrote his violin concerto, next. Liszt, even though composer first, certainly played on the cult of the performer when younger.

View all my reviews

==

OK, now, to make this better? 

First, drop the "Exiles" title. Sometimes, it's an editor or publisher that suggests a book title after not liking the author's, but in this case, I'm sure it was Horowitz.

Second, change that title to something about music, because it's clear that's what it's about.

Third, drop the Germans vs. Russians schtick.

Fourth, simply focus on the development of American classical music from the time of Dvorak's and Mahler's visits on, looking at "native" development, European visits, interactions or lack thereof and more. 

Film, to the degree it involves music scores, and the theater, with musicals and incidental music, comes along for the ride. You semi-ignored literature and totally ignored art and painting, so nothing lost.

Expand by 50 pages. Trim the Balanchine, as that's ballet first. Expand on American-born composers.

Utah no longer Mormon majority

 The LSD Church continues to claim it is, but religious sociology surveys, per the Religious News Service, paint a massively different picture, with the gap between Mormons' own claims and social response surveys having doubled, by percentage points of difference, over the last 30 or so years.

Even more interesting? Utah has dropped to just No. 3, if that, per the RNS piece, in fertility rate. Mormons not making more! The Dakotas are highest, it says (but no link). Guess without any search? American Indian fertility.

Wiki has South Dakota No. 1 as of 2022. Then, Alaska, Nebraska, Louisiana, Utah, North Dakota. Alaska, North Dakota, and probably Nebraska also American Indian births. World Population Review has the two Dakotas, then Alaska and Nebraska, then Utah for 2024. Of note? New Mexico, despite its large American Indian population, is in the bottom one-third of states.

Add to that massive in-migration of non-Mormons and hence the current state of the state.

Catholic Fort Worth Diocese enshrining Padre Pio

Rome loves to talk about how it will "follow the science" on something like evolution by natural selection (with a theistic evolution carve-out for us humans, of course).

It doesn't always.

Ensoulment is of course one biggie.

Then, per the header? This:

Bishop Michael Olson of the Catholic Diocese of Fort Worth announces the dedication of a permanent chapel which will house a first-class relic of Saint Padre Pio of Pietrelcina who lived a life of deep humility and prayer while performing miracles.

The Saint Pio Chapel dedication will take place on September 18, 2024, at Saint Peter the Apostle Catholic Church, 1201 South Cherry Lane, Fort Worth, Texas. A first-class relic, consisting of a bandage stained with blood from the wound on Saint Pio’s side, will be on display in a reliquary at the parish./

Well, OK now.

 As with John Paul II and other recent cases, the Vatican's sainthood verification process is set up to allegedly allow skeptical questioning, but the results of said questioning then get ignored.

The actual Padre Pio?

Just working off that Wiki link for starters. Stigmata are not supernatural. And such bodily changes aren't limited to Christian intense devotion. There's also the question, per Wiki, about whether he actually had the stigmata or not. And, if he did .... er, why?

There's also the fact that the Vatican itself was skeptical of him for some number of years. He wasn't fully rehabilitated until Pope Paul VI.

Add in, per the book "Padre Pio: Miracles and Politics in a Secular Age," that Pio himself, per an uncovered letter, once asked for carbolic acid, which can, of course, be used to create "stigmata."

Now, to world-class skeptic Joe Nickell. He notes that things like "bilocation" claims are all anecdotal. Ditto on claims of healings, which, if they happened, would be easily explained by psychological placebo effect anyway. (See "Rasputin, Grigorii" and "Tsarevitch Alexei.") And, he notes that others have faked stigmata — and later confessed in at least some cases.

Aeon ignores that Walter Kaufmann crushed John Rawls

 At Aeon, John Lefebvre has a paean to Rawls, apparently an extract from his new book "Liberalism is a Way of Life," which is mentioned and linked in the tagline for the author at top left.

Lefebvre ignores that Walter Kaufmann crushed Rawls in "Without Guilt and Justice." Kaufmann doesn't say that's exactly why he wrote the book, but it basically is. Although rejecting both retributive justice and distributive justice, at least as Rawls framed them in his liberal political science ethics, as ultimately being Platonic ideas (which I didn't think of when I read the book the first time) Kaufmann might actually agree with Rawls that life needs to be "graced" or "redeemed," words that clearly come from the Judeo-Christian ethos, even though Rawls became a secularist.

Let's start with Lefebvre:

This raises a tricky question. If you, like me, are unchurched and don’t draw your values from a religion, then where do you get them from? From what broad tradition do you acquire your sense of what is good, normal and worthwhile in life, and – if I can put it this way – your general vibe too?

When I’ve asked my non-religious friends, colleagues and students this question, they’re almost always stumped. Their impulse is to say one of three things: ‘from my experience’, ‘from friends and family’ or ‘from human nature’. But to this I reply, as politely as possible, that those are not suitable answers. Personal experience, friends and family and human nature are situated and formed within wider social, political and cultural contexts. So I ask again: ‘What society-or-civilisation-sized thing can you point to as the source of your values? I’m talking about the kind of thing that, were you Christian, you’d just say: “Ah, the Bible,” or “Oh, my Church.’’’

OK, he's essentially arguing for something transcendental, if not specifically Platonic.

And, then he presents liberalism as just that.

In my book Liberalism as a Way of Life (2024), I argue that the unchurched in the Western world should point to liberalism as the source of who they are through and through. Liberalism – with its core values of personal freedom, fairness, reciprocity, tolerance and irony – is that society-or-civilisation-sized thing that may well underlie who we are, not just in our political opinions but in all walks of life, from the family to the workplace, from friendship to enmity, from humour to outrage, and everything in between.

Oy.

And, yes, I think Lefebvre is presenting liberalism as something Platonic, even if he doesn't recognize that he's doing just that.

It's made worse that the last half of the piece is an extended essay on Rawls' "A Theory of Justice," which is the core of what Kaufmann was refuting. Above all, Kaufmann crushes the Rawlsian ideas of an "original position" and "a veil of ignorance." And, he does so by looking at N=1 or N=2 ethical situations, not classwide or society-wide ones.

Per my long review of Staeley Corngold's bio of Kaufmann, it's called "moral naturalism," Mr. Lefebvre. And, as a philosophy professor, I know that you know that it exists. Moral naturalism is the non-rhetorical answer to the rhetorical question. And yes, your question to your students is rhetorical.

And, given that I'm a streak of reading semi-crappy to crappy philosophy books (of course, Little Bobby Sapolsky's was by choice, knowing it was crappy in advance and wanting to see the train wreck) I have no need of yours, Mr. Lefebvre.

'Catastrophe Ethics': In retrospect, wrong from the title

 I have been hitting a string of cropper and semi-cropper books in touted new philosophy books recently. (Sorry, Little Bobby Sapolsky and determinist fanbois, "Determined" is not a philosophy book, being Not.Even.Wrong, based on a category mistake and more.)

The latest? "Catastrophe Ethics." As usual, what follows is an expanded version of my Goodreads review.

Catastrophe Ethics: How to Choose Well in a World of Tough Choices by Travis Rieder
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This book became fairly disappointing fairly early, contra the hopes I had from the title. In fact, reading backward, in a sense, at the end of the book, I realized the title itself was highly problematic. Even more is it problematic with the expanded review. Let’s start there.

One BIG problem? Nuclear weaponry is never discussed. Given the nuttery of US-Chinese saber-rattling, even to a new US nuclear strategic plan:

(T)he Biden administration has approved a highly classified nuclear strategic plan—the Nuclear Employment Guidance—that seeks to prepare the United States for possible coordinated nuclear challenges from Russia, China, and North Korea

failure to discuss this issue is ridiculous. Even atomic energy gets only mention in passing under climate change. And, the dirtiness of cobalt mining for batteries is discussed later; that of uranium mining is not. Beyond nuclear issues, looking at the weapons side, militarism in general is not discussed, other than a passing reference to threats to Ukrainian power plants by Russia. (Dimona, and the possibility of an Iranian missile hitting it, are not. And, I wonder if further political mindset is behind that. See below.)

Nor, even though we are emerging from a global pandemic and the author is a bioethicist, are pandemic catastrophe ethics discussed in detail. Drug addiction problems are touched on, scatteringly, throughout the book; the war on drugs and related issues are not. I just thought of this at the last chapter of the book, but realized that itself would probably knock it down a star.

And, that relates directly to the book’s title. And, since this is a book of matters philosophical, we’re going to get into linguistic philosophy. What IS a “catastrophe” to Rieder? We’re never given a clear definition, let alone a justification that one would expect to accompany such a definition. Another “missing example”? He talks about consumption behind climate change but never thinks about possibly including current capitalism in general as a catastrophe. Related? The ethics of the developing world wanting to live like the developed world and how that might affect climate change aren't discussed.

Now, Rieder might argue back that the book isn't intended to be comprehensive. If so, theoretically, he still owes an explainer on why he chose the particular catastrophes he did as illustrative.  And, in actuality, we never get that.

His "puzzle," in his details, might be parsed and teased out differently if he used different, or more, disasters to background it.

Chapter 2? The big problem is scientific. Most scientists who are honest climate scientists and not neoliberals say that the degree of temperature change by 2100 will be at least 3C if not more. (Michael Mann is in Rieder’s bibliography but James Hansen is NOT. I have written about this in various ways, including some of the recent study in general and about Hansen vs Mann (and Katharine Hayhoe).) Indeed, per that first link, there's a good chance we hit 4C, and a non-negligible chance we hit 5C, by 2100. And, while I may be gone, if that's the case, there's good chance that Rieder himself, not his child, experiences 3C, and an outside chance of 3.5C, before he passes away.

 Second problem is this is the first, but by no means the last place where he takes individual actions out of collective context. The “joyguzzler” inspires others; the philosophical argument that it’s not problematic becomes weaponized. And, minor harm is not the same as zero harm. And, here, as in chapter 9, there’s a self-conflict over not discussing virtue ethics more here, let alone going beyond the West in a search for philosophical ethics. He finally gets to this, on virtue ethics, in Chapter 11, but that then means we have poor writing and editing; this isn’t a murder mystery where head-faking is not only acceptable but encouraged. It’s logical argumentation. There’s another problem behind that, even more the case in Chapter 12 than in Chapter 11.

Chapter 3’s thoughts on public health did not follow from Chapter 2 on climate change or Chapter 3 on meat. The three have different ethical angles. There is no public health equivalent of “big polluter them” nor an equivalent of big ag’s stranded/marginal costs on factory farming.

Chapter 4 gets us on the beam of good philosophizing. For a chapter.

Chapter 5 is hit and miss. Rieder kind of pulls punches on the second horn of the Euthyphro dilemma, the horn of ethics existing outside of god. So, by not philosophizing about how that, in and of itself, is as wrong as the first horn, the larger picture is a bit short, because the left hand is Kantianism, to put that in more modern terms — command theory without the divine. He also misstates why the post-Peloponnesian War Athens put Socrates on trial. In blunt modern terms, Socrates was a traitor.

Chapter 6 nails “the myth of tolerance.”

Chapter 7: Contra Rosalind Hursthouse, with Rieder missing this? Her definition of virtue ethics by identifying virtuous people is circular. Otherwise, he comes down correctly that trolley problems are as much ethical trick as ethical reality. (And, this is why the r/philosophy subreddit is nutters.)

Chapter 8. Problems with Singer? First is the assumption that happiness is the maximum good, or even, in more stark presentations of Singer, the only good. Second, what is happiness? And, is the hedonistic calculus for measuring that calibrated to the moment? A short term after the moment? A longer term after the moment? I mean, if momentary, then Huxley’s Fordist government passing out soma is the height of good ethics. Doesn’t delve into the “nowhen” issue that parallels the “nowhere,” as in utilitarians cannot have a view from either nowhere or nowhen.

Part III

Chapter 9 His attempt to differentiate between “statistical harm” and “actual harm” seems cavilling. We use insurance actuarial tables to talk about harms all the time and nobody bifurcates them this way. To make this VERY personal given Rieder’s past, insurance actuarial tables will talk about the “statistical harms” caused by driving a motor vehicle while stoned on opioids. To go beyond that to physics? Statistical mechanics is exactly that. Doesn’t make it any less real. And, perhaps with protesting, we as a society accept actuarial norms — until, to riff back to climate change, “we” get bent out of shape when we’re in rural California or the Florida coast and our homeowner’s insurance skyrockets, if it gets renewed at all. Next, he seems to ignore virtue ethics on this issue, looking only at consequentialist and deontological stances. This seems a HUGE fail, and, unlike friend Massimo Pigliucci, I’m not in general a touter of virtue ethics. It’s weirder yet because his farmer friends in Chapter 11 are walking, talking virtue ethicists. Also, Walter Kaufmann, or thoughts similar to “Without Guilt and Justice,” are missing on other angles of individual vs collective justice. See here for a few thoughts on that book.

Chapter 10: Sex is not gender. So says me. So said the late Frans de Waal. So says biologist and philosopher Massimo Pigliucci. Outside of evolutionary biologists, so say some political leftists. This is also, in this case, a linguistic philosophy issue. As a public policy issue, that doesn't mean that both transsexual and transgender persons don't have certain civil rights. Whether they are 100 percent the same in 100 percent of issues? Possibly not.

On duty, obligation and intimacy, his riff on Maggie Little misses another point. We seemingly evolved biologically to be in maximum group sizes of 150. In the modern world, which is “controlling” on my “sphere of intimacy” — biological or cultural evolution? And, his use of Little misses that ensoulment personhood will simply reject this framing a priori. That’s not to say it’s wrong. It is to say that it relies on presuppositions that some would say are not in evidence. Third, claiming Little’s POV on abortion is “complex” medically or ethically is a reach, and it’s also PR, trying to “sell” this precisely because of alleged complexity, as I see it.

Next: No, “reasons” are not a small-granular unit of moral measurement. They MAY be, when purely moral, and later you seem to go back to that, but? You just admitted that reasons often have no moral attachment. There may be plenty of aesthetic good to getting fresh coffee; there is ZERO moral good unless I have some weird disease requiring coffee ingestion.

I agree with him on rejecting duty and obligation on many cases, at least within INDIVIDUALIST ethics. That, too, as well as rejecting Rawlsian liberal versions of political ethics, is something I learned from Kaufmann’s “Without Guilt and Justice.” See more below.

And, by this point, I realized I was sorry I recommended this book to Massimo Pigliucci and that, while it might not fall below three stars, it was quite unlikely to rise above it.

Chapter 11: Uses a farming husband and wife, neo-traditionalist farmers, as a “hook” for turning us back to virtue ethics and an intro to the next part. Not bad, but not failing to talk about the hook in advance is bad non-fiction writing. Also, re the purity ethic in Chapter 12? Are there issues with neo-traditionalist farming that he doesn’t discuss? As in, it’s an “out”? As in, the modern world couldn’t exist with only neo-traditionalist farms? As in, where do all of their customers get their money to pay its higher prices? To put it more bluntly, does this, like planting trees as alleged carbon offsets, act as a sort of environmental penance that doesn’t really do anything? Also, given conversation earlier in this book, would he protest, even raise his hackles, at such thought?

PART IV — finally, after bad editing in Chapter 2 and failing to put a “hook” in either it or Chapter 8 to point forward to Chapter 11.

Chapter 12: Problems with the purity ethic and its similarity to utilitarianism are good. But, there’s a larger problem that Rieder misses, and that’s a problem with **Western** philosophy. Confucianism, for example, has no problem talking about things that would be best called, in the taxonomy of Western ethics, “corporate duty” and “corporate obligation.” Virtue ethics to battle climate change just doesn’t get there. It doesn’t get there on other things. By not looking beyond the Western tradition, in essence, Reider is hamstrung. Also, by looking at duty and obligation as an on/off switch, rather than in terms of degrees, he's further hamstrung. 

I have long thought that the three schools of ethics in Western philosophy fall short. And, this book sharpened that belief, in part because all three schools, while they talk about how an individual's actions affect others, still ultimately are about individualist ethics and nothing more. Virtue ethics is a good example. Aristotle focused on individual flourishing; Master Kung, on that of societal groups.

Let us not forget that the Western world did NOT “invent” philosophy. India’s Charvaka skeptics, for example, existed by or before the Greek pre-Socratics. The Ajnana started about the same time. Beyond the scope of my original review, I realize that, as I get older, this comes more and more forward in my mind. Unfortunately, even a decent-sized public library, while it might have books on the evolution of Hinduism and Buddhism, and maybe even Jainism, won't have books about Indian philosophy. The closest it will get is talking about Philostratus talking about Apollonius of Tyana visiting the "naked philosophers" of India.

Chapter 13: I think it’s too harsh to call Schopenhauer a cynic for his “antinatalist” views. Ditto on David Benatar, whom I’ve also read. Also, to riff on Schopenhauer and Benatar, there’s the question of whether one should stop with one child, whether one’s own progeny or adopted, or go on to a second once that bridge has been crossed, on the grounds that only children may be less happy. Or other things. At least Rieder eventually somewhat softens his view. The only good argument against antinatalism is a selfishly utilitarian one of that it minimizes the happiness of the currently living, especially in developed countries where social safety nets for senior citizens depend in part on youth paying in.

Chapter 14: Racism is horrible. It’s arguably not a catastrophe. See top of this review for more on that issue. And, per books like “Conspirituality,” there are plenty of people who can be environmentalist but racist. Look at the German Völkish movement for 20-30 years before Hitler. Given my note at top about actual or potential catastrophes with ethical issues that Rieder doesn’t discuss, this chapter was a cropper. I’m also NOT a fan of Kendi, among listed authors of Rieder.

Beyond that, as a good non-liberal leftist, talking about racism without talking about classism falls short. Related to that, beyond Western philosophy? The book in general is presented from a Western perspective. The exploitation of Congo over its cobalt is mentioned, but plenty of "developing" nations are exploited for plenty of resources not related to climate change. There's also, again, the issue of the ethics of developed nations saying, "do as we say, not as we did in the past," but offering insufficient help on that.

There’s other things not mentioned on the “participatory” issue. On political action, I assume Rieter is a good Democrat by some of his angles. I’ll venture that he even thinks third-party voters like me waste our votes on climate change. Or nuclear tensions in particular and militarism in general. He might concede this is personal purity ethics but would probably still reject it as good social participation.

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De gustibus non disputandum on natural beauty

A couple of weeks ago, while on vacation, I was hiking the Grove of Titans trail at Jedidiah Smith Redwoods State Park. I was coming back to the trailhead, when a young lady, I'm guessing early 20s, perhaps late teens, asked me, "Isn't this the most beautiful spot in the world?" or something very similar.

(My photo from a different spot on the trail.)

It was quite a nice spot. And, since the various state parks in the Redwood State and National were created before the national park, they arguably have the best lands within the system.

That said, per the old Latin phrase, de gustibus non disputandum, this is to some degree a subjective question. Having stared at Lake Louise as well as hiked to one of those tea houses at Banff National Park, I'd offer that as one option off the top of my head. Or Bear Lake and nearby at Rocky Mountain National Park, especially when the lotus pads are in bloom. Or a sunset on the ocean strip of Olympic National Park. Or, outside of national parks entirely, one of the aspen groves and surrounding land on Grand Mesa. Or, speaking of sunsets, one out over the ocean at Big Sur.

Or inland, a sunset at a national wildlife refuge 30 miles away.

Author photo, Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge

Those are just off the top of my head.

So, what does constitute the best of natural beauty?

Savannah-like areas are definitely pleasing to the human eye, perhaps in part due to evolutionary heritage. But, none of the places I mentioned above, nor others that flit into my mind like Painted Rocks National Lakeshore, are close to savannah in nature. Well, I'll modify that. Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge is fairly close. 

Is it that they are that much different from savannah that makes them beautiful? What about the presence of water? That redwood grove didn't have it. Bear Lake does, and of course, there are many cataracts and falls in Rocky. Obviously, the Pacific Ocean and Lake Superior are covered. But Grand Mesa is similar to the land of the redwoods. That said, both sites have fairly large meadow areas that intrude into the forest. Neither one is the Black Forest on steroids.

What about deserts? For whatever reason, a place like Artist's Palette at Death Valley didn't spring into mind when I talked to this young lady, and I pondered about it even now.

Artist's Palette, author photo.

There's also the matter of personal background and experience. The young lady was from Los Angeles, where any site with that level of lush greenery would flash "beautiful." Someone from Washington State or British Columbia might have a more subdued, while yet interested, feeling.

That might be even more true in places in Redwood State and National where redwoods don't predominate.  As in, walking along Prairie Creek, in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park.

One will notice I mentioned one place above that not only is not a U.S. national park, it's not even a part of the National Park Service. That's of course Jedidiah Smith Redwoods State Park.

Well, others I mentioned aren't part of the national park service. Hagerman NWR is US Fish and Wildlife Service. Grand Mesa, or another great area, land north of Steamboat Springs, Colorado, is US Forest Service. So is "the Bob," the Bob Marshall Wilderness beloved of Montanans.

Jedidiah Smith isn't US government land at all of course, but California State Parks.

Big Morongo Preserve, beloved West Coast birding Mecca, isn't even state land; it's county-level.

While not denigrating US national parks, or those in other countries, nor trying to get into a philosophical demarcation issue of what should constitute a national park, as well as what should constitute an idea of beauty, I personally don't fetishize national parks.

A few more r/AcademicBiblical tidbits — Jesus burial stupidity, Paul naming, more

 No, contra ZanillaMilla in this post, "Saul" was not a Greek signum, then Paul a Roman cognomen he later switched to, namely because Paul wasn't a Roman citizen, as I told Naugrith the Nazi 2 years ago, along with others.

Contra other commenters there, the one verse in Acts that's mentioned is way too slender a reed to lean on for any particular interpretation of "Luke's" comment.

The Sergius Paulus idea otherwise is "tenable" but likely? 

To me, the interpretation that does the least violence to the text and the most support to Luke's thought as we know it is that this is a deliberate wordplay, with Paul as a cognomen, as foreshadowing Luke's later claim that Paul was a Roman citizen.

Paul himself, of course, only identifies himself as Paul. Was that his actual name? Per other comments in that thread, maybe Paul changed his own name. Maybe, per my link, he was, without actually claiming Roman citizenship, trying to imply he had the "Latin right." (That would be like a "stolen valor" move today, claiming to have served in combat but staying vague on details.)

==

Jesus' burial would have been held for both midrashic reasons on passages in the Tanakh and for New Testament theological reasons of refuting the normal Roman treatment of a condemned criminal, contra this post. Contra the one commenter at the time I first saw it, why does Ehrman think his "mass grave burial" is a minority view among critical scholars? (I assume that's that the "minority view" references and doesn't also include fundagelicals.)

And, no, the idea of Jodi Magness and another of James Tabor that Jesus was buried twice, also at that post, is even stupider, especially Tabor. He, of course, ties this to his Jesus Dynasty schtick.

The last commenter there, noting that Acts and apocryphal materials support an alternate tradition of a "hostile" burial is indeed interesting, but the commenter doesn't carry it further. It, too, would ultimately be apologetic, to explain away the lack of bodily resurrection evidence. (Maybe, because the family of Dives in the Lukan story, that's the ultimate point: Behind Abraham telling Dives that if his family won't listen to Moses and the prophets, they won't listen to him from the dead, is maybe another twist on Jesus' "no sign shall be given.")

==

An interesting and generally informative Ask Me Anything with James McGrath, mainly about John the Baptizer. That said, was the John movement and the Jesus movement both part of the same "Way" at the time of Acts? Since I believe McGrath has early datings on NT books in general and the gospels and Acts in particular, that should be looked at critically. (I have had run-ins with him on Facebook about datings before.)

He also probably could have gone into a bit more detail about how close, or distant, Mandean thought is from that of John, and was from John by, say, CE 400, but he does later postulate multiple social and theological "flows" creating Mandeanism.

I used to think it was closer to the Johannine movement myself, but have read works in the past few years leading me to reassess that.

As for John's alleged "cosplay" as Elijah? Who says that he was doing that? Only Christian scriptures midrashing.

And, with that, and noting that McGrath, a conservative critical scholar, calls his biography/history of John "Christmaker," I stopped reading.

The Kingdom, the Power and The Glory: but no Red Heifer and no denominational thought

The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism by Tim Alberta
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was a HARD book to rate, and so, as I’ve done once or twice before, I’m doing sub-ratings. These come from my dual background as a newspaper editor and a secularist with a graduate theological degree. And, I'm expanding on one issue from my original Goodreads review. I am also expanding it further than the expanded review on my main blog.

OK, subratings:

1. Conservative evangelicals in bed with Trump? (Note the word “conservative” and see below.) 3.5. The TL/DR answer that Alberta doesn’t expressly note (until the epilogue, spoiler alert)? Conservative evangelicals, or a large chunk of them, want to “own the libs,” like Trump. He says this indirectly, but no more than that, before that one aside in the epilogue. (That said, David French, Russell Moore and others appear to blow this as well, or else maybe they — and maybe Alberta, too — don’t want to admit that the desire to win, which Alberta does discuss, is that simple — and that crude. And, while more inchoate, was held long before Trump.)
Side note: Per my observation about Russell Moore last year, Christianity’s entanglement with politics in the US isn’t totally new either, per things like Teddy Roosevelt’s “Muscular Christianity.” And per that link, I have a more skeptical eye on Russell Moore’s past than Alberta does.

1A. Conservative evangelicals’ other problems, such as their version of the Catholic priests’ sex abuse scandal? 4.5. The interviews with Rachael Denhollander and Julie Roys and their legal and journalistic work, respectively, was very good. So was Denhollander’s speculation that whichever way the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Life Commission breaks on the sexual abuse database issue, it’s going to cause a denominational schism.

1B. In brief, Alberta's starting with the Reagan era is good, as he shows evangelicals' interest in politics — and per Falwell Sr. being focused on taking down Jimmy Carter — as being an early driver. Could have been explored more, namely, the degree to which evangelicals overlooked Reagan's religious failings, such as divorce, child conceived (tho not born) out of wedlock, consulting astrologers (contra legends, Ronnie, not Nancy, took the initial lead on this long before the presidency) and more, just like with Trump. Let's also not forget that the National Day of Prayer was pushed on Ike by evangelicals, and other related Cold War items. 3.25 for not more explicitly making these ties, especially the pre-Reagan ones. Alberta is sincere in his worries about politics overtaking evangelical Christianity today, but, whether he's actually less sincere, or he just didn't want to go into depth on this, he risks looking less sincere by not having explored these ties more.
Beyond the focus of this book, I suspect that my childhood Missouri Synod Lutheranism, without a formal schism, will have 10 percent of its congregations hive off over the next decade or so and that Matt Harrison will stop being able to even halfway thread the needle over the Lutefash issue.

And, speaking of not exploring ties more? ...

1C. Where’s apocalypticism and where’s Israel? I only thought about that at the end, but .... See point 5 and explication for more. 2.5 as a placeholder, but also lowered the rating on broader political commentary, especially re the issue of Israel. On apocalypticism and eschatology, no, not every evangelical has the same take, but, they’re all generally contra mainline Protestants, and Catholics and Orthodoxy’s, amillenialism. And, hellz yes, this influences their interaction with politics, and especially, in foreign affairs, Israel. (NO 1- or 2-star reviewer picked up on this; 3-star reviews were too many to read but I expect it was missed there, too. I'll expand on this, either here or at my blog sites.)

And, yes, this is the issue that gets expansion.

The Wikipedia page on millennialism is a good starter. For more on the three main options within Christianity, go to its pages on premillennialism, postmillennialism and amillennialism.

Premillennialism has two different stripes, one ancient and the other modern. Both, though, believe in a literal millennium, a 1,000-year rule of Jesus on earth. They differ on things like where to place the "Rapture" (scare quote needed) and the "Tribulation" vis a vis the millennium as a whole, but have broad similarities. Overall, historic premillennialism is less literalistic than modern dispensationalist versions, though, and it's those that drive the folks like Tim LaHaye and his "Left Behind" set.

To be complete? Postmillennialism is, per Wiki, more of a catch-all. That said, all varieties believe Jesus' second coming will not happen until AFTER a millennial period, hence the "post-" prefix. How literalistic or not to understand that millennial period itself has a wide variety of stances.

Amillennialism? Anything the bible says about a 1,000-year period is figurative.

As Wiki notes in the main article, some early church fathers were Historical Premillennialist. Others may have been around that. Postmillennialism in any form had no real foothold among the ante-Nicene fathers.

But then Nicaea happened. And everything related to it, like the legalization of Christianity inside the Roman Empire, followed by it being made the official state religion by Theodosius II less than 60 years later. And, no tribulation or any other premillennial verschnizzle had happened. (This is why, in the bible, most scholars think II Thessalonians is apocryphal; it totally ignores Paul's "Man of Lawlessness" of 1 Thessalonians. See here for the difference between that person, the Beast of Revelation and the various antichrists of Johannine epistles.)

Amillennialsts say that there is no literal millennium, and that Revelation is just referencing the time between Jesus' ascension and his return. There will be no reign of the righteous or improvability of the earth before he returns, contra postmillennialism, nor will he return to start a 1,000-year battle with the powers of darkness, let alone look for a rebuilt temple in Jerusalem after a spotless red heifer is found or anything like that.

So, per Alberta's book, who believes what?

Catholics, Eastern Orthodox are strongly amillennial. So is the Lutheranism of my youth. So is traditional Calvinism, including Alberta's Presbyterianism. Ditto on Anglicanism and Episcopalianism. "Fundamentalism" within old mainline Protestantism, as well as more liberal views of theology and interpretation in mainline Protestantism, are at least on paper, still amillennial today.

Baptist groups, and the broader Anabaptist tradition from which they arise? Also generally amillennial.

That said, premillennialism in modern times is not a 19th-20th century American issue. Many Puritans held that, seeing themselves as a "New Israel." And, tying that to the "ingathering" and conversion of all Israel. (Paul may have been speaking literalistically in Romans. But, he was still wrong.) It really exploded among 19th century British evangelicals, where John Nelson Darby essentially launched what became modern dispensationalism, then exploded further here in the U.S. with Cyrus Scofield and his infamous Scofield Reference Bible. Its impact was expanded even more by being printed right before World War I. Although Baptists' history is amillennial, dispensationalism has a strong foothold there. It does as well among charismatic and Pentecostal types.

As for where we're at now? The 1948 establishment of the nation of Israel factors largely into many dispensationalists' thoughts, including, yes, rebuilding a temple and other things.

And, ALL of this, and how it affects modern evangelical or fundagelical politics, versus Catholics, Methodists, Lutherans, and on paper, Alberta's childhood Presbyterians, is ignored by him.

1D. Where's talk of various denominations and their decline? A couple of the churches Alberta visits are affiliated with some denomination, many are independent megachurches. Even more is that the case with the places Jeff Sharlet visited in "The Undertow." But, Alberta doesn't discuss the decline of denominations in general, let alone specifics, including the rise of independent megachurches tying with the rise of politicization of modern Protestant Christianity. (This is not to ignore decades-earlier Black churches' endorsements from the pulpit and such.)

Beyond the politicization, whether on Israel or other issues, the decline of denominations means a decline in church organization, church discipline and related issues. Alberta doesn't look at this either. Nor does he look at whether or not Humpty Dumpty can even be put back together.

1E. Somewhat related, Alberta doesn't discuss the pollination of conservative trends in modern American Roman Catholicism by fundagelicals, whether it's conservative priests, conservative bishops, conservative groups like Opus Dei, and more.

2. Defining “evangelical”? 3 Alberta admits it’s complex, but, without using the word “fundagelical,” takes a pass in one way. See below. Let’s also not forget that “evangelical” arose in part as a “branding” term.

3. Biblical and early Christian interpretation, even within “fundagelical” culture? 2.5.

4. The above, outside that? 2.25

5. Broader political commentary? Rating based in part on overlapping past political coverage with Alberta: 1.75

A weighted average of all of the above, weighting more for the 1 and 1A gives 3.2 stars. An unweighted average is 2.8.

Summary: I think Alberta is sincere in his description — as far as it goes. Why it doesn’t go even further, on evangelical history, and the unmentioned elephant in the room, I don’t know. Get’s a gentleman’s C 3 stars. Because of his sincerity, and because at least one of the 1-star reviews is crap, this is a solid rating. But, if he writes another book just about evangelicalism, figure out his audience and pitch first. If he writes another book about evangelicals’ intersection with politics, and it doesn’t cover that elephant, don’t read it.

Early on, like Bart Ehrman’s Armageddon, Alberta appears to have a Marcionite view of the Old Testament. (Later, he talks about the sweetness of the New Jerusalem in Revelation, but ignores the amount of divine wrath there. He ignores Tertullian’s riff on Lazarus and Dives with Christians taking joy over the torments of the dammed.)

Also early on, Alberta indicates a belief in American exceptionalism, such as talking about America’s “miraculous” victory over Great Britain. Nothing miraculous about it when you recognize that Yorktown was a 75 percent French, 25 percent American, win, which doesn’t appear in Alberta’s narrative.

There’s also problems with biblical interpretation and criticism elsewhere. Contra page 131, no Nero didn’t persecute Christians after the Great Fire and the Tacitus account is almost certainly an interpolation by a minor church father circa 400 CE.

The page before is an error that even a fundagelical should not make. Saul/Paul did NOT “supervise” the stoning of Stephen and the plain text of Acts never says that. What Acts 7:54-58 DOES say:

54 When the members of the Sanhedrin heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him. 55 But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit … 57 At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, 58 dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul.

A few pages later, from that same Wheaton conference? Maybe part of why evangelicals think, wrongly, they’re being persecuted today is even more than conservative Catholics, they’ve swallowed myths of early Christian martyrdom that Candida Moss showed more than a decade ago simply aren’t true.

Much later, on page 386, this howler: “If these women had complied with the Jewish norms of the day, which forbade women from instructing men in public spaces…” then “it’s true that Paul wrote in one letter that women should not teach men.” Alberta never delves into the issue of inerrancy, nor the critical theology knowledge that Paul didn’t write those words in 2 Timothy, but a pseudonynomous author did circa 120 CE.

Yes, I know this is not a book of biblical, and ante-Nicene and post-Nicene Christian church fathers criticism. Nonetheless, with the exception of Saul/Paul and Stephen, getting these issues wrong, and continuing to wrongly hold them, especially combined with American exceptionalism (including as expressed by Alberta) means that evangelicals, whether they continue to try to be highly engaged politically or not, will in some way get their relation to politics wrong.

The idea of dividing the book into three sections, on “The Kingdom, The Power and the Glory,” riffing on the end of the Lord’s Prayer of today (that almost certainly was not part of the original, per textual criticism) was good. But, where was Augustine, specifically, “The City of God,” in the Kingdom section? He’s referenced in passing twice in the Power section by people Alberta interviews, and that’s it. MAJOR failure there.

Also? Not all evangelicals are conservative evangelicals and Alberta makes an error of omission here like many of his theological kin do. For example, Sojourners magazine, the people behind it, and the mag’s average readers? Nowhere mentioned in your book. (I checked the index; the Russian Orthodox Church, which is definitely not a US evangelical church, is mentioned five times, and Sojourners zero.) Per Wiki, the Sojourners Community that founded the mag started at Trinity Evangelical, and I’ll venture Alberta knows this. Alberta isn’t the only person to get this wrong. So does Fred Clark at Patheos, whom I suspect knows better, and who may be loath to identify himself as a “liberal evangelical” if he is one; The New Republic, which doesn’t; and others. Whether “liberal evangelical” is totally the right word for folks like Sojourners, I don’t know, but, at least, “moderate evangelicals.” And, Jimmy Carter still self-identifies as an evangelical, I think. And, what about academics in exegetical theology who accept historical-critical methodology in general but are on the conservative edge of it like a James McGrath? They’re not fundamentalists, not in a narrow sense.

There’s also the question of who’s an evangelical and who’s a fundamentalist? I consider the conservative Presbyterian church in which Alberta grew up, does have “evangelical” in its name, but? After all, “The Fundamentals” arose from within Presbyterianism, at least as far as the Stewart brothers who funded it. And, I consider the conservative wing of Lutheranism, whether the larger Missouri Synod or the smaller Wisconsin Synod (one of the events Alberta attends is at a Wisconsin Synod church) to be fundamentalist too. (These Lutherans, including my Missouri Synod pastor’s wife sister, hate being called fundamentalists, but it’s true, even if their fundamentals aren’t Presbyterian ones.)

There’s also the question of what the core audience is? If it’s conservative evangelicals, maybe it’s not long enough. If the general public? Too long. 450 pages in relatively small font and leading for todays hardbound book world is pretty long. See the top portion of my ratings.

There’s also a bigger background issue, via a question not raised by Alberta. And, Jeopardy style, I’ll provide the answer via Ed Abbey:

“Growth for growth’s sake is the theology of the cancer cell.”

Indeed, per a biblical reference missed by Alberta, in Acts, Gamaliel says that if the movement by Jesus’ disciples is from god, it will succeed and if not it won’t.

Setting aside divine origins, for any organization that is convinced in a non-arrogant way of the rightness of its mission and ideas, focusing on growth for growth’s sake simply shouldn’t happen.

Then, there’s the general politics coverage.

On 298, Alberta repeats the canard (it is, Tim) that national Democrats generally support “abortion on demand.” Once again, he either knows better or decided not to know better.

Many, many Democrats in the House and Senate supported the Hyde Amendment, barring Medicaid funding of abortions, from when Henry Hyde first wrote it. That includes our current president, Joe Biden, while in the Senate.

Related and connected? Biden, as well as Clinton and Obama, failed to ask Congress as the start of their respective administrations, when Democrats controlled both houses, for legislation offering any federal protections for any portion of Roe that could be federally protected. Alberta knows that, too.

Also, at one point in the book, Alberta seems to treat with a half-sneer the idea in the Shrub Bush administration of looking for “moderate Muslims.” If he didn’t mean that, then, he needs to be more careful in how he describes Muslims in America.

Finally, in a BIG old issue that Alberta totally ignores? And that’s of new relevance since Oct. 7, 2023? At least on paper, the mainline Lutheranism of my youth still doesn’t cut blank checks to Israel. This, and apocalyptic thought in general, and how it fuels and festers fear, is an issue for both political coverage and the intersection of religion and politics.

Related? As I said in 2018 (maybe he’s gotten better) Alberta is not a smart / informed political writer, to put it politely, or he’s … well, he’s the same word as he is on Democrats and abortion, to put it somewhat less politely, or an l-word, to put it totally unpolitely, about Beto O’Rourke’s political stances. I interviewed Beto, per the background to that link, and during the 2018 Senate campaign general election race, not the Dem primary. Beto talked about "access for all," and said single payer was "one way to get there," but contra Alberta, that's not single payer. Period. He refused to cosponsor John Conyers' HR 676 in the House. And, he said he didn't like Sanders' similar bill in the Senate. Now, Alberta wasn't alone in drinking the Kool-Aid; so, too, for reasons of her own, did his primary opponent, Sema Hernandez. That still doesn't excuse Alberta.

==

Finally, sidebar observations. One two-star reviewer needs to actually read Alberta with an open mind rather than chastise. She won’t recognize herself in the mirror (nor allow comments). Another in the same vein.
And another:

The craptacular one-star review is by an apparent Gnu Atheist.

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