Sago Boulevard

Anybody surprised? Didn’t think so. Via AnalPhilosopher.

See Johnny-Dee’s take on the I-don’t-even-know-what-that-means objection. I agree with him that it can be and is overused but there’s some merit to rejecting a position if it can’t be coherently expressed. Insofar as language necessarily shapes my thinking, I can’t accept an idea that language itself cannot capture.

Ikea Product or Lord of the Rings Character:

1. Faramir
2. Freden
3. Grundtal
4. Boromir
5. Molger
6. Galdor
7. Freda
8. Agerum
9. Babord
10. Frodo
11. Grima
12. Akurum
13. Brunkrissla
14. Sultan Högbo
15. Deagol
16. Grimbold

Lord of the Rings characters: 1, 4, 6, 7, 10, 11, 15, 16.
Ikea products: 2, 3, 5, 8, 9, 12, 13, 14.

R. Natan Slifkin points outs a key problem with intelligent design in his Jerusalem Post article (via Hirhurim). It’s quite good and I think he’s right.

The “randomness” of Darwinian evolution is no more antithetical to religion than the superficially chance events of the Book of Esther, which we ascribe to God’s salvation, or the randomness of a lottery, about which it states in Proverbs 16:33, “When the lot is cast in the lap, its entire verdict has been decided by God.”

For as long as I’ve been blogging, I’ve been commenting on the seemingly endless array of “Torah & Science” posts, as well as writing some of my own. But in none of my previous comments or posts have I really expressed my thoughts in a comprehensive way. So for what it’s worth, I want to lay out what I think is the real dilemma evolution presents for religion and offer an approach I find compelling, even if incomplete.
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In light of last week’s election, I want to reflect on a common refrain I heard from friends and relatives justifying not voting: “My vote doesn’t count.” Why bother going to the polls if your district or state is overwhelmingly loyal to only one party? There are a number of good responses to the lazy non-voter argument. Some point out that if you don’t take the time to vote, you don’t deserve to complain about inefficient or complacent government (and of course, everybody wants a right to complain). Others point out, a la Kant, that we ought to do what we think everybody should do and if nobody voted, then clearly democracy couldn’t function. (Attention philosophy pedants: Yes, Kant’s categorical imperative is more complex than that. Deal with it.)

The response I’m most interested in is the one that characterizes voting as a duty. Democracy assumes that individuals know what their own interests are better than anyone else and that government ought to serve the interests of its electorate. Without those assumptions, I don’t think democracy can even get off the ground. If more people vote, then more interests are represented by the result of the election and the government is better able to serve its electorate. For every person who votes, then, the government is that much better equipt to do its job.

Benjamin N. Cardozo in The Nature of Judicial Process:

[E]very one of us has in truth an underlying philosophy of life, even those of us to whom the names and the notions of philosophy are unknown or anathema. There is in each of us a stream of tendency, whether you choose to call it philosophy or not, which gives coherence and direction to thought and action. Judges cannot escape that current any more than other mortals. All their lives, forces which they do not recognize and cannot name, have been tugging at them - inherited instincts, traditional beliefs, acquired convictions; and the resultant is an outlook on life, a conception of social needs, a sense in James’s phrase of “the total push and pressure of the cosmos,” which, when reasons are nicely balanced, must determine where choice shall fall. In this mental background every problem finds its setting.