The Pain of the Problem of Pain

My Bible study group usually does "weird stuff" for the summer to mix things up a bit. Since it's a grad student Bible study, our meetings tend to be kind of like seminar classes...everybody reads the text then we chew it over. Two summers ago, we did some of the Apocrypha, and last year we did medieval Christianity. Let me tell you, Wycliffe in the original is very funny to read.

Anyway this summer we're doing CS Lewis' "The Problem of Pain" on Brian's suggestion. I've read maybe 3/4 of Lewis' books, but not this one yet.

Some people accuse Lewis of being sexist (e.g. Philip Pullman advertising his His Dark Materials trilogy as the atheist kids' alternative to the Chronicles of Narnia), but frankly they're failing to keep in mind that Lewis was writing in the '40s and '50s and is considerably less sexist than the average male from that time. I am also informed that the books that were written after he got married are better in that regard than those written when he was a crusty bachelor, like this one. Nevertheless, this is a really, REALLY bad phrasing:

...the rough, male taste of reality, not made by us, or, indeed, for us, but hitting us in the face.

I guess that, by being totally grossed out by this sentence, I'm leaving myself vulnerable to the medieval accusation that women are sinful creatures obsessed with sex. But seriously, eugh.

The point

Human life is about trying to postpone, circumvent, or mitigate death - trying to stay healthy, trying to be remembered, trying to breed. Easter is about the ABOLITION of death.

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In secondary school I read a few books by Charles Williams. He's one of CS Lewis' and JRR Tolkien's lesser-known writing buddies. I don't like his novels as much because they're heavy going and the characters are not as interesting as persons, and they are certainly open to some of the accusations of [in my opinion relatively minor considering cultural context] sexism and racism that were levelled against Lewis and Tolkien, but they're symbolically rich and good reads if you like metaphysical novels. Shadows of Ecstasy is one of the better ones and is about the point I mentioned above - trying to circumvent/postpone death. I just remembered it today and it's probably been about 10 years since I read it.

Last year's resolution

Last year I made a resolution to be a one-man "matching grant" organization: I would calculate how much I spent on nonessentials (e.g. eating out, leisure items, fun events, clothing (unlike most girls, I tend to consider new clothes nonessential) and so on) and give an equivalent amount to charity, including women's organizations, food aid, medical aid, and Christian organizations. Also, I resolved to spend an equal amount on wildlife conservation and animal welfare as I spent on my cat.

(In the end I decided not to include what I spent on bicycles in the calculation, since my bikes are my only vehicles and therefore essential. This includes the price of the Fuji Absolute that was stolen, which I am STILL upset about. Bike accessories and maintenance supplies, however, are included the calculations.)

As you can see, I did a decent job on the first part of the resolution and an absolutely dismal job on the second. These were my mid-year reports if you're interested.

The $25 to the Four Lakes wildlife rehab was actually guilt money to pay for the care of a baby red-winged blackbird that Lina brought home once. Damn cat. (If I donated to Friends of Ferals and the wildlife rehab center, would they cancel each other out?)

Even though it was my resolution for 2008, I'm going to try to keep doing this, although I'm done with publishing my accounts on the Internet.

My resolution for last year was a proof of concept to show that you don't have to have a lot of money (e.g. Bill Gates) and you don't have to be a "real adult" (i.e. not still in formal education) to be a mini-philanthropist. I'm blogging this not to show off but to show that it's possible.

Resolution for 2009: Learn how to use Linux!!! I bought a secondhand HP TC1100 and installed Fedora on it.

The old woman

Today is the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church.

BBC: An Indian Christian villager at a relief camp in the eastern state of Orissa after her house was torched and her son burned alive by Hindu hardliners.

We who have it so easy find ourselves too lazy to remember our brothers and sisters in other parts of the world (and for Malaysians, even in other parts of the same city we live in) whose freedom to worship, bodily integrity, and very lives are threatened.

I remember going to an IV conference in college and being shown a Voice of the Martyrs video of a girl somewhere in Southeast Asia. My jaw dropped when I realized that she was an Orang Asli girl, speaking Malay, describing how at a SU-FES (Scripture Union-Fellowship of Evangelical Students) camp they had been attacked by police who threatened their lives. None of my camping experiences had been like that. Growing up as a middle-class, suburban Chinese Christian meant that I had a totally different experience from this girl, my compatriot and coreligionist. I couldn't stop crying both in sorrow for her and in shame at my own ignorance.

We who have it so easy - nice house, nice church, nice school, nice Christian friends - should be ashamed at how much we don't know and don't care.

One last note: violence against Christians should never justify violence back. I pray for the martyrs but I also pray that some hot-headed young idiots from persecuted communities won't take retribution into their own hands as happened in the Malukus (Moluccas) in Indonesia some years back.)

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Completely off topic - as someone who's interested in body modification I think it's cool that the old lady in the photo above has multiple ear piercings as well as facial and hand tattoos.

Q2-Q3 report on New Year's resolution

OK so I'm not making very good progress toward hitting my New Year's resolution for the middle 6 months of this year. Also, any strange people reading this please note that I don't have a lot of money so I'm not worth kidnapping or robbing. Any undergraduates reading this, please note that grad students don't make much. =P

The other striking thing about this is that I apparently didn't do anything fun in July. And that's the month of my BIRTHDAY summore. Oh yeah, I was stuck in lab doing RNA preps.

Also, still not sure whether or not to count the price of my new bike that was stolen after one week =( If I don't, that actually puts me quite close to my goal on the humanitarian/religious side.

Regarding the animal-oriented part of my resolution, I at least owe the Four Lakes Wildlife Center some blood money for raising (successfully!) this goofy-looking little bird that Lina brought home unhurt back in July. It turned out to be a Red-Winged Blackbird, strangely enough. Princess Furball's not very expensive except that she had some vaccinations in the spring, plus I bought Heartgard. According to my coworker who's a vet student, heartworm-infected cats, unlike dogs, don't show a lot of symptoms...then suddenly drop dead.

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I got into the Amazon Vine program, which is a program where you get free stuff to preview if other Amazon users have rated a lot of your reviews helpful. (Nyah nyah.) One of the 2 books I ordered this month is Passing the Plate: Why American Christians Don't Give Away More Money. In the first chapter, the authors lay out the incredible things that could be done, both in the religious and secular humanitarian [which obviously can overlap] spheres, if even only people describing themselves as "committed Christians"/regular churchgoers gave 10% of their income to charity. We're talking BILLIONS of dollars here. We could literally change the world.

In the second chapter, they provide detailed statistics from several different sources on the dismal reality: Most people give little to nothing. Significant proportions of people who describe themselves as Christians, regardless of denomination, say they give nothing to their church or charities. Americans Christians do give more than non-religious Americans and people from countries with less religious influence, but still less than Americans of other religions (not that they do so well either).

The 3rd chapter presents nine hypotheses as to why Christians don't give more. The "we can't afford to" excuse is refuted with the billions of dollars spent per year on candy, beverages, entertainment, sport vehicles, cars, fast food, etc. (since the majority of Americans are Christian, it's reasonable to assume that a good chunk of this luxury spending is by them).

Anyway, from doing my accounts and reading this book, I realize I need to buck up. I don't want to be a person who goes through life making stupid excuses. Again, if we don't count the stolen bike, my original target is attainable.

Drat - I just realized that since I use Microsoft Money to keep track of my accounts already, I could have gotten it to generate this spreadsheet automatically...

Critical reading

I don't think I've EVER seen or heard a better piece of advice on reading religious literature:

It is Truth which we must look for in Holy Writ, not cunning of words. All Scripture ought to be read in the spirit in which it was written. We must rather seek for what is profitable in Scripture, than for what ministereth to subtlety in discourse. Therefore we ought to read books which are devotional and simple, as well as those which are deep and difficult. And let not the weight of the writer be a stumbling-block to thee, whether he be of little or much learning, but let the love of the pure Truth draw thee to read. Ask not, who hath said this or that, but look to what he says.

- Thomas A Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, First Book, Chapter V

In case that didn't all sink in, let me break it up into bullet points and add italics:

• It is Truth which we must look for in Holy Writ, not cunning of words.
• All Scripture ought to be read in the spirit in which it was written.
• We must rather seek for what is profitable in Scripture, than for what ministereth to subtlety in discourse. Therefore we ought to read books which are devotional and simple, as well as those which are deep and difficult.
• And let not the weight of the writer be a stumbling-block to thee, whether he be of little or much learning, but let the love of the pure Truth draw thee to read. Ask not, who hath said this or that, but look to what he says.

Prince Caspian quickie review

We went to see Prince Caspian yesterday with some Grad Christian Fellowship kakis. It's a pretty good movie...I'd rate it 8/10 all around.

For the most part, it stayed true to the book except:

• There are a few scenes showing discussions between Miraz, Sopespian, Rozelle, and the other Telmarine lords. I don't have a problem with this since their function is explaining Telmarine politics that are narrated in the books in another way.
• During the scene with Nikabrik and his black magic cronies, they actually summon up the White Witch. If I hadn't read the books I would have gotten the impression that she was going to be a recurring villain.
• Before the duel between Peter and Miraz, there's an SAS paratrooper-style raid on the Telmarines' castle which is a lot of fun to watch for the action scenes, but doesn't advance the plot in any way, so I thought it was really weird that the filmmakers wrote it in.

Special effects and action scenes are really good for the most part, except for one really weird bit where the Narnians use a tactic of making the roof fall in on themselves, which I thought was silly.

In terms of characters: Peter is full of testosterone, and himself. One fellow in the group who's a Peter fan commented that after the moral and military mistakes he made, he wasn't given enough time to redeem himself. Susan shows up really well in the action scenes and flirts outrageously with Caspian, much to the younger ones' scorn. ("I'm sure I'll understand when I'm larger." "I'm larger and I'm not sure I want to understand.") Edmund shines - both as a character in this book, and through Skandar Keynes' perfect deadpan delivery of his lines (I dunno where that name is from but it sounds totally Viking). Lucy, as before, is adorable. Caspian is a bit of a nonentity. He sort of reminds me of Hamlet.

As for Reepicheep: holy cow, I'm glad the mice in my lab don't fight like that.

Christus Apollo

[EDIT: Somebody pointed out in the comments (and I would REALLY appreciate your leaving some clue as to who you are or how to contact you, if you're trying to be helpful rather than just snippy) that this poem is under copyright as Bradbury is still alive, so I can't reproduce it here. Given that an awful lot of poetry is available on the internet, I didn't think about copyright - please don't call me a thief as if I'm purposely trying to deprive him of income or attribution. So I'm just going to quote a few of my favourite bits.]

[Originally posted on 26 March] Two days ago on Easter would have been a more appropriate time to post this, but I happened to be listening to Jerry Goldsmith's musification of it tonight.

A couple of years ago when the PhYW were trying to revive the Phases Young Writers community with a new website, Tee Shern Ren and I were doing the science section and I wrote this essay about what implications First Contact would have for Christ-followers. What do people think?

Thanks to Teacher Rowie for originally posting the full text of the poem. (Unfortunately she didn't include the breaks between stanzas and I don't have a copy of I Sing the Body Electric to check...) It's such a great poem that I'm surprised to find it so hardly on the Internet.

In some far universal Deep
Did He tread Space
And visit worlds beyond our blood-warm dreaming?
Did He come down on lonely shore by sea
Not unlike Galilee
And are there Mangers on far worlds that knew His light?
And Virgins?
Sweet Pronouncements?
Annunciations? Visitations from angelic hosts?
And, shivering vast light among ten billion lights,
Was there some Star much like the star at Bethlehem
That struck the sight with awe and revelation
Upon a cold and most strange morn?
On worlds gone wandering and lost from this
Did Wise Men gather in the dawn
In cloudy steams of Beast
Within a place of straw now quickened to a Shrine
To look upon a stranger Child than ours?
How many stars of Bethlehem burnt bright
Beyond Orion or Centauri’s blinding arc?
How many miracles of birth all innocent
Have blessed those worlds?
...
For in this time of Christmas
In the long Day totalling up to Eight,
We see the light, we know the dark;
And creatures lifted, born, thrust free of so much night
No matter what the world or time or circumstance
Must love the light,
So, children of all lost unnumbered suns
Must fear the dark
Which mingles in a shadowing-forth on air.
And swarms the blood.
No matter what the color, shape, or size
Of beings who keep souls like breathing coals
In long midnights,
They must need saving of themselves.
So on far worlds in snowfalls deep and clear
Imagine how the rounding out of some dark year
Might celebrate with birthing one miraculous child!
A child?
Born in Andromeda’s out-swept mysteries?
Then count its hands, its fingers,
Eyes, and most incredible holy limbs!
The sum of each?
No matter. Cease.
Let Child be fire as blue as water under Moon.
Let Child sport free in tides with human-seeming fish.
Let ink of octopi inhabit blood
Let skin take acid rains of chemistry
All falling down in nightmare storms of cleansing burn.
Christ wanders in the Universe
A flesh of stars,
He takes on creature shapes
To suit the mildest elements,
He dresses him in flesh beyond our ken.
...
Yet, still unsure, and all being doubt,
Much frightened man on Earth does cast about
And clothe himself in steel
And borrow fire
And himself in the great glass of the careless Void admire.
...
Christ is not dead
Nor does God sleep
While waking Man
Goes striding on the Deep
To birth ourselves anew
And love rebirth
From fear of straying long
On outworn Earth.
...
New Wise men Descry
Our hosts of machineries
Which write immortal life
And sign it God!
Down, down Alien skies.
And flown and gone, arrived and bedded safe to sleep
Upon some winters morning deep
Ten billion years of light
From where we stand us now and sing,
There will be time to cry eternal gratitudes
Time to know and see and love the Gift of Life itself,
Always diminished,
Always restored,
Out of one hand and into the other
Of the Lord.

Hot tub

Last night we had the Grad Christian Fellowship's women's retreat in New Glarus, which is a cute little fake Swiss town. I'm sure they had real Swiss immigrants back when it started in the 1850s, but now it's a tourist trap.

The two speakers were the Assistant Dean of Diversity and a sociology prof, who'd known each other for about two years professionally, but were each extremely surprised to find out that the other was Christian when we invited them to come and talk. Sociology and Asst. Dean of Diversity...go figure. I think in some fields - surprisingly, not the life sciences - announcing that you belong to an organized religion is like coming out of the closet.

The Chalet Landhaus is really nice but also awfully expensive, which is why the women's retreat is in February (off-season). But it's made of wood, has well-heated rooms, etc., plus a Jacuzzi. Someone commented that "if I had one of these in my house, I would be so relaxed." Well, there's a reason we don't have Jacuzzis in our houses:

Grad students aren't supposed to relax.

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One thing that Dr Turley mentioned was that she'd grown up poor (as had Dr Sanchez) and she'd been taught to hate rich people. (Look at the 5th item on her publication list, by the way.) I definitely didn't grow up poor, but our family was more or less lower-middle-class, and I wasn't taught to hate rich people but to look down on them - not explicitly, obviously, as my dad's a pastor, but you pick up on comments about spoilt kids, corrupt politicians, pampered housewives, nepotism, etc.

It drove me nuts to hear my Bengali friend, whose family in Dhaka had servants and drivers, insist that they weren't rich. It drives me nuts to hear my boyfriend, whose family has 4 cars total and whose parents own their own very nice house, insist that they're not rich. Not by relative neighbourhood or USA standards, maybe, but by the standards I grew up with they look like close to millionaires.

It's becoming very uncomfortable to me to realize that with the level of education I'm going to end up with, and the type of job that I'm probably going to have, I will be joining the ranks of the "rich people". I don't want to have to deal with investments and stocks and all that bullshit, and if there are any children in my future, I have an absolute horror of them growing up to be privileged brats. Maybe I can pull a John Wesley and give most of it away to continue living at the frugal-but-far-from-desperate lower-middle-class level that I'm used to.

Steve won't like it though. He wants his own aeroplane. We'll have to hash something out.

PK drug problem

I'm not a fan of ultraconservative American organizations like Focus on the Family, but there was an article titled "Real Life for Second-Generation Christians" in one of their fliers which I thought was totally relevant and funny:

But there are challenges when faith has always been an assumed part of your life. One second-generation Christian said he had a drug problem growing up--his father was a pastor and he got "drug" to church on Sunday morning and "drug" to church on Sunday night and "drug" to church on Wednesday night.

A while ago I visited the home of the senior pastor at the church I attend, with a bunch of other random churchgoers. At one point a twentysomething woman sneaked into the back of the living area and was getting something out of the fridge when someone turned around and asked "Who's that?" The "Oh Dad don't make me introduce myself" look on her face was painfully familiar and for the first time in my life it wasn't on mine =D

Which early church father are you?

I'm not even sure who Origen is or what his positions were and since I have homework tonight I'm definitely not going to start reading the wiki about him.

You’re Origen! You do nothing by half-measures. If you’re going to read the Bible, you want to read it in the original languages. If you’re going to teach, you’re going to reach as many souls as possible, through a proliferation of lectures and books. If you’re a guy and you’re going to fight for purity … well, you’d better hide the kitchen shears. Find out which Church Father you are at The Way of the Fathers!

I'm not sure what this has to do with it either, but under the question "Your guilty pleasure:" I picked "Self-mutilation". =D

Science and Christianity seminar last weekend

Posted in my Facebook notes.

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The church I attend in Madison (I don't like to say "my church" ever, because as a pastor's kid I'm a bit allergic to church-specific allegiance) is a bit of an odd case because it's an Evangelical Free Church, but unlike the typical evangelicals in the US, they're pretty neutral politically and even open to what Americans usually consider left-wing issues. Last year there was a sermon on "The Future" and my reaction to the title was Oh groan they're going to talk about Revelation, but instead the pastor invited a UW professor to talk about climate change =D

Anyway, last weekend there was a seminar on science and Christianity which I attended. I ran into a few people I didn't expect, including a kid called Rob in my molecular biology techniques class. Descriptions of the speakers are here here.

The five speakers included three current and one emeritus UW professors, one of whom was Rick Lindroth, the entomology prof who did the "Al Gore" talk mentioned above =D

The other two UW professors are Jeff Hardin, in Zoology, and Stuart Knechtle, a professor of transplantation. Hardin is in developmental biology, which is really cool. Dev bio is also one of the areas that's very much dealing with the "where did life come from" question.

The retired prof, Wayne Becker, is a biochemist. He did a cute little gimmick of literally wearing different hats as he described positions along the creation/evolution continuum: Young Earth Creationists (Henry Morris), Old Earth Creationists (Hugh Ross), Theistic Evolutionists (Francis Collins - the Human Genome Project guy, and me), and Naturalistic Evolutionists (Richard Effing Dawkins).

I was saying something to someone today about Francis Collins and I said Michael Collins by mistake...wait...not the astronaut dude. =D

The one non-UW faculty member is John Walton, a professor of Old Testament at Wheaton, who talked about reading the OT in the light of ancient Middle Eastern thought...comparative literature I guess. I ended up buying one of his books on the subject, message me if you're interested in reading it.

In sum, it was definitely worth getting up early on Saturday (after staying up till 3am reading Terry Pratchett's "Thud" =PPP I needed to catch up on Sam Vimes.)

Ultimately my position as a Christian and a scientist is based on faith. I'm trusting that a) God exists and b) made a world which is systematic and c) gave us rational minds, I'm not going to go into by what mechanism here and d) loves us enough not to mess with our minds too much. If those four assumptions are correct, nothing the Bible says should contradict the findings of reason and observation, and vice versa. There ya go.

To close, a note from St. Augustine:

"Since, then, in those situations where such things are appropriate, some perish to make way for others that are born in their room, and the less succumb to the greater, and the things that are overcome are transformed into the quality of those that have the mastery, this is the appointed order of things transitory. Of this order the beauty does not strike us, because by our mortal frailty we are so involved in a part of it, that we cannot perceive the whole, in which these fragments that offend us are harmonized with the most accurate fitness and beauty." (City of God*, Book XII, Chapter 3.)

I think Augustine would have been a TE =)

ARGH I HAVE HOMEWORK AGAIN. At some point I'll get around to posting the theory I came up with for my last Path 750 assignment. I got fifty out of fifty marks for writing about Devil Facial Tumour Disease (I guess "tumour" ought to be spelt with a u, since it is an Australian animal) and I'm very pleased with it. At the rate I'm going with this second one, it may be somewhat less pleasing.

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*Unfortunately Augustine's books are no longer on Gutenberg.org. They're now in the CCEL, which you can access for free but have to register.

Raptor!

No, not the Jurassic Park kind...although that's where I first learned the word from. That book can scare the crap out of a ten-year-old kid.

Recently my sis FlowerMoonFish who's interning at theSun was assigned to cover Raptor Watch. It's spring migration now, so they're all going back to their breeding grounds in China or Russia or whatever from their winter holiday in M'sia.

Anyway, I was at Blackhawk Church's Science & Christianity seminary today (I'd like to say "more about that later", but more than likely I'll be too lazy to do a proper write-up). Rick Lindroth, who's a UW-Madison professor of entomology, was talking about environmentalism from a Christian perspective (a.k.a. creation care). He noted that one reason we're pretty apathetic about what happens to nature is that we're unfamiliar with it - walk down the street and you'll probably recognize most of the corporate logos you see, but very few trees. (Hinthint, the one that looks like the Canadian flag in autumn is a maple. =)

[Is it just me, or does he look like a less horsey version of John Kerry?]

Also, I've been rereading Joey Slinger's Down and Dirty Birding, which I picked up last year at the Singapore National Library booksale. It's a humorous and accessible guide for the beginning birder, insightful but not heavy, and mentions characteristics of birds you're likely to see in North America. As it's written by a Canadian, the particulars of birds mentioned in the book are pretty unhelpful for Malaysians (except for worldwide invasives like the pigeon...groan).

Also, IT'S EFFING SPRING! You'd have to be blind and deaf to not notice all the birds showing up (blind birders listen for songs and calls).

The cool thing happened later. I'd gone to lab after the seminar around 5pm to check on some cells. As I was unlocking my bike at the side of the building, a crow-sized bird bombed out of the crabapple tree next to the bicycle rack, swooped across the lawn, and ended up in a big tree (yes, I don't know what kind of tree it is) with a chipmunk in its talons. At least, it had something in its talons and a still-twitching chipmunk tail was hanging out.

After it moved to a higher branch to get slightly further away from my kaypoh staring, it began to eat. You could hear the crunchy noises.

It was mostly light brownish-grey, with brown stripes across the tail, and the top of its head was darker. A bit like this fellow. I went home and looked it up on eNature and I think it was either a Cooper's or a Sharp-Shinned Hawk (both the Animal Diversity web pages and Slinger say they're easily confused).

ADW on their feeding habits:

When hunting, Cooper's hawks usually perch in a hidden location and watch for prey. They wait until their prey is unaware of their presence, then quickly swoop down and seize it. Bobwhites, starlings, blackbirds, chipmunks, and squirrels are common prey for Cooper's hawks.

Sharp-shinned hawks are opportunistic hunters. They often hunt from a perch and dart out from hiding to catch prey. Their long, sharp talons help them to grab onto prey and their short bursts of high-speed flight help them to catch their prey.

There ya go.

Blackhawk typo

This is to the last person who commented on my blog and anyone else who goes to Blackhawk Church...there was a typo in their flyer...if anyone's interested in the Science Fiction and Fantasy group, the email address starts with "sfandf", not "fandf"!

Apparently the contact form on Blackhawk's site works okay, but then their emails end up in my spam folder. Sorry guys.

Augustine on Evolution

I've quoted St. Augustine on ecology before. Here's what he might have to say about the current evolution-vs.-creationism flap. I'll let the great man speak for himself. *grin* This is a link to the entire book in plaintext if you want it.

[From Book XII]

Chapter 4.--Of the Nature of Irrational and Lifeless Creatures, Which in Their Own Kind and Order Do Not Mar the Beauty of the Universe.

But it is ridiculous to condemn the faults of beasts and trees, and other such mortal and mutable things as are void of intelligence, sensation, or life, even though these faults should destroy their corruptible nature; for these creatures received, at their Creator's will, an existence fitting them, by passing away and giving place to others, to secure that lowest form of beauty, the beauty of seasons, which in its own place is a requisite part of this world. For things earthly were neither to be made equal to things heavenly, nor were they, though inferior, to be quite omitted from the universe. Since, then, in those situations where such things are appropriate, some perish to make way for others that are born in their room, and the less succumb to the greater, and the things that are overcome are transformed into the quality of those that have the mastery, this is the appointed order of things transitory. Of this order the beauty does not strike us, because by our mortal frailty we are so involved in a part of it, that we cannot perceive the whole, in which these fragments that offend us are harmonized with the most accurate fitness and beauty.

Haha, he said "fitness" =D

... But they forget that this very light which is so pleasant to them, disagrees with and hurts weak eyes; and in that heat which is disagreeable to them, some animals find the most suitable conditions of a healthy life.

He must have been thinking of Strain 121.

InterVarsity last night

Steve and I went to the IV grad Christian Fellowship meeting last night (they're fortnightly). At the end of the meeting we split up into groups by fields of study to pray.

I noticed something really funny: completely contrary to the layman's belief that science and reason have[are] abolished[ing] religion, the engineering and math group had the most people in it, followed by physical sciences, biology, social sciences (a.k.a. "people who think P<0.3 is good"), and last of all, arts and humanities.

Tim, who's the advisor of Lawrence University's CF, commented that he thinks the arts are the most hostile to Christianity. Steven Pinker in How the Mind Works wrote that the reason modern art holds little interest for the lay public is that it's really an esoteric status competition among artists and aficionados that really has little to do with what the human brain tends to find beautiful.

So there we have our explanation, ladies and gentlemen: professional artists are a bunch of wankers. >D