Fire and Knowledge

It is good to be tired and weary from fruitlessly seeking the true good, so that one can stretch out one’s arms to the Redeemer.
—Blaise Pascal, Pensées, in Christianity for Modern Pagans by Peter Kreeft, p. 215

Why is it that many Christians think written down or pre-conceived prayers are insincere or irreverent? I admit I have this tendency. When someone prays with too many biblical symbolisms or theological words I almost always look up to see if they are reading the prayer, as if that makes it less sincere. This is a bad tendency that I need to put to death. Almost everything else in worship has non-spontaneous aspects to it. The structure of the service is not spontaneous, yet it is worshipful. Hymns are not spontaneous, and yet we think they are sincere. The preacher’s message is usually not spontaneous if they have done their job of studying, yet we think it is being used by God.

Spontaneous prayer can be healthy and should be encouraged. But too much spontaneous prayer without structure can also be a hindrance at times. When Jesus showed his disciples how to pray, he didn’t say, “Just make it up as you go along and be sure not to read anything or use a form!” Sometimes we act like that is what he said. Instead he said:

“And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Pray then like this:

“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”

(Matthew 6:7-15, ESV)

It is not good to be too free.
It is not good to have all one needs.
—Blaise Pascal, Pensées, in Christianity for Modern Pagans by Peter Kreeft, p. 186

The only thing that consoles us for our miseries is diversion. And yet it is the greatest of our miseries. For it is that above all which presents us thinking about ourselves and leads us imperceptibly to destruction. But for that we should be bored, and boredom would drive us to seek some more solid means of escape, but diversion passes our time and brings us imperceptibly to our death.
—Blaise Pascal, Pensées, in Christianity for Modern Pagans by Peter Kreeft, p. 185

The candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the Government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court … the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their Government into the hands of that eminent tribunal.
—Abraham Lincoln cited in Slouching Towards Gomorrah by Robert H. Bork, p. 318

Man is so unhappy that he would be bored even if he had no cause for boredom, by the very nature of his temperament, that he is so vain that, though he has a thousand and one basic reasons for being bored, the slightest thing, like pushing a ball with a billiard cue, will be enough to divert him…. However sad a man may be, if you can persuade him to take up some diversion he will be happy while it lasts, and however happy a man may be, if he lacks diversion and has no absorbing passion or entertainment to keep boredom away, he will soon be depressed and unhappy. Without diversion there is no joy; with diversion there is no sadness.
—Blaise Pascal, Pensées, in Christianity for Modern Pagans by Peter Kreeft, pp. 174, 176

E-mails ‘hurt IQ more than pot’

Workers distracted by phone calls, e-mails and text messages suffer a greater loss of IQ than a person smoking marijuana, a British study shows.

This isn’t, of course, surprising to anyone who has thought about this before. However, it is disturbing to think–especially for those of us who are distracted by emails all day–that we are becoming dumber through most of what we do. Perhaps people will start filing Workman’s Comp for this.

That being said, I have no idea how this works:

In 80 clinical trials, Dr. Glenn Wilson, a psychiatrist at King’s College London University, monitored the IQ of workers throughout the day.

He found the IQ of those who tried to juggle messages and work fell by 10 points — the equivalent to missing a whole night’s sleep and more than double the 4-point fall seen after smoking marijuana.

Even if there is such a thing as a person’s IQ (which I highly doubt), I find it very hard to believe there is a way to measure a person’s IQ throughout the day. Did they bombard their brain with x-rays or something? Attach wires to their eyeballs? Have them fill out math questions after each answered email?

Want a crash-free car? Bill Gates does too. (However, it is still to be determined whether he means physical or software crashes.) Of course, we don’t want to talk about how technology has increased the amount of crashes (yes Mr. Cell Phone I am looking at you) or how we can educate people how to drive more responsibly. No sir—Americans know better than to put their faith in people—we put it in technology.

Eventually, Gates said, there could be a car that wouldn’t let itself crash.

“That absolutely should be the goal … The embrace of technology will be the key for the leaders of the industry.”

So if we simply “embrace” technology all our car crashing problems will go away! Oh, the irony. The technology that introduced “crashes” is the technology we should put our faith in to avoid “crashes.” You can count me out.