What an interesting thought. I’ll be working that over for a while.
I guess it depends on the grade of modesty.
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I’m still in the first fifteen minutes and I enjoyed the but about the hemispheres of the brain. That has personal importance to me because my younger brother is a mathematician whose left hemisphere is effectively dead; the cells are alive but there is no coherent activity and indeed little activity at all. When after the accident which caused this it became evident that not only was he still perfectly capable of math – supposedly a totally left-hemisphere function – but in a number of ways was even better than before (example: he was always good at multiplying three- and sometimes four-digit number in his head, but now that extends to five- and six-digit numbers, and he is much faster at it) [he currently teaches ‘GaoD’ students online – “Gifted and/or Difficult” from high school geometry through doctoral program material]. The difference and its divergence from the expected (the doctors warned he had probably lose his mathematical ability) was stark enough he became the subject of a couple of scientific papers; we like to think that his situation helped overturn the simplistic understanding of the two hemispheres.
His point about things being taken out of context made me think of the Laffer curve, which interested me enough that I did a couple of hundred hours of study about it. My conclusion was that both sides were wrong about it: the one because it is not complete nonsense, the other because it is not anywhere close to being universally true (the constraints include employment levels, utilization of industrial capacity, tax rates, and a handful of other aspects). It wasn’t hard to figure out, it just took a hefty amount of slogging through economic data, which made it simple yet complex – yet the complexity made people on both sides ignore the simplicity and thus my efforts brought very little fruit in terms of explaining the issue to anyone.
I like the Augustine line about understanding God; I’ve pointed it out to a number of cultists who don’t seem to grasp that they are dedicated to limiting God to what common humans can understand with little effort, yet they fail to see that if what they understand as God can be humanly understood then it is not in the least likely that it is God that they understand.
Love his points about mysticism and the great minds of the past!
U.S. politics in a nutshell: when people think they know and understand everything, that’s when things begin to go wrong.
I kept looking at the Rubik’s Cube on the shelf behind the interviewer and thinking how my younger brother solves it: he doesn’t consciously analyze it, he “absorbs” it and then solves it without having to think about what he is doing. That strikes me as being very right-brain, where my solving it involves step-by-step analysis beginning with learning how various moves alter the orientation and placement of the pieces.
Near the end I remembered something a Franciscan priest said, that a Dominican mystic would be a contradiction in terms. Thinking back I think that suggested that Dominicans are very left-brain oriented – and I wonder if a Dominican might say that a Franciscan theologian would be a contradiction in terms (and perhaps a Benedictine would shake his head and chuckle at both of them).
“When God builds a church the devil builds one right next door.” Love it!
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Well, what people think of as righteousness, anyway. Righteousness cannot exist apart from love, and love cannot exist apart from people, so righteousness necessarily involves humanity. I might even go so far as to say that it is impossible to be righteous alone, by one’s self.
“Good” pursued to the extreme tends to turn out to be the greatest of evil.
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I long ago decided that modesty is a tool for shaming people into following the behaviors desired by those who invoke it.
So did I. I’m glad to see Christians finding value in his hemisphere research and surveys of history, cosmology, philosophy and world myths. I think the hurdle is seeing the Christian mythos as one of many without seeing it thereby diminished. The work of Mozart and Beethoven do nothing to diminish Bach, just more musical pathways to glory. Of course if one could celebrate all the stories that connect anyone to what is the divine without worrying so much about the content of the mythos that has awakened them to it.
One hopes there is still a good place left for something that might qualify as real modesty, or at least close enough. It seems like the same criticism could be hurled at humility too. And yet, we’re not free to abandon the call toward humility. And the [original] quote, if taken there, seems to me to have a toxic, if not fatal cynicism to it.
[And maybe it just involves accepting that, yes, real modesty does have a shadow side, and perhaps necessarily so.]
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Interesting quote to contemplate. But the topic always calls to mind Winston Churchill’s put down of “a modest little man with plenty to be modest about.”
I wonder if anyone else is watching Rings of Power? I didn’t expect I would so I didn’t watch the first season while it was being discussed in a thread initiated by Merv around an article comparing the world of LOTR with GOT.
I’ve finally started watching season 1 and of course season 2 is underway as well. Will probably polish those two seasons off eventually. But now I’m wondering if I would be better off reading Tolkien’s own prequel, The Silmarillion? I’m not patient with Tolkien’s long descriptive passages of meals and gardens. Though I appreciate both when I’m reading a story I want to focus on either characters or plot. Any recommenders or detractors?
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we are watching. It got sort of mixed reviews, with hard core LOTR fans being a bit critical as it takes liberties, as film adaptations always do. Personally, I am enjoying it having never read The Simarillon so no expectations. Just watched the second episode of season 2, enjoyed it. the Christianity today review gave an interesting slant.
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It’s going to be behind a registration wall for most (or at least the full interview will be), but Skye Jethani (In a Skyepod episode - part of the Holy Post series) interviewed our very own Deb Haarsma! You can listen to at least the first 2/3 of the interview here, even if you aren’t a Holy Post member.
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I agree with those who are liking this second season of Rings of Power better than the first. I did read Silmarillion, but too many years ago to have much of it at ready recollection. So while the first season just seemed like mostly fancifully added story to me, I nonetheless couldn’t be sure how much of it actually was in there or which parts might have been but that I was just forgetting. (I did know that Halbrand as Sauron was all made up backstory - what with Galadriel adventuring with him and all - I knew none of that was in the Silmarillion). It wasn’t till the second season that the story began to coalesce for me around stuff that I do half remember - or recognize as true even from the LOTR books themselves. So yeah - now that the story seems to be back to at least some skeleton of the way Tolkien wrote it out, I find myself being much more forgiving of, and even enjoying all the escapades in between, apocryphal as they may be.
Sauron was a “fair-seeming friend” indeed, and that is a lesson for the ages. What does it say about us though when the leaders we fall for aren’t even fair in appearance? How far do we have to fall so that we’re not even selling out our inheritance of Truth for a bowl of stew, but knowingly walking away from it for a pot of sewage?
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Well said. Glad to hear you and @jpm are still enjoying it on into season 2. I just watched season 1, episode 4 yesterday. I’m fitting it in gradually as I’m also still reading The Magnificent Rebels by Wulf. Though it isn’t a true page turner I do intend to finish it this time as she brings these characters to life and makes me want to see how it settles out.