The absence of finality
of total certainty
of confirmation of one's findings
being baptized without the dove
the dove being invisible
a flutter on the skin
a homelessness in the world
gold horns riding on holy
holy wholely holy
unconfirmed
undeniable
undecidable?
When I first accepted the theory of evolution, albeit loosely, I understood right away that it created a hemeneutical crisis for me (and Christianity). I think I was in third year, conversing with my roommate Mark, an Atlantic Baptist who held to evolution. Mark didn't see the crisis that I did, and I suspected this was because Mark was more cultured then I was. What I saw was that original sin was predicated on a temporal event that caused a condition. We have the condition as evidence of a temporal event in the past, which is accounted for in scripture. If then I tried to splice the evolutionary story together with the Eden lapse, the later morphed from a historico-mythical foundation into a psychological-existential etiology. This converted the Eden narrative form the historiography and linear temporality of the Hebrews to the functional psychology of the Greeks. Theologians had always been reading the Eden narrative as the Greeks might, but they had recourse to the Hebraic foundation (at least until the 19th century). What occurred to me was that if the Greek hermeneutic won out the post-lapsarian curse which results in the condition of sin was unfounded (in history at least). Where and when did the rebellion occur? Were some animals, the earlier version of humanity, immune from the curse? This seemed unlikely, as they were likely more limited then we are. How then is the Eden narrative to be understood? Do we have to opt for the progressivist reading of history and say that the Eden narrative is a mistaken document of lesser worth? In short, accepting evolution pushed me into a afoundational reading of sin. This bothered me for a while, as I could not reconcile the problem of original sin with the condition of sin. The itch, however, had been forgotten until I began to do more reading on Augustine for the first chapter of my dissertation.
While I do not have a solution, here is how I cope with the problem. Since we are trapped in afoundational narratives wherever we look, this includes evolution, evolution has no more essential believability then Eden. I now hold belief in the ability to reconcile variations of the two narratives. Furthermore, I find the ethic that Eden gives me, and the livability in this narrative framework, of much more value then what evolution provides. Eden explains much more about my soul, mind and body, then evolution has been able to. Evolution, for instance, would explain guilt as a function of sociability - in that if I didn't have a strong sense of guilt when I harmed the social I wouldn't have recourse to the goods of the social. Augustine has a much richer analysis of guilt in that his version can include the political realism of the evolutionary narrative while also accounting for the metaphysical aspect of guilt that is, for me (and countless others), the most penetrating element, the idea that I have sinned against God, and also wronged my community. This for me is the only suitable explanation for the otherworldly power that sometimes sits on my chest and humbles me to the point of confession. But what a blessing it is. Thus, I still give primacy to the Eden narrative, even while I think about the purely physical temporality of creation through the lens of evolution (albeit evolution with a primary cause and continued sustenance in the not-God of God - to use David Hart's formula).
By the way, this is my 100th posting.
Yes folks, she's a determined woman, descendant of a farm girl. 
And boy can she hustle
A man walks down the street
He says why am I soft in the middle now
Why am I soft in the middle
The rest of my life is so hard
I need a photo opportunity
I want a shot at redemption
Don’t want to end up a cartoon
In a cartoon graveyard
Bone-digger, bone-digger
Dogs in the moonlight
Far away my well-lit door
Mr. Beerbelly, beerbelly
Get these mutts away from me
You know I don’t find this stuff
Amusing anymore
It's always good to see that the boys in NB are keeping up their end of the bargain, while I toil and sweat to rhetorically express that NB spirit:
Thieves carried off 22 pigs in compact car, say police
Last Updated: Thursday, August 23, 2007 | 3:27 PM AT
CBC News
RCMP have arrested a pair suspected of stealing 22 pigs from a barn near Sussex, N.B., in a getaway that police say was likely a very tight squeeze.
Thieves took the pigs earlier this month after smashing the locks on a barn in Knightville, rented by Moffett's Farms.
The two from Petitcodiac, aged 19 and 20, are suspected to have used one small car to haul the 22 pigs, weighing 23-27 kilograms each, from the farm to the house in Havelock where police tracked them.
RCMP picked up the trail after one of the men forgot his ID at the scene of a break-in.
Const. Jim Gass said the stench from the pigs was immediately apparent to investigators, who found a small car, filled with pig droppings, as well as sacks used to transport the pigs.
"This little car they transported them in once had like 22 pigs," Gass said. "Man, it wasn't a lot of room in the car. She would have been a noisy affair, I would imagine, and quite a wild ride. Something you see in the movies, I would guess."
Police couldn't recover all of the pigs, worth about $75 each. The suspects allegedly ate one the night of the theft, Gass said. Most of the others, police said, were sold to unknowing customers.
RCMP won't release names of the suspects because the men have yet to be charged.
Both suspects are to appear in court Sept. 24 on unrelated charges.
I haven't posted for some time, but a recent newspaper article needed comment. During the second world war, Japan was a devastating colonial force. In fact, their colonial period began in 1910 and continued until the US forced Japan into submission with unprecedented military action - two infamous nuclear warheads that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Korea was one of the colonies most devastated by the Japanese. You can also find out more about the Japanese devastation of Asia by reading on the rape of Nanjing. One despicable thing Japan did as a colonial power was to enslave young Korean women (teens) beat them into submission, and use them as sex slaves for the Japanese forces. Korea estimates that Japan enslaved 200, 000 Korean women between 1930 and 1945. Unlike atrocities committed by forces in Europe (thinking primarily of the Holocaust here), Japan has never apologized for the treatment of these women. Moreover, they deny that they ever participated in this systematic rape and torture of a significant portion of Korean women at that time. They still teach a version of Japanese history that whitewashes their activities in Asia, portraying their colonization of Korea as humane.
The article just published by the Korean Times comments on the US support of the comfort women, urging Japan for a public apology and financial remuneration. Korea, China, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore are no longer singing an Asia-only lament. I believe that Canada, if it hasn't already, should put significant pressure on the Japanese to apologize for their treatment of Korean Comfort Women.
Ex-Sex Slaves Welcome US Resolution
Comfort women who were forced to serve for the Japanese army as a sexual slave during World War II are consoled by protesters during a press conference welcoming the passage of a resolution by the U.S. House of Representatives calling on Japan to formally apologize to the victims and accept historical responsibility in front of Japanese Embassy in Seoul, Tuesday. / AP-Yonhap
By Park Chung-a
Staff Reporter
Former Korean sex slaves used by Japanese soldiers during World War II hailed Tuesday the passage of a resolution by the U.S. House of Representatives, urging Japan to officially apologize to the victims and acknowledge its historical responsibility.
``The United States’ approval of the resolution gives us hope for the restoration of honor, the realization of justice for victims of comfort women in the Asia Pacific region, and women’s human rights activists who have spent tens of years for supporting victims of comfort women,’’ said the Korean Council for Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan.
``The Japanese government should officially apologize to the elderly victims as soon as possible and make legal compensations as well as teach the younger generations correct history and promise a peaceful future,’’ it said.
Kil Won-ok and Lee Soon-duk, two of the victims of comfort women, expressed their delight.
``My delight is beyond words. The Japanese government should now sincerely apologize to the victims in order not to become the mockery of the world,’’ said Kil.
Lee, 91, demanded activists to continue their efforts for rights of the victims.
``I have no single spot in my body which is well as I was beaten so hard when I was hauled away at the age of 17. Please help us live decent lives for the rest of our lives,’’ she said.
Lawmakers, including Lee Mi-kyung of the Uri Party, also hailed the U.S. House Resolution as a wise decision and called on the Japanese government to immediately give legal compensation to victims and to educate future generations about comfort women without distorting history.
The non-binding House resolution is symbolic, but it demands Japan to formally acknowledge, apologize, and accept historical responsibility in a clear and unequivocal manner for the coercion of young women into sexual slavery in military brothels in the 1930s and 40s.
While estimates are varying, hundreds of thousands of women, mostly from Korea and other Asian countries, are believed to have been sexually enslaved by Japan, which colonized the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945.
U.S. Democratic Rep. Mike Honda, the resolution's chief sponsor, said Lee Yong-soo, who testified before Congress in February on her rape and torture at the hands of Japanese soldiers, watched Monday's proceedings. ``All she could do was weep and say thank you,’’ Honda said. ``It vindicated her past.’’
In 1993, Japan issued a carefully worded official apology, but it was never approved by its parliament. Japan has rejected compensation claims, saying they were settled by postwar treaties.
michelle@koreatimes.co.kr
