Chess Club
Month: January 2023
In the Background
Sunday Games
The Girl has slowly disappeared from this site though not for lack of interest on my part. She’s reticent to have photos taken; she is often not at home in the evenings, either at practice, the gym, the library, or just going to visit friends; the things we talk about don’t result in cute exchanges anymore but just honest sharing with each other — when she’s willing to share. She is, in short, a typical sixteen-year-old, and her withdrawal from this site mirrors a bit of a withdrawal from family life into her own, growing life.
So when she accepted an invitation this evening to come downstairs and play a board game with E and me, the temptation to take a picture was great, but I knew it would ruin the moment. K probably did, too, and didn’t even try a stealth shot. Instead, the three of us sat and played Sequence, chatting about nothing of any significance, just spending some time together. I played without a care, randomly placing my pieces with only the occasional intent — usually to block L’s pending sequence. She won anyway (she always wins board games), and though I would have played another, neither child was interested.
“Are they both just humoring me?” I thought as they walked away.
Toppled
The Boy’s basketball team took down an undefeated team in today’s game. K and I didn’t know that they were undefeated until the end, but I suspected: with about half of the third quarter remaining, down 14-8, a boy from the opposing team seemed like it was all he could do to keep back the tears, and he continued in this state until the end of the game. The Boy’s team lost their first game just a couple of weeks ago, so we know how that stings.
As for pictures — only one. From long ago.
Decorating the Door
Eighth-grade Night at School
NT
Maciej Gębacz – Heimdall Fotografia
Why Don’t I Believe?
I was having an exchange on Twitter (I would say “conversation,” but that would be a terribly inflated label given the medium) about my disbelief. “Do you know why the Bible says you don’t believe?” my interlocutor asked.
I was confident I’d hear Romans 1:20: “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” It’s a favorite among apologists, so I was ready to hear my questioner suggest that I really had no excuse, that I did believe but was just hiding the fact — probably because I “just want to sin.” These moves are as standard as any established chess opening.
Taking that all into consideration, I responded, “I have a hard heart. I refuse to see despite the evidence all around me. Lay the verse from Romans on me, baby! I’m ready!”
Instead, the fellow replied with a verse I’d never really noticed: “He has blinded their eyes and he hardened their heart, so that they would not see with their eyes and perceive with their heart, and be converted and I heal them” (John 12:40).
How could I have not noticed this verse before? This passage presents a positively damning view of this god, and I pointed this out: “He then is responsible. Your god created me, blinded me, then damned me for being blind. Do you guys not see how sick this is? Do you guys not understand it’s perverse thinking like this that prompts so many to question their faith?”
I was expecting an explanation for how this can make the New Testament god appear to be heartless and even capriciously cruel, that preventing someone from believing and then punishing him for that disbelief is in fact some unfathomable mystery that ultimately will work to this god’s “greater glory” (what an immature, insecure being this god of Christianity is, always demanding praise and worship and smiting those who don’t fall in line — sounds a bit like North Korea). Instead, I got another verse:
But their minds were blinded. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the [veil] is taken away in Christ.
2 Corinthians 3:14 (New King James Version)
That “Old Testament” bit sounded a bit strange, so I looked it up to find other translations:
- But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away. (New International Version)
- The people were stubborn, and something still keeps them from seeing the truth when the Law is read. Only Christ can take away the covering that keeps them from seeing. (Contemporary English Version)
- But their minds were hardened. Indeed, to this very day, when they hear the reading of the old covenant, that same veil is still there, since only in Christ is it set aside. (New Revised Standard Version)
I suspect this translation to “Old Testament” instead of “old covenant” is to create a sense of continuity between the New Testament and what it views itself as replacing in some sense — a propaganda move, in other words.
Still, I resisted the urge to comment on that (and thus radically derail the topic under discussion) and stuck to the point: “So your god blinds me and then punishes me for being blind. How can you not see how perverse that is?”
He, however, had no qualms about radically changing the topic, which I see as another typical apologetic move. Instead of dealing with what I said, he replied, “I see someone who fights tooth and nail against God. What makes you more deserving? You are already under the judgement [sic] of God.”
“It’s like you willfully misconstrue my objection,” I concluded.
Looking for a New Home
E’s Cub Scout adventure is nearing its end. He and the other boys in his pack who are interested in moving on to Boy Scouts are checking out various troops. Tonight, they visited one about a mile from our house.
It’s his top pick at the moment.
Sunday
The girls won the bronze bracket.
We went to visit family.
A good Sunday overall.
Here and There Today
Today
Fences and Guardrails
“God just puts these laws in place for our protection!” seems to be a common apologetic response to criticism of the laws of the Bible and the sense of absurdity some of them engender. There’s even a cartoon about it.
This is such a silly cartoon — it shows the absurdity of the argument better than apologists recognize. Most basically, the things that this god’s law supposedly protects us from were created by that god himself! He made all the universe, according to apologists. He created all the laws of physics. He created all the contingencies and consequences. In other words, to relate it back to the cartoon, he created the fence (“guardrail”) and the cliff. And he put the guardrail right at the edge of the cliff.
To turn it back to Christianity itself, this god created the laws and the consequences for breaking them (i.e., eternal damnation). If it were any other way, he would be dealing with something he didn’t create.
This also plays into the idea of Jesus’s salvific sacrifice. He’s saving us from the consequences of breaking some god’s laws. The trouble is, according to the doctrine of the trinity, he is that god! He’s saving us from himself.
No matter how many times I point this out to believers, they just don’t see it. They bring up free will and all that: “God created us with free will, and we can abuse it and reject God.”
“Yes, but this god put in place the laws and their consequences. He’s the one sending you to hell and then saving you from it,” I reply.
“Yes, but he loves us so much that he sacrificed himself for us, to pay our debt.”
“Our debt to him!” I want to scream.
If I am beating a child and then stop beating that child, I haven’t saved him any more than the mafia, when receiving payment, is not saving you from anyone other than themselves.
How do they not see this?
Experiments
The Boy and I were experimenting with the new phones.
Mine was somewhat less flattering.
Definitions
“I was just here a little while ago,” E lamented as we neared our parish church for basketball practice tonight.
“Why?” asked N, genuinely perplexed. N is a dear friend but not a member of the church.
“For religious education,” the Boy explained.
“What’s that?”
“It’s like school,” E said.
“What do you learn about?”
“Church.”
“That wasn’t a very informative answer,” N pressed.
“Well, we learn about,” the Boy pauesed for a moment before finishing, “well, it’s about everything church.”
“That still doesn’t tell me much,” N insisted.
“Well, today we learned about sacraments,” E clarified.
N thought for a moment before admitting, “I don’t know what that is at all.”
When I was N’s and E’s age, I, too, would have had no idea what a “sacrament” might be, and I certainly would have no idea what it’s supposed to do. According to the Catholic Church, sacraments are “outward signs of inward grace, instituted by Christ for our sanctification.” Even if someone told me that, I doubt I would have understood what any of that might mean.
Outward sign? Simple enough.
Inward grace? Not sure what “inward” means here, and even now as an adult, it’s not clear. I suppose it’s meant to be juxtaposed with “outward” to create an appealing bit of parallelism. But are we talking internal medicine “inward” or are we talking mental inward? Or are we talking spiritual? Of course, that doesn’t even exist, but if they meant “spiritual” why not say “spiritual” instead of “inward”?
I certainly wouldn’t know what “grace” means here. I would have known “grace” from a basic Christian idea of forgiveness, but beyond that, I’m lost. And what’s an “inward grace”? Are their other kinds of grace? What does the Catholic Encyclopedia say?
Grace (gratia, Charis), in general, a supernatural gift of God to intellectual creatures (men, angels) for their eternal salvation, whether the latter be furthered and attained through salutary acts or a state of holiness. Eternal salvation itself consists in heavenly bliss resulting from the intuitive knowledge of the Triune God, who to the one not endowed with grace “inhabiteth light inaccessible” (1 Timothy 6:16). Christian grace is a fundamental idea of the Christian religion, the pillar on which, by a special ordination of God, the majestic edifice of Christianity rests in its entirety. Among the three fundamental ideas — sin, redemption, and grace — grace plays the part of the means, indispensable and Divinely ordained, to effect the redemption from sin through Christ and to lead men to their eternal destiny in heaven.
Source
Look at all those links — they’re all articles to offer further explanation about the various ideas.
“Sanctification?” No idea then as now. The Catholic Encyclopedia lists “grace” as “sanctifying grace” and has an article on the related topic of justification but nothing on sanctification. It’s all just a confusing mess when you really look at it:
Since the end and aim of all efficacious grace is directed to the production of sanctifying grace where it does not already exist, or to retain and increase it where it is already present, its excellence, dignity, and importance become immediately apparent; for holiness and the sonship of God depend solely upon the possession of sanctifying grace, wherefore it is frequently called simply grace without any qualifying word to accompany it as, for instance, in the phrases “to live in grace” or “to fall from grace”.
I suspect most adult Catholics wouldn’t be able to explain it beyond the memorized explanations they might have learned in religious education. Push these ideas a little and they begin to slip and slide for the average believer; shove and heave on these ideas and they begin to crack for the average parishioner.
Apologists would explain that this is due to “insufficient catechesis.” But eventually, even the most expert catechist is going to run out of answers. Or they’re going to begin saying stuff like the quotes above, which sound elevated and sophisticated but which, when really examined, are empty and relatively meaningless — when someone pushes back hard enough.
N, however, was content to sit in ignorance.
Greenville News Video
Discovered a video from the local paper about L’s high school’s big state championship win. And there on the thumbnail is the Boy.
Conestee
The Show
50
Village Reality
