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John Paul II begins his truly brilliant work ‘The Theology of the Body’ with this assertion (paraphrased) – ‘Before we can possibly understand God we must understand man’.  This is not to say that all there is to say about God is what we can say about man, but it is to press the point that we are made in God’s image.

Novack makes a similar assertion in his new book ‘No One Sees God’.  

‘If you make mistakes about your own nature, you will make as many mistakes about God, and quite properly then reject what your inquiries put before you.  The God you will fantasize will appear to you not very great, a delusion or a snare from which others ought to be freed.  You will despise this God.’

I wholeheartedly agree that anthropology is central to inquiry about everything else, including God (I would also include ethics).  Before we argue about God, we should argue about man.  If you think we don’t know anything other than matter, then you will likely think that you are also only material.  If you don’t think the life of a human person involves teleological striving, then you likely won’t imagine the possibility of discoverable meaning.  

This will sound like a strange thing to say, but sometimes I think we worry about God too much.  We would be better served to worry more about man.  I try to do this in my Intro class, it is essentially a class on human nature.  So, theists and atheists alike – do yourself a favor and take a break from ‘God-talk’ and talk about the human experience.  Read books that can facilitate this (Percy’s Lost in the Cosmos is highly recommended).  Think about language, meaning, relationships, love and sex.

Yes, sex.  Notice that the issue of sex here is central to questions about man, and so also for questions about God.  Hitchens argues that religion comes from a ‘dangerous sexual repression’.  If he thinks that human sexuality and its meaning is central to an adequate anthropology and an adequate theology, then he concurs with JPII.  The the central thesis of JPII’s ‘Theology of the Body’ is that man can only understand himself fully as gift, and that we image/iconize the Trinity most clearly in the loving and reciprocated gift of oneself in sexual intercourse!  (An argument, I might add, that does not sound sexually repressed!)

… here.

Antonin Scalia will be lecturing here next Monday, September 15th, from 12 to 1 in the TSC Ballroom. This is a rare opportunity to hear a Supreme Court justice hold forth. His visit is part of a “Freedom and the Rule of Law” conference hosted by the PoliSci department. See the schedule of lectures here.

I thought the ban on the ‘You Suck’ chant at USU basketball games was ridiculous.  The University of Virginia (founded by Jefferson!) has now banned signs from football and basketball games.  espn.com had an article on it.

An article today on the increased use of technology (particularly ‘smart phones’) on college campuses.  I am really hesitant about such things.  

I have a few comments.  One person argued that these phones would facilitate more interaction.  ‘Abilene Christian experimented with laptops in class, but “we weren’t pleased with what it did for us,” Rankin says. “The screens created a barrier between teacher and students.” ‘

I guess the argument here is that phones are less of an obstacle to interaction than laptops.  What is strange is the seeming inevitability that we have to use technology somewhere along the way.  What about those of us that think that both laptops and cell phones create unnecessary barriers between the teacher and the student?

And here is the most ridiculous argument (an argument for ‘educational gaming’):

‘A game called “Savannah,” which was developed in Britain using Mediascape, lets students play lions and gazelles whose geographic locations are tracked via cell phones. Whenever a “lion” finds a “gazelle,” the virtual gazelle gets eaten. But if the lions eat all the gazelles, they end up dying of hunger. “By the end, the kids learn the balance of life,” McKinney explains.’

Really?  Did they really learn the ‘balance of life’ by having little lcd lions eat little lcd gazelles?  Aren’t those students just dumber for having played that little game?

My attitude: If students want to play computer games and gab/text on cell phones, let them.  But PLEASE let’s not start calling it ‘educational’ just so we don’t have to feel guilty about it.

All that said, maybe I am just a [fairly young] dinosaur.  So much has changed so fast.  I graduated from college in 1996, but my college and no email at the time, and no one but doctors owned cell phones (and they were giant).  I heard some whispers about the coming ‘information superhighway’, but it meant nothing to me at the time.  

Here is my question: are profs like me who dig in our heels against the introduction of these new ‘education facilitating technologies’ going to seem increasingly irrelevant?  If a prof does not use technology in his class (podcasts, blogs, computer assisted lectures, …), do you think twice about the value of the class?  In other words, does an old-fashioned books and chalkboard prof just seem like an irrelevant relic?