Safely to Santa Cruz ...

We started my two students off with the start-stall-start practice at Ohlone College this morning using the manual transmission Volkswagon. With a successful early training, at noon time I had them drive off on the freeway towards the coast. We took highway 9 up to Saratoga Gap, then switched student drivers. From here we continued on down to Boulder Creek before switching them again. Then it was up Alba Road, down Empire Grade, and into the hilly stop, stop, stop of the University of California at Santa Cruz campus, which was thankfully rather empty on the fourth of July. With this done, we headed on down the hill and into Santa Cruz, stopping next to the Surfing Museum. All of the passengers were thoroughly traumatized by this point, so we had a relaxing stroll among the crowds and I drove it home on highway 17. I would have to classify this as quite a successful day of training, given that it appears that we will live to see at least one more day.

Manual Transmissions and teenagers.

Well, it is that exciting time again when I need to start teaching the new drivers how to use a manual transmission. We will be off to the local parking lot. I still haven't had any who have formally "graduated" from my school. "Graduated" means going over to San Francisco and driving up the back side of Lombard Street in stop and go traffic, along with a bit of parking practice on 30% slopes.

The Missing Turkey?

Yesterday I went up Mission Peak for my first trail effort in two weeks. I now weigh 10 kg (22 pounds) less than when the swine flu hit and am still keeping the fasting going. I also ditched the camera and Camelbak, carrying only a water bottle so that the climb was carrying 30+ pounds less than usual. It left me completely exhausted and was one of the few times I considered turning back before the summit. Mountain climbing and fasting don't quite go together, or perhaps the flu took more out of me than I realized ...

As for the missing turkey, a decent sized turkey weighs about 10kg, which is what is missing from my waist at the moment. My wife prefers to think of it as a missing 10kg bag of rice. There is still one more turkey wrapped around my waist, but this one is going to be much harder to remove than the first.

A Book Meme passed to me from John Hobbins: What five books/authors influenced your view of the Bible the most?

After a life time of influences from lectures, sermons, discussions and countless little tidbits, it is hard to identify single books that made a difference in my Bible understanding. A new book may provide info I agree with, disagree with, or take a neutral stance towards, but it isn't likely to cause a significant change. Most of my theological views were formed by lectures and discussions, so there aren't any books on theology that count as influential. Even my reading of Augustine's City of God isn't influential to my view of the Bible, although it was certainly informative. Here are five, however, that did make a difference:

The Late Great Planet Earth, by Hal Lindsey.

I read this as a teenager, and it did form my view of the Bible and prophecy dramatically. Since this time, I have changed my views considerably, while not fully abandoning the overall themes of the book. Mainly, I find the sensationalism of the interpretations causes us to miss the repeated themes of prophecy that are spot on and have implications for how Christians live and view our place in the world.

Maccabees.

This conflicts quite nicely with some of Hal Lindsey's themes involving the book of Daniel. It isn't that I think this book is canonical, but it is helpful when looking at Daniel 11.

Histories, by Herodotus.

I was studying to teach the book of Esther and ran across an Encyclopedia Britannica (1910) article scoffing at the book and asserting that it was refuted by Herodotus. Taking up the challenge, I picked up Herodotus and read the book cover-to-cover. The result was a wonderful treat as I got to appreciate Xerxes and the Persian Empire from a completely different angle. The scoffing scholar proved to be bluffing, as usual.

The Acts of the Apostles, by Ben Witherington.

The beginning of this book emphasizes that the books of Luke and Acts were written per the scholarly standards of the age, and specifically mentions authors like Thucydides and Polybius. This got me even more hooked on my classics reading. If there is a problem here, it is that I spend too much time reading everything but the Bible.

Mesopotamia, Writing, Reasoning, and the Gods, by Jean Bottero.

This book provides a view of the culture of Babylon that provides a much better context to the stories of Daniel. John Walton's book on Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament can have a similar effect, on people. My preference for Bottero is that his book really is more about Mesopotamia directly.

An honorable mention in all this must be the two works by Josephus.

I am still suffering from the flu and a lingering cough plus fasting, so intense exercise is out. For Saturday, I decided to walk the Alameda Creek Trail from end to end, resulting in this picture. Sadly, I picked up a nasty blister and only did 16 miles before calling my kids to be rescued. Why is it that 20+ miles in the hills won't produce blisters, but walking on flat pavement will?

Today was back to the bicycle for the first time since last October, since this doesn't bother foot blisters. Palomares Canyon was the choice to cover 20.5 miles with a nice climb to 1,200 feet. Probably I should throw some swims in too at Quarry Lakes. According to the internet news, pigs lose on average 20 pounds from the swine flu. I too have lost about 20 pounds now, but still can't seem to get rid of that pot belly.

Eusebius (263-339AD), on the time just before the persecution of Diocletian (244-311AD).

"But increasing freedom transformed our character to arrogance and sloth; we began envying and abusing each other, cutting our own throats, as occasion offered, with weapons of sharp-edged words; rulers hurled themselves at rulers and laymen waged party fights against laymen, and unspeakable hypocrisy and dissimulation were carried to the limit of wickedness. At last, while the gatherings were still crowded, divine judgement, with its wonted mercy, gently and gradually began to order things its own way, and with the Christians in the army the persecution began. But alas! realizing nothing, we made not the slightest effort to render the Deity kindly and propitious; and as if we had been a lot of atheists, we imagined that our doings went unnoticed and unregarded, and went from wickedness to wickedness. Those of us who were supposed to be pastors cast off the restraining influence of the fear of God and quarrelled heatedly with each other, engaged soly in swelling the disputes, threats, envy, and mutual hostility and hate, frantically demanding the despotic power they coveted." - The History of the Church, 8.1

This is a startling passage, but then again, it is a feature of churches that I have witnessed. It is unbelievable that in Christianity people would grab power for power's sake, given all of the Biblical threats against those who do so. Sadly it is one of those universal features so that we sometimes would be tempted to pray for some persecution to clean those out of the church who are driven by false motives. Hopefully, just tempted.

Touring Hetch Hetchy.

"The same man, after his own third consulship in the consulship of Gaius Sentius and Quintus Lucretius, twelve years after he had constructed the Julian aqueduct, also brought Virgo to Rome, taking it from the estate of Lucullus. We learn that June 9 was the day that it first began to flow in the City. It was called Virgo, because a young girl pointed out certain springs to some soldiers hunting for water, and when they followed these up and dug, they found a copious supply. A small temple, situated near the spring, contains a painting which illustrates this origin of the aqueduct." - The Aqueducts of Rome, I.10, Sextus Julius Frontinus (40-103AD).

Above is a picture of the water temple at Sunol on the Hetch Hetchy Aqueduct taking water from Yosemite National Park to San Francisco. I am not sure what story the pictures relate to! The system is an engineering marvel, while some of the architecture seems to point back to memories of classical Rome. The aqueduct passes quite close to my house where it divides into four pipes to be directed to different Bay Area locations.

50-miler planning: Headlands Hundred event on August 8.

There is still plenty of room in the signup for this event, so I can continue to dream and procrastinate. The way I compute this, to complete a 50 mile trail run will require about 1/4 to 1/3 actual running with the remainder being done as a power walk. The 14.5 hour time limit should be possible with no running at all, but that isn't much of a goal. The bigger challenge is to meet the 11 hour threshold that qualifies for many 100 mile events.

Unfortunately my weight, which had reached 220 pounds (100kg), is simply not at a level that makes sense for mountain trail running, never mind that I have been covering 20+ miles without too much trouble. Thankfully the flu is helping to correct this. For the first few days, my appetite was completely gone. I decided to keep this going by consuming no more than a few hundred calories per day (one small meal). Since the flu isn't completely gone yet, the exercise program is a few hours of fast walking to cover 10 or more miles per day. The result is that I am down 17 pounds in 7 days. The real challenge is to keep this going, since a weight of about 170 pounds would be ideal. We will see if the will-power is there to keep this going.

UPDATE: It looks like the course was changed to eliminate Mount Tamalpais State Park. Sigh. The original was an out-and-back 50, but now it is two 25-mile loops. It is always too easy to drop out when you are at the finish line at 25 miles.

Eusebius (263AD-339AD) regarding Anatolius (?-283AD).

"Anatolius was appointed his successor, one good man following another, as the saying goes. Anatolius was by birth an Alexandrian, and for his learning, secular studies, and philosophy was in the first rank of the most eminent men of my time; indeed in arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and the other sciences, physical or metaphysical, and in the speaker's art too, he had climbed to the summit. It was apparently on this account that he was invited by the citizens there to found the school of the Aristotelian succession at Alexandria.

...

Anatolius has also left us an Elements of Arithmetic, complete in ten parts, as well as evidence of his lifelong study of divinity. He had first been consecrated bishop by Theotecnus, Bishop of Palestinian Caesarea, who was anxious to secure him as his successor in his own diocese after his death, and indeed for some little time they both administered the same church. But he was summoned to Antioch by the synod that dealt with Paul, and as he passed through Laodicea the Christians there took possession of him, Eusebius having fallen asleep." - History of the Church, 7.32

This section in Eusebius has a number of points that jump out at me, such as the method of assigning a new bishop by kidnapping. Sadly it doesn't appear that Elements of Arithmetic has survived. Mainly I wanted to highlight it since this passage does give a clear indication of the esteem that was held for mastery of learning outside of the immediate scope of Christianity by early Christian leaders. This, of course, conflicts directly with what I was taught in the government schools as a young child growing up in America's Bible Belt a long time ago.

Awhile back I had reviewed The Rise and Fall of Alexandria, Birthplace of the Modern World", by Pollard and Reid. Sadly, this little tidbit about Anatolius didn't make it into their narrative.

Some more from the Pleasanton Ridge series ...

"On The Death Of God", by Ben Dench.

Rummuser sent me the above article, and I thought I would give it a quick review.

"There was a time when God was the explanation for everything, and everything made reference back to “supernatural” causes. Not anymore. Natural explanations abound. There was a time when Christianity was the unquestioned, taken for granted truth in European culture. Not anymore." - Ben Dench

To be polite, Ben Dench, Valedictorian and B.A. of Philosophy from Richard Stockton College, should sue for a refund on his education. He was scammed, as can be seen clearly from the first few sentences of his article.

Augustine in the City of God has a fairly extensive writeup on this. (If someone wants, I will dig up the exact place, since it is a long book.) Augustine asserts that some novelties, like the lodestone, were first assumed to have spirits in them, but later they were simply accepted as part of nature, which is how they were viewed in the place where they were acquired. The next problem is even bigger: Stoneage and pagan cultures generally mixed the supernatural with nature in a way that is inseparable. Where Christianity differs is that it focuses entirely on the relationship between the creator and the creation:

"Woe to him who quarrels with his Maker, to him who is but a potsherd among the potsherds on the ground. Does the clay say to the potter, 'What are you making?' Does your work say, 'He has no hands'?" Isaiah 45:9

There are many more verses of this sort. Basically, Christianity separates the supernatural from the natural in a way that paganism could never do. There is a supernatural creator, who set in motion a magnificent machine governed by fixed physical laws God created, and our challenge was to discover and utilized these laws. God, and the supernatural may intervene at times, but this isn't the normal state of affairs. This is the reason that science continued to progress in medieval Europe eventually blossoming into the scientific revolution during the Reformation. Anyway, the scientific revolution is over, and we have technology all around us, while the careful methods of our ancestors are what we use. Living here in Silicon Valley we work with teams of just about every religion, while the atheists take credit for everything.

The Mythical Scientific Theory of Evolution is something that figure prominently with Ben. I say Mythical because a scientific theory has to be a fixed relation involving measurable quantities, like Newton's theory of gravity. The Scientific Theory of Evolution is a blank sheet of paper. It explains the fossil record. It also explains the relationship between Orcs and Elves, Klingon and Romulons, to the exact same level of precision. Ben says that it disproves God. I will let him argue with the mainline theologians who insist that evolution enhances their understanding of God. The main point on the theological theory of evolution was that it was a starting point for neo-Pagans to take control of the science that they didn't create, and then rewrite the histories.

One thing I have seen is people getting excited over a book describing how to do genetic algorithms. Suddenly they feel like they have the creative powers of God in their hand, rather than a 0-th order search algorithm with a random number generator. The atheist boasts that superstition is done away with in his world view, but in fact, the supernatural powers of God just seem to be projected back onto the creation. Evolution can do anything! It is all knowing! If you don't believe in evolution, you can't do science! Evolution Saves! (Yes, I have heard the last in different words.)

Next, we must introduce the notion of Chapter 11 Bankrupcy. This is something we in the US do to keep a bankrupt business running, like GM, Chrysler, United Airlines, and many others. Lawyers go to the courts and file paperwork and this keeps the business going when it should die. The Mythical Scientific Theory of Evolution is one of those things that survives on court orders. Yes, a scientific theory can literally be bankrupt. Ben Dench also apparently hopes to be a spiritual leader for a new age spiritualism that involves no god. Godless religion? In the US, however, a godless religion is not technically in violation of the mythical Separation of Church and State, which isn't in the US constitution, but do lawyers read the constitution? Anyway, godless religion has a higher standing in the US than Christianity. This article also links together both godlessness and climate change histeria in an interesting way. I haven't really given this much thought, as I have considered the climate change people to be simply old-fashioned leftists looking for a new forum after the US won the cold war. On the other hand, could it be that a large number of Americans are embracing militant environmentalism while reverting to mystical stoneage notions of the world, thanks to the triumph of scientific atheism? Certainly Dench forces me to consider this possibility.

One thing I wonder about is what the point of a godless religion is in the first place.

"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline." - Proverbs 1:8

For the Christian, our purpose in life, our morality and ethics, all derive from God. What point is there to morals if we can say, like Al Gore did, "There is no controlling legal authority ...". Yes, I know, atheists can be moral and some are truly praiseworthy, but morality here in California certainly hasn't been going anywhere except downhill under secular rule. As for mysticism as an end in itself, well, I prefer my tail runs and butterflies.

Mystery Butterfly.

I couldn't find this in the online lists of local butterflies.

California Dogface.

Death of a Baby.

She looks so peaceful. Probably one of the mountain bikers hit her on the way down. I have spent most of today in roughly the same pose as this squirrel, thanks to catching the flu. It started affecting me about half way through the 21 miles on Wednesday, but I thought it was simply my asthma kicking up a bit early. Yesterday, things started getting worse and today was even harder, as I have hardly been able to sit at my seat and type without coughing and cleaning my runny nose. My body is always weak to influenza and I get it much more worse than the rest of the family.

I always try to take a positive attitude towards these things. God uses them to remind me that I am mortal, and there is a limited amount of time to accomplish the tasks that he has set for me on earth.

Western Tiger Swallowtail

Can you see any differences between the Tiger Swallow Tail and the Two-Tailed Swallowtail?

"Wanna swim with me? The water feels great!"

Red Tailed Hawk

21+ miles ...

Not a bad training run. I have been busy with work, but finally the emergency passed so I decided to take this afternoon and explore the new parts of Pleasanton Ridge Park. The trail descends another 1.5 miles from this ridge into Cook Canyon. There is a locked gate once you lose a lot of elevation, then you get to turn around and climb back out. I got a lot more good pictures from this run/crawl.

California Meltdown Watch: Back to the budget battles.

Two days ago, there was an article in all the major California newspapers informing us that Californians can afford to pay more taxes. Presumably the correct amount of taxation is the maximum sustainable amount. Yesterday, the Democrats announced that they were going to fight for more taxes, knowing that a tax battle will take the state budget into chaos. Whether Californians can pay or not seems to me to be irrelevant: No amount of money is enough for the forces of Political Correctness. Some serious reform needs to be considered, but that isn't happening yet.

People pay a lot of money to acquire and maintain a Japanese style garden. Trees and rocks are brought in from far away. Somehow it can never quite compare with the real thing in beauty, although I can't exactly relocate my house here either.

Family time suffering due to blogging.

And they haven't yet noted the worst of it. My wife and I take walks together which used to be full of quality time as we talked about all kinds of things. Now, I bring my camera along looking for something interesting to photograph so that I can post it on the blog.

"Honey, what do you think of ..."
"Shhh. You will scare the bird. I need to get this picture ..."

And so it goes. It hasn't all been a loss, however, as our family picture archives have been scoured for materials by others in my household for digitizing, bringing back lots of memories. Then there is the ability to connect visually with those who have left the nest, as well as with those who formally shared a nest with me before I left. No time to connect with the kids? No problem! Just check out what they have posted online!

My daughter and I would argue over whether a picture is "artsy" or a "catastrophe". Since I don't take "artsy" pictures, this is generally an easy decision for me, although we still have pictures that end up in dispute. This is one of those uncertain ones.