Since the launch of the Happy Moron, Facebook is no longer attractive as a content repository. I’ve removed most of my personal content from Facebook. My rant on this is far too long to make a reasonable blog post, but it’s located at
Challenging the word, “good”
I think many discussions about theology hit the rocks because of the sneaky divergence of terms. I’m talking about the phenomenon where two people start arguing about two vastly different things in the same discussion. Why does this happen? Often it happens because they’re using different words that sound the same.
I’m not talking about “door” and “dour” or “sign” and “sine”. I’m talking about “good” and “good”.
“Good” is a sneaky little word that causes more problems than all the rest put together. Why? Because it has a common and intuitive usage which masks the fact that it has no standard, agreed upon meaning.
If I’m building a sandcastle, and someone says, “Good job.” I know exactly what he means. If I greet someone, “It’s good to see you again.” they know exactly what I mean. But in the first case, good meant “solidly-built with an impressively tall turret and a pretty flag”, and in the second it meant “inducing warm and pleasant emotions within me”.
When we examine the context of the g-word in order to try and understand its meaning, we have to be careful. Not only does the g-word take on the dimensions of the object it refers to (eg. a sand-castle with turrets), but it also takes on the opinions of the person using it. We know when a person comments on a sand castle, the g-word doesn’t mean “moral”, because sand can’t be moral – and we know when Al Capone talks about one of his lieutenants, it doesn’t necessarily mean moral either.
When you’re arguing with someone whose opinions are different than yours, you have to be really careful. We tend not to be careful with the g-word, because we use it commonly with a very high level of understanding. We use it all the time with no breakdown in communication, but only because we’re talking about things where we share a common understanding, or where a person’s specific interpretation is clear.
If you’re arguing with someone, however, you don’t share a common understanding (by definition) and interpretation is rarely clear.
The granddaddy of all examples is the Christian understanding of the word “good”. The Christian “good” has a strict definition. “Good” to a Christian means the character of God. Every good and perfect gift comes from God; no-one is good but God alone. When a Christian says something is good, they are referring to an aspect of God’s character that it reflects.
Accepting that all things are created by God, all things share some reflection of his character. As any artist or designer will tell you, their art reflects their person. It’s not surprising, then, that elements of God’s creation should reflect his character – goodness. Immediately after Creation and before the earth became cursed, God looked and saw that it was… good.
The tall and elegant sandcastle turret is reflective of God’s dignity and majesty. The affection felt between friends is reflective of God’s affection. When a Christian uses the word “good” it is always a reference to some aspect of the character of God.
Christians should rigorously challenge their usage of the word. Every time it slips from a Christian’s mouth, it should be followed by the thoughts, “What did I mean by that? How does it reflect the character of God?”
Christians, in discussion with another person, should rigorously challenge the other’s definition of the word “good”. I’m not sure how many people ever think through what they mean by it.
By what measure does a naturalist (for example) say that something is “good” or that one thing is “better” than another thing? I’m not sure they have a basis for using the word at all, without an objective yardstick to give it meaning. The naturalistic philosophy contradicts even the common usage of the word “good”. This isn’t surprising, because the common, intuitive usage of the word good is the Christian usage, albeit without Christian intent. The reason that two different people can use the word without misunderstanding is that they were both made by God.
If you deny the existance of God, you have to sacrifice the use of the word “good”, unless you can come up with some other meaning for it that’s actually meaningful beyond, “It reflects an arbitrary set of values that I hold.” If you wind up with that definition, you probably won’t be talking to people much – because saying, “It’s good to see you, for an arbitrary good” isn’t saying very much at all.
Talking to People
The Happy Moron talks to people:
If you know what you’re talking about, talk.
If you don’t know what you’re talking about, be quiet, listen and ask questions.
I’m going to be quiet now… So, how do you talk to people?
Facebook, Phones and a Costly Misjudgement
Today I noticed that a TV ad had been subtly edited from its original version – one of the actors’ expressions had been altered. I wonder how costly it is to retroactively edit a TV ad.
This particular ad was for a cell phone with all the regular bells and whistles – camera, internet connectivity, etc. In this case the phone’s extra shiny was a keyboard. The hook for the phone was that a poor loser’s friends could photograph him, post it to Facebook and mock him on their Walls, all in the space of seconds.
The actual edit was to soften the reaction of a girl who in the previous rendition had given her loser friend a look which essentially said “You’re a loser and we keep you around to help us feel better about ourselves.” The ad had an uncomfortable feel to it, and I don’t blame them for editing it – it wasn’t exactly the best way to sell a phone.
Who can blame the loser friend for feeling uncomfortable that his ‘friends’ are mocking him in a worldwide forum? Why should viewers be anything *but* creeped out by the fact that their peers all carry cameras, all the time, and can instantaneously share footage with a global audience?
Why would the vendor of such an experience ever want to bring up the abuses that an untrustworthy friend (or even just a careless one) could commit?