Lottery for video conversation
Dr. JBP, I know you have an entrepreneurial side to you. What do you think of the idea of holding an online lottery for fans, the winners of which could have a chance to have a long form video conversation with you? If the conversation goes well perhaps you upload it to your Youtube channel.
Why does God reject Cain's sacrifices?
Dear Dr. JBP. You made me realize how deep and profound the story of Cain and Abel is. I was discussing your biblical lectures with a family member and they recommended I read a book by the late Novelist and historian James A Michener titled "The Source", which is a telling of the history of Israel. At one point in the book Michener is playing with the idea of why God rejects Cain's sacrifices, and I'd really like to know your thoughts on what he writes? The scene is described as follows- In the year 1419 B.C.E an elderly Hebrew tribesman is approaching a town from the desert, and I quote.... "Zadok the Hebrew looked down upon the town and weighed it in different scales. As a free man of the desert he could not escape viewing the town as a breeding ground of contamination. The town was filled with men who had never worked in open areas tending sheep and discovering for themselves the actuality of their god; these men sat cramped before a wheel making pottery. They wrote on clay which they did not dig and sold wine which they had not pressed. Their values were warped and their gods were of trivial dimension. As he looked at the town he remembered the instructive history of his clan and he could hear his father telling the story " Your ancestor Cain was a man of the town and when he brought his gifts to El-Shaddai, the god despised it, but your ancestor Abel lived in the open as we do, and when he brought his gifts, El-Shaddai was pleased, for our god has always preferred honest people who live outdoors over crafty ones who live in towns. This rejection angered Cain and he slew Abel, and from that time there has been enmity between town and desert.
How do we moderate the righteous defense?
It seems that in current day culture, the only morally justifiable aggression is a righteous defense. One could argue that before the 20th century, we did still have some concept of a righteous offense, be it in the name of god, monarch or country. During and after the 20th century though, it seems that every act of aggression must be framed as a defense, and every defense must be seen as taking place in occupied territory by the environment, else the aggressor is condemned. This is not necessarily a bad thing, in a system that seems stable as a whole, some elements may in fact be out of alignment and therefore should have a (non-violent) way to argue for change without incurring the moral judgement of being seen as an aggressor. If the aggressor can successfully make the claim of a defense in occupied territory though, there seems to be virtually no limit to how far they can go. If we can call this the "righteous defense", we can see it being employed in a dishonest way, and it appears that as a culture we don't have the awareness or reflexes to moderate it. In a sense it's like defending the nazi's at the Nuremberg trials, we have to define how far a righteous defense can go. It seems like we've learned from the second world war a story of a united victory over evil, but other lessons may have been overshadowed. One should hope we've also learned that we cannot judge or condemn evil without becoming it, unless we regard it as an equal. One can only wonder what the cold war did to that sense of judgement, when the first person to have pushed the button would have instantly become the greatest monster to have ever lived. So how do we moderate a righteous defense in our culture? It seems that framing is the primary issue and we can blame the media for that, but how do we set up a discussion to impose limits on the righteous defense and ensure it's proportional? I would hope that in today's society, a monster should never have to prove that it's a man.