Guy's Books and Thoughts

People have been trumpting Terri's brain
size as "proof" of her hopeless condition.
But I think the work of Lorber may bring
that into question.

Lorber wrote a provacative
article entitle "Do we really need a brain?"
I don't think he meant it literaly. But I think
he is question certain assumptions about the brain.
As I understand it the myth that larger brain meant
more intelligence was discredited when Einstein died
and it was discovered his brain was normal sized.
As I understand it Lorber found that one of his bright students
had a small brain or just a brain stem. This started him on
his research. Apparently there are a number of people who live
normal lives with a small brain. In talking to someone about Lorber's work, one of the questions raised was does this show that man (or woman) is more than a material being?

While some dismiss these ideas
as urban legends, I think the subject is worth researching. After
all Mainline science is not always right. Remember Scientific American
denounced the Wright Brothers' invention as a fraud. Tests were not
made on the flying machine till 1908, five years after Kitty Hawk.

To find articles on this matter do a google search: lorber brain.

Guy

Addendum:
In response to what I wrote a pastor related the time,
as a seminarian, he would go to a hospital to visit an elderly lady who
was there. This lady could talk about the weather and
what was going on at the hosptial. When he asked why
the lady was there, the response was the doctors were
studying her since she had no brain waves and was
technically brain dead. The doctors had no idea why this
lady was so responsive.

Editor's note: Without specifically weighing in on the Schiavo matter,
it is worth emphasizing that as far as our experts are concerned
we don't use the majority of our brain. There are one of two
possibilities here: 1) we don't or 2) they don't know how or for what.
In the first case, this would mean that if certain parts of Schiavo's
brain were gone or shrunken it didn't matter (they weren't used),
did matter (they were absolutely necessary to thought) or might
matter (the stuff of thought lingered on, the means to conveying
thought however being gone). In the second case, there's no telling
how much life might be taking place in ways we don't understand. We
know what lights up when you determine who you're looking at or
wave your left hand. We don't know what happens to make us look
or actually decide to move that hand. If the "unused" portion of our
brain is merely responsible for stuff beyond human perception,
we can never know what it does and still be left with the possibility
that what it does is all-important for things we don't understand but
still need. This possibility also lingers in the matter of what happens
if, say, the speech centers are gone but the keys to ecstatic thought
remain. Could we have broken a for fifteen years uninterrupted
prayer with the starvation of Schiavo? Just a thought.

Over 25 years ago, a friend recommended the book
THE ACTS OF KING ARTHUR AND HIS NOBLE KNIGHTS by John Steinbeck.

Steinbeck attempted to write his own version of
the story, but never completed the novel. I normally don't care for Steinbeck's
writing. But the King Arthur book was readable.
What was more interesting was Steinbeck's correspondence in the back of
the book. The correspondence details his research attempts and ideas.
What was intersting were his comments about oral tradition and the
role of memory. I don't think Steinbeck was a Christian, but I think
his comments on memory and oral tradition can be applied to Chrisitian
apologetics.

Liberals will downplay the accuracy in the transmission of scripture.
They will argue that many of the accounts were written down after
a long period of oral tradition and that oral tradition was not reliable. I
think Steinbeck would argue thar oral tradition and
the human memory are reliable. Steinbeck marveled how well stories
have been passed down through the ages. Robert Darnton, author of THE
GREAT CAT MASSACRE also marvels at how stories which have been passed down
through the ages were well preserved. Another book which comes to mind is the
THE KAKURE KIRISHITAN OF JAPAN by Stephen Turnbull.
This book is about the "hidden Christians" or descendents of Japanese
Roman Catholics who lived in Japan from the 1600's to the 1850's when Japan was
isolated and Christianity was outlawed. Unfortunately they became syncretistic.
When contact was reestablished with the Roman Catholics, the majority of these
people accepted correction and where received back into the church. A small
minority which did not reconcile with the Roman Catholic Church continue to this
day. Scholars who studied these people were amazed at how they were able to
keep parts of their faith such as the Lord's prayer intact. While corruptions
in the Kakure Kirishitan's faith may be an arguement for the liberal side, I
think the faithful transmission of Christian texts
may be an arguement for the reliability in the transmission of oral tradition.
And if one assumes a "Protestant" viewpoint, one might argue
that if oral tradtion, which has lesser authority than sacred scripture, can
preserved somewhat faithfully, can't sacred scripture be
preserved even more faithfully by God's providence?

The biography JOHN STEINBECK WRITER by Jackson Benson also provides
some interesting material about Steinbeck and his interest in the legend of King Arthur.

Steinbeck and the actor Douglas Fairbanks Jr. along
with Professor Eugene Vinaver (Manchester University) visited a private library
at Alinwak castle in Scotland owned by the Duke of Northumberland. Professor
Vinver, who edited the Winchester edition of Mallory's Le Morte D'Arthur found
a pre-Mallory Manuscript of the Author legend.
Steinbeck claimed it was a new discovery. But as it turned out the
British had already made a microfilmed copy of the document and filed it away
where it remained forgotten. I think someone from the Steinbeck Research Center
in Monterey told me that Steinbeck was very much interested in the Arthurian
legend and there was a reference to
the knights of the roundtable in his book Tortilla Flat. And I think
the biography of Steinbeck states that Steinbeck compared our soldiers
in Vietnam to Knights. Well if you have to read a Steinbeck story,
you might want to chose his ACTS OF KING ARTHUR AND HIS NOBLE KNIGHTS.
Perhaps it's just as well he did not finish the story. Maybe the ending
would have been too depressing. For some reason the Japanese really
like Steinbeck. I think they have been a major sponsor of Steinbeck
research. Maybe they like tragic endings. After reading SHIOKARI PASS, my
friend "Grandma" remarked that the Japanese like the Chinese
have tragic ending to their stories. Personally I perefer the
"happily ever after endings." I don't think one can really live or
die
with sad endings. It is interesting to note that Steinbeck
wanted a Church of England (Episcopal / Anglican) service not a memorial service
where people reminsiced about his life. If I remember correctly the C of E
service does express a hope of the resurrection.

Guy

How many of us sing hymns without knowing the story behind the hymn?
I had read about the story of this hymn over 30 years ago. A few days
ago I found some information on the web about the hymn. Some dedicated
soul went to the trouble of locating the book in which the hymn appeared. Many stanza's in many modern hymnals have omitted verses
that appeared in the original. The book in which the hymn appeared
was LYRA FIDELIUM. I searched unsuccessfully for that book over
10 years ago. I am glad someone was able to locate the book and offer
it to people on the web at no cost. The book appeared in 1866. The
book appears to be a confession of faith. It contains 12 hymns which
are associated with the 12 articles of faith in the Apostles' Creed.

I found some information about the hymn by stumbling accross an
article that appeared in a the church newsletter of St. Peter's Anglican
chruch in Nottingham. To find information about the hymn go to
www.stpetersnottingham.org. Do a google search on the hymn using key
words "Church's One Foundation." That will lead you to the article
about the hymn. To find more information go to the bottom of the page.
and click on the link to Luke Martin's site. This site contains three
articles. Click on the LYRA FIDELIUM article at the top. Then scroll
down to article 9. This will link you to the lyrics of the hymn.

The hymn was a one born of conflict. This is not a subjective "feel good" hymn. The author Samuel John Stone was contending for the historic Christian faith against the "liberals" or "modernists" of his day. That is why the hymn as it appears in the book speaks against
the "False sons and traitors." He also poked fun at evolutionary theory and the liberal view of the Bible in other writings. I suspect he might even be accused of being a "fundamentalist," though he would be better classified as a High Church Anglican. I think it was a bit ironic that the
liberals of our church body (Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod) sang this hymn in protest against the conservatives as they left our denomination to form their own church? I wonder if the liberals of our denomination knew that the author had written the hymn against the liberals of his denomination? To be fair, I did get annoyed when
one of our conservative members concluded his article on why
he was a Protestant with the words from the hymn "Faith of our Fathers."
This hymn was written in memory of the Roman Catholics who suffered
martyrdom under the "Protestant" British King Henry VIII. I think people it would help if people knew the story behind the hymns. Not
knowing the story behind the hymns can lead to amusing ironies of
circumstance. Maybe God has a sense of humor in allowing for these
ironies.

For those of you trivia buffs, I did find 3 articles when I did
a google search using the key words Robin Hood at the St Peter's Nottingham website. I don't know why only 3 articles showed up.
One would assume that a larger number of articles would show up.

Guy