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Just before I went to bed last night, I noticed a discussion on #prosapologian regarding hell.  The basic gist was actually amazingly similar to the discussion of the Problem of Evil, which is partly why I’m now blogging about it too (the other part is that it is an interesting subject, IMO, and helps to show why Calvinism is superior to Arminianism theologically).

Put simply, one of the participants had trouble reconciling the existence of Hell with a good God.  Specifically, the claim was made that God would torture people throughout eternity, and this was morally wrong.

Leaving aside the issue of whether justice is torture, the argument is based on several misconceptions of Hell.  This primarily comes from various analogies that the Catholic Church came up with through the Middle Ages, views such as Dante’s Inferno, and other extra-Biblical “scare tactics” used by overzealous “evangelists.”  The result is that the Biblical concept of Hell has become twisted, Hollywood-ized, and morphed into something out of a Stephen King horror novel rather than the simple concepts discussed in Scripture.

For one thing, the concept of the fire and brimstone is highly metaphorical in Scripture.  Hell is described as a lake of fire, but also a place of outer darkness.  If these are both literal, there would be a contradiction (i.e. how do you have a dark fire?).  The physical aspects of Hell are most often seen in parables or in apocalyptic literature; both of which are highly metaphorical in context.

Of course, I should point out that I believe Hell is far worse than simple fire and brimstone would have been; but there is a reason for that, one that has nothing to do with God actively torturing anyone.  Hell is primarily a separation between God and man.  Man was created for fellowship with God; God’s judgment of man’s sin is to remove that fellowship completely.

As a result, man cannot be other than “pained.”  But this pain is a pain of his own making.  Man refuses to be near God, refuses to submit to Him, refuses to do as his nature was created.  Man is the one who acts in this situation.  It is man who actively tortures himself in hell.

The subject in hell is not radically different from the reprobate here on Earth today, except for the removal of God’s common grace.  The Arminian concept of salvation is that as long as anyone is alive on Earth, there is a chance that he could be saved.  I maintain that the Reprobate has just as much chance on Earth as he does in hell (which is to say “none”).  But this is not to say that God forces the reprobate to turn against Him in hell anymore than He forces the reprobate to turn against Him on Earth.

Sinners hate God; God does not need to force any sinner to sin, for that is what sinners do.  So, nothing changes for the reprobate when he reaches hell.  He could just as much turn to Christ at that point as he could on Earth; yet he will refuse to do so.  As such, once again God is not forcing anyone to remain in Hell; they stay their of their own free will.

This is part of the pain of hell too.  No matter how much sinners rail against God, they always know in their hearts that they chose to be in Hell.  Furthermore, they continue to choose to remain in Hell.  Such is their hatred of God they would rather experience Hell than be near Him.

In point of fact, Hell need not be any actual place.  A sinner in heaven would be just as much in Hell, for that is his level of hatred toward God.  It would actually be worse for the sinner to be forced to remain there with God.  Separation from God is actually, at some level, still an act of mercy, not torture.

Naturally, the Arminian will balk at this understanding of Hell; yet we must ask, how does the Arminian remain consistent?  We have seen the above explanation remains consistent within Calvinism.  God doesn’t change; the reprobate don’t change.  Everything remains the same, and what is just on Earth is just in Hell.

But the Arminian is in a different boat.  In his worldview, God changes from having an opportunity (a chance) for salvation while the person is alive to complete removal of that opportunity once a person is in Hell.  At that point, the person is in eternal agony; yet it is “too late.”  God, in the Arminian view, suddenly becomes the charicature that Arminians have the Calvinistic God: a vengeful being who doesn’t care about the will of the one in Hell.  The Arminian God on Earth is at radical odds with the Arminian God of Hell.

Given that this has drastic implications to the doctrine of the immutability of God, I think it encumbant on the Arminian to justify this change in God’s behavior.  Once again, I merely point out that the Calvinist doesn’t have this same problem.

The headline on the newspaper said: Senate shows new colors on Iraq vote.  Yes, that’s right…apparently, the passage of a non-binding resolution against George W. Bush’s proposal is a “new color” for the Senate.  I’m thinking it shows the Senate has no spine.

Seriously, how is the passage of a non-binding resolution equivalent to standing up to the President, as it’s being spun?  It’d be like:

President: I’m going to go through this door.

Senate: [holding door open] No you’re not.

President: [walks through door] Thank you.

I mean, it’s totally absurd, and yet it’s being proclaimed as this great, wonderous event.  Which is even more absurd.

How stupid does the media think people are?  Oh wait…publik skewl.

Okay, maybe they are that stupid.

UPDATE: I figured out what Bush’s response should be.  He should issue a non-binding unconditional surrender.  That way the news can report a major military victory for the terrorists in Iraq.  The terrorists can celebrate as they’re mowed down by M16 fire.  Work for me.

By the way, Daniel Morgan did offer a bit more context on his blog post that copied the comment he posted on my blog post.  What it gives isn’t really enough to warrant changing my response any.

Daniel’s biggest problem remains that he doesn’t ever define what “evil” is.  You can’t very well have a discussion on the problem of evil if you’re not going to define evil.  Unfortunately, from my previous discussions with Daniel I already know that he doesn’t have a satisfactory definiton of evil to use.  As such, I don’t expect it to be defined any time soon.

I see Steve Hays has weighed in on Daniel’s comments too.

Daniel Morgan did respond to my recent post on The Problem of Evil.  Firstly, I will acknowledge that I understand Daniel doesn’t have a lot of time due to his pursuit of his PhD (which a co-worker reminded me really stands for “Pile it Higher and Deeper”).  However, Morgan is also the one who brought up the argument on his own blog, hence my response to it.  Thus, while I understand he cannot get into it as deeply as he may like under other circumstances, I must still hold him accountible to doing just that if he is to continue to present his case for that position.

In any case, Daniel said:

I have, however, made photocopies of some good stuff from Armstrong on universals, including one article called, “Can a Naturalist Believe in Universals?” I also read a book called, “Whatever Happened to Good and Evil?” That lays out a solid case for ethical objectivism and refutes the sort of God-contingent morality you laid out above.

Well and good, except that it doesn’t help any of us to know that you made photocopies and read a book.  You can say you read a book that refutes the “God-contingent morality”, but that isn’t making the argument.  It is not enough to say that you have an argument in your back pocket that will refute my claims; you have to actually present the argument.

Daniel did give us somewhat of a summary of Armstrong’s view:

Armstrong’s case I find quite compelling — he argues that particulars have the causal power to “create” universals. His argument is that universals do not have some sort of causal power to instantiate particulars, but vice versa. This really helped me to conceptualize universals a little better (not necessarily that now, I do so quite well) because what plagued me was in imagining something outside of space and time instantiating anything. What is instantiation? An action? A causal connection? How does it interact? This same problem would bother me if these universals were supposedly inside of God’s mind, or whatever. The argument is “Universals arise from particulars, and not the other way around.” And for whatever reason, this is a pill I can better swallow.

I suppose I could be persnickity and say that God is the particular that forms the universal if I wanted to… :-P 

But let us examine whether a particular (that is not also universal, such as God) could actually cause a universal to be created.  Let us look at the concept in anything but morality first so we can avoid the emotional problems inherent in it.  Suppose we are trying to determine whether a specific apple is red or green.

How would we know?  If we use only the particular, it could be either.  We could say, “This particular apple is red.” But is it actually red?  It is only actually red if we have the universal concept of redness with which we can compare the particular instance of the apple.

Perhaps Daniel would argue that the definition of red comes from an examination of a particular apple.  It is declared that it is red.  That particular apple becomes the standard by which red is measured.  Ignore, for a moment, the fact that you could have competing instances each claiming to be the definition of redness.  Let us suppose this isn’t a problem for a moment.  How, then, do we determine whether a different apple than the standard is likewise red?  We have to compare it to the particular apple that is the standard.

This quickly becomes unwieldy.  If a specific apple is the definition of red, then all things that we wish to test need to be compared to the original apple.  This limits us to a specific local.

Naturally, it is better for us to universalize the concept rather than keep it particularized.  So, Daniel may argue, we do just that.  But here’s the problem.  In order for us to universalize the concept, the concept must already be universal.  That is, there must already be a universal proliferation of “redness” in order for us to point to anything beyond the particular apple as “red.”  We do not create the universal from the particular; rather, the universal is shown by the particulars.  The universal aspect of redness preceeds any particular object being red.

In other words, if we define “redness” as the color that a particular apple makes, that does not create redness everywhere.  Tomatos are red before the apple is defined as red.  Declaring the particular to be something does not change anything; it merely is a recognition of the particular.

Perhaps Daniel is suggesting a different method of going from particular to universal.  If so, I’d love to see it because this is the only method I can image, and it must presuppose universal redness in order to recognize redness in a particular in order to universalize redness!

Daniel asked:

It’s a kind of standard issue for any sort of dualism — how do things of different elemental substances interact? How could they cause or affect one another?

This has never been a problem for me; frankly, I don’t see what the fuss is about.  I might just as easily ask how it is possible for one photon passing through a polarized filter to affect the spin of a second photon faster than the speed of light.  There are many causes and effects we do not understand right now; why should it be necessary that I answer this particular “problem” instead of any others?

Daniel wrote:

First, I will tell you that I do not accept the logical validity of any form of relativism or subjectivism.

I’m assuming you are limiting it to morality at this point.  There are obviously some things that are relative and subjective (such as whether or not you like vanilla ice cream).

Daniel said:

Either good and evil are real properties, just like red and round, or they are not.

I disagree that good and evil are properties “just like red and round.”  In fact, you seem to be reifying good and evil here.  Red is something an object is; evil is something an object does.  (Even if we say, “Ted is evil” we know that what is meant by that is “Ted does evil actions.”  Evil is not a thing.)  I think one of the most obvious ways to demonstrate this is the fact that no one disagrees on what the color red is (except for blind or colorblind individuals); but quite a few people disagree on what is good or evil.  If they were made of similar properties, there shouldn’t be such a wide desparity between the two.

Daniel continued:

Our perception of them does not make them so. Neither does God’s.

Of course, my argument has never been that God’s perception is what causes morality.  I’ve stated that God’s nature is what causes morality.  This is how I defined it in the blog post: “Good, for God, is that which is consistent with His being and His nature.  Evil is that which is inconsistent with His being and His nature.”  This doesn’t require perception at all for there to be good and evil.

Daniel said:

Either logic and mathematical truths and morality constrain the nature of reality (including God’s own definitions), as well as what and who God can be and is, or those things somehow become a contingency of God’s existence, which is not possible. You seem to try to avoid contingency by making a sort of “parallel” argument, but I don’t have the time to deal with it right now.

I find it funny that you give me an either/or there, and then point out that my argument isn’t on either one of those two, but you just don’t have time to deal with it.  In any case, I’d like you to prove: “or those things somehow become a contingency of God’s existence, which is not possible.”  Why is it impossible for morality, logic, etc. to be contingent on God’s existence?  If you use the typical atheist response that I’ve seen–that this would make such things arbitrary and subject to change should God change–I have to point out that God’s existence is immutable.  The typical atheist response is, yet again, to a strawman and not Christian theism.

Daniel wrote:

I will only comment here to say that I don’t buy into “God’s morality” and “man’s morality”. You almost sound like a relativist with such statements.

That was intentional.  Man does have what he believes to be his own morality.  It is not the ultimate morality.  It must submit to God’s morality; if it does not, God’s morality wins out in the end.  This is why the structure of God being over the morality of man was in place in the diagrams.

Daniel wrote:

“Causing harm for fun is evil,” does not depend on God in any way. It is the nature of reality — it is logically necessary…what evil is, and what good is, not what God makes them or what God is.

Oh really?  So if I disagree and say that “Fun is a good thing; causing harm for fun is fun; therefore, causing harm for fun is good” how would you refute that?  How is “the nature of reality” such that causing harm for fun is “evil”?  Demonstrate it for me by A) defining evil (see, you still need to do that) and B) demonstrating that causing harm for fun fits that definition.

I can do so.  Evil is that which goes against the nature of God.  It goes against the nature of God to cause harm for fun.  Therefore, it is evil to cause harm for fun.  I have established the definition of evil and demonstrated how the concept applies.  I, therefore, have demonstrated a basis for my belief that causing harm for fun is evil.  You need to do the same thing in order to even get in the ring, let alone start to box.

Daniel said:

As Witmer said in his interview with Gene Cook — it is the nature of what it is to be evil to cause harm for fun. It is a real property of that state of affairs (causing harm for fun). It is the nature of what it is to be good to alleviate suffering whenever possible. It is foundational, self-evident and incorrigible, and it matters not one iota whether God exists or not to make it true. That’s my situation. I stop there. The regress ends there for me.

To me, the sort of person who requires justification for those propositions is the same as the person who says, “But why is blue darker than yellow?” I cannot bring myself to waste time in trying to justify it.

Once again, you are equating morality (which is the actions objects do) with a physical attribute (such as color–which is what an object is).  You are yet again reifying morality.  But morality is not equivalent to shades of color.  Morality is not a proposition in the same way that “this is yellow” is a proposition.  Morality cannot be quantified scientifically.  You cannot weigh morality; you cannot smell it, see it, touch it, hear it, or feel it.  It is not empirical.  Your analogy breaks apart at its very root.  You are comparing apples and oranges.

Daniel said:

One reason I stopped arguing much with you guys is that you only have one weapon in your arsenal: the one Sextus Empiricus developed long before the days of Jesus — the regress argument.

That is hardly the only weapon I have.  However, since you continue to engage in infinite regress, you will continue to get the same weapon.  Why should I use a weapon that has nothing to do with your arguments rather than the one that cuts them to pieces instantly?

Daniel continued:

Presuppositionalists want to use the classical regress arguments to destroy the foundation of anyone’s knowledge; excepting, of course, propositions like “God exists,” and “God is all-good, all-powerful…” as valid foundations. But the sort of skepticism you advocate is colored — to the degree you apply it, it undermines the validity of others’ presuppositions. But, you cannot maintain the same degree of global skepticism without self-refuting; turning that skepticism inward on yourself will leave you in the same boat as me.

This is not at all the case.  The infinite regress does not occur once a being that has the attributes of God is stipulated.  The reason that the infinite regress occurs when you do not stipulate God is precisely because it requires God to stop the infinite regress.  It’s like saying, “I continue to throw everything at this hole in the dam and it doesn’t plug the leak, yet you’re claiming the plug-shaped patch will do such a thing!  Bah, if mine don’t work why should yours?”

Instead of complaining that I say God stops the infinite regress, you could perhaps demonstrate that God does not do such a thing.  Then maybe I wouldn’t use Him… :-)

John Kerry is not a COMPLETE idiot after all!

Daniel Morgan is at it again.  Chalk one up for consistency, he never lets the refutation of his arguments stand in the way of his atheism.  Morgan has written more on The Problem of Evil. Once again, it doesn’t address any of the counter-arguments brought forth by Presuppositionalists.

But perhaps this is not his fault.  Perhaps Morgan simply isn’t a very good reader.  Maybe he’s more visually inclined.  Obviously, it can be difficult to understand words sometimes without a visual object to reference, if you’re one of those visual learners.  So, for Daniel’s sake (as well as for anyone else who might be interested), I have developed some visuals to help cut through the clutter of the Problem of Evil.

Firstly, I cannot help but notice that Daniel still has not defined “evil” when addressing the Problem of Evil.  Perhaps I’m just more philosophically oriented, but I seem to remember something about how defining the terms that are in debate might possibly be relevant to the discussion.  So let us look first at how a Christian defines these terms, and then we will look at how an atheist does so.

First, the Christian view begins as a God-centered viewpoint.  God’s nature determines His morality.  This is simply another way to say that God is consistent with Himself.  Visually, we have the following:

We see in this graphic that co-equal to God is His Nature, out of which flows His morality.  God’s nature is His attributes.  That is, when you define God, you list out His attributes.  Included in those attributes of God will be his Morality.  Therefore, Morality is not subordinant to God’s ontology (or His being).  God’s existence requires God’s morality; they are on an equal footing here.

Now, what comes from God’s morality?  Let us look:

Good and evil are defined by God’s morality, yet they can also be synonymous with God’s morality.  That is, since morality is the determining of what is good and what is evil, then we can replace “morality” in the above with “Good & Evil.”  This is why I used two lines instead of just the one–it is an equivalence between morality and good & evil.

Now, since Good & Evil are on the same plane as God’s ontology (represented by the box that says “God”), and also on the same plane as God’s nature, we can define the terms relative to the other things on this same plane.  Good, for God, is that which is consistent with His being and His nature.  Evil is that which is inconsistent with His being and His nature.  Thus, that which is Good for God does not depend on anything other than God’s nature and His being to be labeled “good.”  In the same way, that which is Evil does not depend on anything other than God’s nature and His being to be labeled “evil.”  These terms derrive their definitions from God’s being and nature.

But there is another level to the diagram: that of people.  Let us include them now, and let us start by giving Man the same definition as we have given God above:

Here, “Man” stands for each individual human being; not just male, and not man collectively (I would have used the word “person” but “Man” fit in the box).  Each individual person has his or her own nature, and that nature constructs his or her morality.  Thus, we have each individual man or woman creating his or her own ideas of what is Good or Evil thus far.

Thus far, the terms “Good” and “Evil” have been defined subjectively.  It is the subject (i.e. “God” or “Man”) who determines what is “Good” and what is “Evil” based on the nature of the subject involved.  As such, we have not delved into objective morality at this point.

Before we get to that, let us consider the case of two human individuals who have competing moralities.  If we look at the individuals involved, we see:

Here, we have two individuals, both of whom have their own morality.  Both men are set at the same level.  Neither of their subjective moralities can impose upon the other person.  The person on the left side of the graphic has his own version of “Good” and “Evil”; likewise the person on the right side.

In such a scenario, there is no reason that the man on the left should require the man on the right to follow the man on the left’s version of morality, and vice versa.  There is nothing that makes either one of them better or worse than any other view.

Expand this out over 6 billion people, and we’ve got 6 billion systems of good and evil all operating at the same level of authority.

Now we ask the important question.  Is God’s view of morality higher, equal to, or lower than the view of man?  (We will ask this question before we break it down into “Good” or “Evil” levels.)

If God’s morality is higher, we have the following:

Here we see that God’s morality is “higher” than Man’s morality, such that God’s morality trumps man’s morality.  In other words, in such a position, if God thinks that something is moral and man does not think it is moral, God’s morality is superior to man’s morality.  But this is certainly not the only possible way it could be (although this is the view the Christian would hold).  For instance, God could be equal to man:

God’s morality could even be subordinant to Man’s morality:

Let us examine the results of each of these three concepts.  Let us start with the easiest to dismiss: that God’s morality is equal to man’s morality.  If this is the case, than God is merely one more in the line of 6 billion (present) subjects with their own view of morality.  His view is neither better nor worse than any of them.  Indeed, the term “better or worse” has no meaning whatsoever in such a scenario.  There are merely subjects with differing views of morality.

What about the other two views?  Well, it turns out that the Christian view is the first one–God’s morality is higher than man’s morality.  But the atheist’s view is the last!  The atheist views man’s morality as higher than God’s morality.

Before we get to demonstrating that, however, we must demonstrate one further step in the Christian point of view.  That is the concept of the Law.  God gave several commandments, rules, and regulations by which certain behaviors that people do would be considered good and others evil.  These regulations were for man only; therefore, they were relative to mankind and not relative to God.  As such, the Laws that God gives for man to obey do not stand on an equal footing with God’s own morality, but they do flow from His morality.  Thus, we have:

Let us remember that at each level, Morality refers to both “Good” and “Evil” things.  As such, we could replace every instance of “Morality” with two boxes–one “Good” and one “Evil.”  Doing so, we would end up with a chart such as this:

(In this image, due to size restrictions, I have colorized the zones of equality; that is, although I show “good and evil” as subordinant to “Man” in the final row, they are really equivalent to man’s nature, as in the previous examples.) Here we see the heirarchical chart all the way from Man’s morality through God’s morality.  Looking at this chart, let us ask a simple question: at what point does the Problem of Evil come into play?

There are three different rows where it could come into play.  Are we referring to man’s understanding of what good and evil are?  Are we referring to good and evil as determined by God’s law?  Or are we referring to good and evil as determined by God’s nature?

Leaving “evil” undefined allows the atheist to be slippery here.  He can jump between the alternate levels on a whim.  And, indeed, this is exactly what he does.  However, only one specific route can actually present a “problem” in the Problem of Evil.  That is if God does something that is evil on the basis of God’s own nature.

But let us consider the following path:

This is the level at which atheists argue the Problem of Evil.  At first it seems tempting.  Here, we have something that is evil relative to man.  It is likewise evil relative to the Law of God.  A good example of this is murder.  If an individual believes murder is wrong, and it is also true that murder is against God’s law (as it is), then surely this would be evidence for the Problem of Evil!  Except…as you can see above, if the entire structure flows from God’s moral goodness in the first place, then it is not a problem of evil.  The problem is in the wrong branch.

Now the most common atheist argument is to say that the above chart is not possible.  That is, the atheist will argue that if it is evil for the atheist, and if it is evil according to God’s law, then an action must likewise be evil for God himself.  But this results in man’s definition of evil being over God’s definition.  That is, because the atheist assumes that his own morality determines whether God is good or evil, man’s morality is higher than God’s morality:

But this, as we have seen, is not the Christian position.  The Christian position keeps God’s morality higher than man’s morality.  As a result, Morgan’s argument for the Problem of Evil doesn’t even begin to touch actual Christian theism in the first place.  It is an argument against a strawman, and it banks on the non-definition of “evil” to make it’s point.  In other words, Morgan demonstrates something that is evil for him (for instance, a painful experience).  His argument is that said painful experience would not occur if God was a good God.  This, in essence, is Daniel telling God what God’s morality ought to be.  Daniel is saying his morality trumps God’s morality.

Now, Daniel hasn’t bothered to respond to many of my critiques.  I get the impression reading his blog that he’d rather not deal with Presuppositionalists at all.  Frankly, I’m not surprised, since it is the presuppositionalists who actually require Daniel to define his terms and then demonstrate that when he does do so, he is not arguing against Christianity but his own idea of what Christianity should be.  But, naturally, if we did the same to Daniel, he would certainly object (and rightfully so).

Daniel (and others amongst the debunkers) get frustrated that I, as a presuppositionalist, do not “deal with their arguments.”  Yet, as demonstrated above, if their arguments are based off a flawed presupposition in the first place, it is going to be pointless to argue against their position.  This is why I insist on keeping the debate at the level of the presupposition.  All other argumentation is futile if this is not settled first.

This is rather interesting.

I’m trying to finish up a final edit for Public Transit so I can get the ISBN for it and have it “officially” published.  One of the things I realized as I read through the second-to-last draft I’ve done is that I needed a closure scene for one of the characters (note: there are no spoilers here, so don’t even think of asking).  In my last draft, I put in a closure scene for this specific character; but it didn’t feel right as I put it in.

Now, I’m working on it along with my friends Travis (who at least has the distinction of being paid to write!) and Michal, who together with another co-worker consist of the writing group I get together with on (many, sometimes even most) Fridays.  They’ve offered some great suggestions already, which I am in the process of incorporating as I rework this scene.  The goal is to have Public Transit as close to finished as possible by this Friday.

Anyway, I spoke with Travis a bit yesterday on it.  He asked whether the scene was actually important to the story, since it’s so difficult getting it to work.  Actually, I’ve thought of it myself.  Basically, yes, the scene does need to be in there.  Without it, there was a gaping hole.

So the question is, how do I get it in there without making it feel forced, unnatural, and cliched (as it currently does)?  Normally, this isn’t a problem for me, as writing comes from somewhere “else” and isn’t really much work for me.  This time, however, I’ve apparently tapped into the muse of Dan Brown and this scene just comes out as talentless hackery.

I’m thinking, however, that since the cliched parts are in the descriptions, I’ll try doing this scene completely in dialogue.  If the dialogue can carry it, then I will go back and add maybe 1/3 of the original descriptive comments and see if that works.

In either case, it’s sort of nice to be able to actually do some hard work on a scene.  It makes it feel like I did something instead of getting a “pipeline to God” sorta feeling, where it doesn’t really feel like I wrote it.

A couple of years ago, when Metallica released their St. Anger album, they did a documentary of the making of the album.  Except it ended up being far more than that.  The resulting movie, Some Kind of Monster, documented not only the making of St. Anger but also the near break-up of the band as Jason Newstead left the band, and then frontman James Hetfield entered rehab in the middle of recording the album.

This weekend, I finally got to watch the video.  After it was over, I had only one overriding thought, which I shared with SpideyGeek in #pros already.  I said: “Kirk Hammett is the only member of Metallica who doesn’t have an ego the size of Texas.”  To be fair, it’s also possible Rob Trujillo is similarly ego-less, but since he’s the “new guy” we don’t know much about him from the video.

In any case, it was quite ironic that I watched that movie this weekend and then when my alarm went off this morning and the radio came on it was to the sounds of Sanitarium.  (Even though the real name of the song is Welcome Home (Sanitarium), no one calls it that.)  Even more ironic is that as soon as the song ended, the DJ came on and said that one of his friends told him not watch Some Kind of Monster because it would make you lose all respect for the band.  Then he said he did watch the video and it did make him lose respect.  Except he also added, “I felt really sorry for Kirk Hammett, being stuck in the most dysfunctional family on Earth.”

So my views weren’t merely my views.  If you want to watch a video that makes you really appreciate Kirk Hammett, watch Some Kind of Monster.  If you want to see what an angry, bitter, drunken frontman and a hyper Danish drummer are like when they yell the F-word at each other (while Kirk is hitting his own forehead, pleading, “Don’t we have better things to do than this?”)–then watch Some Kind of Monster.

This isn’t to say the movie is a bad.  It’s actually quite well done.  And it’s also very informative on how some of the lyrics of Metallica come about.  For instance, their lyric, “Wash your back so you won’t stab mine” in Sweet Amber came about because a radio station wanted Metallica to do a lame promo ad, and their agents told Metallica it was the kind of thing that they better do if they expected significant air time.  They took a dim view to that; the lyric was the result.

Metallica fans will probably find much to like and much to hate about the video.  It’s wonderful if you want to know what happens behind the scenes; if you want to be a loyal idealistic fan, it will trash your dream of the superstars.  In either case, it’s a reality check that’s a mixture between watching Ozzy Osborne on TV and listening to the punks on their skateboards blasting their boomboxes.  I’ll give an A+ to the documentary producers for making middle-aged ego maniacs seem far more entertaining than…well, nothing.  Unfortunately, since those middle-aged ego maniacs were in the film, the film as a whole gets a B-.

C’est la vie.

From this article:

The misguided, hedonistic philosophy which urges young women into this kind of behaviour [promiscuity] harms both men and women; but it is particularly damaging to women, as it pressures them to subvert their deepest emotional desires. The champions of the sexual revolution are cynical. They know in their tin hearts that casual sex doesn’t make women happy. That’s why they feel the need continually to promote it.

This is written by Dawn Eden, a former liberal “groupie” who is now a Catholic.