I know I haven’t been updating the blogo very often. Sorrrryyyyy… (Yeah, right.) Ok - fact is I’ve been busy with some stuff. I’m working on a book and software for software sound synthesis. Software synthesis (for those who don’t know) is a way of generating sounds directly from a computer rather than recording them. A software sound synthesizer can create everything from imitation orchestras to spaced-out electronic effects right on your computer. No need for a recording studio, expensive equipment and all that. Once you learn how the thing works, you have your very own personal orchestra at hand whenever the computer is booted up. Cool, huh?

This is something that I started on back 25+ years ago when I was a gradual student at the University of North Texas. It is, in fact, what I would have done for a Ph.D. thesis if I had stayed in school. I got a little “distracted” from that, but I’ve never forgotten about it and have continued to study and play around with computerized music systems for years. So, here I am, writing my “Ph.D. thesis” without having to deal with a bunch of professors and duh-gree counselors (HAH HAH). Of course I won’t get the ol’ sheep-skin and fancy hood in the end, but so what? The point of the Ph.D. is supposed to be to learn completely about something and add to the body of knowledge in your area. I’m doing exactly that, thank you.

The book and software are intended to be a tutorial for people who want to create their very own customizable synthesizer rather than use one of the many commercial products available. In effect, I am documenting the process I went through in learning how to build a synthesizer program so that others can use the information I learned along the way. Of course, you might say, “Isn’t it much more convenient to go buy a synthesizer program?” Well, maybe, maybe not. You see, that only works IF the commercial programs do what I want. I’ve looked at several of them and they are certainly good programs, and very convenient to use. But, quite frankly, convenience is overrated. If the program doesn’t do what I need it to do, then in the end it isn’t very convenient at all. It’s just a constant source of frustration. Commercial music programs are designed for the commercial music industry. They rely heavily on MIDI (piano keyboard input) to provide the expressive parts while the computer does the automated parts. I am (for those who don’t know) a classically trained composer and one of the things I was taught to do was to write music without using a piano or other instrument. All of the commercial programs force me to do what I worked very hard to be able to NOT do. So, there it is. I need something they don’t provide, so I just have to do it myself, convenient or not.

But that’s not the only reason for doing something like this. My attitude is that everything in life has a spiritual dimension. We cannot separate the spiritual from daily life and claim to be loving God and following Jesus. It’s all-or-nothing; you live your life walking after the spirit, or, you live your life walking in the flesh (Romans 8:1). There is no jumping back and forth, sometimes spiritual and sometimes not. Everything we do can become a spiritual lesson if we are attentive and listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit. It’s like this…

I could conform my compositional style to the way that everybody else does it. I would then be able to grab any number of software systems off-the-shelf and use them. But that would mean that the creators of that software were controlling the way I write music. I’m not saying that the way others do things is wrong, just that I don’t do it their way and I won’t be forced to conform to the way they do things. I have, and have always had this “attitude problem” where I do things the way I think they ought to be done, even if everyone else is doing it differently.

But beyond that “I did it my way” attitude is something else. I LIKE to create things. The God who created us gave us something of His nature, His image, and part of that gift to us is the ability to create. We can envision what we have not seen, explore what we do not know, discover how and why things work, and in so doing we have more than just a mundane experience of life. The point then, is not whether or not I can create a synthesizer better than the commercial products. The point is that if I write it myself I gain a deeper understanding of how it works, and that allows me to make better use of the synthesizer when I get done. If I can transfer that knowledge to others, then all the better.

True understanding comes from doing, not thinking about things. Thinking about stuff is good - I do a lot of that - but when you’ve done all the pondering you still don’t know the thing until you have put it into practice. So there it is again - just like “faith” - knowledge comes in the doing not the believing you can do it.

Well, I didn’t work on the software or book much this weekend. This weekend I built a computer. In order to fully test the software I needed another computer to run other operating systems (Linux and Vista 64-bit). The easy, convenient thing to do was to go buy one off-the-shelf. It used to be that people built computers in order to save money. However, with Walmart and other mega-retailers selling good computers for around $500, you really can’t build a computer cheaper than you can buy one these days. The people who build computers sometimes do it to get a really high-end system for playing interactive video games and other such stuff. I didn’t need to do that, and a typical business computer from the computer store would work just fine. What music systems need most of all is processing speed, and the current state-of-the-art systems have ample speed right out of the box. So, why did I do it?

I was in the computer store buying a memory upgrade for my laptop when I walked past a display that grabbed my attention. Nope, not the latest hi-res graphics, not the latest super-big hard disk, and not the fancy audio systems. It was a computer case. (A WHAT?) Yep. A computer case. Almost every computer you see, and almost every computer any hacker builds, is built in what is called a “Tower” case. What I’ll bet most people don’t know is where that idea for a tower computer case came from. You might think that computer manufacturers use that kind of case because it is better for the computer. You would be wrong in that. Let me tell you a little bit of computer history trivia in case you weren’t messing around with computers back in the mid 1980’s.

Originally, PCs came in a flat box type case. When the systems began to get bigger, especially when the first hard-disk drives came out, the box the computer came in had to get bigger, too. Most computer programmers work in a little cubical with not much more than a shelf for a desk. The standard AT cases took up nearly the whole desktop. So, what we did was to stand the computer up on its side. That way you got your desk back! It was much more convenient you see? It wasn’t too much longer before manufacturers stared making all computers that way and today it’s almost impossible to get a desktop system in anything other than a tower case. A lot of people like the little mini-tower cases, too. They have an even smaller foot-print and can be conveniently shoved out of the way.

But the typical tower case, especially the mini-tower, has a wee-bit of a problem. It’s called “heat.” The enemy of every computer component is heat. The faster the computer runs, the more heat it generates and the more power it needs. The more power you need, the bigger the power supply has to be, and the bigger the power supply the more heat you generate. Now, take the side panel off of a typical tower case and look at how things are stuffed into the box. What you have got is a disaster waiting to happen. All of the heat generated by those super-fast components is going to want to rise to the top of the box, right where the power supply is usually located. When power supplies get hot, they get inefficient and the whole system can halt because it doesn’t get enough “juice.” If you don’t put some big, powerful fans in that box, it’s going to “fry” your very expensive CPU and power supply. Big fans are NOISY. So, computer manufacturers have been doing all sorts of clever things to try and keep those high-end systems cool and quiet, and if you are going to build your own system, you better do the same.

Like I said before, everything in life is a spiritual lesson. We try to cut corners and make things more convenient only to end up creating additional problems that we didn’t have before.

The case I stumbled on isn’t a tower case. It’s a “cube.” It is a really sharp looking cube, too. Nice matte-black finish with chrome accents. But that’s not all. This thing is made with a metal front panel, not plastic, and with the exception of one piece, it has very heavy gauge metal throughout. Even better, all the bits and pieces of the case where you have to attach parts come out of the case for easy assembly and disassembly. (Try getting a CD ROM or motherboard in and out of typical tower case some time and you learn what “patience” really means.) It also has this big, very quiet fan on the back, and lots and lots of space inside for good air circulation. Now, THIS is what I call a good-looking computer that won’t overheat, is easy to upgrade, and runs like the dickens (Intel Quad-core processor, 1066 FSB, 4GB-800Mhz RAM, 400GB disk):

Like I said, everything we do in life has a spiritual dimension. Here’s the point (in case you didn’t get it yet): life is not about convenience. Doing something because it is convenient will lead you down the wrong spiritual path in life. It is all-too easy to just go along to get along, compromise, be like everyone else, etc.

It’s not convenient to write your own software when you can buy it, but you learn a lot more that way. It’s not convenient to build a computer system instead of buying one, but you can end up with something that you really like.

It’s not convenient to have to put up with all the evil in the world. It’s not convenient to be independent and do things different from the way everyone else does them.

It wasn’t convenient for God to send His son to die on that cross. But aren’t you glad He did?

It’s an argument that has been going on for some time now. Namely, that “faith” and “reason” are somehow in opposition to each other. Here are some examples I plucked at random from the World Wide Web:

“Behind the political divide in America, there is also a religious divide. The split is not just between people who believe and people who do not; it is between those who see religious faith as society’s foundation and those who see it as society’s bane.”

http://www.reason.com/news/show/116850.html

“In today’s episode we take a look at the relationship between faith and reason in the Catholic tradition and see whether they can work together and what they can tell us about our relationship with God.”

http://catholicunderthehood.blogspot.com/2006/12/95-faith-vs-reason.html

“Many people, like this author, require a firmer basis for their beliefs than a blind appeal to authority. In fact, one can go further, and point out that it may well be immoral to have beliefs without a logical basis.”

http://www.religioustolerance.org/kaiser_01.htm

“Objectivists have a very clear and specific concept of faith. Faith is accepting an idea as true without reason, or against reason. The first half of this is accepting an idea in spite of the fact that there is no justified reason to believe it. Obviously someone can try to rationalize anything, so we’re not talking about just giving an excuse for a belief. We’re talking about actual evidence that leads to that particular belief….

Reason and faith are completely incompatible. Faith is the destroyer of reason. It takes particular ideas and divorces them from reality and from reason. If you accept something on faith, you are essentially saying that you will take it off of the table with regards to reason, and treat it how you feel like treating it. Wherever faith goes, reason is pushed out.”

http://objectivism101.com/Lectures/Lecture15.shtml

OK - that’s enough I think. You can find thousands of similar statements.

So, is “Faith” in opposition to “Reason?” Here’s the trick - all of these quotes DEFINE faith as something opposed to reason. Get it? It’s a silly argument at its core because it is merely a set of a priori definitions that lead to a foregone conclusion.

This wouldn’t be problem except that the word “faith” is used throughout the New Testament. Because of the current definition of faith (belief without evidence), most people never understand what Jesus and His followers were actually talking about. I’ve written extensively about what the Bible means by faith, something completely different from the definitions above. What I want to look at in this writing is where this idea of “faith is blind belief” came from and why it is such a controversial subject.

Here is the key - all of those who argue “Faith vs. Reason” make “Faith” and “Religion” equivalent. The argument is not about faith; it is an argument about religion. Historically, religion has been based on the authority of the Priest, Prophet, Shaman, Spiritual master, etc. The Priest acts as the intermediary between man and the Divine, and ONLY the Priest has that position. Thus, to know what to do, you are required to obey without question the dictates of that authority.

You can see how this idea of religious authority developed in the history of Christianity, and how it changed things. Initially, each Apostle was treated as a “messenger” who brought the “Good News” about Jesus. They were reporters of FACT, in other words, and no one was expected to just believe them. They were obviously effective reporters, because people did believe them, changed their lives, and became followers of Jesus. Over time the facts they reported were written down in books, what we today call the New Testament. We know what facts they reported and can evaluate them today just as the first century listeners did. The point is, Christianity did not start with a claim of “divine inspiration” to a Priest that must be believed without evidence, but with statements of fact that were spread around and accepted as true. That statement itself is a statement of historical fact that cannot be denied. Whether a person believes in Jesus or not, it would be irrational to deny that Christianity started as I have described. It was never a matter of “blind belief” by the followers of Jesus.

The arguments that rose up over time were not over facts, but over interpretation of the facts and what they meant to a Christian. In time, the divisions over interpretation led to Church councils of “experts” who would define the orthodox interpretation. Eventually, the authority of the Church council was centered in the Pope as the “Vicar of Christ” and ultimate authority for correct interpretation. Western Christianity had come to be another religion based on the authority of a Priest.

It was in that context of Medieval Roman Christianity that the current debate of “Faith vs. Reason” got started. The conflict was and is over the obedience of the people to religious authorities. This debate developed and became passionate as literacy spread throughout Europe. Once people had Bibles in their hands and could read for themselves, reliance on Church authority began to diminish. It turned out the authorities were often abusing their authority and a rebellion (reformation) against that abuse began. Because the Church also had significant political power and influence, those wanting to change the political structure also had to contend with the religious authorities. Many of them rejected the Church in part because they wanted to create a new form of political society based on democracy, socialism, etc. Unfortunately, the use of the word “faith” as a euphemism for religious authority remains with us today and has colored the interpretation of the Bible. My argument for some time has been that even most Christians don’t know what Biblical faith is, much less how to live by faith.

If we are to accurately represent Jesus to the modern world, we must do so using language as Jesus did. We must understand faith as reliance on God because God has proved Himself reliable by the resurrection of Jesus and the change that occurs in those who rely on Him. We must understand that, in the teaching of Jesus, faith is always an active principle, involving action by the person, that then makes the power of God manifest in the person’s life.

The contemporary proof that the skeptics look for is the change of moral nature that happens in every true follower of Jesus. (”By their fruits you shall know them.”) Our faith (reliance on God) is proven valid because it changes us by an invisible force (Holy Spirit) rather than by our own will power. That change in a person’s life is a FACT that forms the solid basis of our REASON. However, that change in a person cannot happen until a person is willing to let go and let God direct events in the person’s life. This is why so many never come to know God. It has nothing to do with reason.

In fact, some “rationalists” don’t seem to understand reason at all. Here is a little clue: all logical arguments must start with an a priori premise that is assumed to be self-evident. And, (please pay attention) the only conclusions you can draw are those that are inherent in the a priori premise. Thus, as Wittgenstein pointed out, reason can only help you organize what you already believe to be true. Reason helps us understand the cause and effect relationships of our experience and communicate our understanding to others. That is the proper use of reason. Reason alone can never discover new truths, only develop broader understanding of what we already know. The way you discover new truths is to change your a priori premise(s) and see what you get. Once we know the power of God directly in our lives, we have an a priori premise to start with that will allow us to reason to a better understanding of God’s ways. OK?

What the so-called rationalists mean by “reason” is human will-power. Thus, the conflict is not “blind belief” vs “reason.” It is a conflict between human will and God’s will. That is the contrast described in the Bible beginning with the story of the Garden of Eden. Man wants to be god and will find every excuse to justify that desire. Thus, they change the meaning of “faith” into something that can be belittled and ignored so that they can “do as they desire” without regard to God. Or, they equate faith with religion and demand conformity to a set of rituals defined by a religious/political authority. In both cases, it has nothing to do with faith or reason, only with conforming others and a reliance on man and man’s will power.

This is the conflict between those who live by faith and those who don’t. Those who live by faith in Jesus do not need the approval of others, neither the “reason” of the atheists or the dogma of religious authority. That, unfortunately, makes us the true outcasts in the world. So be it. This is how it has been from the beginning:

“Those who have the desire to seem important in the flesh, put force on you to undergo circumcision; only that they may not be attacked because of the cross of Christ. Because even those who undergo circumcision do not themselves keep the law; but they would have you undergo circumcision, so that they may have glory in your flesh. But far be it from me to have glory in anything, but only in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which this world has come to an end on the cross for me, and I for it. For having circumcision is nothing, and not having circumcision is nothing, but only a new order of existence. And on all who are guided by this rule be peace and mercy, and on the Israel of God. From this time on let no man be a trouble to me; because my body is marked with the marks of Jesus.” (Gal 6:12-17)

Just replace “circumcision” with any religious ritual or observance, or with some scientific theory, and you get the point Paul is making in contemporary terms. It is the “new creation” in Jesus that is the mark of a Christian. And, that is what “faith” is - a new kind of existence. And, there is absolutely nothing irrational about it.