The Logic of Christianity 2: Building a Logical Pathway--The Syllogistic Chain

I was born during the first half of the Twentieth Century . . . just barely. Actually, my mother brought me into this world just 22 days before the beginning of the second half of the century--on December 9, 1949. I grew up on a farm not far from New Salem, in Illinois, the pioneer (log cabin) settlement where Abraham Lincoln as a young adult had left his career as a rail splitter, and had begun to study law, a century earlier. In fact, the Sangamon River which borders New Salem also bordered my family’s farm.

In the first map, pictured here, our farm was located about where you see the word “Salt”—just south of “Walker’s Grove.” Note that the squiggly line from around Kilbourne (going west to east) that makes a sharp right turn south at our farm going towards Petersburg is the Sangamon River. In the second map, you will note that the river winds further south toward Springfield, the Illinois state capitol, where Lincoln’s tomb is located. If we had navigated the Sangamon River by boat from our farm to New Salem (just barely south of Petersburg), we would have been only about 10 miles away, and another 15 or 20 miles from Springfield. Even though I grew up on the banks of the Sangamon, however, I cannot recall anyone ever boating on the river. I recall it being a very muddy river. At least, the land that my dad farmed bordering the river was muddy, but that was a good thing. Our farm was located in what was called the “Sangamon River Bottoms.” Johnny Carson made jokes about finding a good piece of bottom land, but my dad had actually found it. The rich black soil (mud or silt) in the Sangamon River Bottoms produced excellent crops and a very respectable farm income. You will notice in the picture of the farmland the hills in the distance. These were actually the original banks of the Sangamon River. The river, over the centuries, had deposited layers and layers of thick black silt (mud) in the river bottoms. That silt contained extremely productive nutrients for crops.

My mom had the job of spending the money the farm brought in. She travelled frequently to downtown Springfield to shop for clothing for the family in some very nice clothing stores. There were occasions when my mom could make this trip to Springfield in a very short period of time, but that was not usually the case. Usually, my mother would need to travel north out of the bottoms to Easton, where she could choose to travel either east or west to catch another highway southward to Springfield. This doubled the travel distance and time. The problem she encountered was that the river that connected our farm to New Salem also provided an obstacle to our travels southward. There was an old Oakford Bridge across the river from the Bottoms, but it had become dilapidated and rusted out and was closed when I was very young. Another bridge from the Bottoms across the Salt Creek toward Greenview was an option, even as I grew to be a young man. This route shaved off one-half hour from the trip to Springfield. The bridge was a rusty iron structure with no side retaining walls. Wooden planks were laid across the iron frame and rattled unnervingly as we drove slowly across the single-lane bridge. But even getting to this bridge was a major feat. The only roads that connected our house to this bridge were field roads, which we called “mud roads.” The primary roads in the Bottoms were covered with gravel, and other than being very dusty to drive on, were usually passable. But the mud roads were impassable after a rain. The gooey mire would engulf the wheels of the car, if one were to attempt to drive on the road. Even if someone drove a tractor on the wet roads, and was thus able to pass, the tractor tires would leave deep tracks in the mud. Anyone who subsequently attempted to navigate the road (after the mud dried) would be obstructed by the rutted path. What, you may ask, do mud roads and bad bridges have to do with the logic of Christianity? The story I have related is a representative anecdote. The mud roads and rattling bridge are metaphors for the dilapidated and impassable state of the syllogistic chain that currently exists for Christian logic. The need for logical infrastructure repair and refurbishment for Christianity reaches back to long before my childhood in the middle of the Twentieth Century. The issues come from before Abraham Lincoln’s mid-Nineteenth Century reiteration of our founding fathers’ (late Eighteenth Century) position that all men are “created” equal. They even predate Martin Luther’s Sixteenth Century reformation cry: “Sola Scriptura” (translated: “by scripture alone”). Some pertain to a time earlier than that of Jesus, his disciples, and the New Testament. They go back to the time of Aristotle in the Fourth Century BC, and even earlier—although Aristotle provides a roadmap to get us to where we need to be. The logical refurbishment of Christianity must go back beyond Daniel, Isaiah, King David, and even Moses. This current blog series is an attempt to resurface some of the mud roads that have become impassable, to repair some crumbling bridges, and to pave the highways that will allow others to more easily follow our logical pathways. Aristotle calls the various steps one must take to build a logic a “syllogistic chain.” In my book, ArguMentor, page 165, I describe such a chain:

“[Each link in the] chain of argumentation must be completed before the next one begins. And, so on. And so on. As an arguer, one must build his/her argumentation on facts, statistics, case studies, anecdotes, examples, and syllogisms that others have established. If one moves the argument along by only one link of a chain, it is a successful argument. If one, by supplying a rebuttal for which there is no valid backing, refutes an argument, the refutation is a successful argument, until someone else comes along with a backing or inductive argument or deductive argument that moves the syllogistic chain along.” On page 93, I point out: “What Aristotle called a chain of syllogisms, Kenneth Burke (1968) called syllogistic progressive form. Syllogistic progressive form simply suggests logic in the development of any literary work. The major premise and at least one minor premise must be established as credible with the audience before conclusions can be drawn. Then, in turn, these newly established conclusions may be employed as premises for other conclusions, until one reaches the final conclusion, the point that the author is ultimately attempting to persuade his/her audience to accept. ‘In so far as the audience, from its acquaintance with the premises, feels the rightness of the conclusion, the work is formal [meaning that it has syllogistic progressive form]’" (124).

As I grew up on the farm in the 1950s and 1960s, I believed (as many Evangelical Christians do, today) that, when arguing theological issues, I could simply appeal, as did Martin Luther, to the scriptures. If the Bible clearly stated a truth proposition, the issue was resolved. In my naïveté, I assumed that the authority of the Bible had long been established. I felt that the syllogistic chain could begin with the premise that the Bible was authoritative. The only legitimate questions, then, pertained to issues of interpretation of scripture. In my undergraduate years, at a conservative Christian college, I took three years of Hellenistic Greek language courses and two years of Classical Hebrew language courses, in addition to multiple content courses covering Old and New Testament texts. As a master’s student in Rabbinic Hebrew at Indiana University, I continued my study of Classical and Mishnaic Hebrew, and added courses in Aramaic and Syriac, in addition to multiple content courses covering Old Testament and Rabbinic texts. My naïveté dissipated rapidly. My Jewish professors and classmates felt no compunction whatsoever to assist me in defending Christianity. Quite to the contrary, I found myself challenged constantly to defend my premises. It was not even a generally accepted premise in a primarily Jewish department that the Hebrew Bible was authoritative. One of my professors warned me that it was proverbial in academia: to earn a master’s degree, one must stop believing in the Bible; to earn a Ph.D., one must stop believing in God. When I wrote my master’s thesis, I invited a New Testament scholar from the University to be a part of my thesis committee. He offered even more resistance to my notions of the reliability of the New Testament than did my Jewish professors.

What had happened to the Sola Scriptura premise? I began to realize the full extent to which the syllogistic chain of Christianity had been compromised. Over the years, as I watch other young unsuspecting college students face the onslaught of critical Biblical scholarship in religion classes at various universities, I have empathy. I know what they are going through. They are hopelessly mired in a mud road, in the logic of Christianity. They cannot logically argue for the truth of a biblical proposition until they have established the premise that the Bible is reliable. This is no mean task. More than a century of concerted scholarly skepticism has targeted the credibility of the various biblical texts. Furthermore, before they could even begin to argue for the correctness of the Bible, they find themselves face-to-face with a crumbling rickety bridge of theism vs. atheism. How can one argue that the God of Judeo-Christian scriptures is the true God, if it has not been successfully argued that there even is a God? And, before one can argue that there is a God, one must grapple with the issue of whether the universe is randomly constituted, or whether there is purposeful action that produced its existence. We find ourselves precisely where Genesis begins—at the beginning of the universe. (How interesting!) We may use Aristotle’s concept of syllogistic chains to begin building a logical pathway from there.

The Logic of Christianity 1: The Shroud, the Pope, and the Faith Continuum

On May 19, 2015, I came within 15 to 20 feet of what could be minute traces of the actual physical DNA of Jesus of Nazareth, from the minutes and hours immediately following his death. My wife, Linda, and I drove a rental car five hours from Florence, Italy, to Turin, Italy, because the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist (where the Shroud of Turin is housed) had announced an Exposition of the Shroud, which would last from April 19, 2015 to June 24, 2015. As it turned out, we were going to be in Italy during that time. I was presenting a paper at a scholarly conference in Rome, so I ordered tickets (which were free of charge) to view the Shroud on May 19th. The Cathedral had conducted similar public exhibitions of the Shroud in 1998, 2000, and 2010, but we had no opportunity to view the Shroud in those years. Before we spent a few minutes in the actual presence of the Shroud, we were shown the evidence contained in the Shroud: Using a variety of scientific methods, we were able to observe visible signs of a face with thorn wounds around the head, of hands and feet that had been pierced by nails, of a back that had been scourged by whips, of a stab wound in the side--a victim of crucifixion identical to the biblical description of Jesus’ crucifixion. But was the crucifixion victim whose shroud was on display actually Jesus of Nazareth? Frankly, I do not know. The Shroud of Turin has been, perhaps, the most studied ancient artifact in history. And, there are plenty of skeptics concerning the authenticity of the Shroud. The presenters of the Exposition acknowledged the contrary arguments. For example, in 1988, carbon dating tests were performed on the cloth. These tests indicated a date of 1290-1350 a.d., but carbon dating testing is not always reliable. Once, carbon dating missed the date of the 4000 year old wrappings of a mummy by 1000 years. On the other hand, the carbon dating tests could be accurate. One’s faith in Christianity need not rest on a belief that the Shroud of Turin is the genuine burial shroud of Jesus. It may be an extremely remote possibility that the Shroud is genuine. Even so, the remotest possibility that Linda and I may have been within 15 to 20 feet of the actual physical DNA of Jesus produced a genuinely moving experience. There were no vocal skeptics at the viewing. Even if this shroud belonged to a crucifixion victim from the 13th or 14th century a.d. (the likelihood of which I am skeptical, since Christianity had, by then, long been the dominant world religion, and it seems highly questionable that someone would have been crucified, at that time, in exactly the same manner as Jesus), still the reality of physical proof of crucifixion wounds of “someone” produced reverence in the entire crowd. The point of the Shroud experience is that one need not have overwhelming faith that the Shroud belonged to Jesus in order to be moved by it. Even the tiniest, remotest inkling of a miniscule shred of possibility that we were actually in the physical presence of the DNA of Jesus was awe-inspiring. Even miniscule faith in a tiny possibility is still faith.

Two days prior to viewing the Shroud of Turin, Linda and I were in St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City. We had not known before our trip to Rome that Pope Francis would be conducting a canonization that day. The Square was packed with thousands upon thousands of people as the Pope delivered a homily and conducted services in a truly impressive “megachurch.” We were half-way back in the crowd of standing-room only spectators in the square. After a couple of hours, it seemed the service was ending. We could see on the big screens posted around the square that the Pope was visiting with a few dignitaries before leaving the scene. Then we heard some cheering in parts of the square. We saw hundreds of hands raising cameras and smart phones in various parts of the square. What was happening? The Pope, after addressing the crowd had decided to ride out through the crowds on some sort of modified golf cart. As the cheers and raised cameras seemed to get closer to us, we took a real interest in the direction in which the cameras were pointed. Then, we saw him. The Pope was riding past us, within about the same 15 to 20 foot proximity that we would later be near the Shroud. I took pictures. Linda took videos. He would stop occasionally to bless someone or kiss a child. I am almost 100% certain that I was within 15 to 20 feet of Pope Francis. As with the Shroud, one’s faith in Christianity need not rest on a belief that the Pope is a genuine representative of God. There are millions of Christian Protestants who disagree with him. You might even be skeptical about my claim that I was within 15 to 20 feet of the Pope. Even if you saw the pictures I took, you might engage in skepticism, suggesting that I may have Photoshopped the pictures. Even I cannot be 100% certain that I saw him. Perhaps, he has a double. My point is, however, that I have an enormous amount of faith that I was within 15 to 20 feet of the Pope. Although I was pleased to be almost certainly in his presence (a world-renown representative of Christianity), I was more moved by that tiny, remote sliver of a possibility that I was in the presence of the physical DNA of Jesus.

Faith is a continuum. It runs all the way from the tiniest, faintest possibility that something is true (such as the faint possibility that I was within 15 to 20 feet of the actual DNA of Jesus) to the almost certain probability that something is true (such as the almost certain fact that I was within 15 to 20 feet of Pope Francis). If I were convinced that there was zero, zilch, zip, nada possibility that the Shroud was genuine, I would not have driven to Turin to see it. I would have had absolutely NO faith in it. If I were fully 100% certain that I was within 15 to 20 feet of Pope Francis, I would cease to have “faith” in that proposition. What we “know for certain” is no longer faith. “Faith,” as Aristotle explains it, must admit at least two possibilities. In his book, On Rhetoric, Aristotle teaches how rhetorical logic works. In rhetoric (as opposed to dialectic), the aim is not to provide absolute truth, but only possible or probable truth. It applies only to matters of which we cannot be certain. Nevertheless, although certainty is impossible, we can logically conclude that something is “probably” or “possibly” true. Aristotle says that the goal of this type of logic is to achieve “faith.” If there is no possibility, there is no faith. If there is only one possibility, we call it truth. There is still no faith, because it is absolute truth. John 20:29 records the incident of the Apostle Thomas who demanded, after being told that Jesus was resurrected, that he be allowed to place his fingers in the nail holes in Jesus’ hands and his hand in the sword wound in Jesus’ side before he would believe. Jesus, after offering the physical terms of proof demanded by Thomas comments: “Because you have seen me, Thomas, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have believed.” The logic of Christianity is a faith-based logic. Interestingly, the Bible says: “Without faith it is impossible to please God” (Hebrews 11:6). To understand this type of logic, we must begin by accepting the fact that we could be wrong about various propositions. In cases, for example, of Deliberative Rhetoric (for Aristotle, this means arguments about what can or should happen in the future), Aristotle understands that we cannot really “know” the future, but we can predict things that “possibly” or “probably” will happen. This is Rhetoric. The aim is to produce “faith” that a certain course of action is wiser than another. In cases of Judicial Rhetoric (for Aristotle, this means arguments about what did actually happen in the past—for example, did O. J. actually kill Ron and Nicole?), Aristotle understands that we cannot really “know” for certain what happened, but we can argue persuasively that certain things “possibly” or “probably” did happen. Similarly, when it comes to the logic of Christianity, we are operating in the realm of “faith”—the realm of Rhetoric. We admittedly do not KNOW how the universe came into existence, what happens to us after we die, whether there is meaning in our life, etc., but we can argue logically that our views on these issues are “possible” or “probable.”

This post is the beginning of a series of blog posts I will be writing on the logic of Christianity. I have begun with an illustration of the range of the faith continuum—from the just barely possible to the “almost-but-still-questionable” certain. Notice that even “just barely possible” faith can motivate us to act, as when a terminal cancer patient opts to try a highly suspect experimental treatment, with the hope of beating his/her cancer. On the other hand, even the almost certain (but still slightly questionable) assertion that smoking causes lung cancer can still fail to motivate a given individual to stop smoking. Just the fact that someone has faith in an assertion (such as that smoking causes cancer) does not mean that any given person’s actions follow his/her faith. And just the fact that someone’s faith in an assertion (such as the experimental cancer treatment) is infinitesimally small does not mean that the person’s actions will not follow his/her faith. In the realm of rhetoric, we are all agnostics. The word “agnostic” means we do not know for certain. And, rhetoric (and its logic) are only applied to those issues the truth of which we do not know for certain. In my book ArguMentor (p. 7) I discuss a study that demonstrated that even self-avowed atheists were stressed at the prospect of daring God to do harm to their children. Could you, without stress, say the following words: “I dare you, God, to strike my children with terminal cancer”? If you could not do so, without stress, there is at least a tiny, even if infinitesimally small, germ of faith in God inside of you. In Luke 17:6 and Matthew 17:20, Jesus compares faith to a grain of mustard seed. This is a very small grain indeed, but it has great growth potential. Perhaps, as you read my posts on the logic of Christianity, your mustard seed will grow.

Mom, Dad, and Mulan

My mother was born 98 years ago, yesterday. She died not quite two years ago, at the age of 96. You might think that the purpose of writing this blog post is to “honor” my mother, but that is an oversimplification. I have come to believe that writing memorials is not the correct way to “honor” our parents. I learned this lesson from my wife Linda and from Disney’s Mulan. “Honor your Father and Mother!” is one of the Ten Commandments. Usually, in western culture, when we honor someone, we “say nice things about them.” But, the Ten Commandments were not given to western culture; they were given to eastern culture. My wife suggested to me, several years ago, that the best way for children to “honor” their parents is to live their lives in ways that their parents would approve. This is precisely the values theme of Disney’s animated film Mulan. The film is set in China, an eastern culture. The song, “You’ll Bring Honor to Us All,” plays while Mulan is being prepared to be an appropriate example of Chinese maidenhood—“washed and dried, primped and polished…a great hairdo… good taste, calm, obedient, work[ing] fast-paced, with good breeding and a tiny waist…soft and pale…balance…beauty… a perfect porcelain doll.” The preparation, though, is unsuccessful. Mulan does not satisfactorily perform as an appropriate Chinese maiden. The implication of the film at this stage is that Mulan does NOT bring honor to her parents.

Meanwhile, the song proclaims: “We all must serve our Emperor who guards us from the Huns--a man by bearing arms--a girl by bearing sons.” China, eventually, goes to war with the Huns. The army is conscripting one member of each household to fight. Since Mulan’s father has no sons, he steps forward to represent his family in the battle. Mulan’s father is old and feeble, even walking with difficulty. Mulan objects to seeing her father simply sacrifice his life by fighting (a situation she considers impossible for him to survive) and argues that her father cannot go to war. Her father responds: “You dishonor me.” Nevertheless, by stealth, Mulan dresses in armor as a man and takes her father’s place, masquerading as his non-existent son Fa Ping. As a warrior, she saves China. Mulan, thereby, DOES bring honor to her parents. Noticeably absent from the “honoring of her parents” is anything honorable that the parents have done. Honoring her parents was accomplished by Mulan doing as my wife had suggested to me: living her life in ways that her parents would approve. My father was a very successful farmer, a role that I admittedly disliked. I was a member of the Future Farmers of America, in high school, but not because I enjoyed farming. It was because FFA taught me leadership skills, such as parliamentary procedure and public speaking. I just happened to be a lousy farmer. My older brothers, on the other hand, were much better than I at farming. Did I dishonor my father by not pursuing agriculture? Before marrying, my mother was the first of her family to attend college. She became a teacher. My younger brother and I followed the teaching entelechy, but focused on teaching at the college level, while my mother had taught grades 1-12. Did my other siblings dishonor our mother by not pursuing teaching careers?

I gathered by observing my parents that there was one value they held above the values of being a good farmer and teacher. Though farming sometimes demanded working seven days/week from dawn to dusk, my father never paid attention to that demand. He never worked on Sunday. Church was more important than farming. Though my mother had an entire room in our house filled to the brim with teaching aids and materials, the vast majority of those teaching aids pertained to teaching Sunday School. Christian Education was the most important subject for my mother, the teacher. It rubbed off. All four of my parents’ sons, one of their daughters, one of their sons-in-law, three of their daughters-in-law, nine of their grandchildren, and four of their great grandchildren attended Christian colleges. My brother Rod and my brother-in-law Dean completed their Master of Divinity degrees and have spent their entire careers in the ministry. My younger brother Dennis holds a D.Theol. from Tűbingen, Germany, and is Vice President of Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty at a Christian university. Every one of my parents’ six children have held leadership roles in the church: Christian ministry, teaching, youth sponsors, etc. Every one of my parent’s six children’s families has had at least one person (the siblings, themselves, or one or more of their children) serving in the ministry. Like Mulan, we did not all follow the specific gender-occupational roles of our parents, but we all seemed to grasp what would bring “honor” to our Mother and Father.

Noah! Whoa!

SPOILER ALERT! In a sense I shouldn’t need to issue a Spoiler Alert for a movie based on the life of Noah. Who on Earth does not know how this story begins, proceeds, and ends? Perhaps, that’s why the makers of the Russell-Crowe-movie-Noah felt it necessary to throw in a few twists. To keep the audience engaged, the makers of the movie took into account what Kenneth Burke calls the Psychology of Information. Burke distinguishes between the attraction of the Psychology of Form and the Psychology of Information. Certain stories, such as Shakespeare’s plays and Disney’s fairy tales are enjoyed over and over and over again by the same audiences. These stories are enjoyed repeatedly by the same audiences, due to the Psychology of Form. We just enjoy repeatedly experiencing certain forms. A great example of this psychology is a hit song. People listen to the same song over and over, simply because they enjoy the form. There are other stories, however, that once they have been enjoyed, are cast aside. We may be engrossed, for example, in a football or basketball game. We may be so tied to the television set, watching the event unfold, that we cannot be torn away, even when an advertisement is shown. We do not want to miss a second of the action. Yet, when the game is over, we do not wish to watch the game again. We cast it aside.

Now, to the story of Noah . . . . There are certainly plenty who view the story of Noah from the perspective of the Psychology of Form. Not only does this group include believers who consider the story a supreme example of God’s interaction with and reaction to human beings, but this group also includes agnostics and non-believers who simply enjoy the story of Noah. Many of these individuals will be greatly disappointed in the Russell Crowe movie.

Enough of the form of the story of Noah is retained, however, that some individuals in this group may be satisfied. Most key characters are retained—Noah, his wife, and their three sons (Ham, Shem, and Japheth). The Ark is built. I personally enjoyed the visual effect of watching the construction of the Ark. Its dimensions, construction, materials (logs and pitch), cubic-rectangular shape, etc. are correct according to Biblical specifications. We are offered what photographers call “scale” by seeing actual animals in the Ark, so we can conceive of the potential for carrying multiple species of various animals. The sources of the Flood (from springs of water as well as heavy rain) are Biblical. The method of gauging the receding of the waters (sending out ravens and doves) is Biblical. From the perspective of the Psychology of Information, the movie-makers added interaction with Methuselah, the oldest person ever to live (and Noah’s grandfather), according to the Bible. While Methuselah is not mentioned in the Flood story, he is calculated, according to the Bible, to have died in the year of the Flood. The movie also adds Tubal-Cain as Noah’s nemesis. Tubal-Cain is a Biblical character who made instruments of iron and bronze, so it is feasible that these instruments were war instruments. Since it doesn’t matter who the antagonist is—the thoughts of all mankind other than Noah’s family were only evil continually--neither of these additions should be particularly grating to the Psychology of Form purists, but Tubal-Cain’s managing to board the Ark would violate the form.

A more egregious violation of form that might ruffle some feathers is the addition of the Watchers, depicted as giant rock creatures that resemble Stone-Age Transformers. Those in the audience less versed in theology might leap quickly to the conclusion that these “rock people” suddenly categorize the entire Noah story as a Fable. This would be a huge violation of what Burke calls Conventional Form for believers. Believers view the Conventional Form as History, not Fable. The movie makers had even gone so far as to offer potential justification for the historicity of a Young Earth theory (Google: “Disneology young earth” and view my blog Disneology #3) by presenting flowers that sprouted up in seconds from a drop of rain, and immense forests that grew in minutes. They even avoided potential conflict in the Creation account of Genesis as Noah rapidly related the “days” of Creation (Google my blog: “Disneology big bang” and view my blog Disneology #6). So, why utterly violate the Conventional Form of the story of Noah with these fictitious “rock people”?

The movie calls these “rock people” not humans, but angels—Fallen Angels. Since I have written a Master’s Thesis at Indiana University (as well as multiple Stan.Point blogs) on the subject of Fallen Angels, allow me to explain what I think the movie makers were attempting. In Genesis 6, right before the story of Noah and the Flood begins, the Bible speaks of “sons of God” marrying “daughters of men.” The movie is presenting these so-called “Sons of God” as Fallen Angels—something that I consider a huge mistake. See my blog on the issue: (Google: “StanLindsay.com Genesis 6” and view my blog Angels & Demons 13: Who are the “Sons of God” in Genesis?). Furthermore, even if these Sons of God were Fallen Angels, they do not fit the context of Genesis 6, in which the Sons of God married the Daughters of Men. There is no hint of the “rock people” taking human wives in the Noah movie. Rather, by applying the term “Watchers” to these “Fallen Angels,” the movie is redirecting us to the book of I Enoch, which identifies the Fallen Angels as “Watchers.” Perhaps, the movie makers believe that the non-Biblical book of I Enoch was actually written by Enoch, the father of Methuselah and the grandfather of Noah, but this view of authorship is just silly. (Google: “StanLindsay.com I Enoch” and view my blog Angels & Demons 2: The Prometheus Connection). The book of I Enoch is not in the Bible; it is what biblical scholars call Pseudepigrapha, meaning falsified authorship. The Enoch of Genesis did not write the book. Yet, the movie makers want to take later, Hellenistic Age concepts of these “Sons of God” and inject them into the Noah story. When I suggest the Prometheus Connection in my aforementioned blog, I supply most of the story the movie makers have adapted and added to the movie. The Watchers were condemned to an Abyss with Jagged Rocks; hence, the “Stone-Age Transformers” of the movie. The Watchers were banished to the Earth for the same reason that Prometheus of Greek Legend was banished by Zeus: they tried to help bring culture to humans. The character of the God of Genesis is, hence, transformed into a petty version of the god Zeus who is envious of humans and determined to stop their developing culture. Russell Crowe as Noah, hence, is transformed into a fearful-but-obedient agent of this mad god. Sound about right? While these new twists on the story of Noah, borrowed from the book of I Enoch, do provide new “information” for those who are motivated by the Psychology of Information, they are such bizarre twists that they drastically violate the Psychology of Form from the Biblical story of Noah. Perhaps the redeeming quality of having such severe violations of Form will be that it will motivate audiences to re-read the Genesis account to see if they missed something.

Hidden Mickeyisms 10: Frozen Female Philadelphia

SPOILER ALERT! Disney films celebrate love: The love between a boy and his dog (Old Yeller), The love between children and monsters (Monsters, Inc.) The love between monsters and monsters (Monsters University) The love between a child and his/her toys (Toy Stories), The love between a craftsman and his creation (Pinocchio), The love between a child and its mother (Bambi), The love between a child and its father (Finding Nemo, Mary Poppins, Saving Mr. Banks), The love between boys and girls of different species (Little Mermaid), and, of course, The love between various princesses and their princes (Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Aladdin, Tangled, Beauty and the Beast, etc.).

Nevertheless, until the winter of 2013, there was no specific Disney movie celebrating the love of sisters. The city of Philadelphia was so named because it wanted to be the city of “brotherly love.” The Greek word PHILOS means love. The Greek word ADELPHOS means brother. The Greek word ADELPHE means sister. The word PHILADELPHIA could be translated either as “brotherly love” or as “sisterly love,” depending on whether one assumes the root of the word to be ADELPHOS or ADELPHE. In the case of the movie “Frozen,” I apply the term to ADELPHE. The ending –IA simply refers to a state of being or a process. Philadelphia is simply the process of acting with love towards one’s sister.

The 1954 Bing Crosby movie White Christmas contains elements of such a “female Philadelphia” with its song “Sisters,” but the love between the sisters in the film—played by Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen—pales in intensity to the sisterly love portrayed in Disney’s “Frozen.” Even the website of Turner Classic Movies (which owns the rights to the White Christmas movie) calls White Christmas “a film that's remembered mostly as a warm, nostalgic holiday movie rather than as one of the all-time great musicals.” Nevertheless, “it was the highest-grossing film of 1954” and it is a perennial favorite for TV viewers during the Christmas season. It was re-released on the big screen for a couple of nights during the 2013 Christmas season, as well. The Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen sisters, however, faced no test as severe as that faced by the Frozen sisters—Elsa and Anna. Elsa, the Snow Queen, possesses magical powers, which she cannot control. Simply put, just as those things (and people) King Midas touches turn to gold, those things (and people) Elsa touches turn to ice. Since an early incident suggests to Elsa that there is a possibility that she will accidentally freeze her sister Anna, if she is too close to her, she intentionally separates herself from her sister—as an act of love. Anna, of course, is kept ignorant of the fact that this fear for Anna’s safety is the reason for her seclusion, but Anna’s love for her sister Elsa never flags. At Elsa’s coronation, it becomes clear that Elsa still cannot control her dangerous gift. She flees to the mountains. Anna pursues her sister to Elsa’s ice palace after Elsa has inadvertently frozen the entire kingdom. Anna is determined to reunite with Elsa. Following several fairy-tale-prescribed difficulties and obstacles, Anna is faced with the ultimate problem—she will die unless she receives an act of “true love.” Disney relies on the misdirection of the formulaic “true love’s kiss” from multiple prior Disney movies to draw the audience into the desire for a kiss from a love-at-first-sight boyfriend of Anna’s. Then, when that boyfriend turns out to be a charlatan, the audience turns to the desire for Anna to be kissed by her reindeer-loving friend Kristoff, who helped her on her quest to find Elsa. The twist occurs as Anna is more consumed with protecting her sister Elsa than she is with romance. The Jesus-love paradigm comes into play as Anna gives her life to save her sister Elsa. “Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13). The Jesus motif is continued (as it is in many other Disney films) as the one who loves by giving his/her life is resurrected (Pinocchio, Baloo the Bear, the Beast, etc.).

Disney essentially disavows “true love’s kiss” as the truest indicator of “true love” in favor of the Jesus-love model. This is Philadelphia—sisterly love.

Hidden Mickeyisms 9: MetaMickeyism and Mr. Banks

One of the quickest ways to increase one’s scholarly vocabulary is to learn to add the prefix “meta-“ to various words. (Using these “meta-“ formulations makes you sound so intelligent and erudite!) My 1966 edition of Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (given to me at High School graduation, to enable me to tackle college-level writing) was incomplete! It was missing such an important meta- word as metacommunication (a term made famous by Gregory Bateson in 1951 in Communication: The Social Matrix of Psychiatry. Bateson was suggesting that when we communicate information concerning how our other messages should be interpreted, we are using “metacommunication.” My dictionary also failed to alert me to the term “metarhetoric,” a term that was apparently disliked by Henry W. Johnstone, according to an article in the 1978 Rhetoric Society Quarterly. To oversimplify the issue, we could say that metarhetoric is any discussion of how rhetoric operates, and metacommunication is any discussion of how communication works.

This brings me to the new word I now wish to coin: “MetaMickeyism.” In an earlier post I hinted at a definition of the root term I coined--“Mickeyisms”: “Through its films, Disney provides powerful entelechies to children and their parents. These films are cow paths that implicitly offer self-persuasive rhetoric to children. Just as cows mindlessly follow paths that have been established by the cows that preceded them from pasture to pasture, so children (and adults) mindlessly follow the psychological and interpretive paths established for them.” These self-persuasive cow paths would, in my view, be “Mickeyisms.” So, MetaMickeyism, in a fashion similar to metarhetoric and metacommunication, would be any discussion of how Mickeyisms work. And, what better source of MetaMickeyism could there be than Walt Disney himself along with his corporation!

MetaMickeyism is indeed the point of Disney’s film, Saving Mr. Banks. The Walt Disney Corporation offers us a glimpse into the meaning and interpretation of Disney’s extremely successful film Mary Poppins. We watch Tom Hanks in character as Walt Disney encountering the cantankerous author of the book Mary Poppins, P. L. Travers (played by Emma Thompson). As the final credits roll, we even get the opportunity to listen in to actual taped conversations between Ms. Travers and Disney artists. Thompson-as-Travers interjects early-on in the film, in astonishment: “You think Mary Poppins came to save the children?” As the film’s title indicates, it was Mr. Banks, not his children, who was to be saved by Mary Poppins. Succumbing to the twin vices of smoking and drinking, Mr. Banks (the author’s father, in real life) was in the process of killing himself, destroying his health. These vices (smoking and drinking) do not appear as the vices of Mr. Banks in the film Mary Poppins. Rather, in the movie, Mr. Banks’s vice is that he is a workaholic (although, in a sense, that addiction can metaphorically stand for the other two addictions). Ms. Travers is presented as having written the autobiographically-based book as a cathartic exercise to somehow cure her own frustration, as a small child, at not being able to save her father. Kenneth Burke, in Counter-Statement discusses literature as “art for the artist’s sake.”

In my book Implicit Rhetoric, I comment: “When I characterize Burke's concept of "Art for Art's Sake" as Art for the Artist's Sake, I suggest that Burke implicitly locates the telos of Poetic art within the artist, not the art product” (p. 87). Burke is interested in what the artist is doing for himself or herself. Saving Mr. Banks provides a glimpse into what the book was doing for Ms. Travers. Discovering the background of the real Ms. Travers’s father may have even done something for Walt Disney himself as he learned the true story. This would constitute another example of art for the artist’s sake. Perhaps, in a sense, the story could even have been named Saving Mr. Disney. Walt was himself a smoker and a drinker, even though while he was alive, his theme parks prohibited alcoholic beverages and his movie Pinocchio clearly included smoking and drinking among the vices to be avoided. Walt once remarked, "I know drinking and smoking are sins because you aren't taking care of the body God gave you.” We bump into the implication that these two vices of Walt’s were sensitive areas in two scenes of the movie Saving Mr. Banks. In one scene, Ms. Travers bursts into Walt’s office and finds him smoking. Walt embarrassingly comments that he does not like people to see him smoking, because it sets a bad example. In another scene, Walt pursues Ms. Travers back to England after she bolts from the movie. At her home, Ms. Travers offers Walt some tea—laced with alcohol. After a nervous laugh, Walt accepts the drink with the comment, “When in Rome . . . .” Nevertheless, Walt Disney, in the motion picture Mary Poppins, is intent on shifting the emphasis from Art for the Artist’s Sake to what Burke calls Art for the Auditor’s Sake. Disney’s interest is in what the film will do for its audience. Therefore, Disney wants to “cure” Mr. Banks of his addiction, for the sake of his audience. In Disney’s version, the vice (represented by the song “Fidelity Fiduciary Bank,” about “tuppence wisely invested in the bank”) struggles with the benevolent philosophy of the song “Feed the Birds” at the cost of “tuppence a bag” and, after considerable stress, Mr. Banks converts from his old addiction to workaholism and its greedy, capitalist values to new, curative humanitarian values and instead invests his “tuppence” in “paper and string” in the song “Let’s Go Fly a Kite!”

Walt Disney desires this happy, curative ending rather than one in which Mary Poppins simply abruptly “pops” out (the hidden meaning in the name Poppins?). This is due, I believe, to his emphasis upon Art for the Auditor’s Sake. Just as Burke equates this Art for the Auditor’s Sake to a psychological-rather-than-Poetics perspective, Burke calls this psychological perspective the “psychology of form.” Then, Burke defines “form” as the “arousing and fulfilling of expectation.” For Burke, a piece of literature in which there is no clear, satisfying “ending” or “telos” cannot fulfill expectations. The expectation of Disney literature is that there will be an end to the stress. In the case of Mary Poppins the movie, the stress of Mr. Banks destroying his life via his addiction to work must be removed. The kite song fulfills the expectation. Mr. Banks is cured. Children now have a new cow path to follow—one that is free of addiction.

Merry Xmas, Dear Atheists!

Merry Xmas is the explicit seasonal wish of a group calling itself “American Atheists.” Posting an ad at Times Square with the message “Who needs Christ during Christmas,” the electronic billboard message proceeds to X out the word “Christ” and encourages readers to “celebrate the true meaning of Xmas.” Fair enough! Merry Xmas, dear atheists! Apparently, you do not realize that the X in Xmas is not the English letter X. Rather, it is--as any self-respecting fraternity brother or sorority sister knows--the Greek letter X (pronounced: Chi). The letter X (Chi) is the first letter of the Greek word CHRISTOS, which is transliterated: Christ. Xmas, therefore, is but an abbreviation for CHRISTMAS. The billboard asks the rhetorical question, “Who needs Christ during Christmas?” A rhetorical question is one that requires no answer because the answer is so obvious. Apparently, however, the American Atheists do not trust readers enough to figure out the “correct” answer on their own, so the billboard supplies the answer: “nobody.” What seems like a more obvious answer, however, is that ATHEISTS need “Christ” during Christmas—just as they need “God” (Greek: THEOS) in order to be true A-THEOS-ISTS (atheists). Kenneth Burke calls it “the paradox of substance.” The paradox is that in order to be a true protagonist, you NEED to have an antagonist.

In order to be truly “Eve,” she needed a “Serpent” to tempt her. In order to be a true “Florida State Seminole,” one needs a “Florida Gator” to oppose (just as a “Purdue Boilermaker” needs an “Indiana Hoosier,” an “Ohio State Buckeye” needs a “Michigan Wolverine,” the “New York Yankees” need the “Boston Red Sox,” and for the longest time, “the United States of America” needed “the Soviet Union”). The nature of Drama is such that we must always look for the “what is vs. what” factor in all dramas. Snow White needs a Wicked Queen. Cinderella needs a Wicked Stepmother. Hansel and Gretel need the witch. All of Disney’s heroes need Disney’s villains to make the stories go.

What would an atheist be without a THEOS? Without a real opponent, an atheist would be just an “A.” So the true question is WHY do atheists choose God and Christ as their opponents? Kenneth Burke speculates in Attitudes Toward History (p. 52-53): “Atheism (and, in keeping, a categorical denial of immortality) is a statement of faith that necessarily cannot be substantiated by a ‘weighing of all the evidence.’ When you find a man who is exceptionally eager to deny the possibility of immortality (as though he ‘could not rest’ without a constant ‘secular prayer’ to the effect that death is absolute) you may legitimately grow quizzical of his intensity. Why such zest? Might it not come from a fear of punishment after death? For it is obvious that, if the possibility were either death or heaven, there would be no incentive for a man to become engrossed in the denial of immortality. He would let the matter slide, content to await his sojourn in paradise when it came, and to go about his business in the interim. If, on the other hand, the possibility of immortality contained for him the likelihood of his taking up permanent residence in hell, he would have ‘good emotional reasons’ for wanting to ‘pray’ immortality out of existence. Hence, when we see a man who goes out of his way to amass evidence that ‘proves’ mortality, we should take his engrossment as a somewhat unwieldy and roundabout way of cancelling guiltiness. The man . . . who says ‘absolutely not’ is driven by .. . the fear of immortality (which could only derive from a latent fear of hell that stimulated him thus indirectly to ‘legislate’ the possibility out of existence).”

Burke’s speculation seems to find some corroboration in a recent social scientific study conducted in Finland. The article, published in the International Journal for the Psychology of Religion (February 19, 2013), asked subjects to dare God to perform terrible acts (such as “I dare God to paralyze ______”) against themselves, their parents, friends, and children. The majority of subjects were self-described atheists. When asked to read aloud these dares while hooked up to a skin-conductance meter, which measures the amount of sweat produced, the atheists tested produced the same levels of stress as did the believers. Is there a latent fear of God and Christ that motivates atheists to choose them as their enemy? Oh, well! Merry Xmas, dear atheists!