Sunspots 237

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Science:
(sort of) Wired shows us photos of some really big mechanical devices (using device loosely -- the first one is a cargo plane).

NPR reports on experiments showing that ants are able to keep track of the number of steps they have taken away from their anthill.


Christianity:
Jan paid her tithe, and tells us what happened.

Philip Yancey has written his last column, for a while, anyway, for Christianity Today . He takes a thoughtful look at the way evangelical Christians do things, and is not altogether pleased.

Image source (public domain)

For Christ's pleasure?

Revelation 4:11, in the KJV, reads thus:

Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.

At least one worship song is based on that verse, and uses the phrase "for Thy pleasure" in the same way.

I checked the Blueletter Bible. I'm not a Greek scholar, but do report that, of the 12 different English translations given for that verse, only 3, one being the KJV, use this phrase. The rest of them say that things were created by or at Christ's will.

I also checked the Greek lexicon provided by the Blueletter Bible, and found that the KJV almost always translates the word, θέλημα (thelēma), translated as "pleasure," in Revelation 4:11, as "will." In fact, out of over sixty occurrences of the word in the New Testament, Revelation 4:11 and Ephesians 2:3, which refers to a human attitude, not God's, are the only verses where it is not translated as "will."

Perhaps it is correct to say that the universe, and the things in it, were created for Christ's pleasure, but the case is not strong. I don't think we know why we were created. We're probably not capable of understanding the reason or reasons.

Thanks for reading.

Comfort in hell?

One of the strangest Bible passages I have read recently is this one:

Ezekiel 32:30 “The princes of the north are there, all of them, and all the Sidonians, who have gone down in shame with the slain, for all the terror that they caused by their might; they lie uncircumcised with those who are slain by the sword, and bear their shame with those who go down to the pit.

31 “When Pharaoh sees them, he will be comforted for all his multitude, Pharaoh and all his army, slain by the sword, declares the Lord God. 32 For I spread terror in the land of the living; and he shall be laid to rest among the uncircumcised, with those who are slain by the sword, Pharaoh and all his multitude, declares the Lord God.” (ESV. This is a page that gives copyright information for the ESV.)

There is the abode of the dead, and, in Pharaoh's case, the unrighteous dead. Comforted? Really? That was so strange a phrase that I checked it with the Blueletter Bible, which gives several versions of 32:31. They all agree, so this is not a mistranslation by the ESV.

Despite the title, it is not clear that Pharaoh, in this passage, is actually in hell. (See the Wikipedia article on Sheol.)

Like a lot of other things in the Bible, I can't explain this one. Perhaps you can. I will say that, even if there is some sort of comfort in hell, that doesn't make make hell any more desirable. It should be avoided at all costs!

Thanks for reading.

Some caution about global warming

I have taken the view, over the years, that there really is such a thing as global warming, and that human activity is at least partly responsible for that. I am not, by any means, an expert on climatology, but I believe that the scientific consensus is strongly in favor of this view, based on good data.

There is a considerable amount of anecdotal photographic evidence, including changes in the polar ice caps, which is the main reason that I continue to hold to that view. But, out of fairness, I point out that some recently released e-mail exchanges between climate scientists seem to indicate that there has been some fudging to strengthen the case for data supporting global warming. If true, this is a shame. Science should be objective. It probably never has been entirely so, but, for the most part, the system has worked.

National Public Radio has a report, both textual and audio, about these e-mails, and provides an analysis of their significance.

Thanks for reading.

Glory to God, Whose Sovereign Grace

Glory to God, whose sovereign grace
Hath animated senseless stones;
Called us to stand before His face,
And raised us into Abraham’s sons!

The people that in darkness lay,
In sin and error’s deadly shade,
Have seen a glorious gospel day,
In Jesus’ lovely face displayed.

Thou only, Lord, the work hast done,
And bared Thine arm in all our sight;
Hast made the reprobates Thine own,
And claimed the outcasts as Thy right.

Thy single arm, almighty Lord,
To us the great salvation brought,
Thy Word, Thy all-creating Word,
That spake at first the world from naught.

For this the saints lift up their voice,
And ceaseless praise to Thee is giv’n;
For this the hosts above rejoice,
We raise the happiness of Heav’n.

For this, no longer sons of night,
To Thee our thankful hearts we give;
To Thee, who called us into light,
To Thee we die, to Thee we live.

Suffice that for the season past
Hell’s horrid language filled our tongues,
We all Thy words behind us cast,
And lewdly sang the drunkard’s songs.

But, O the power of grace divine!
In hymns we now our voices raise,
Loudly in strange hosannas join,
And blasphemies are turned to praise!

This is one of over 250 of Charles Wesley's hymns, found on his page at Nethymnal. I've never heard it, but it has some words appropriate for the season.

An example of scripture where concordism doesn't fit

Psalm 119:89 Forever, O Lord, your word
is firmly fixed in the heavens.
90 Your faithfulness endures to all generations;
you have established the earth, and it stands fast. (ESV. See here for ESV copyright information. See here for the Blueletter Bible's display of how other versions treat verse 90.)

(See yesterday's post for a discussion of concordism.)

Few people would say that this passage means that the earth doesn't rotate on its axis, or revolve about the sun, or that the sun itself doesn't move as the galaxy rotates, in spite of the literal interpretation of verse 90, which seems to say all of those things. Presumably, the Psalmist wrote in accord with the science of the time, which didn't know as much about astronomy as we think we know now. The passage is poetic, not scientific, and it still speaks to us about God's sustaining power. God established the earth, and preserves it, wherever it may go through space.

Thanks for reading.

Concordism, a barrier to Christian acceptance of science

Steve Martin writes an important blog, entitled "An Evangelical Dialogue on Evolution." A recent post, by guest writer Jordan Mallon, strikes me as particularly important.

In this post, Mallon considers the idea of what he calls concordism, namely that "God revealed to the authors of Scripture scientific facts about the universe that could not otherwise have been known to them at the time." Mallon does not believe this, although he says it is an unexamined presupposition of many conservative Christians. Instead, he believes that the writers of the Bible were limited to their own knowledge, the scientific knowledge of the time, when writing. Why does Mallon think this? His main evidence is the question of geocentrism, the idea that the earth is the center of the universe. This was the common belief for centuries, perhaps millenia, until the 16th century. One reason that it was believed, beside the fact that the earth does appear to be fixed, and other things, such as the sun and moon, revolving around it, is scripture. Mallon lists 11 passages, all from the Old Testament, that appear to have been written by persons who believed in geocentrism.

Perhaps the most frequently discussed of those passages is one from Joshua, wherein Joshua is said to have commanded the sun and moon to stand still. I don't know what happened then. Whatever it was, it was a miracle. As the link in the first sentence of this paragraph will show, no less than Answers in Genesis, an organization that is often accused of taking the Bible too literally, does not believe that this passage teaches geocentrism. (I have posted here on the unfortunate false rumor that NASA has proved the story in Joshua is true. The fact that NASA hasn't proved it doesn't mean that it didn't happen.) Mallon's point, of course, is that the ancient writers did not write as if they had been given special scientific knowledge. As he says, "we now appreciate that God sometimes accommodates His message to the limitations of human understanding." He calls this accomodation.

Mallon draws a conclusion, namely that the first part of Genesis may also be coming to us through the filter of the scientific knowledge of the writer, and the the knowledge available to the hearers or listeners that Genesis was first presented to, and, therefore, a belief in speciation by natural selection, and perhaps even the origin of larger groups of organisms by this mechanism, may not really conflict with scripture at all.

The post by Mallon covers two other topics, almost as important. I suggest that you read his post. Thanks for reading this one.

See my next post, for a concrete Biblical example.

Have you been thankful for your existence?

Here's a fundamental thing that perhaps you have never explicitly thanked God for -- your existence!

You exist, or you wouldn't be reading this. I exist, or at least I did on November 22nd, or it wouldn't have been written. Existence is such a fundamental fact that we seldom consider it enough to be grateful for it.

Thank you, God, that I had the chance to exist!

There's a Wikipedia article on Existence, and, trust me, it bristles with philosophical concepts.

I know that some people wish that they had never existed, and perhaps that's a legitimate wish for some people, but most of them aren't serious, or, if they are, they aren't sane. God help them. (See Job. God did help him.)

Thanks for reading! Thank God that you exist!

Sunspots 236

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Science:
The Boston Globe has assembled a fabulous array of photos of Mars, close-up.

Microbial Art is a web site devoted to presenting art from microbial growth.

Sports:
The Associated Press reports on a statistical study that indicates that major college men's basketball referees tend to act in ways that keep the scores close. And, yes, they do favor the home team.

Christianity:
A relatively short, but important, post, entitled "Clarifying Concepts in the Creation-Evolution Dialogue." I would say that this is must reading for Christians interested in science and in origins. God willing, I will post on this article later.


Image source (public domain)

Queen of the Orcs: King's Property by Morgan Howell

I recently read Queen of the Orcs: King's Property, the first book in a trilogy, by Morgan Howell. (Howell is a pseudonym.) Here's the Amazon page on the book.

Orc is a term used most prominently by J.R.R. Tolkien. As the Wikipedia article on the term indicates, the word pre-dates Tolkien.

There are significant differences between Tolkien's orcs and those of Howell. Tolkien's orcs seem to have been about human size, or smaller. Tolkien didn't have any female orc characters. Tolkien's orcs were treacherous, devious, and seemingly given over entirely to evil. Howell's orcs seem to be somewhat larger than humans. Although there are no female orc characters in this book of the trilogy, the orcs hold their females in great reverence, and live in a matriarchal society. The orcs in this book are all serving as soldiers for a human king, under what they think are orders from their queen. They serve in an army that includes both human and orc units. As to devious character traits, the orcs are honorable to a fault, and, if fighting by themselves against humans, can often be beaten, even if they seem to have a superior force, because they are not only honorable, but cannot imagine dishonorable behavior well enough to imagine possible treacherous, or even deceptive, behavior by humans.

The protagonist of the book is Dar, a human woman, probably in her twenties, whose father and stepmother give her to the king's army. Like the other women accompanying the army, she serves as a slave -- she is branded as the property of the king. She works as a cook and scullery maid. Most of the book is told from her perspective.

One of the duties of the women is to serve meals to the orcs. The orcs have a strong religious, or cultural, belief that all good things, including food, come from a Mother, and accept food only from a human woman, there being no orc women in the army. Dar is sent to serve them, because she is a newcomer. However, she gradually learns to respect the orcs, learn some of their language, and, most important, eventually convinces a special orc friend that she, as a female, should be taken seriously, even listened to.

Another thing that the women do is serve some of the soldiers sexually. Dar never does this, but a couple of the officers lust after her, and, when she refuses to cooperate, plan vengeance. Since orcs are protecting her, the vengeance involves letting the orcs be destroyed by an enemy army. The book closes with Dar escaping from the battle, and the army, as leader to five orc soldiers, including her special friend, Kovak-mah.

There are some religious aspects to the book. Both the orcs, and the humans, have pagan religious beliefs. There is magic, or the supernatural, in at least two ways. Dar discovers that she sometimes sees visions, which turn out to come true. The king has a sorcerer, who goes into a trance, using blood from a newly sacrificed human boy each time he enters one, and, upon coming out of the trance, has learned something about the future.

Tolkien was accused of writing his famous Lord of the Rings trilogy to flesh out his made-up languages, and there may have been some truth in the accusation. Howell hasn't gone nearly as far, but there is, at least, an appendix of about a dozen pages, giving some vocabulary and grammar from the orc's language.

There are certainly some bad guys in the book, but Dar, and Kovak-mah, are honorable, and try to help others unselfishly. Dar is a strong character, hard-working, with high ideals, and a good mind, in spite of the handicap of her background as a peasant woman rejected by her own family. I expect to read the other two books in this trilogy.

O, My God, how Your Salvation

O, My God, how Your salvation
Fills my soul with peace and joy,
Patience gives, and consolation
Which the world cannot destroy!
Praise to God, the glorious Giver,
Christ, the Savior of the lost,
And the Comforter forever,
Father, Son and Holy Ghost!

For that love whose tender mercies
Purest joys do daily bring,
I will all my life confess You
With my mouth Your praises sing!
Praise to God, the glorious Giver,
Christ, the Savior of the lost,
And the Comforter forever,
Father, Son and Holy Ghost!

May be sung to "Hyfrydol," "All the Way My Savior Leads Me," or other 8.7.8.7D tunes.

Author: John S. B. Monsell, 1811-1875 (for a time, he was chaplain to Queen Victoria), author. Found in a Hymnal of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Cincinnati: Hitchcock and Walden, 1878, which book has no musical scores, only the lyrics. Public Domain. Someone thought I should have it, as we were going through my late mother's house.

I changed some second person pronouns to "you" or "your."

Did Adam have a belly button?

The answer, of course, is that we don't know.

I just read a photo (on Facebook) of what appears to be a pamphlet or magazine article, claiming that Adam and Eve didn't have navels, because they didn't go through embryonic development. (The navel, or belly button, of course, is where the umbilical cord is attached.) Perhaps they didn't. On the other hand, perhaps they did.

Even if Adam and Eve were created as mature adults, they might have had navels. Presumably, they began life as able to converse in whatever language they used. (NOT English, I think!) If they began life as mature adults, with language skills, they must have had all the neural connections necessary for these skills, even though they didn't experience the language learning through which the rest of us set up those connections, which enable us to speak and understand language. So, just as their brains were created as if they had gone through normal development, their abdomens might have also been created in that way, with navels. (Innies? outies?)

See here for Wikipedia article on neuroplasticity. The notion that neural connections are formed, or altered, by learning, is, as I understand it, firmly believed by almost all neuroscientists, but is not backed up by a tremendous amount of experimental evidence. Experimental work of this type is very difficult to do, as it would mean working, on a biochemical and/or microscopic level, in a living brain, and it wouldn't be ethical to do such research in humans at all. Here's a report on some actual experimental evidence for the idea. It is hard to imagine that learning would take place without altering the physical and chemical structure of the brain.

Thanks for reading. Check your navel.

A Christ-figure in Watership Down, by Richard Adams?

I have previously posted a few times on Watership Down, by Richard Adams. (See here for the last of these posts.)

I have also considered the question of what makes a novel a Christian novel, and considered the question of whether or not several works of fantastic literature are, indeed, Christian. That post is here, and has links to posts which examine various pieces of literature. Although it is one of my favorite books, I have never done this sort of analysis on Watership Down.

If you are not familiar with the book, the plot is summarized in the Wikipedia article on the book.

I have recently re-read the book, and believe that, in some ways, El-ahriarah, the rabbit's mythical hero, is a Christ-figure. Why do I say that?

I say that because of the following passage:
"The Black Rabbit spoke with the voice of water that falls into pools in echoing places in the dark.
"'El-ahrairah, why have you come here?'
"'I have come for my people,' whispered El-ahrairah. - Richard Adams, Watership Down. New York: Avon Books, 1972. p. 283.
From the chapter, "El-ahrairah and the Black Rabbit of Inlé," which chapter is named for its content, which is a story that Dandelion, the rabbit story-teller, tells, on request from Bigwig. (Bigwig is, himself, about to enter into a dangerous mission, which could well cost him his life.) In the story, El-ahrairah has come for his people, who are oppressed by an enemy, King Darzin. They can scarcely leave their burrows. Rabbits go to the Black Rabbit when they are about to die. El-ahrairah tries to beat the Black Rabbit in various contests of skill and wit, but can't. He wagers his ears, his whiskers, and his tail, and loses all of these. He gets Rabscuttle, his constant companion, to get dock leaves to stick on his head in the place of ears. Finally, in desperation, he rushes into the pit of rabbit diseases, hoping to catch the white blindness, so as to infect the animals that are oppressing the rabbits. He knows that, if he gets this disease, he will die soon.

El-ahrairah's attempted self-sacrifice doesn't work, because the white blindness is carried by fleas in rabbits ears, and he has no ears, and no fleas. But the Black Rabbit says that he, himself, will rescue El-ahrairah's people, and he does. When El-ahrairah returns, he discovers that a few years have passed since he left. No one remembers him. Lord Frith, the sun-god of the rabbits, appears to El-ahrairah, and gives him new ears, with starlight in them, and a new body to match.

At the end of the book, Hazel, the leader of the rabbits of Watership Down, dies, but as he does, El-ahrairah appears to him, indicating that El-ahrairah has become immortal.

El-ahrairah, then, attempts to give his own life for the lives of others, and is resurrected as an eternal hero-figure. That certainly parallels Christ.

I would not say that Watership Down is a Christian novel, in spite of having a figure in it that is like Christ in some ways. As I said above, there is a sun-god in it, for one thing. It's really, I guess, a pagan novel. (See here for a little of what C. S. Lewis had to say about the relationship between paganism and Christianity.)

Thanks for reading. Read Watership Down.

Another thought about politics from the Old Testament

I recently paid attention to Proverbs 24:21 My son, fear the Lord and the king,
and do not join with those who do otherwise, (ESV. See here for the ESV policy on on-line usage.).

Does this apply in our time? If we live in the US, should we fear the President? I think so, based on what the New Testament also says about this matter. Perhaps "honor" or "respect" are also involved in that fear.

I have posted previously on a similar topic.

Thanks for reading.

Sunspots 235

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Science:
Olivia Judson tells us that happiness, and other good things, can be contagious -- there have been scientific studies on this.

Wired reports the appearance of a new species of Galapagos finches, one which has been reproductively isolated from similar birds for three generations. 

Politics:
(Sort of) The government made 98 billion dollars worth of improper payments in 2009, it said, according to CNN. Let's hope that we get a handle on this.


Image source (public domain)

Using light to control single brain cells (and thanks to a gene from algae)

Wired has posted an amazing report on how it is possible to control a single neuron in a mouse brain, by zapping it with light. The reason this works is because researchers have also inserted a gene for light sensitivity into the mouse, so the mouse is a mouse-algal hybrid. (Not really -- it's a mouse with one algal gene.) You've got to have a means of getting the light to trigger a single neuron, of course.

This is potentially of great importance, because drugs and electrical stimulation tend to be messy -- affect more than one neuron, or even lots of them. This is an invasive technique, but so are some others that we take for granted. It seems possible to do a great deal of good with this, perhaps curing, say, Parkinson's. In fact, the researchers are working on Parkinson-like mice. It's also possible, of course, that a great deal of harm might be done, but the same thing was, and is, true of techniques less high-tech, such as surgery.

Thanks for reading.

Religion in Elizabeth Moon's Familias Regnant novels.

Elizabeth Moon has written a variety of fantastic literature. Her Nebula award-winning The Speed of Dark is set on earth, in a time not far into the future. Her Paksenarrion and Gird novels are set on some unknown planet, or perhaps an alternate earth, and are fantasy. Her Vatta's War and Familias Regnant novels are both set in the far future, when humans have expanded into many other solar systems. These two groups of books have been called, with some justice, space opera.

In this post, I wish to consider the religious aspects of the Familias Regnant novels. The books are not so much about religion as the Paksenarrion and Gird books, but religion is certainly mentioned.

The Familias Regnant worlds, a large collection of habitable planets, linked together by commerce, culture, and government, don't have a single religion:
"The Familias legal codes -- and those of the Regular Space Service -- allow freedom of belief, and freedom of religious practices which are not directly harmful to others. Because of the wide variety of beliefs, many held strongly, we do not generally discuss religion with those we do not know." (Elizabeth Moon, Change of Command. New York, New York: Baen Books, 1999, p. 151.) A minor character is explaining the way things are to a visitor from another culture. Note that the question of what religion is practiced is important to the visitor.

I found no Christ-figure in these books. Not only that, none of the main characters expressed any firm religious belief. Once in a while, when under stress, they wished that they had a religion, or attempted to pray, but religion wasn't important to any of them.

There were religions in some of the other cultures, and they seem to have been some version of Christianity, from the USA, extrapolated into the future. The results were usually (but not always) male-dominated, and based on deeds -- eternal rewards and temporal blessings were not gifts, but earned, by right behavior. Several peripheral characters were clearly dominated by their religious beliefs.

I have posted here and here about the religious aspects of the Paksenarrion novels, and here about the Gird novels. Moon does not ignore religion, even in the future, even if it doesn't play a dominant role for the main characters in these books.

Thanks for reading.

Romans 1:20b poster: God's revelation through nature

This is an attempt to illustrate Romans 1:20b (ESV), wherein God indicates that He reveals Himself to us through nature.

That's not the only way God is revealed. I would say that Christ, Himself, is the most important way, and that the Holy Spirit, the Bible, our conscience, and the church, are other ways that God is revealed.

The original photo is on our Flickr photostream. ESV copyright information is here.

I have previously blogged about this verse. One such attempt is here. In that post, I argue that, if God reveals Himself through nature, it is important that we keep nature as beautiful and diverse as possible, because, if we don't, we are making it more difficult for God to reveal Himself to us.

Thanks for reading, and looking.

Emergent processes

Jeremiah 1:4 Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,

and before you were born I consecrated you;

I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” (ESV. For information on copyright and usage policies of the ESV, see here.)

This passage is often taken as support for opposition to abortion, and that may be a legitimate use. I quote it here because it may be supporting another idea, that of emergent processes.

Young-earth creationists believe that the earth, and the universe, are no more than a few thousand years old. They believe that, although there may have been some changes in the appearance of living things, and even in humans, these are minor, because there hasn't been time for major changes. As a consequence, they believe that the creative processes described in Genesis 1 were instantaneous, or nearly so. I believe that those who believe in Young-earth creationism would say (if they thought about this specific example) that the lichens were created by the command, or commands (possibly one for each type of lichen) of God, on the third day, and that they would have been much like the lichens of today. This view may be correct.

But young-earth creationists, though they don't often say this, seem to go further in their thinking. They assume that only an instantaneous creative act shows the power of God.

Other Christians, believing that a proper interpretation of Genesis 1 does not demand that the earth is only a few thousand years old, probably haven't thought about this specific example very much either, but would suppose that the algae and the fungi found in lichens both evolved, over long periods of time, and that, also during long periods of time, the mutualistic association of fungi and algae that makes lichens also developed. Not only that, but not all the lichens necessarily originated at the same time. Some kinds of them are probably older than others. These other Christians would also say that God's preparation, His planning, and the various processes, including natural selection, that He put into play also show the power of God, just as much, if not more, than an instantaneous creative act would show it.

Jeremiah 1:4-5 refers to the process of formation in the womb, an emergent process. Newborn Jeremiah was not created instantly at the instant of his birth. He had gone through nine months of development. The fertilized egg that he came from contained complete instructions for, say, producing a circulatory system, over the course of these nine month. Jeremiah, and you and I, came about through emergent processes. These emergent processes, although unfortunately taken too much for granted, show the power of God as much, if not more so, than as if Jeremiah had been created instantly, from nothing, as a baby.

God's use of emergent processes doesn't seem to be limited to embryonic development. It seems that God's work, through Noah, Abraham, Moses, the prophets, and finally through Christ, was also an emergent process. Couldn't God also have used emergent processes to bring about the universe, the earth, and living things?

Every view of origins has problems. There is no argument for any of them so convincing as to demolish all opposing views.

See here and here for previous posts on the idea of emergent processes, or emergent creation.

Thanks for reading.

Mistborn: The Final Empire, by Brandon Sanderson

I was looking for a new fantasy author to read, and decided to try a book by Brandon Sanderson. His official website is here, and the Wikipedia article on him is here. I read his Mistborn: The Final Empire (Tor, 2008), and I'm glad that I did. The link in the previous sentence is to the Wikipedia article on the book. This is the book's web page on the author's web site. Clearly, I'm not the only fan of this book, or the series of three books that it is part of. There is a Mistborn Wiki, with a number of articles on various aspects of the book(s).

I generally try to avoid giving away the plots of books that I read, and I will try to give away as little as possible in this post. I have three points to make.

First, there are interesting characters in the book. These characters have feelings, and flaws, and most of them are trying to do good. The good that they are trying to do is to overthrow the Lord Ruler, and the nobility, who hold most of the population, the skaa, of the unnamed planet (continent?) that is the setting in slavery. The leading character is a teenage girl, Vin. Most of the story is told from her standpoint. She has magical ability, and her mother was skaa. She decides to join Kelsier, an inspiring, if unpredictable leader, who also has magical ability, in his plot to overthrow the Lord Ruler.

Second, the nature of the magic in the book is intriguing, and, as far as I'm aware, unlike the magical powers of any other sub-creation. There are actually three kinds of magic in the book. The main kind is Allomancy, a hereditary gift that must be awakened, usually by a traumatic event. Most people aren't Allomancers at all. Some are Mistings -- they are able to somehow internally consume a particular metal or alloy, and, when they do, have temporary powers of one sort or another. There are several types of Mistings. There are also Mistborn, people like Vin and Kelsier, who can use several kinds of metals or alloys, and have all the powers. Such powers include heightened senses, increased strength, the ability to influence the emotions of others, or to hide from enemies using Allomancy, and the ability to move things rapidly against gravity, including the Allomancer herself. In other words, Mistborn are able to move rapidly like the characters in some recent Chinese Martial Arts movies, such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. There is another kind of magic, Ferruchemy, which a particular race, small in number, the Terris, can practice. There is a third kind of magic, practiced by a few powerful servants of the Lord Ruler. All three of these forms of magic utilize metals, by ingestion and burning (Oxidation?), or by physical contact.

The third aspect of the book that I wish to muse on is going to give away major portions of the plot.

Religion is mentioned several times. One of the characters, Sazed, is a Terris. He is able to access and retain information on many kinds of religions, using special memory storage provided through Ferruchemy. Occasionally, Sazed mentions some obscure, or at least extinct religion. He doesn't give much detail, but none of the religions he mentions seem to be closely related to any religion currently practiced in real life.

I was not clear on whether or not the skaa, or the other inhabitants of the land that the book is set in, have a religion. If they do, it seems to be worship of the Lord Ruler, who, himself, has powerful magical abilities, as he uses both Allomancy and Ferruchemy, and is, apparently, immortal. He says that he is, and even those who want to overthrow him believe that he is immortal.

Whether anyone else pays attention or not, one of the things I have tried to do, at least for my own satisfaction, in this blog is to consider questions of religion in fantastic literature. If you wish to know more about this, I recommend my "What Must Be Christian About a Christian Novel?" and "Paganism and Christianity in Juliet Marillier's Fiction." Both of these have links to related posts.

I was a little surprised to find, near the end of Mistborn, that there is a Christ-figure in the book. By this, I mean that there is a character who has some of the attributes of Jesus Christ, who suffered for the sins of others, died as a sacrifice for those sins, and rose again to prove His power. The character is Kelsier. Kelsier decides, when the rebellion looks like it won't actually succeed, to sabotage the only mine where the rarest of the metals used by Mistborn is found. The Lord Ruler, and the nobles, as well as other mistborn, like Kelsier and Vin, depend on this metal. His sabotage is successful. In retaliation, the Lord Ruler orders the execution of hundreds of skaa, who, of course, had nothing to do with the sabotage. Kelsier decides that he cannot allow this to happen. He begins freeing the prisoners, knowing that this will make the Lord Ruler, himself, act to try to stop Kelsier. The Lord Ruler does this. He kills Kelsier, in a public place, where many skaa, and many of the Lord Ruler's servants, as well as Vin, are witnesses. Kelsier's close associates, including Vin, discover that Kelsier planned to give himself up -- he knew that he would be killed.

A non-human creature, who has been successfully masquerading as a nobleman, apparently known to be an non-human only by himself and Kelsier, assumes Kelsier's bodily form, and appears, in this way, to some skaa, and this, as well as the revulsion caused by the death of Kelsier on their behalf, leads the skaa to overthrow the nobility. Eventually, they begin a religion, with Kelsier as its deity.

Thus, Kelsier sacrifices himself for others, and, in a sense, rises from the dead, which, as I see it, makes him a Christ-figure.

May I be clear -- this is not exactly a Christian book. It does reflect Christ, although fictionally and not completely.

Vin and Sazed are able to kill the Lord Ruler at the end. I expect to read the remaining books in this series, and will be interested to see where Sanderson takes Vin and the other characters. I'd also like to know why there are mists, why ash is continually falling from the sky, why Vin has difficulty imagining green-colored vegetation, and, as a biologist, how the people (and animals) get food, if there aren't any green-colored plants.

Thanks for reading.