April 24, 2011
I’ve never been a huge fan of holidays, at least not throughout my adult life. I mean, what kid doesn’t love them? You get time off from school, people often give you gifts, and sometimes you even get to dress up funny or scary and collect free candy. But as an adult, and a “religious” adult in particular, I find myself increasingly less enthused with them.
Christmas was the first to go on my “I so love holidays” list, for reasons I’d rather not digress into. In my experience, every argument given to support observance of holidays can be given in support of living holy everyday. Sure, holidays are good because we get to see friends and family, or because they prompt us to more deeply consider our convictions, or because some of us spend them giving to the poor, but people ought to have these things at heart every single day.
April 18, 2011
Today I’d like to examine three different questions that come up in discussions over so-called “objective” morality, and I’d like to argue that two of them are essentially worthless in terms of answering what most people seem to perceive as the core question.
April 17, 2011
Pardon me for asking a silly question, but here I go anyways: If you made salad dressing that was one part vinegar and 10,000,000,000,000 parts olive oil, would it be accurate in any sense of that word to label your dressing as vinegar-based? I’m going to bet that any reasonable person would say no.
Yet, physicists estimate that the atomic material/non-material ratio is akin to a single grain of sand in St. Peter’s Basilica [approximately 163,000 square feet]. So then, why do so many “materialists” assert that “material” explanations can account for all known phenomena when what they call “matter” is actually something like 99.9999999999999% immaterial?
Am I missing something?
April 13, 2011
This is the third installment of my review on Mike Gantt’s Jesus and His Kingdom: The Biblical Case for Everyone Going to Heaven.
I’d like to note that thus far, I haven’t actually responded to universalism in this series, at all. Like any worthwhile writer, Mike has simply been laying the groundwork for his case–laying more bricks for our wall of understanding, as he eloquently put it–and I think he’s doing an excellent job. So, please don’t be let down if some or all of today’s post is hardly related to universalism. I assure you we’ll get there. I have faith that Mike will explain the “who-what-when-where-why” of his beliefs as the chapters proceed.
April 12, 2011
I imagine most anybody familiar with (a)theist discussion has encountered a believer whom, when backed into a corner about, say, the unimpressive findings of various prayer studies, resorts to the rejoinder that “God works in mysterious ways.” Personally, I don’t endorse that as a legitimate response to the unimpressive findings of various prayer studies, but that’s not what I’d like to talk about today.
I’d like to talk about the viciousness with which atheists often handle the “mysterious ways” response, then suggest that atheists are often just as guilty of the essentially the same “mysterious ways” rejoinder themselves.
April 11, 2011
I enjoyed Brave New World in high school, and until recently, that was all the Aldous Huxley I’d read. A few weeks ago I found a “two books in one” volume with Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell. The former chronicles a mescalin trip Huxley took in the spring of 1953. I’ve never taken mescalin, but if the right opportunity presented itself, I would consider it. I’m sure that statement may seem anathema to many Christians, but… I’m just being honest. Is it right? Is it wrong?
I mean, how many Christians rely on pharmaceutical medicines for their day-to-day existence? In God’s eyes, how does that compare to a person taking mescalin once? Is taking an anti-depressant really that much different than drinking wine or smoking weed? Which, if either, is the greater sin, and what is the biblical justification for the argument? Perhaps we can explore this in greater detail in the thread, if anybody has anything interesting to add. Instead of summarize Huxley’s book, I’d like to share selected passages that stood out for me, and expound on them.
I started a YouTube channel! Only fitting for an out-of-work screenwriter, right?
April 10, 2011
A while back, a commenter wrote me asking for a basic outline of my support for what I believe. I replied that my index page was basically it. Recently, a few commenters asked if I had an “about” page that outlined some of my basic beliefs. I promised that I would get one out in “a week or so,” but here we are several weeks later. Eh, well… nobody’s perfect. Nonetheless, my first draft is below the fold, and I welcome your feedback. Though a good start, and a piece I enjoyed writing, I don’t think it’s sufficient, and probably too long, so I’m asking you, dear reader, to tell me what you would find most helpful in a page like this.
April 9, 2011
I’ve often been dumbstruck by the similarities between hardcore materialists and religious fundamentalists. Along these lines, Neal Grossman wrote:
One of my earliest encounters with this kind of academic irrationality occurred more than twenty years ago. I was devouring everything on the near-death experience I could get my hands on, and eager to share what I was discovering with colleagues. It was unbelievable to me how dismissive they were of the evidence. “Drug-induced hallucinations,” “last gasp of a dying brain,” and “people see what they want to see” were some of the more commonly used phrases. One conversation in particular caused me to see more clearly the fundamental irrationality of academics with respect to evidence against materialism:
April 4, 2011
This installment covers four short chapters comprising the final section of Part One: The Fourth Dimension of Space [7]; The Second Dimension of Time [8]; When Separate Things Merge [9]; and, But Wait… There’s More [10].
