On reading the XKCD blag on 'aliens ( Read more... )

This week is crazy, so no real posts, probably; maybe until next week.

in the meantime, two thoughts:

1) It is heartening to know that I live in a world in which there are people who can be strangers at the beginning of the day, and yet, at the end of the day, make one feel quite honored to wipe their butts.

2) Rosewater Sekenjabin: Good!

Okay, so I'm not always a huge Benedict fan, but still, you go, the Pope.

To the Popemobile!

This is a long one, but worth it.

Introduction and Models

Yesterday, we conjured a magic box called “Eternity,” outside of our time, in which all things are self-existent. This by itself, however, is just a box. It does us little good unless we put something in it. Naturally, Christians put God in it. Or rather, from our perspective, God put His own ( Read more... )

So yesterday I talked a little bit about the problems with materialism and pantheism. My objections do not disqualify them as reasonable positions; they are merely problems for adherents to solve or accept. Theism has its own problem, that is, this crazy notion that whatever caused the universe is completely outside the world and time itself. But ( Read more... )

So today I'm going to try to rough up materialism and pantheism a bit before moving on. This is not really on topic, and may seem downright mean to some people who have accepted the modern idea that to deny someone's beliefs is to make a personal attack. But still, chances are, if I don't, and I just start talking about eternity, all the ( Read more... )

This week, I'm going to be talking about eternity, because it is a huge key to understanding much of anything going on in Christian thought. You can perfectly well assert Christian statements and values without the doctrine, but to make any ordered sense of it, you need eternity. This is a pity, as it is a ridiculously hard nut to crack, and had ( Read more... )

This is not a post. Or at least, it's not a post of the sort that I've been doing the last few days.

Instead, I'd just like to thank those who have expressed their enjoyment of the posts I've been making. I feel a bit weird responding to them individually. It sort of feels like saying, "well, yes, my thoughts are terrifically interesting, and I ( Read more... )

I realized after a few comments were posted that the discourse I posted earlier this afternoon was in one respect inadequate: it completely failed to address the "hate the sin, not the sinner" issue. Now, we've talked about this one in the past, funwithrage, and though my argument has developed (to the point of being plausible, even,) the ( Read more... )

I did a search recently, in several English versions of the Bible, for the word "hate." What I found was somewhat remarkable. On not one occasion does Scripture tell us that we are never to hate. Just doesn't happen. The incidences are actually astonishing in number, but they all support the proposal of that most enraged of prophets, Amos: "Hate ( Read more... )