Posts Tagged ‘Science’
The 4 Generations – Pessimist – Part 2 of 7
Image courtesy of Simon Howden / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Lets get practical. What exactly do these generations look like? How do they operate, and how do they interact with each other?
We’ll start with Socrates… he seems fairly original. Read the rest of this entry »
The 4 Generations – Intro – Part 1 of 7
Image courtesy of worradmu / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
I tend to think of biblical figures as heroes. Moses comes out of retirement and starts working at 80, Abraham has a child at 90, Paul faces death all day, and Daniel survives a den of hungry lions. But have you ever thought that they would consider us as heroes? Read the rest of this entry »
Self-righting
It’s amazing to me that the Church has always been redeemed from within. This is constant throughout its history and I can’t think of another movement for which this is true. Read the rest of this entry »
Fact and Faith
There seems to me to be a forced division between science and faith based systems of thought. I think there is a lot more overlap than each camp’s fundamentalists will grant. Each side wants to replace the other’s term with “Fiction”. But the truth is that theories require faith, even proved ones; and faith requires reason, especially real faith.
But there is a truly magical (and very real) place where these two elements, Fact and Faith come together, hand in hand almost, and demand that we give them equal portions, like siblings requiring the equal division of a packet of candy.
It is only in the realm of inter-personal relationships where fact matters as much as faith.
The Plurality of Persons
Martin Heidegger said “Philosophizing is to ask the question ‘why are their beings instead of nothing?’”
Signs for Sale – Daniel 3
“What the philosophers say about reality is often as deceptive as when you see a sign in a second-hand store that reads: Pressing Done Here. If you went in with your clothes to have them pressed you would be fooled; the sign is for sale.” Søren Kierkegaard in “Either/Or”
The Decent of Man
There is nothing benign about secularist atheism.
Dawkins says, “We can give up belief in God while not losing touch with a treasured heritage.” (The God Delusion)
Really? Now wouldn’t that be lovely?
Does Dawkins propose any examples of this actually happening?
Darwin says: “With savages the weak in body and mind are soon eliminated. We civilized, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination. We build asylums for the imbecile; the maimed and the sick. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. Hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.” (The Decent of Man – 1871)
Paul Pot: “Since he is of no use anymore, there is no gain if he lives and no loss if he dies.” “Look at me now. Am I a savage person? My conscience is clear.”
Every ancient national story is one of conquer and rule. Every mythology is one of powerful gods cheating and revenging each other like kindergarten kids.
Then I read Joshua 9, the first account of a national conscience, a treasured heritage if ever there was one. “We have given them our oath by the LORD, the God of Israel, and we cannot touch them now.”
Give up belief in God and you give up all your treasured heritage, eventually you give up your very self.
I do Believe
I was watching Michael Shermer (publisher of Skeptic Magazine) on TED speak about the nature of belief. That humans have evolved to look for patterns; which is why we tend to believe things.
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Bad Luck or Providence – Daniel 2
Like poor Frodo Baggins, Daniel first sees the destiny of humanity approach through other people’s dreams, then he has a dream of his own, and then he sees it coming “with his waking eyes“. At the height of these visions all thought of food and drink will leave him, as his visions terrify him.
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Wait a minute… Daniel No. 1
I sometimes have the question asked of me, “where was God when the Tsunami happened in South East Asia?”
What is meant by that question is this, “why didn’t God do something to prevent it? He is God after all.”
I think it’s a very valid question, so valid that one way of answering it is this: Would you have even wondered about the whereabouts of God if the tsunami had not happened?
Read the rest of this entry »
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