Jordan Buckley shares some thoughts after reading John F. Haught’s latest offering in The Christian Century:
Nietzsche, along with Camus and Sartre, recognized the huge implications of atheism, and they believed it would take incredible courage to face up to the bleak reality of such a universe in which there is no meaning above ourselves. In contrast to this “muscular” atheism, Haught points out that the new atheists want to remove God and religion from society, but keep everything else, including a basically traditional Christian system of right and wrong. They simply haven’t bothered to face the implications of their ideas. They think that they can blithely rid themselves of the nuisance of a God who deserves to be worshiped, but they are denying the Person who upholds their entire universe. Only by the grace and mercy of God does Christopher Hitchens or any one of us breathe a single breath. In him we live and move and have our being.
Interesting review. Worth a look.
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Posted by blestou on February 25th, 2008 — Review, Illustration, Daily Life, Culture, Doctrine
We most often think of the ancient world as a completely barbaric place - strictly speaking, it was of course - what with the freedom with which the Romans labeled everyone else, but that is beside the point here. People were not different people back then. They were the same types of people we have now, just in a different cultural and technological situation. It does not surprise me that the ancients had many “advanced” activities, constrained only by their relative technology.
Case in point, Roman doctors performed cataract surgery:
“Interestingly the Roman author Celsus described cataract extraction surgery using a specially pointed needle - and possible cataract needles (specilla) have been found in Britain as well as elsewhere in the Roman Empire.”
If you are one of those people who stay up at night stressing over what exactly the apostle Paul’s thorn in the side was, perhaps now you can rule out cataracts, since there was apparently a remedy for that. Just trying to be helpful…
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Posted by blestou on February 14th, 2008 — Illustration, Science, News, Culture, Doctrine, Tech, Uncategorized
By Dr. Theodore Dalrymple (aka Anthony Daniels):
Many young people now end a discussion with the supposedly definitive and unanswerable statement that such is their opinion, and their opinion is just as valid as anyone else’s. The fact is that our opinion on an infinitely large number of questions is not worth having, because everyone is infinitely ignorant. My opinion of the parasitic diseases of polar bears is not worth having for the simple reason that I know nothing about them, though I have a right to an opinion in the sense that I should not receive a knock on the door from the secret police if I express such a worthless opinion.
The right to an opinion is often confused (no doubt for reasons of misplaced democratic sentiment) for the validity of an opinion, just as the validity of an argument is often mistaken for the truth of a conclusion.
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Posted by blestou on February 9th, 2008 — Quotes, Illustration, Daily Life, Culture
Time interviewed N.T. Wright over some comments made in his new book, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church.
Turns out, the ofttimes contentious bishop thinks most of us have “heaven” wrong…
It therefore comes as a something of a shock that Wright doesn’t believe in heaven — at least, not in the way that millions of Christians understand the term. In his new book, Surprised by Hope (HarperOne), Wright quotes a children’s book by California first lady Maria Shriver called What’s Heaven, which describes it as “a beautiful place where you can sit on soft clouds and talk… If you’re good throughout your life, then you get to go [there]… When your life is finished here on earth, God sends angels down to take you heaven to be with him.” That, says Wright is a good example of “what not to say.” The Biblical truth, he continues, “is very, very different.”
The Q & A goes on to allow Wright to emphasize that the purpose of Heaven is not our whimsical pleasure, but our fulfillment as the apex of Creation in the glory of God (my words). I couldn’t agree more. I’ll have his book soon and look forward to exploring how he explains the implications of this view, as well as how (or if) his New Perspective views influence his understanding of the afterlife. Look for a review next month.
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Posted by blestou on February 9th, 2008 — Review, Church Life, Culture, Doctrine
