1. Vern S. Poythress, who earned his Ph.D. in mathematics from Harvard, on A Biblical View Of Mathematics:
The neutrality postulate holds special attractiveness as applied to mathematics, because of the apparent widespread agreement about mathematical truths. “Everybody knows that 2 + 2 = 4.” If religious beliefs really have an influence, why is there such widespread agreement, cutting across religious lines? We intend to answer this question on several levels: (1) by showing that the agreement in mathematics is not so widespread, nor so uncorrelated with religious beliefs, as the textbooks would have you believe (§§2-7); (2) by showing that non-Christian philosophy of mathematics is involved in deep-set cleavages and antinomies, in its understanding of even so simple a truth as 2 + 2 = 4 (§§11-18); (3) by showing that only on a thoroughgoing Biblical basis can one genuinely understand and affirm the real agreement about mathematical truths (§25).
So, first of all, what differences have arisen in mathematics in connection with religious belief? Differences have arisen over arithmetical truth, over standards for proof, over number-theoretic truth, over geometric truth, over truths of analysis, over mathematical existence-not to mention the long-standing epistemological disputes over the source of mathematical truth.
(HT: City of God)
2. The latest New York magazine has a fascinating article by Po Bronson on how and why kids lie:
Out of the 36 topics, the average teen was lying to his parents about twelve of them. The teens lied about what they spent their allowances on, and whether they'd started dating, and what clothes they put on away from the house. They lied about what movie they went to, and whom they went with. They lied about alcohol and drug use, and they lied about whether they were hanging out with friends their parents disapproved of. They lied about how they spent their afternoons while their parents were at work. They lied about whether chaperones were in attendance at a party or whether they rode in cars driven by drunken teens….
For two decades, parents have rated "honesty" as the trait they most wanted in their children. Other traits, such as confidence or good judgment, don't even come close. On paper, the kids are getting this message. In surveys, 98 percent said that trust and honesty were essential in a personal relationship. Depending on their ages, 96 to 98 percent said lying is morally wrong.
So when do the 98 percent who think lying is wrong become the 98 percent who lie?
Bronson's article contains a number of revealing tidbits, including:
1. Lying is related to intelligence. The smarter the kid, the better they are at lying.
2. On average, a 4-year-old will lie once every two hours, while a 6-year-old will lie about once every hour and a half.
3. Scholars have found that kids who live in threat of consistent punishment don’t lie less. Instead, they become better liars, at an earlier age—learning to get caught less often.
4. Children lie because they see their parents lie, and learn to imitate them. Adults inadvertently teach children that honesty only creates conflict, and dishonesty is an easy way to avoid conflict.
5. Permissive parents don’t actually learn more about their children’s lives.
6. Most rules-heavy parents don’t actually enforce them since its too much work.
7. Parents view arguing with their teenager as destructive to their relationship, while teens see it as strengthening their bond.
3. Kevin Kelly says the internet is a copy machine:
At its most foundational level, it copies every action, every character, every thought we make while we ride upon it. In order to send a message from one corner of the internet to another, the protocols of communication demand that the whole message be copied along the way several times. IT companies make a lot of money selling equipment that facilitates this ceaseless copying. Every bit of data ever produced on any computer is copied somewhere. The digital economy is thus run on a river of copies. Unlike the mass-produced reproductions of the machine age, these copies are not just cheap, they are free.
Kelly also answers the question, "how does one make money selling free copies?"
4. How to make better decisions
5. 50 Tricks to Get Things Done Faster, Better, and More Easily
6. Quote of the Week: "“Whoever is not satisfied with Christ alone, strives after something beyond absolute perfection.” - John Calvin, Commentary on John (HT: Of First Importance)
7. Greg Gilbert on the problem with church music:
I am really afraid that we’ve managed to create a generation of anemic Christians who are spiritually dependent on excellent music. Their sense of spiritual well-being is based on feeling “close to God,” their feeling close to God is based on their “ability to worship,” and being able to worship depends on big crowds singing great music.
‘Just as bad, think about how many church fights and divisions are rooted in disagreements about music. People leave churches because they don’t like the music. Christians who believe exactly the same things about Jesus worship in different buildings next door to each other because they can’t countenance one another’s musical style. Churches split because one faction wants “contemporary” music and another wants “traditional” music. It’s not the words that are at issue; it’s how the words are sung, and to what instrumentation. The thing even has its own name—the “Worship Wars,” which when translated with a little honesty is really “the Music Wars.”
(HT: CounterCulture)
8. The most organized shanty town on earth
Dignity Village in Portland, Oregon was founded by 8 homeless people. In 2001, city officials granted them rights to live on a selected plot without interference. Now with a population of about 60, the community has a village council, 24-hour security, and a website.
(HT: Neatorama)
9. The Public Library of Law, a new search engine launched in collaboration with legal research firm FastCase, gives you access to laws, statutes, and legal decisions from all 50 states, as well as a wealth of free legal forms. (HT: Lifehacker)
10. Steve Sailer says the best indicator of whether a state will swing Red or Blue is the cost of buying a home and raising a family:
The culture wars between Red and Blue States are driven in large part by these objective differences in how family-friendly they are, financially speaking. For example, according to ACCRA, a nonprofit organization that measures the cost of living so corporations can adjust the salaries of employees they relocate, the liberal San Francisco-Oakland area is twice as expensive as the conservative Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. The BestPlaces.net calculator reports, “To maintain the same standard of living, your salary of $100,000 in San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, California could decrease to $49,708 in Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, Texas.”
Not surprisingly, the San Francisco area is popular with people who don’t need a big backyard for their kids, such as homosexuals and childless couples, while North Texas attracts families from across America. San Francisco is very Democratic, while the Metroplex is quite Republican.
Why? The simplest explanation is that GOP “family values” resound more in states where people can more afford to have families. In parts of the country where “Families can be easily supported, more Persons marry, and earlier in Life.” And where it is economical to buy a house with a yard in a neighborhood with a decent public school, you will generally find more conservatives. It’s a stereotype that marriage, mortgage, and kids make people more conservative, but, like most stereotypes, it’s reasonably true. You’ll find fewer Republicans in places where family formation is expensive. Where fewer people can form families, Republican candidates making speeches about family values just sound irrelevant or irritating.
(HT: Eunomia)
11. How to Schedule Your Writing Like a Professional Writer (HT: Lifehacker)
12. How business can save the world
[N]ew research suggests that business can have an important -- and positive -- cultural impact as well. Companies that empower their employees to cut costs in the workplace not only improve their bottom lines, but also may foster civic engagement and contribute to peace in the societies where they operate, according to research published in the November 2007 issue of the Journal of Organizational Behavior.
Author Gretchen Spreitzer, a professor at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business, examined survey data from 65 countries around the world, comparing detailed measures of employee workplace empowerment with broader measures about the quality of civic life. Her analysis, based on surveys taken between 1981 and 2001, shows that empowered, satisfied employees tend to live in open, peaceful societies -- and that improvements in workplace empowerment often precede social changes. Employees, it seems, can take lessons learned in the workplace and apply them to social and political life.
13. 10-Minute Tips to Help You Retire Rich
14. As Tyler Cowen notes, "It’s an Election, Not a Revolution":
Democracy is reasonably good at some things: pushing scoundrels out of office, checking their worst excesses by requiring openness, and simply giving large numbers of people the feeling of having a voice. Democracy is not nearly as good at others: holding politicians accountable for their economic promises or translating the preferences of intellectuals into public policy.
That might sound pessimistic, but it’s not. Many Americans will be living longer, finding new sources of learning and recreation, creating more rewarding jobs, striking up new loves and friendships, and, yes, earning more money. Just don’t expect most of these gains to come out of the voting booth or, for that matter, Washington.
15. James Antle proposes the Churchill Rule:
I'm proposing a new rule in conservative opinion journalism: Nobody gets to be compared to Churchill -- or Reagan, or Lincoln, or Jefferson, or whomever -- until they have actually led the country or otherwise had the opportunity to perform Churchill-like tasks.
16. NPR on Mike Huckabee's rhetoric and Biblical (il)literacy:
Like every person we stopped, Teutonico and Pettit were raised in Christian households and had attended Sunday school. But Boston University professor Stephen Prothero says they're not alone in being mystified by Huckabee's rhetoric.
"Half of Americans can't name any of the four Gospels, and that includes the Christians," Prothero says. "And half don't know that Genesis is the first book of the Bible. Those are much easier questions than things like, you know, 'What's the loaves and the fishes story?'"
Prothero, who wrote the book Religious Literacy, says Huckabee may think he's scoring points with his base.
"You could imagine that … this is his secret code way that he could speak to evangelicals without alienating more secular people," Prothero says. "But the faulty part of that strategy is the evangelicals don't even necessarily know these stories."
(HT: Stand to Reason)
17. Ten things that won't change (no matter who gets elected) (HT: Kottke.org)
18. Cal Thomas on Redefining Conservatism:
Conservatives also need to do a better job of storytelling. They should celebrate people who have overcome poverty and hopelessness as examples to others. It is not enough for conservatives to advocate for lower taxes and smaller government if the purpose is for Americans to acquire more money and material goods Americans already have so much they are renting storage units in which to place the overflow. Imagine the economic - even spiritual - revival that might occur if conservatives "adopted" one person or family and made it their goal to help them improve their lives. There are few thrills greater than seeing a life transformed in which you have played a part.
(HT: Crunchy Con)
19. On NPR, David M. Schwartz answers the question, How Much Is a Trillion?
The 2009 budget proposed this week by President Bush weighs in at $3.1 trillion. But just how large is a trillion, anyway?
One trillion is 1,000,000,000,000 — 10 to the 12th power, or a thousand, thousand, thousand, thousand. To put things in perspective, current estimates put the number of stars in the Milky Way at somewhere between 100 and 400 billion. The U.S. population is slightly over 303 million, and the world population is around 6.6 billion.
$1 trillion would be enough money to buy about a 1,000 boxes of Girl Scout cookies for every person in the United States. A trillion barrels of oil would — at current consumption levels — fuel the world for about 33 years.
20. New York City stores begin taking euros:
In the latest example that the U.S. dollar just ain't what it used to be, some shops in New York City have begun accepting euros and other foreign currency as payment for merchandise.
"We had decided that money is money and we'll take it and just do the exchange whenever we can with our bank," Robert Chu, owner of East Village Wines, told Reuters television.
(HT: Freakonomics blog)
21. Young voters influenced by negative political ads, says study
In the April issue of the Journal of Consumer Research, an important field study of registered voters aged 18-23 reveals that negative “attack” ads provoke more voter migration than positive ads. Researchers from Notre Dame and the University of Texas at Dallas used real advertisements from the 2004 presidential election to show that, although negative political ads are explicitly disliked, they have a powerful impact on voters’ mindsets that positive ads do not – and the potential to change preference and behavior in ways that benefit the advertiser.
About 77 percent of college-educated 18-24 year olds who were registered cast a vote in the 2004 presidential election, compared to 64 percent of registered voters as a whole. In this presidential election, young voters may have even more of an impact.
22. Leo Babauta's list of "20 Things I Wish I Had Known When Starting Out in Life
23. When people feel powerful, they ignore new opinions, study finds
Don’t bother trying to persuade your boss of a new idea while he’s feeling the power of his position – new research suggests he’s not listening to you. “Powerful people have confidence in what they are thinking. Whether their thoughts are positive or negative toward an idea, that position is going to be hard to change,” said Richard Petty, co-author of the study and professor of psychology at Ohio State University.
The best way to get leaders to consider new ideas is to put them in a situation where they don’t feel as powerful, the research suggests. “If you temporarily make a powerful person feel less powerful, you have a better chance of getting them to pay attention,” said Pablo Briñol, lead author of the study and a social psychologist at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid in Spain. Briñol is a former postdoctoral fellow at Ohio State.
24. How to uncook an egg:
[French chemist Hervé This] explains that when an egg is cooked, the protein molecules unroll themselves, link up and enclose the water molecules. In order to 'uncook' the egg, you need to detach the protein molecules from each other. By adding a product like sodium borohydride, the egg becomes liquid within three hours. For those who want to try it at home, vitamin C also does the trick.
(HT: Kottke.org)
25. LOLCat LOLBaboon of the Week
moar humorous pics
27. On "Christian Ramadan" (Part I) -- According to The Daily Telegraph, " Dutch Catholics have re-branded the Lent fast as the "Christian Ramadan" in an attempt to appeal to young people who are more likely to know about Islam than Christianity."
28. On "Christian Ramadan" (Part II) -- James M. Kushiner of Mere Comments writes, " In Holland, some have rebranded Lent as a "Christian Ramadan." Because Ramadan is more familiar to the youth, you see. And who's fault is that? While we're it, isn't canon law simply 'Christian sharia'? And a church building a 'Christiain mosque'? The Bible a 'Christian Koran'?"
29. Identical twins not as identical as believed -- Contrary to our previous beliefs, identical twins are not genetically identical. This surprising finding is presented by American, Swedish, and Dutch scientists in a study being published today in the prestigious journal American Journal of Human Genetics. The finding may be of great significance for research on hereditary diseases and for the development of new diagnostic methods.
30. Tyler Cowen on the postponement of sleep:
If you get up late in the morning on weekends, you must think sleep is very valuable. And if sleep is very valuable, that means we should go to bed early. Because if you go to bed early, you always have the option of sleeping later -- that is sleeping more -- and getting even more sleep than if you had gone to bed late. (You can't just shift your sleep into any hours block you want, given the coordination issues.) And if sleep is very valuable, the option to sleep more must be valuable as well. Therefore it's time to go to bed. Now. Early.
31. No Easy Answers In Evolution Of Human Language -- The evolution of human speech was far more complex than is implied by some recent attempts to link it to a specific gene, says Robert Berwick, professor of computational linguistics at MIT.
32. 'Hotties' Not So Hot When You're In Love, Online Dating Researchers Find -- In an experiment with college students in long-term relationships, researchers at UCLA and the online dating service eHarmony found that asking coeds to reflect on the love they felt for their boyfriends or girlfriends blunted the appeal of especially attractive members of the opposite sex.
33. Atonement in the ER
As Michelle McGinty says, "What an amazing scene! I can't believe this was on a TV show. It really demonstrates the emptiness of the rhetoric of liberal theology when you need to know if you can ever find forgiveness for your sins. What can a chaplain, who believes in a Christ who was never resurrected, really say about forgiveness and atonement?"
http://www.evangelicaloutpost.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/4190
1
Wow, that video was very intense . . . and thought provoking. People do want answers, I liked his passion (even if it was misdirected).
posted on 02.18.2008 2:27 AM2
That was powerful. But I disagree with mark. I think from what was seen in the clip his passion wasn't misdirected. A chaplain that doesn't believe really has nothing to say to people. He is dealing with his quickly coming death. That kind of focuses one's attention. Liberal theology at it is core is "love", loving someone right into hell. I had really thought ER had jumped the shark. Maybe if it does more stories like this, maybe their can live another year or two
posted on 02.18.2008 8:00 AM3
Great stuff, this time. I'm taking a closer look at "A Biblical View of Mathematics," the identical twins article, and the video, but there were a number of other interesting items.
posted on 02.18.2008 8:37 AM4
Joe:
So I guess if Huckabee is biblically literate, he knows that many Christians are wrong about heaven being an eternal, ethereal existence and that In the Bible we are told that you die, and enter an intermediate state --which sounds kind of like limbo or purgatory or an "ethereal existence."
Is Mike Huckabee biblically literate? Or is he one of those ignorant rubes who think that when Christ says he is going there to prepare a place for us, he's not really leaving at all?
Forgive us rubes for thinking that even if heaven looks just like this earth, there will be something unearthly about it.
posted on 02.18.2008 10:06 AM5
Wow, I just watched the ER video, too. This man's anger was directed at himself and at God and the chaplain just happened to be there. It seems to me that he was much closer to meeting God and Christ than the chaplain. However, if she keeps having "bad patients" like him, she's going to be forced to come to grips with the emptiness of her faith.
This was great stuff--powerful. I wonder if the writer who wrote this has any notion that there are many chaplains who don't spout the liberal pap that this poor soul was mouthing.
I love her. She used to be on "24"
posted on 02.18.2008 10:23 AM6
6. Most rules-heavy parents don’t actually enforce them since its too much work.
I think this is probably one of the most destructive things a parent can do. If you have lots of rules then you should enforce them all. If it seems like a lot of work then you are either lazy (in which case you should stop) or have a lot of rules that are not 'value added' (to use corporate speak)...in which case you should ditch them.
What I've seen with rule heavy parents is that they use their long list of rules as a trump card. Whenever an argument or disagreement breaks out they can suddenly start enforcement and punishment for all the rules they've been ignoring in the past. When all is well they can 'reward' their favorite kid by getting lax with the rules. The kids then become good at being suck ups who try to manipulate the parents into coming down on their siblings.
All very unhealthy. As they grow up, I notice their kids tend to lean towards the worst type of self-righteous types. Instead of taking responsibility for their own actions they assume pointing out flaws in others somehow magically vindicates them of their behavior (i.e. "Yea I used the F-word at the table! You swear too and Poppy swears all the time!)
In the latest example that the U.S. dollar just ain't what it used to be, some shops in New York City have begun accepting euros and other foreign currency as payment for merchandise.
Not too long ago I think Lou Dobbs went ballastic over a Pizza chain that started accepting pesos. Their logic was very sound, though. They catered to a Hispanic population that often came back from visiting Mexico with unused spare change. When I visited Europe my friend bargained with retailers offering a mix of local money and US dollars. Money is indeed money.
27. On "Christian Ramadan" (Part I) -- According to The Daily Telegraph, " Dutch Catholics have re-branded the Lent fast as the "Christian Ramadan" in an attempt to appeal to young people who are more likely to know about Islam than Christianity."
Isn't Christian attempts to 'market' to non-Christians more or less how we ended up with the Holidays of christmas and Halloween?
28. On "Christian Ramadan" (Part II) -- James M. Kushiner of Mere Comments writes, " In Holland, some have rebranded Lent as a "Christian Ramadan." Because Ramadan is more familiar to the youth, you see. And who's fault is that? While we're it, isn't canon law simply 'Christian sharia'? And a church building a 'Christiain mosque'? The Bible a 'Christian Koran'?"
The surest way to kill a good marketing idea is to overdo it. Just ask those "HeadOn apply directly to the Forehead" people....soon to be joined by the Geico characters.
posted on 02.18.2008 10:33 AM7
JD Is Mike Huckabee biblically literate? Or is he one of those ignorant rubes who think that when Christ says he is going there to prepare a place for us, he's not really leaving at all?
I'm not sure what you're getting at. I suspect Huckabee has the typical orthodox evangelical view of heaven.
Forgive us rubes for thinking that even if heaven looks just like this earth, there will be something unearthly about it.
I'm not sure what you mean by "unearthly." The Bible promises a "new heaven and new earth." Since earth will be where we live after the resurrection I assume it will be different from our present concept of earth. But I'm not sure how the new earth can be unearthly. Because it is a restored creation I would think it would me more earthly.
posted on 02.18.2008 10:45 AM8
How to hang a flatscreen?! Maybe first we should have how to afford a flatscreen?
posted on 02.18.2008 10:53 AM9
On a Biblical view of mathematics: it's for real. Even at the simplest level your foundations can make all the difference. This came from a committed post-modernist:
Not wrong. "Illegitimate."
posted on 02.18.2008 11:40 AM10
Regarding the mathematics article, all I can say is wow. This is a classic example of divisive, authoritarian, Christian polemics masquerading as apologetics. The amount of false equivocation in the article is truly astounding. Augustine warned of exactly this sort of thing.
As for the post-modernist clap trap. Anyone involved in any studies beyond the mere humanities knows quite well that post-modernism is incoherent, so there's really no point in even bringing it up. No legitimate mathematician would accept either of these characterizations.
Finally, regarding the ER clip. The thing that I find fascinating isn't the clip, but the comment that goes with it. The attempt to deride "liberal" theology is really quite amusing. In the clip, it is pretty clear that the man wants answers, the sort of answers that no one can give him. No one can really say for sure if anyone is saved, because no one sits in judgment other than God. In other words, the man is looking for someone to tell him something, *anything*, although it's not even clear if he even cares what that answer is. He'd rather hear someone tell him *something* rather than nothing, even if it is a lie. Is this really a conservative vs. liberal issue? I think it's more a question about how to deal with someone that wants answers when no answers can be given. That doesn't strike me as a point of contention between either liberal or conservative theology, but that won't stop an ignoramus from trying to make it into one.
posted on 02.18.2008 12:36 PM11
phasespace,
I'm sure all us ignoramuses here are grateful for being described that way. You seem to have a considerable level of spiritual insight--enough to know that nobody has spiritual insight. I don't intend that as just a cute rejoinder, but as a serious comment on spiritual knowledge.
True enough, we can't judge another person. But it is no lie to say that God has spoken clearly, and has provided a way for persons to be saved from guilt. It is no lie to say that this is actual knowledge that a chaplain could have imparted to the man. And it actually is a liberal/conservative issue operating there, for a conservative (Biblically orthodox) chaplain would have known what to share with him.
posted on 02.18.2008 12:58 PM12
I forgot to add the connecting point at the end.
If you know that the final paragraph there is completely false, then you know a lot about spiritual reality--but you seem to indicate that we can't know about spiritual reality. This is where thinking like this loses its force.
posted on 02.18.2008 1:05 PM13
Joe:
In your last list of 33 things, you said that many Biblically literate Christians seem not to be aware of this truth. Can you explain exactly which truth that is? Because all I got from NT Wright was that we need to be more careful what we do with this earth because it's where we're going to live forever.
Second, what exactly is "the typical orthodox evangelical view of heaven" and is it accurate according to you and NT Wright?
Third, "unearthly" was just an attempt to be provocative in my description. Our new earth will be unearthly in the sense that it will be different than it is now. I can't explain how it will be different, can you?
posted on 02.18.2008 3:20 PM14
There is clearly a liberal theology at work in that ER clip. The chaplain couldn't face the real guilt this man felt. She doesn't believe in guilt. Guilt is only a feeling, so she tells him to move on to a different way of feeling. This man was screaming for justice in a world where there is no justice. He has become painfully aware that there is a right and a wrong and he suspects that he might have been wrong. He was screaming for God to condemn him, because he knows that something "unforgivable" was going on when he killed an innocent man. Just like all of us, he needs to believe in absolutes. He was looking for someone to say to him that he is guilty and that there is only one person who can atone for him and earn his forgiveness. At that moment he sees evil and sin for what it is--monstrous, and beyond our ability to forgive. So the chaplain says, "I think it's up to each one of us to interpret what God wants" and "I hear that you're frustrated" and "I understand." No. No. No.
posted on 02.18.2008 3:52 PM15
The folly of both liberal and conservative theology is in their attempt to give answers to questions that humans are incapable of answering.
We all want to know what happens after death. We all want to know there is a big man in the sky making sure the universe stays on course and that bad guys get punished and good guys get rewarded. I would like nothing more. But we have no way of knowing any of these things. We can *assume* things, but the problem with that is it isn't based on any kind of personal experience. In every other area of your life, you make decisions based principally on experience. If you were to assume "on faith" that gravity no longer had any hold on you and you could fly, you wouldn't last long. And everyone recognizes that assumption would be pretty foolish. Why should it be any different for sweeping assumptions about what happens after death?
posted on 02.18.2008 4:19 PM16
Sorry Loki, but you missed the point. It's only liberal theology that doesn't believe in the folly of eschatology. Liberal theology says that you are probably a very wise man not to fall into the trap of faith.
So, you votin' Obama?
posted on 02.18.2008 4:57 PM17
JD - "It's only liberal theology that doesn't believe in the folly of eschatology. Liberal theology says that you are probably a very wise man not to fall into the trap of faith."
Mind clarifying those statements for me? I used to be quite the conservative Christian and near as I can tell there are plenty of Conservative theologians who believe they know what happens to people after death. But maybe I'm not understanding you?
And I prefer not to make positive statements about who I'm voting for until after the primaries are over. Obama could still lose to Hillary and while it'd be hard for McCain to lose the race now, he could die of a heart attack or something. It seems silly to me to say you're in support of a candidate before you even know who his opponent is.
posted on 02.18.2008 5:07 PM18
Perhaps I am reading too much into what you are saying here, but this just seems too absolute to me. If another person punches you in the face, you have no ability to forgive him of that sin? I can't accept that. We have the ability to forgive sins. Maybe not sins unspecific to us, but we have the ability. And when we forgive another person their sins against us, would then God still hold them accountable for that sin? I don't think so.
posted on 02.18.2008 5:59 PM19
Loki:
My comments regarding liberal eschatology and Barack Obama were sarcastic. Since I would have to explain them, I guess they were points not worth making.
Smmtheory:
I think you're not reading enough into my comment. I'm saying that a turning point for a person coming to faith is realizing that sin and evil can only be forgiven by God Himself. That man screaming in the ER is not capable of forgiving himself, much less anyone else. He knows he needs forgiveness-- but where can he possibly get it? There is only one place, one Person.
I am certainly not trying to say that people cannot forgive others. But we can't save a single soul by our forgiveness of others, except maybe our own. ;)
posted on 02.18.2008 7:49 PM20
JD:
Then I apologize for taking you seriously.
posted on 02.18.2008 10:57 PM21
Looking at that ER video,all i see is some poor sap thats been duped into believing that God rewards the "righteous" and punished the "wicked" or that there actually is such a ridiculous thing as hell and the woman's comments were dead on target when she said that his guilt has essentially become his reason for living...in fact,they had obviously become his entire identidy and he had become incapable of seeing himself without it or even thinking in any other terms...he wants to be punished because his whole upbrigning tells him thats how he s supposed to feel for what he's done and at the same time fears that punishment as all humans would...thats why he's angry and the woman chaplain is just a conveniant target for his anger.
posted on 02.18.2008 11:05 PM22
Joe, I love the fact that your blog, Evangelical Outpost, attracts so many folks who are NOT historic, conservative, orthodox Evangelicals!
You get spicy comment threads!
I love the atonement video! Liberal and/or Emergent Theology is clearly vacuous, and is clearly seen for what it is.
posted on 02.19.2008 4:04 PM23
Wow - loved that YouTube video! Keep up the good work.
posted on 02.21.2008 8:45 PM