We just heard our dear friend Jeannie Harris has passed away at age 37. Some who read this blog will know her. She kept the Mountain Memories (Ryan and Jeannie) blog to which we link in our blog roll in the right sidebar. This is a tremendous loss of a wonderful person, wife and mother.
Category: Christianity Page 4 of 7
I have written about and pointed to various things Michael Egnor has written on this blog over the past several years. I love his writing for its content, but it appeals to me even more because he seems to capture my sentiments about the topics on which he writes better than I could myself. His latest article at Evolution News and Views is titled The Rowe-Grayling Debate. It is about a debate, “The God Debate,” between a brilliant Jewish Rabbi named Daniel Rowe who did a stint in the IDF and a very much less brilliant (at least with respect to the topic of the debate), Oxford educated Philosophy professor named A. C. Grayling. You can see a video of the debate here. It was an interesting debate and well worth the watch.
The reason I write this post about Egnor’s article rather than the debate itself is because debates that feature a competent debater on the God side of this issue follow a common trajectory no matter how competent, qualified or learned the atheist or non-theist debater. There might be some rational way to argue for agnosticism, but after watching a lot of these types of debates and studying this topic off and on for several decades, I have come to the conclusion there are really no rational arguments for atheism. Equivocation is a de rigueur feature of the atheist arsenal in these debates, but that is just the tip of the incompetence/disingenuousness iceberg.
A.C. Grayling has been described as the “Fifth Horseman” of New Atheism Apocalypse. The other four horsemen are not much better–some are worse. Here is a video of a debate where William Lane Craig does the same thing to Sam Harris, one of the original four horsemen, that Rowe does to Grayling. I really appreciate Egnor’s “enough already” analysis of these kinds of debates. I am glad the debates happen because that is what got me interested enough in the topic to take a deeper dive into it, but it is very tiring to listen to the same tired atheist arguments time after time after time. It would not be so bad if the arguments were delivered with humility and good will, but they almost never are. Read Egnor’s article. It is cathartic.
Update: Another post about the debate just appeared on Evolution News and Views that discusses a fellow radical atheist’s disappoint with Grayling’s performance. If you know anything about the particular atheist making the complaint and his utter incompetence at arguing these topics, you will marvel at the advice he gives about how to argue about the Physics (not his background) discussed by Rabbi Rowe.
…because we do not want to be associated with some others who are tacky, but believe that same right thing? The following quote from a talk by a conservative given at a left-wing Christian conference on social justice comes from this article. First he acknowledged that there are Christians who do not consider the needs of those in prison, refugees and the other “least of these.” He noted some [Christians] are…
…afraid to speak up on a biblical view of issues of human sexuality because they’re afraid that somehow that means they will be associated with people in polyester somewhere that they don’t want to be like. How cowardly.
I think the sentiment is spot on and does not only apply to human sexuality, but to many of other issues. It cuts both ways, too. Is it hard for us to stand up for something that is right when a social justice warrior advocates who is hateful in so many other aspects of their activism advocates for that same right thing?
I love the video below. It fits into many of the categories about which I regularly write: education, debt, work, business and even Christianity. It talks about one of the major themes of the Chapman household both when I was a kid and when Kelly and Christian were kids. I think it even applies to graduate degrees. It is nice to do what you love, but you have to put beans on the table first. One of the best pieces of advice I got from Grandpa Milo was to love what you do (your work) whether you love it or not–it does not do any good to hate it because you have to do it anyway. That was right up there with one of my other favorites–you are going to eat what we give you and you are going to like it whether you like it or not.
I am not sure Mike Rowe would approve, but I think this dictum applies to higher education, too. I agree with Mr. Rowe that way too many people go to college, not so much because going to college is a bad thing or they are not able to handle it, but because the educational product they purchase neither leads to a job nor really teaches them anything of value–quite to the contrary actually. I write regularly about why I think it is important, if one goes to college, to study something hard that leads to a job. That generally means a STEM degree. STEM degrees are rarely fun and require a lot of hard work, but because industry needs people who get math, they are worth doing. Liberal Arts degrees generally are not. I have written about this a lot (just enter “STEM” into the search box and you will see) and there is actually scholarship by guys like Charles Murray to back this up.
So, now our kids, after earning STEM degrees, are getting PhD’s at good universities. Are they worth it? We are not sure yet. Neither of the kids even really know what they want to do with their lives, but neither of them have any debt and they both have undergraduate degrees that are in high demand and they are both getting paid to get their PhD’s. They are paid well enough to have small apartments, eat, travel (a little), keep up a car, etc. In addition, they are both provided tuition, fees and health insurance. Are they miserable a lot of the time due to the fact that what they are doing is very hard, very time consuming, requires them to work while many of their same-age friends go skiing, surfing, partying, hiking and traveling? Yes. Would they say what they are doing is in any way fun or even something about which they had a lot of passion before they started? No. Do they have passion about what they are doing, a sense of accomplishment for what they have done and a growing love and interest in their academic areas? Yes.
The big question though is whether they will be able to put beans on the table with the tools they got from the path they have taken? They are doing that already and it should only get better. On second thought, I think Mike Rowe might approve. Check out his foundation here. It has links to interesting articles and videos on a choices, lifestyles and values that would help both individuals and the entire country if more people embraced them.
That might not be exactly true, but this article hit me right where I live on a topic about which I have been in a mighty struggle. Without further her is the article titled How to Live a Life of Privilege, Embrace the responsibility that comes with it. The title and subtitle of the article do not do it justice. The idea for the article came from a talk the author, David French, gave to a small group of Christian homeschoolers. He starts out by really nailing the truth about high school and college graduations–they are not really something about which we should do a lot of celebrating, at least not in the way they are currently celebrated as the accomplishment of something that required great personal sacrifice. That is only the start, it just gets better and better.
I think maybe the reason I love this article at this time and place is that Lorena and I are recent empty-nesters. The kids are gone, we have seen the world as an increasingly difficult, we struggle to figure out what to do next and we seem to have forgotten the fact that we are recipients of unwarranted privilege. I want to make sure people do not confuse the brand of privilege perpetuated by Social Justice Warrior culture. I am talking about the privilege everyone in America and most of the Western world experiences because of others willingness to suffer deprivation and even die to allow us to grow up in a country where almost everyone is privileged. French is careful to not suggest there is equal privilege for everyone, because there is not. He does rightly say that those that who are less privileged in this country still have great privilege.
Even that, though was not the best part of the article. This article was a reminder of what it is really important and amazingly what leads to a happy life. Please read the article. It is an important one.
H.T. Erick Erickson at the Resurgent.
I was a minor participant in a discussion where Ted Bundy the notorious serial killer was brought up as an example of someone who subscribed to the view that morality is subjective. The conversation itself was very interesting and a great illustration of the evil and ignorance of that sort of world view. Particularly interesting was the link one of the commenters made to something Ted Bundy said in a discussion with one of his victims about that very subject. You can find that here. It was his premise, and a true one I think, that if moral subjectivism is true, then no values are right or wrong. In what is characterized a paraphrase, he captures the true nature of moral subjectivism when he says:
…Then I learned that all moral judgments are “value judgments,” that all value judgments are subjective, and that none can be proved to be either “right” or “wrong.”
That “learning” was the seminal event that allowed him to throw off the shackles of morality and pursue his own personal pleasure without having to worry about whether he was encroaching on “the rights of others.” I had forgotten about my own personal physical and temporal proximity to one of Bundy’s horrific crimes. In May of 1974, it was the end of my freshman year in college and I lived across the street from Sacket Hall on the campus of Oregon State University. My mother had lived in Sackett Hall when she was a freshman in Pharmacy back in 1948. That was the last location Roberta Kathleen Parks was seen before Ted Bundy kidnapped and murdered her. It is believed he picked her up on the street between where she lived and where I lived at the time. They found some of her remains on Taylor Mountain in Washington State in 1975.
I have been following a discussion in the comments of a blog where a good number of fairly thoughtful people hang out. Some of the blog posts are pretty interesting, but the discussion that occurs after the posts is often even more enlightening than the posts themselves. The author of the blog engages in the comments along with several PhD’s in (I think I have this right) Math, Physics and Chemistry. The less credentialed people are equally as competent in their participation.
Atheist and skeptics show up there on a semi-regular basis. I am just going to put a couple of the comments here that are toward the bottom (at this point) and let them speak for themselves. The whole interchange was really quite interesting. As part of a longer discussion, a fellow with the moniker Jeannette, an atheist who I think actually believes she is making a coherent argument responds to commenter BillT’s observation about what she had previously written (link to comments):
From BillT:
Jeanette,
As I said before, good and bad are relative to a goal.
And this is what is so sad. Ted Bundy raped, tortured and murdered untold numbers of women but all you can say is that it might be bad if by doing that he didn’t achieve his goal. He was by any rational definition a monster. A heinous, depraved and evil man. But you say he’s only bad relative to his goal which it’s very, very likely he achieved (he certainly thought he did). What has it come to Jeanette that you can’t say he was “a heinous, depraved and evil man” and have it mean something other that he didn’t achieve his goal or that it’s meaningless. What has it come to?
Response by Jeanette:
I can certainly say he performed “heinous, depraved and evil” actions. Ted Bundy’s actions were horrendously bad according to my moral perspective—my goal of human flourishing / fulfillment for all.
I also believe his actions were bad according to his own stated goal of freedom, but I may be wrong. They might have been good according to his goals. I can’t know for sure.
I don’t think Ted Bundy—the person—was good or bad. I think that is also a meaningless statement. It was his behavior and the consequences they caused that were good/bad as measured against a goal.
Kindness for Grandpa Milo and Grandpa Sarah by old friends provided a great, very much needed boost to our move to Texas yesterday. It is hard to express how grateful we are for these friends who have agreed to take on the far from inconsiderable task of getting Grandpa Milo to church. It is really hard for Grandma Sarah to get out much at all any more. These friends met with Grandpa Milo and Grandma Sarah for Sunday and Wednesday meetings for over twenty years, understand Grandpa Milo in his infirmities better than just about anyone else. This is truly a gift, not only from them, but from God.
Betty Blonde #490 – 06/22/2010
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After all the talk amongst family and friends about M. Scott Peck’s book on narcissism titled The People of the Lie, an article titled Narcissism is Increasing. So You’re Not So Special. appeared. It address the same topic and I think it is a huge problem that began with my generation and has gotten worse ever since. Awareness helps to combat it, but it takes work and no one is immune. It is a fundamentally unchristian behavior. If the New York Times is noticing it, it has to be bad. They seem to be a hotbed of that kind of behavior and attitude.
Betty Blonde #483 – 06/11/2010
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The People of the Lie is a book that has had a pretty big impact on my life. It is a book the mother of a friend recommended I read when I was in college. I think she recommended it to me to help me understand why some people act the way they do and to understand the nature of evil. Well, to understand at least one kind of evil. It is a book that is easy to understand, but hard to read because the truths in it are hard and some of the evil that is described there resides in all of us. I just bought two copies of the book to send to our kids.
I plan to read it again myself. I am certainly not immune to the evil described in this book. I recommend it very highly (the book, not the evil).
Betty Blonde #482 – 06/10/2010
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This article titled Eichmann begged for mercy before hanging was very, very interesting, but very, very sad, too. It speaks for itself. May we never forget.
Betty Blonde #473 – 05/24/2010
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I have pretty much quit reading National Review. Along with the Wall Street Journal, it is (and probably always has been) the propaganda arm of the GOP establishment. That being said, there are still a handful of people who write interesting articles Kathryn Jean Lopez is one of them. Earlier this month she interviewed Rodney Stark in an article titled The Reality of World Religion: God Wins. It is a very interesting article that says some encouraging things and some scary things. The whole article is worth a read. Here is a provocative statement he made toward the end of the article:
The most important things all cluster; the rise of Western civilization was the direct result of Judeo-Christian religion. First is the belief in progress, that our history has an upward slope. In all the other major cultures, including Islam, history is regarded as headed downward. That not only discourages all efforts to improve anything, but justifies the suppression of improvements — both the Chinese and the Ottomans outlawed mechanical clocks.
Betty Blonde #454 – 04/14/2010
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We lost our dear friend Carolyn day before yesterday. When Lorena and I first got married, we lived for three years in Boynton Beach, Florida. Every Sunday morning during our time there we meet for a home church meeting at the home of Courtney and Carolyn. Courtney was an engineer, originally from Barbados who worked at one of the big electronics firms in the area. Carolyn was a highly educated stay-at-home mom originally from Virginia. They were very, very kind to us. We often went to their home for dinner and got together with them outside of church on a regular basis along with several other members of our little church group. Carolyn very kindly gave us great advise every time we saw here up to the very last time just last year in North Carolina. Not too long after we left Florida to head West to Oregon, Courtney was transferred by his company up to North Carolina to the Triangle area where we eventually moved, so we got to see them on a semi-regular basis in these last few years. The most recent best piece of advice, she gave to Kelly.
“Kelly, boyfriends are like buses. If you miss the bus or leave the bus, another one will come along.”
The way Courtney and Carolyn raised their two children, Corwin and Chevonne, was part of our inspiration to encourage our kids to work hard to achieve academic success. They earned a Masters degree and a PhD (a hard one). Our condolences go out to all of them. We will miss Carolyn a lot. She was a godly influence in our lives.
Betty Blonde #438 – 03/22/2010
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We had a great Thanksgiving. We missed Christian a lot, but we also talked to him a lot and like I said in previous posts, he spent the holiday with very good people. This was one of those Thanksgivings that was unexpectedly encouraging and helpful. We went to a church event on Friday where we saw good friends from my college days, made the acquaintance of some new folks and just had a great chance to talk in an inspiring setting. We plan to make our way back up there again.
One of the highlights of the trip was our friend Carl who was out to Washing for a round of special meetings of our church. We got to hear him preach in Spanish and to say that what he had to say was something I needed to hear is a wild understatement. And he was not the only one who had good things for me to hear. We knew we would miss our North Carolina friends, but we are amazed how frequently–at least daily–we think of reasons to remember them to each other.
On Sunday, we take my parents to church in the morning. When there are Gospel meetings, we take them Sunday afternoon, too. This Sunday was the last Gospel meeting before the holidays and we were surprised when our friends Kirk and Melanie from Charlotte walked in. It is a small world and it is nice to be reminded of the gifts of friendships we receive day in and day out. It is by the grace of God we are given time and opportunity to realize how good we have it just because of the fellowship we are in.
Betty Blonde #435 – 03/18/2010
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In some senses, it is true that there is a circle of life. People are born, they live, they die, other people are born and the cycle continues. As I have gotten older, it has become more apparent to me that life and existence, really, are linear. Everyone is on a trajectory unique to themselves with a beginning and an end, with unique stuff in the middle, too. History does not repeat itself other than in broad strokes. This seems to be a gift if it is embraced. It always makes me sad when I hear people bemoan their age. It does no good and there is better stuff ahead. I know that, but it seems hard to maintain that attitude all the time.
I think this has been on my mind because Lorena and I have struggled some to try to figure out what to do now that the kids are out of the house. Life is almost easier when options are limited. Right now, we have plenty of limitations, but many less than in the past thirty years. We will make some fairly big changes within the next three or four years that might include locations, work, school and, maybe even avocations. I think I am less worried now than ever about what I do than my attitude toward it.
Betty Blonde #398 – 01/25/2010
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My goal when I started tracking my Bible reading in 2006 was to systematically read through the Old Testament three times and the New Testament nine times before deciding what to do next. As of now, I am two-thirds of the way complete. I keep track of my reading here and do the vast bulk of my reading in the KJV using the Xiphos Bible software.
Betty Blonde #392 – 01/15/2010
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Kelly and I are kindred spirits in that we regularly get accused of being overly enthusiastic. We talked on the phone about this very subject today. Overly enthusiastic. That is an oxymoron. One of the few really good things that came out of the 1960’s was the expression, “don’t harsh my mellow.” Precisely right. The bane to our existence are those who chose to curb their enthusiasm in a spirit deadening effort be cool, “in the know” or somehow superior to those who engaged in passionate behavior.
Those lukewarm souls who choose to act nonplussed about all things social are not only boring, but could very well be guilty of the attitude for which the Laodiceans were admonished in Revelation 3:14-17. Do not be lukewarm. Be passionate. Love life. Do not be relegated to that category of people who slouch through life throwing wet blankets on all joy.
Stick to your guns Kelly. Be enthusiastic. Be overly enthusiastic. The gnostics of buzzkill in no way have special knowledge about those things you know that animate your enthusiasm.
Betty Blonde #390 – 01/13/2010
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Lorena and I saw this beautiful moon out the window of our car as she drove me to work this morning. It was even bigger and lower in the sky than when I took this picture out the window of my work at DWFritz. Lorena mentioned Oregon would have a blue moon tonight. I looked that up and found that a blue moon is when the moon is full for a second time in a single month.
I do not know why these kinds of things seem to coincide with times when we are thinking deep thoughts. I am actually pretty sure it is the other way around, that I only notice stuff like this when I am in a time of contemplation. This time of reflection seems to be the trifecta of reflection on the meaning of life. Part of it is that all of us, Christian, Kelly, Lorena and I are within a few years, if the Lord gives us those years, of entry to new things and new places while the world seems to be in upheaval.
Of course, Kelly and Christian will graduate from college and go off to do whatever it they are given to do. Always, in the past, they had some next thing they wanted to accomplish that mostly had to do with school. Now, though, there will almost certainly no more school for them, at least as students. So many things are open to them, they have no idea what would be best to do. Since they are still a few years away from that, patience is the key, but that is hard when the next move will be to something they have never previously done.
The same is true for Lorena and I. We have, at most, a few more years to be close to my parents with their memory issues. Then it is on to something new–maybe even retirement for me. Maybe even in Mexico, but maybe not. It is hard not to think about it even though it is not at all knowable. Patience is the word of the day.
Betty Blonde #383 – 01/04/2010
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Our family discusses the subject of objective truth frequently. We have done so as a family for pretty close to a decade. As soon as the kids were old enough to understand the concept, we started to talk about it. The direction our culture is going is not friendly to those who want to live their lives in conformances to mandates placed on them by the objective reality of a Christian God. When the culture embraces the immorality of things like abortion, cohabitation outside of marriage and even the pursuit of fun in the form of sport, music, art and leisure at the expense of the pursuit of God and things God hates, lives get wasted and people suffer.
The hard part of this is that kids get beat up and ostracized culturally and socially as a result of their adherence to objective truth and the dictates it puts on their lives. Sometimes it is an active thing, but most of the time these kids get shuffled off to the side, ignored, derided and ridiculed. Some of us older people notice this. As children of the sixties, seventies and eighties, we went through it ourselves. The difference is that when we went through it, there were large swaths of culture who were on our side. I do not think that is true anymore. Culture is active in its derision of the good and of objective truth.
This is especially so in cities like Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, Boston and New York, but I think it has even seeped down into strongholds of morality in places like North Carolina, Texas and Arizona. Kids with access to the Internet tend to give credence to what they read on Reddit and other venues that tend toward the sophomoric, but with a hard edge of aggressive hedonism. The sad part of it all is that what they read on Reddit is often reinforced by what they are taught in school by people trained at educational institutions saturated in the very same vacuous philosophical pablum that upholds relative morality.
It is a hard thing to swim against the tide. I wish I knew better how to encourage those who do so.
Betty Blonde #382 – 01/01/2010
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It has been an interesting year. The veneer of good will between warring world views seems to have been ripped open. I ran into three interesting articles this morning when I opened up my browser to read the news. The first article, titled The end of “news” was about once trusted news sources that are no longer read by anyone but extreme partisans because they are no longer worthy of our trust. I found myself nodding my head to this article as I read. I no longer get my news from the AP, NBC, ABC, CBS, the Oregonian, The New York Times or even Fox News. I mourn that. I always loved to read the newspaper over coffee in the morning. The thing is, they no longer report the news. Other news sources break the important stories. I visited the old, reliable news source for a lot of years before I finally gave up. Now I just ignore them.
The second article titled Punch Leftists in the Mouth by Daniel Greenfield of the Sultan Knish blog about how to deal with those who want to tear society down. It is a rework of Mike Tyson, the heavyweight boxing champ’s famous quote, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” Greenfield says it is not good to play nice with people who want to perpetrate evil. I found this interesting because James 4 was the chapter for my daily Bible read today.
Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. –James 4:4
Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin. –James 4:17
The last article is a hopeful one. The title of the article is The Sexual Revolution’s Coming Refugee Crisis. The subtitle is Many people are going to be disappointed, and even before they can admit it to others or to themselves, they are going to ask, “Is this all there is?” It basically says that a lot of the bad stuff that has gained approval in our society since the 1960’s cannot sustain itself. God’s rules are being broken and things do not end well when that happens. Many people will come to the end of themselves and start to look for answers outside of popular culture, politics and governments. There is a huge opportunity in that if we remain humble and point these people to something truly good. James 4 has some answers for that, too.
Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up. –James 4:10
Betty Blonde #368 – 12/14/2009
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