As far as I can make out in reading scientific treatments of the question of origins written for ordinary folks, the farthest the cosmologists can reach back is about 14-15 billion years to the Big Bang. Whether and why there was anything before that to “Bang” is, for the present and foreseeable future, enshrouded inContinue reading “Faith and Hope: Assurance and Conviction, 7 – The Smell of Blood”
Category Archives: Materialism
Faith and Hope: Assurance and Conviction, 6
Humans do not function as merely and simply biological machinery. All our history and experience from all the history we have any clue about declare that we have ever held to the Cosmos being an awesome and awe-full place which shouts that it was and is created by an operative will according to a design. The will and design are demonstrated by what is, what is in evidence, in actual existence all around us, inside and out, in all things and everywhere all the time. And it all points to Something higher and greater than we – in fact, Someone much more than Something.
Faith and Hope: Assurance and Conviction, 4
There is great mystery in our self-awareness. It is inseparable from our knowledge of the very real existence of both good and evil, right and wrong, justice and injustice, selfishness and selflessness—all side by side in each of us, all vying for pre-eminence in our thinking, feeling, and acting.
Certainty, Doubt, and Faith
The “War” between science and religion is a misconception. Theists and atheists both believe we can discover much about reality by the scientific method. Both believe that our innate creativity and remarkable intellect can use the creation to bring into being things that would not exist without human invention.
Breath
As long as we have breath in our bodies, we have the opportunity to aim at becoming what we were originally intended to be. We can choose to use that breath, which in Hebrew also designates the living essence of who and what we are, to act like the Creator’s agents and image-bearers or to pursue what Solomon and every other great potentate and magnate has typically pursued in place of that.
Reason for the Season, 2
without Jesus, beyond the binge and after the bloating indigestion, mega-sugar-crash, and fortified eggnog and other spirits hangover, what was it about? Fantasizing about Santa and goodwill to all people for some vague reason? Receiving some gifts that symbolize a love which is usually neglected in practice? Feeling a nice glow for a few days but then crashing back into the loneliness or shallowness of regular life for most of the rest of the year?
Inconvenient Conscience, 6 – Turning Around, 2 – Paradigm Shift
Western humans entertain a sort of self-hypnosis that we can and will master nature, compel it to do our bidding, because, tiny on the cosmic scale as we are, we are smart, really smart! We can learn everything we need to because we are so smart. We apparently are in the process of uncovering the very secrets of the Universe Itself – its when, what, and how at least. Our current paradigm mostly sloughs off the why and who and makes the where irrelevant.
When Evil Comes, 7 – The Moral Compass
The nitty-gritty of our struggle with the evil within is not resolved by abstract reasoning. It is faced every day in our decisions about how to treat family members, friends and acquaintances, business and work colleagues, schoolmates, strangers, and our planet. Most of these decisions are made casually, on automatic pilot so to speak. They are made in accordance with an (however unconsciously) internalized set of principles and criteria we have imbibed from our family of birth, our more extended community as we grow and mature, and the cultural influences we encounter and move in and through along our road to maturity.
When Evil Comes, 6 – The Two “Wisdoms”
If the old priesthoods and shamans were reprehensible in their manipulation of the poor masses they bamboozled, we are even more guilty because our manipulation and control is more occult, for we pretend to be enlightened and to no longer need to use such deception as we practice it even more powerfully via our technological prowess.
When Evil Comes, 3 -Star Wars
As long as the human race lives, we will not just “lie down and die” and meekly submit to “the inevitable”. We are not made that way. We are made to rise, to overcome, to create, to renew, to enhance. Our innermost soul tells us this even in the midst of the worst. Most often, our soul tells us without words, but nonetheless with great clarity through our drive to live, to repair, to make better.
World.V.You 