I once subscribed to something called Skeptic Magazine, in hopes that it would enlighten me on what the other side was thinking. I assumed it would be advocacy of an anti-religious viewpoint. There’s certainly no dearth of that around, however, so why, you might wonder, would I be interested in this particular magazine? It was because […]
Read more...Author: Albert
Evidence of Things Unseen
Review of Evidence of Things Unseen, by Marianne Wiggins I picked this book up because of the title. It’s a phrase from Hebrews, chapter 11: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, evidence of things unseen.” (KJV). Non-believers sometimes cite it as logical bootstrapping, but it’s not. Other translations get away from the […]
Read more...Submission
Review of Submission, by Michel Houellebecq The book is written from the first-person point of view of Francois. He is a scholar specializing in the works of Joris-Karl Huysmans. In many respects, he is Huysmans, except that Huysmans drifted into Catholicism; Francois into Islam. Like Huysmans, Francois is “the misanthropic aesthete and loner” who overcomes […]
Read more...Abundant Living
In Time Horizon, we contrasted eternal and temporal perspectives on the events of one’s lifetime. Now we consider a sky-high Biblical perspective on the matter. I once became fed up with my lack of understanding of the old testament. Why do we lug that thing around, when only the new testament seems relevant? I’m confessing […]
Read more...Time Horizon
In Morality and Time, we discussed the individual subjective “time horizon” which is a consequence of our living inside a time-bound perspective, rather than in eternity. Now we incorporate that eternal perspective. Long and Short Time Horizons If our time horizon is very short, then our life is in a sense not a life at […]
Read more...Morality and Time
Let’s consider the subjective sense of time that we each have. I don’t mean the sense that time flies or “I can’t believe it’s already August,” or that kind of thing. I mean the way we think of our lives as a whole. We all know we’re going to die, and yet in our daily […]
Read more...Being and Time
Roger Scruton is a great contemporary philosopher. You should run out and read everything he ever wrote. His specialty is aesthetics, but he is versatile. I read him in part for his handle on developments in philosophy over the last few hundred years, including especially the influence of Friedrich Hegel, the preeminent late-18th century philosopher. On the key philosophical subject of […]
Read more...Christian Start-up
Entrepreneurs, small businesses, solo’s: Be careful in your thinking about entrepreneurship and faith. We’re Such Christians There’s potentially a danger in the idea that we’re all a bunch of Christians trying to do good and be Christ-like in the work place. Of course you can be Christians, and if so, of course you want your relationship […]
Read more...Our Lady of the Forest
Review of Our Lady of the Forest, by David Guterson My usual pattern upon finishing a book worth reviewing is to let it simmer in my mind for a few days before embarking on the review. I find that my impressions after letting it settle are not the same as those when I reach “The […]
Read more...Life as Story
We all know this already, yet we think of it as bad news: We all die. The mortality rate for mankind is 100%. And yet, we don’t live as if we’re conscious of that truth. We function day-to-day as though we expect to live forever. We find it difficult to conceive of an end point. […]
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