A review of The Story of Reality, by Gregory Koukl The Big Picture Koukl’s book is subtitled “How the world began, how it ends, and everything important that happens in between.” I have to admit that this kind of over-the-top title is off-putting, to me. It makes me think there’s nothing of substance inside. I […]
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Chimerical Neutrality
Tabula Rosa A popular Enlightenment-era conception of the human mind was that it was a tabula rosa, a blank slate devoid of content until an idea is impressed upon it by the child’s environment. It is often linked to the philosopher John Locke. It is not universally accepted, however, and many philosophers believe there is […]
Read more...Prayer and Dissonance
Consider with me the implications of our intuitions about prayer, and what our actual practice of prayer (or absence thereof) says about what we think of God. I suggest two ways of thinking about prayer, and resulting views of God. I admit in advance that this is a simplification, but I submit that it’s not […]
Read more...Ways of Being
Suicide and Hope Is it possible that a person who commits suicide was actually a Christian? I think so. The event of taking one’s own life is usually fast and always irrevocable. Yes it’s something they do to themselves, but does that single volitional act always negate the beliefs of a lifetime that went before? It’s […]
Read more...Mind = Brain?
A review of I Am Not a Brain, by Markus Gabriel Freedom I begin this review where Gabriel ends his book: on the subject of freedom. Quoting Friedrich Schelling, Gabriel observes that “the alpha and omega of all philosophy is freedom.” By “freedom,” Gabriel does not refer merely to unbridled subjective autonomy, nor political freedom […]
Read more...Chappie
You know the word “chap” as a British-ism, like “bloke” or “mate,” a casual reference to a male acquaintance. The diminutive form, “chappie,” would suggest an added level of bonhomie. The words (“chap” and “chappie”) have currency in South Africa, which, in futuristic vision, is the setting of a 2015 movie titled Chappie. In the movie, the sobriquet is […]
Read more...Blinkered Reality
Sean Carroll is a physicist who sometimes dabbles uncomprehendingly in philosophy, as in his entrée into the New Atheist genre, The Big Picture. In it, Carroll repeatedly and exasperatingly assumes his conclusion (there is no supernatural reality, therefore there is no supernatural reality), adopts a materialism-of-the-gaps outlook (any gap in our understanding of physical things […]
Read more...Astonishment
Astonishment What is it about a newborn baby that evokes such a gushing, emotional reaction in us? We’ve all seen infants before; it’s not entirely new in the history of the world. There would be no history as such, if there weren’t a continual renewal of mankind down through generations. And yet, we see a […]
Read more...Heart of Darkness
This is a review of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. What presumption, to review at this date a classic like Heart of Darkness. Not only am I going ahead with a review, but I have the audacity to tell you I didn’t like it and why I can’t join the horde telling us how great […]
Read more...The Chosen
A review of The Chosen, by Chaim Potok I’ve long been a reader of literary fiction, and had it in mind that I would be a natural as a writer because of it. I was wrong. You learn a lot by reading, obviously, and it’s certainly true that writing will come easier if your reading […]
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