Tag: faith
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Why the Bible uses stories instead of lectures
One challenge the writers of the Bible faced was the fact that there were no books. Written records were rare and took a lot of effort to produce, and there were a lot of different people in different places and situations the message needed to be able to reach. So the question is, how do…
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Problems with atheistic Christianity
If it works, why does it work? Is it because it’s true? If it is true, why is is true? It seems like with these specific stories, people actually thought they were writing history. History as we conceive it, in fact, seems to have emerged out of the kind of unvarnished honesty of presentation that…
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The value of symbols
An example of an essay in utero, not yet developed. Just a sketch of ideas and a framework of threads to follow. The gods and their symbolic value Pagans, not as dumb or as different as you think The appropriate level for understanding and addressing reality Where humans live Culture heroes as a touch point…
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Dawkins and atheistic optimism
The problem with Richard Dawkins’ speculation that “Perhaps I am a Pollyanna to believe that people would remain good when unobserved and unpoliced by God” is that, if his own theory is correct, people actually are unobserved and unpoliced by God, but nevertheless have achieved the sum total of human suffering and evil across the…
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An incomplete farewell letter
In the event that I have Coronavirus, and in the less likely event that I die from it, I suppose I had better come up with some fitting last words while I still have the capacity instead of gasping them out in a delirium or making hand gestures while a ventilator keeps my weakened lungs…
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The Jewish odyssey: historical, archetypal, or both?
The description of God in the Bible always seems to run just ahead of the mode of being at the time. So that looking back from each rung upon which his followers reach, they see how what came before makes sense in the greater context. The world slowly opens up. Their mode of being slowly…
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Recreation vs redemption
There is much about humanity that could be complained about. There is much that is harsh, biased, infuriating, and even unjust. It would be nice if there were some other way of being in the world, some other kind of creature that we could be, some new man and new woman. And much of what…
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The inadequacy of modern and postmodern Christs
The postmodernist Christ is completely unnecessary. He did not and cannot conquer death, because he was not truly unique or divine and did not rise. He was a divine story and rose in our hearts, but in reality he died, and he had no more real power than any other prophet or story in our…
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The proper uses of grace
Grace has a powerful but often misunderstood role. It is like a powerful anasthetic that neutralizes negative feelings and severs the connection between the reality of our perceived identity and the reality of our perceived life outcomes. It gives us a free pass, essentially. This makes it both terribly dangerous, when used incorrectly, and a…
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The prism of wisdom
Light comes from all directions, wisdom is the jewel where light is gathered and refracted into the places the light is needed. The more facets the prism has, the more complete it is, the more of the light of creation it gathers. God is the source of all light, he is the being of completion,…
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