Archive for the ‘Worldviews’ Category

Classics for the Contemporary Christian: The Straits of Orthodoxy

I have a bone to pick with G.K. Chesterton about his book Orthodoxy. It took me a ridiculously long time to read. He just had to go and make every sentence so delicious and profound that I was forced to sit back after every line in order to laugh at his wit or furiously scribble notes. Think I’m...
March 3rd, 2010 | Book Reviews, Culture, Media, Religion, Worldviews | Read More

Classics for the Contemporary Christian: Er…Kommunistischen?

Communism’ is a likely candidate for ‘touchiest word of the 20th century’. While the word evokes many high-charged reactions, two seem consistent among American conservatives: First, communism is associated with naïve hippies who think there should be no war and want to sing ‘Why Can’t We...
February 24th, 2010 | Book Reviews, Politics, Worldviews | Read More

You Are What You Eat…And Not Who You Sleep With

Food and sex have shifted roles over the past fifty or so years, argues Mary Eberstadt in a fascinating essay at Policy Review. Once, social stigma condemned extra-marital philandering. Sex was a serious ethical issue, with serious personal and social consequences. Food, however, was something with few,...
November 16th, 2009 | Culture, Technology, Worldviews | Read More

“I Care that I don’t Care”: Post-postmodernism in ‘Wilco (The Album)’

“Meh. …I wish I didn’t mean that.” Welcome to post-postmodernism, a new reaction to believing in epistemic tragedy: that is, that nothing can be known-for-certain. In the period loosely described as post-modernity, men like Foucault and Nietzsche asserted that timeless, absolute knowledge was...
May 26th, 2009 | Culture, Music, Worldviews | Read More

Do Tummy Aches Disprove God?

My tummy hurts. Ergo, there is no god. This argument may be absurd but it is not intended as a reductio ad absurdum. Although a very simplistic form, this enthymeme encapsulates one of the primary atheological arguments — the argument from evil. The structure of the argument becomes more obvious...
July 1st, 2008 | Apologetics, Worldviews | Read More

Naming the Turtle:
The Basic Beliefs of My Worldview

[Note: I’m still trying to acclimatize to the pace of working on a Presidential campaign (I love saying that), so for the next few days I’ll be recycling material.] In his book A Brief History of Time, astrophysicist Stephen Hawking relates a story about a well-known scientist who gave a public lecture...
December 5th, 2007 | Worldviews | Read More

Drowning Hippasus:
Reductionism and Religiously-Based Explanations

[Note: This is a continuation of the discussion from Tuesday's post on Mathematics and Religiously-Based Explanations.] In ancient Greece a religious controversy once broke out over the square root of two. The Pythagoreans, a Hellenic organization of thinkers who believed that all things were essentially...
September 6th, 2007 | Worldviews | Read More

What Does 1 + 1 = 2 Mean?
Mathematics and Religiously-Based Explanations

Several years ago I made the assertion on this blog that evangelicals should “think Christianly” about their work and fields of study. I also claimed that we are merely fooling ourselves if we believe that we can approach our vocations with a sense of religious neutrality. Naturally, some...
September 4th, 2007 | Worldviews | Read More

The Unenlightened Atheist

“For the modern world will accept no dogmas upon any authority; but it will accept any dogmas on no authority. Say that a thing is so, according to the Pope or the Bible, and it will be dismissed as a superstition without examination. But preface your remark merely with ‘they say’ or...
August 28th, 2007 | Worldviews | Read More

Atheism, Autism, and Other Minds (A Clarification)

Sometimes brevity is the soul of wit; other times it is the spirit of confusion. In my recent post “Are Atheists Autistic?” I attempted to abbreviate my argument, which led to a spirited exchange over my unintentionally confusing point. Because the word count was already tipping 1000 I thought...
August 17th, 2007 | Worldviews | Read More