Having considered your position and your circumstances,
I perceive that you need me to be wrong about this.
And suddenly, it makes sense why you are so concerned
With peripheral matters, such as my tone or my spelling,
Or my motives—or whether there may be some discoverable
Moral fault with me.
For the record, I am so not an atheist nor a cynic! What I am is a guy who’s got the guts to tackle some of the hard topics of Christianity, with a view toward working them out faithfully, honestly, rationally, and responsibly!
Some are exuberant in declaring the “power of prayer”, but I think that the topic is famously oversimplified. So I wanted to make a short post pointing out the two main problems I see with this popular view:
Continue reading Two Problems with “The Power of Prayer”We will take the empty young man
Who knows nothing and has no wisdom
And we will fill him up
To bursting with pompousness
With the vacuous ideas
That since we have put him up front
That must mean that he is
Knowledgeable and wise after all
And that God himself has ordained it.
Most people are said to be “neurotypical”—meaning, more or less, that the way their minds work is “normal”. And then, in contrast to that, there are the “neurodiverse” people, who are “wired” differently in one way or another, we are told—and who, as a result, may have different aptitudes and life habits to some extent.
The world is still trying to get its head around this idea, and so am I. And there may well be something to it, but the question is “what exactly is that something”? That’s the question, right?
Continue reading Being “Neurotypical” May Not Be Something to Which We Should Aspire!If you make an error in what you say—even if it’s ancillary to the point you’re making—there are many who will seize the opportunity to focus on the error, and to ignore your main point.
And some will judge poorly in what they count as errors in your speech. For example, here are two common occurrences.:
And even if you don’t use absolutes, and do include lots of apologetic language and leave lots of room that you might be wrong, or include plenty of warnings that this is only your opinion or your feeling about the thing, then many will decide that it must be simply opinion, and that it has no basis in fact whatsoever.
People generally have many different techniques of dodging truths they don’t like. They do it to themselves and to their friends, and they’ll do it to you, too. Few are nearly as good at recognizing the truth of a matter as they think they are.
It is an amazing gift that man has the faculties
For observation and analysis,
And for drawing conclusions and sticking to them.
If you argue long with a fool—
And well and true and honorably—
You should be prepared
To be accused of arrogance.
ITEMS NEEDED: Large table, printer, paper, trash can.
Sorting through the multitude of gun control memes can be overwhelming. So I suggest culling out the ones that cheat, so that you can focus on the best ones. Here are 13 easy steps to clear the table of all but the best gun control ideas.
Continue reading 13 Simple Steps to Culling the Gun Control MemesThere she sits, ready to pounce
On the least little suggestion
That God actually expects the Christian
To do anything.
She leads with logic
In this case she is making—
As if believing
(And expecting quite naturally to be agreed with by all)
That valid logic is authoritative,
And ought rightfully
To rule the day.