It does no good to argue which path is better if we haven't first discussed where we are going. The real difference between the biblical world view — otherwise known to us as Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) — and the Western frame of reference is rooted in why we bother to philosophize in the first place. The goals of the Bible and those of Western Civilization are not compatible.
Imagine, if you would, that a few weeks before Easter it were announced that the body of Jesus had been found, that it had been kept in an oh-so-secret crypt in the Vatican lo, these many years. That disclosure would be big news, wouldn’t it? It would put quite a crimp in the most fundamental tenets of Christianity. It would be pretty difficult to sustain the religion after that.
The popular term for my faith is Christian Mysticism. I don't participate much in what typically bears that label, but my basic approach is mystical, in that I assert nothing truly important can be put into words. Jesus taught in parables, in part because God and His revelation are ineffable. So we can't really describe ultimate truth, only indicate it using symbols.
Having been raised as a photographer, I’ve always felt a little vulnerable if I didn’t have a camera on my person. For years I carried a Nikon or Leica film camera with me pretty much wherever I went, often as not along with a big camera bag made by Jim Domke, all crammed full of spare camera bodies and lenses and film and a few filters and more film and a strobe (which is what we used to call electronic flashguns). I didn’t need to go to the gym.
Trying to sort through the noise and find a few good deals online for Black Friday? Here are some of the most interesting deals that are available right now, including great deals on MacBooks and KitchenAid stand mixers. Updated at 5:30 p.m. (CST) on November 27
One of the best things about winter — yes, there are some — is how clear the sky gets at night.
I’m OK with the fact that I probably play too many video games and watch too many sports. I’m not that important, and no one is relying on me for survival as of yet. But I learned something the other day from a game I was playing. Indulge me, for this requires some explanation.
Disney it ain’t. I think you know what I mean: all those lovely Walt Disney cartoon movies, in which the birds flutter lovingly around the sky, and the fawns gambol in the meadows, the butterflies flit about like ballerinas, and the ever-so-cute bunnies and squirrels and chipmunks scurry — the word probably was invented to describe cartoon rodents and lagomorphs — nearby.
The Imagio is a phone that would be easy to overlook. After all, not only does it face the usual opponent, the iPhone that clearly influenced its design, it also faces the Motorola Droid, which is Verizon’s most newsworthy phone in years – and deservedly so. That the Imagio has been somewhat lost in the dizzying lead up to the Droid’s launch is too bad; the Imagio deserves some attention of its own.
A very good friend of mine directed me to a recent piece in the Atlantic Monthly on the state of health in the US, and the delivery of said services. I say it that way because the author, David Goldhill, says an overemphasis on health management (epitomized in the phrase, “health care”) as opposed to prevention and overall well-being, may be in large measure responsible for exploding costs, and the number of preventable deaths by infection.