1. Why do you believe in God?
2. What's the difference between Naive' and Blind trust and Faith?
3. Is it possible that religion is just a way for people to deal with life
and non of it's really even true?
4. Is there really any such thing as pure and whole truth?
I decided they seemed like interesting and sincere questions, so I answered them. Here's what I wrote:
1. I believe in God because that term, as used by the mystics of most traditions, refers to transcendant reality. Because I am persuaded that the hints of transcendence that we perceive - beauty, meaning, interconnectedness - correspond to something real about the universe, that is what it means to be persuaded that God exists.
2. Blind faith is another way of saying gullibility. The Letter to the Hebrews says that faith is the evidence of that which is unseen. It does not say that it is evidence that the things we do see don't really exist! Faith may be willing to stake its life on there being more to a person than a chemical analysis can ascertain, more to life than the humdrum and mundane, but that is about there being more than what is seen. If your 'faith' contradicts what is seen (archaeological evidence, for instance), then it is problematic.
3. Religion is indeed a way that people deal with life. Dostoevsky's parable of the Grand Inquisitor (from The Brothers Karamazov) puts it well - and remember, he was a Christian. But many Christians don't want the responsibility that comes with freedom and choose instead to hand over their freedom to a church, a pastor, a creed, or something else. And that's where organized religion comes in.
4. There is indeed pure truth. The problem is when people in a small corner of history in one solar system in one galaxy in one corner of the universe claim that they know the pure and whole truth. Such claims are not merely lacking humility (which would be bad enough). They are ultimately claims to divinity, and incompatible with the Christian faith (and most others).
I'd be interested to hear comments on my answers or the answers others would give to these questions!
, which explores a time-travel scenario and the usual questions of whether we can change the past, and what happens if we do or even try. The film explicitly raises questions of 'spirituality', and one character even suggests that the past cannot be changed because 'God has made up his mind about it already'. Yet the film is somewhat unique in raising the ethical issue of whether to intervene to change the past differently - if the past is still there, then (for example) the murder victim is still alive. Don't we have an obligation or at the very least an opportunity to do something about it, to prevent something that, from that standpoint in time, has not yet happened?
and elsewhere are as problematic or as paradoxical as is claimed. After all, if time travel to the past is possible, then you can exist before you were born, and in two places at once, and so how is it more fundamentally problematic that you exist without ever having born (because you change history)? 
), namely that our universe might be folded back around on itself and thus self-originating. Nevertheless, it is interesting to consider an alternative scenario in which universes that can support life are created through the life forms that inhabit such universes, so that they are self-replicating and have an 'evolutionary advantage'. What if universes like ours result from physics experiments by intelligent life forms inhabiting universes like ours, trying to see whether it is possible to create a 
(Green Forest: New Leaf Press, 2005) p.34.
(San Francisco: Josey-Bass, 1998) p.177.
(San Francisco: Josey-Bass, 1998) p.104.
. While it is not the case that all the things Thomas mentions are things that all ministers would tell you if they could, I suspect that enough of them are, and if not these things then there are other things that they could tell you were they not afraid that ordinary Christians, rather than welcoming a deeper understanding of the faith, of the Bible, and of Christian history, would complain, argue, and eventually drive the minister out who dared expose them to uncomfortable truths.
, and can highly recommend it. Created by 
which I was listening to earlier today
"
, the opening and closing sections of the second movement being, for me, the most inspiring melody of all time
and of course any of John Williams' music from 
.
which is not only beautiful music but is fascinating as a very rare instance of the setting to music of an 
, has a setting of some 
). I played the Holst piece for my "Heresy" class the last time I taught it, not least because this helps students realize that these extracanonical texts had a role in Christian worship for those that valued them.
by N. Clayton Croy. In short, I found the suggestion that Mark's Gospel may have lost its original
are the ones where the Doctor encounters his earlier selves - which inevitably leads to arguments! Although intended primarily for comic value, I presume, there is an important insight in these episodes. If I were to meet an earlier me, I would encounter a person very different from the one I am today, and I can easily imagine arguments ensuing, as I who I am today tried to share what I consider the wisdom of experience with my younger self, and my younger self rebukes me for having gone over to the dark side, from "his" perspective. (Notice how hard it is to speak of such things!)
again recently, this too gave me pause, as I watched characters discuss evil as a point of view - the importance of point of view is a theme that runs throughout the films. Do I now hold views that I would have considered "evil" earlier in my life, and do I now consider the views of my earlier self "evil"? My hope is that I have discovered, as Luke Skywalker eventually did, a middle way. Just as the attempt of the Jedi to avoid all attachment left one open to temptation to the other extreme of being carried along by one's passions, I hope that I have found a middle ground between fundamentalism and atheism, just as Luke found he could let his concern for his sister enrage him and his compassion for his father stop him from going too far. But I doubt that my younger self would have accepted this argument - I saw everything in black and white, once upon a time, as we all did at some point.
and 
were beyond my range of appreciation. I had to work my way through 
and 
first, and had I gone by another path, I might not value the music of 
and 
the way that I do.
In the movie 
most of the story focuses on the encounter between rookie race car Lightning McQueen and the inhabitants of a small town on Route 66 that was once thriving but has been bypassed by the interstate.
Nicholas DiFonzo and Prashant Bordia mention the concept of "Matthew Accuracy". Deriving its name from the principle in the Gospel of Matthew that "to the one who has more will be given, but from the one who does not have even the little he has will be taken away", Matthew Accuracy denotes the tendency of truthful rumors to become more truthful, while false rumors tend to become more false (pp.152-4).
That first book focused more on what Evangelicals can learn from other religions, while this book seeks to provide more in the way of justification and explanation of the Biblical and historical reasons for believing that they in fact can.
. As also with the first 
movie, this one was packed with action, amazing animation, philosophical questions and quotations from the Bible. It is great to be able to watch such things and know I am doing research! The theme of the movie obviously ties in with my current work on artificial intelligence and religion. I've also read some of Philip K. Dick's philosophical writings included in the volume 
. At first I was somewhat disappointed with Dick's affirmations about androids as by definition predictable - until I realized that, in Dick's terminology, if an "android" is not merely a simulation of the human without the inner reality, then it is, in his view, actually human.
and 
. I remember at one point having been somewhat disappointed with one of McGrath's earlier books, 
. It just seemed at the time so simplistic in presenting the traditional Christian viewpoint, without asking any of the troubling critical questions that I found myself posing at the time. While I might still view Understanding Jesus in this way, I can strongly recommend McGrath's two books about Dawkins, his scientific work and his atheism. McGrath, a former atheist and as far as I know no relation to the McGrath who is writing this blog entry, speaks on behalf not just of educated Christians but also atheists who find themselves exasperated with Dawkins' linkage between his scientific work and his atheism, his charicatures of Christian belief (if, admittedly, many ordinary believers who have never read a book about their own faith do indeed at times resemble the charicatures). There is nothing polemical, no attempt to argue against any conclusion of mainstream science, no attempt to argue that science proves Christianity instead. McGrath just provides a balanced presentation of how Dawkins, who writes so admirably clearly and soundly about evolution in many of his books, does not show the same aptitude for writing his books about atheism.
based on the novel by Philip K. Dick. I also have a book with collected philosophical and other essays by Dick checked out from the library, in connection with my ongoing research on religion and artificial intelligence. Although AI doesn't really feature in A Scanner Darkly, religion certainly does, beginning with the title, which alludes to the Biblical image of seeing in a glass or mirror darkly (which of course made sense with respect to ancient mirrors, but is not a meaningful simile today). Several other Biblical allusions or quotes pepper the film, and one of the characters towards the end suggests that 'bringing good out of evil' is 'God's ammo.'
The connection between drugs and religion has also been explored in numerous ways and in various fashions by 
and more recently (somewhat indirectly) by 
.
) will be classified as pornography. But it will be if and when other androids begin to tell us that they find watching such movies arousing that the biggest questions about artificial intelligence and sentience will really confront us.
and 
who have sought to apply insights from the study of these cultures directly to issues of New Testament interpretation. No amount of time spent reading such books can substitute for time spent in relevant cultures; on the other hand, Americans and Western Europeans who spend time in such cultures will benefit greatly from these books. Indeed, on more than one occasion I lent Malina's book 
to colleagues from the U.S.. England and Wales, suggesting that it could just as easily have been entitled Windows on the World of Romania.
to the campus where I taught in Romania. He had recently published his commentary on 
and spoke about those in Corinth who said "I am of Paul" and "I am of Apollos". Thiselton emphasized that this was not merely party politics as we understand it nowadays, but the Roman patronage system. There were a very small number of individuals who had intrinsic power and status, and then others would gain influence by association with such individuals as retainers, like a vine climbing on a tree. It only took a few moments to realize that this was precisely what I had witnessed in the politics of the school I taught at. There were a couple of individuals who had their own churches where they were pastors and had PhDs. Then there were other individuals who associated with them, lacking the degrees and the status of senior pastor, but who became influential through the association. It was illuminating, and if I had had Thiselton's commentary (or heard his talk) earlier, I might have better understood what was going on around me.
, Vansina's 
, and DiFonzo's 
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