One of the favored pastimes of the holidays is playing the board games that don’t get played any other time of the year. The other day my daughter pulled out Monopoly, blew the dust off the cover and set the game up. Having played Monopoly 50,000 times in my youth, I know all the Community […]
Archives for December 2013
Rage against the dying of the light: A New Year’s Wish
The aptly titled “Happy New Year” is one of my favorite ABBA songs. Agnetha waxes philosophical with a melancholy lament over the broken dreams of the past and the uncertainty of the future as (in the video at least) her estranged husband Bjorn stares off into the unknown. Seems to me now That the dreams we had before […]
RD Miksa on the evidentiary value of eye-witness testimony
While I do most of the heavy lifting in this blog, occasionally I will have a guest poster. The following essay started off life as an email from RD Miksa in response to the threaded discussion following my articles “Craig Keener on Miracles” and “Miracles and the old ‘testimony is unreliable so we can ignore […]
A taste worth acquiring: A review of “Inside Llewyn Davis”
If you ever try the nordic treat salmiakki you will not soon forget it. It looks like regular licorice. But a bite quickly reveals an uber-salty, piercing flavor that will open up the salivary floodgates whilst placing you on the precipice of the gag reflex. “Inside Llewyn Davis” is like that. This latest offering from the brilliant […]
Why “The Wolf of Wall Street” is an evil, despicable film
I haven’t watched Martin Scorsese’s new film “The Wolf of Wall Street”. Nor do I intend to. Consequently, you might think it a bit presumptuous of me to opine — and with such moralizing forcefulness! — on a film I haven’t yet watched. What gives? Well let’s start with the premise. The film stars Leonardo […]
What is the point of counterfeit covers? Bah, humbug.
I’m a big fan of covers done well. Think, for example, of Whitney Houston’s “Greatest Love of All” (originally recorded by George Benson) or Joe Cocker’s cover of The Beatles’ “With a Little Help from My Friends.” These are transcendent covers, done so well that they overshadow the original recordings. Sadly, other times a cover […]
These are a few of my favorite things (where “things” = Christmas songs)
I have never been happy about the uneasy juxtaposition of sacred and secular at Christmas time. I discuss this matter in one of my many under-appreciated posts, “Christmas music from sleigh rides to stone cold tombs“. So when I decided to offer a brief list of some of my favorite things (where “things” = Christmas […]
Miracles and the old “testimony is unreliable so we can ignore miracle claims” chestnut
One of the first responses to my newly posted interview with Craig Keener came from Mike D who commented: Mike then simply rehashes David Hume by asserting that it is always more likely that an eye-witness is errant than that a miracle occurred. Never mind that Craig Keener offers an extensive rebuttal of the Scottish […]
29. Craig Keener on miracles
From the crossing of the Red Sea to the virgin birth, miracles occupy a central role in the biblical narratives. Alas, their role in modern life has been decidedly more ambiguous. That ambiguity owes much to the skeptical eighteenth century philosopher David Hume who famously defined a miracle as a violation of the laws of nature. […]
Twelve (or more) Reasons to Listen to The Tentative Apologist Podcast
I started The Tentative Apologist Podcast in May, 2013, and I’ve had a great time interviewing really smart people including a biologist/theologian, a physicist, a Catholic priest, a pastor, an atheist, an apologist, a theologian, a philosopher, and others besides. Well let me take this opportunity to let you know some of the great stuff […]
Don’t confuse moral courage with irrational dogmatism
My article “If God wants to damn your children, should you agree?” elicited a couple notable responses. Walter replied as follows: “I think the riddle is this: what do you do if God’s perfect goodness is so different from human conceptions of goodness that His actions are utterly indistinguishable from what you would normally consider […]
If God wants to damn your children, should you agree?
I ended off my last article on John Piper’s new video with the following quote where Piper embraces the possibility that God has willed Piper’s own children be reprobate for God’s greater glory: “I am not ignorant that God may not have chosen my sons for his sons. And, though I think I would give […]
What’s so Calvinistic about John Piper’s “The Calvinist”?
Check out this newly released video which features a long poem courtesy of John Piper, and then let’s talk: The interesting thing is that while this video is titled “The Calvinist”, and thus presumably aims to offer a portrait of theology that is uniquely Calvinist which is then worked out in the life of the […]
People who ride scooters aren’t all wusses
Motorcyclists tend to look down on those who ride scooters. Unless you’ve got a Vespa and you live in Sicily, scooters just ain’t cool. And everybody knows, therefore, that scooter riders are wusses. Right? Gee, now I’m not so sure. You see, a few weeks ago I was sitting outside McDonalds (see comedian Jim Gaffigan talk […]
