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I have been accused of saying nothing new. It happened awhile back with one of my essays, where someone commented that it was old news and was rather disappointed by it. It was a valid accusation: I wasn’t saying anything new, and I knew it. And I kinda felt like I […] Recently I was reading a book, a memoir, written by a woman who had been raised conservative Christian and who is now (I think it’s fair to guess) a theist without being set on the particulars. She is highly educated, with a Ph.D, and like many people with higher education, she puts a […] It occured to me that when Christians talk about sin and forgiveness and atonement and so on, that we immediately get hammered for spreading fear and false guilt. But when Christians start talking about forgiveness and salvation and new life and spotless souls, we immediately get nailed for eliminating personal responsibility. We can’t […] A lot of you are not going to agree with this. I’m not asking you to. I just had to get some thoughts out. They’re about government, and Christianity, and the origins of my beloved nation. Is the United States really all that special to God? More special than other nations? […] Y’know, there’s this thought that goes around that good cannot exist without evil. And in a way, I can see where that comes from. I’m unfamiliar with the details of the philosophies that teach it, but anyone who’s spent enough time thinking about things can work out that bad actions can have good […] So this last week I finally saw Avatar. And afterwards, I was reading about the movie, and the audience reaction to it, and lo and behold some people had a rather unexpected response to it: they got depressed. The story goes that the CGI world of Pandora was so breathtakingly beautiful that in […] So here’s a question for y’all: why do we have rules? This is an especially fun question for Christians, seeing as we go on quite eloquently about how our salvation makes us free, and how we are no longer Under The Law. If I were the kind of person who liked […] So I’m going to talk politics. (Oh, boy, if that isn’t comments-bait, I don’t know what is.) I’m going to talk politics in a way that’s been smoldering along in the back of my head for years. This is not borne out of the current political climate. I was thinking this […] One of my favorite things on television right now is Doctor Who, a very old, very weird, very British sci fi about an alien who goes traveling through time and space and saves the day through sheer ingenuity. Just recently, there was an episode that gave me pause about the nature of belief. […] We like justice. We like rules. We like to draw lines between things. One place on TVTropes.org that I like to tool around in is the Morality section, especially those parts pertaining to heroes and villains. It’s got all kinds of classifications. Hero, antihero, villain, antivillain, chaotic good, lawful evil, true […] |
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