Category: General

More on Belief

Which is truth? Propositions or experience?

Ever have an argument with somebody that, months or even years later, you just can’t get out of you head? I do. Lots of ’em. Usually they keep surfacing until I win (at least in my head… 🙂 ).

[One of those arguments](http://www.neumatikos.org/essay/by-faith/#comment-299) happened almost a year and a half ago on this site between me and a guy named Zac on a part of a series I did on [faith](http://www.neumatikos.org/essay/by-faith/). We had some… philosophical differences.

It’s common enough to encounter the hyper-liberal suggestion that “true knowledge” excludes propositional truth and only includes experience and understanding. That is, that real truth cannot be condensed to consise statements. Continue reading “More on Belief”

Wow….

October 29, 2005

It’s been snowing here since 11:30am, and it’s sticking. Weirdness.

Update:

It’s slowed down now, but I got some nice pics that are in the gallery.

Update #2:

We had accumulations of about 2-4 inches…but it’s melting now. Such is life; I’m sure there will be plenty more as the winter progresses.

We went to the church’s harvest festival this eveing and it was a lot of fun.The kids were still playing games and getting candy when we left and I had a lot of fun just talking with the other church members. Both of my pumpkin pies got gobbled up and I plan to make some more come Thanksgiving.

I’m going to go quiz Kyle some more for his exam and then do some studying for my own exam.

Thanks be

Pulling my head out of the water long enough to give praise where praise is due:

Greek has been consistently kicking my butt. You know that [verse in Collossians](http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Colossians%202:15;&version=31;) where Jesus is depicted as a Roman general returning from battle, bringing back disarmed powers and principalities as a “public specticle”? Well, replace the principalities with me and Jesus with Greek, and you’ll get a pretty accurate gist of how I’ve been feeling about that class lately. I *love* languages, and Greek is pretty fascinating to me, but rote memorization has never been my strong point by any stretch of the imagination. (Remind me sometime to tell you about my experience in fourth grade with the multiplication tables…) I suck at it. I’ve got to have some interrelated network of ideas to hang things on, or they just slip right out of my mind. And with this class, the pace is just so fast that learning feels more like cramming – constantly. It just doesn’t let up for a minute.

I was getting to the point where I absolutely hated it. I was getting to the point where I was, you know, destitute; broken; desperate.

I was getting to the point where it actually occurred to me to pray. Continue reading “Thanks be”

Nor’easter on the Way

Here’s a bit of news from the Boston Globe that I found interesting since that’s just about the time that I would be going into school tomorrow.

High winds created by Wilma heading to Massachusetts

October 24, 2005

TAUNTON, Mass. –A Nor’easter fueled by energy from Hurricane Wilma could bring sustained winds of nearly 40 mph to the Massachusetts coast Tuesday, the National Weather Service said.

The Weather Service’s Taunton office said Monday that a high wind warning will be in effect from 4 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday, with scattered gusts of 60-65 mph possible for several hours.

The strongest winds are expected along the state’s southern coastline early Tuesday, with conditions there easing in the afternoon. High winds are expected to reach the Boston metropolitan area and the North Shore at midday Tuesday and linger into the evening.

The winds could down trees and power lines and cause property damage, the Weather Service said.

A coastal flood watch has also been issued for Massachusetts. The storm may produce 20 foot seas and a 3 foot storm surge, leading to minor or moderate coastal flooding during a high tide late Tuesday.

The storm is expected to intensify as it passes near Cape Cod on Tuesday, but Wilma herself is expected to track far to the east of New England.

After slowly meandering through the Caribbean to Mexico, Hurricane Wilma crashed ashore early Monday as a strong Category 3 storm, battering southwest Florida with 125 mph winds and pounding waves as it began a frantic dash across the peninsula.

I’ll let you know what happens.

Corpse Bride

Have you ever noticed that in Tim Burton’s world, the macabre is… *cuddly*?

Since we got our financial situation squared away a few weeks ago, Fridays have been movie day for Valerie and me. We both have Friday off, so we can go into town for lunch and a movie and get matinee prices to boot. Finally we can see all those movies we’ve been missing on the big screen! We’ve done this twice so far; Valerie’s paid for the movie and I”ve paid for lunch, each of us out of our newly alotted allowance. Unfortunately, with matinee priceing, I’m losing out. Each week I’ve been totaled, and this week, Valerie had enough left over to buy a pair of gloves. I think next week, *I’m* paying for the movie.

Last week we saw *[Wallace and Grommit](http://www.wandg.com/)*, which was excellent, and today we saw *[Corpse Bride](http://corpsebridemovie.warnerbros.com/)*, which was… excellent. What is it with stop animation these days? Continue reading “Corpse Bride”

Not Necessarily Wrong?

Tim Challies has a [post up](http://www.challies.com/archives/001376.php) on a family in Rogers, AK, which has just “celebrated the birth of their sixteenth child,” which has made them a bit of a local celebrity. They’re a godly Christian family, which seems to have determined that a good chunk of their “witness” is going to be through the godliness (and fecundity) of their family. In fact, from all reports, it sounds like they’re accomplishing with their family very much what I would *love* to do, though I doubt we’ll ever manage to reach **sixteen**.

The odd thing, though is the angle that Challies takes. The last time the Duggar family had a child, he wrote an article titled “How Fruitful is Too Fruitful?”, as if there could possibly be such a thing. The modern concept of family planning, i.e. limiting your numbers to how many children you can afford to pay flute lessons for, is clearly contrary to scripture. One wonders how Abraham, Isaac and Jacob might have reacted to such a suggestion.

After much thought and discussion, Tim and his wife decided that it’s “not necessarily wrong to have such a large family,” and then presents their reasoning, which seems to consist of a summary of the entire tenor of scripture. Not ***necessarily*** wrong? Good heavens! If you just use scripture as your moral compass, and shield yourself just a little from the mindset of modern Western culture, you should come to a more inverse conclusion:

Depending on your circumstances, and God’s particular direction for your family, it may not *necessarily* be wrong to **limit** your family’s size.

Upping My Antagonism

My mom always told me picking fights was bad.

Okay, that’s an oversimplificiation. What she said was that you can never convince anybody of anything simply by debating them into a corner. Debate, in any setting, is always for the sake of the audience. And, when the audience is your local church, picking a debate in the middle of, say, the morning service, is probably a bad idea. Odds are you’re more likely to stir up contention instead of bringing anybody to a closer appreciation of the truth. No matter who ends up being made to look stupid, both of you hurt the community of the church.

I’ve always tried to live by this standard of not picking theological fights in church. It’s a good standard. In fact, I’ve tried not to pick theological fights with anybody anywhere. Who ever has gotten saved because a Christian made them look stupid in public? But when it comes to blogging, not picking a fight may be exactly the wrong tack. Continue reading “Upping My Antagonism”