The Real Reason We Need to Stop Trying to Protect Everyone’s Feelings Sic et Non, Souls and Pre-existence – I’m in the middle of reading Plato’s Phaedo, and the soul’s pre-existence was forefront. Instead of bumbling through a post about it, JT’s writing is much better. A classic formula for pi has been discovered hidden … Links of Possible Relevance, Part 9
If the obnoxious image at the top of the front page here didn’t punch you in the eye, you can click here to donate. I’ll be posting a Goodreads giveaway for my older book soon, too. I probably won’t be cross-posting things I put up on the Kickstarter page here, for your mental health. Thanks … “Pale Blue Scratch” Kickstarter is Now a Go
I don’t normally comment on these “dawww that’s cute” type of stories, but I’ve been seeing this too much to ignore it. Story here, original Facebook post here. I was about to write it off as another useless social media story with a gratuitous selfie of Julia for maximum attention generation, until I read that … That Julia Price Story is Suspect
1. “Refugee,” much like “slave,” used in this modern context, may be wildly different than mentions of “refugee” in some translations of the Bible. X doesn’t always mean x, especially when there’s a good few thousand years worth of linguistic, cultural, and technological differences. 2. Universal moral imperatives, especially for something so complex as this … Random Thoughts on the Syrian Diaspora Issue
It’s been a while since I did one of these! The Medieval Mind and the Modernist Error – You might be dumber than a 12th century French peasant who makes $2 a year. Academia’s Rejection of Diversity – AKA: A moral imperative for us, not for them. The Latest Evidence That Helmet Laws Don’t Help … Links of Possible Relevance, Part 8
This isn’t actually a movie proper, but a splicing together of all the Clone Wars episodes, which were of varying length. So it’s more a succession of vignettes than anything. These are the episodes from the 2003-2005 series, not the more extensive CGI series from 2008 (titled, The Clone Wars). I don’t recall if that … Humpday Movie – Star Wars: Clone Wars (2003 Series, HD)
I changed a few things on the site, to make things a little wonky. The biggest change were the drawer dropdowns I used for the navigation. The plugin seemed to take up a lot of the load time, and the experience wasn’t ideal on mobile, so I ditched it. There’s only one navigable page—the “About” … Another Site Design Update
I remember watching the Rocky movies countless times when I was younger, and I never thought the semi-iconic scene in Rocky III where Rocky finally out-sprints Apollo Creed was implicitly homosexual. Watching it now, one has to wonder how much attitudes have changed, such that the filmmakers back then (1982) never thought twice that this … Rocky and Mutual Male Touching
This has probably already been said somewhere, but given what we know from the trailers, other sources, and basic cinematic tropes, I can predict one of the crucial plot element at the Star Wars: The Force Awakens. We know Luke Skywalker is in exile for some reason. He’s in
In the last part of John 1, Jesus recruits Philip, who then goes to tell Nathanael about Him. Nathanael is skeptical but does an about-face when he asks Jesus how He knew him. It’s implied that there is some divine foreknowledge on Jesus’ part when He said “I saw you” under the fig tree; presumably, … Quick Bible Study: John’s Nathanael Narrative
Consider this a public service announcement post, since I had some issues with getting my copy of Halo 2 to work, even after doing research online. I have an Xbox 360 E, and they require an internal drive to make original Xbox games compatible. However, the internal drive must be an official Microsoft hard drive, … How to Play Xbox Games on an XBox 360
After upgrading to Windows 10, I saw that the Mozilla Manifesto was directly linked from the Firefox’s default “new tab” screen (for the record, I’m a Chrome guy). With Mozilla’s recent dalliances with progressive politics, I wanted to see if it infected their official statement of purpose. It mostly didn’t, thankfully, but it is rather … Mozilla’s Manifesto Is Eh
The quote below is from Children of the Mind (free pdf here), the last book in the The Ender Quartet series, Chapter 7, page 101. This is part of a chapter of the book that stuck with me, since it describes a material and technological phenomenon in mythical language. “Myth” has been transformed into a … Orson Scott Card’s Myth-Language
After a some comments I made on one of Mike Duran’s post, “Does Christian Fiction Have a Race Problem?”, I was set to write a lot of about the politicized nature of the modern diversity concept. Stefan Molyneux beat me and saved me some writing time, so I’d advise you to watch the video below. … The Diversity Issue
The comments on my last post reminded me of how much scientific “stuff” we really don’t know, epistemologically, so this is just a quick reminder. Since we don’t do experiments ourselves and only learn about them after they’ve gone through many hands and eyes, and through a massive popularization filter (looking at you, I Fucking … What You Really Love
From a letter to William Lane Craig, Craig’s response (bold mine): Your envisioned scenario is quite similar to the objection of the late philosopher J. Howard Sobel. Sobel invites us to conceive of something which, if it is possible, is a dragon in whichever world is the actual world. This is just like your “phoenix … Mad Max(imally)
A cut and paste post while I’m busy finishing up Pale Blue Scratch. I recently finished a staycation and was busy annoying everyone on Facebook with my humdrum, activities in the dense suburbs of Pittsburgh. Here they are, serialized for your pleasure—because what’s more entertaining than what an average white American male does in his … The Staycation Dad Chronicles
See here and here for reference. 1. Inference (2): “If (i) morally good acts are willed by God because they are morally good, then they are morally good independent of God’s will.” – Possibly true, but irrelevant, since there’s other things besides God’s will that morality could rest upon: i.e., God’s power or omniscience. 2. … The Euthyphro Dumb-lemma
Though I don’t have the formal education on this, like some do, to point to primary sources, but Medieval thought in general held sin, especially blasphemy, to cause actual harm in the physical world. This puts a different spin on witch trials and inquisitions, since committing blasphemy could be considered no different than assault. One … Of Blasphemy and Trigger Warnings
I ignore such salacious, morally complicated stories as the Kim Davis fiasco, but the bleating on Facebook has been hard to ignore. I have little true opinion about it since it has no direct bearing on my life, but it does serve as a working example of competing loyalties that demand full allegiance. As a … Separate the Church and the State