Whenever you want to get a lot of response from religious people, ask something basic yet broadly-defined and colored by perspective. At the Christian Libertarians group on facebook, someone asked what faith was. The responses were varied as you’d expect with such a word with varied usage. I was surprised there wasn’t the guy that … A Very Clear Post About the Definition of Religious Faith
Almost a year ago I posted about the typical alien invasion scenario one sees in sci-fi books and films, and how those scenarios were unlikely versus possible non-coercive interactions. In a Stefan Molyneux speech I was listening to the other day I was surprised to hear him mention it, though it was only as an … More on Alien Invasions, Moron Alien Invasions
2011 was a mostly-arbitrary division of time just like any other, but things happened within that duration in my life that are worth noting. My son got borned in August and I got canned from Noisecreep in the Great AOL/HuffPurge. On the literary side I released Bored in the Breakroom as a free e-book (rave … Annual “Click All My Amazon Affiliate Links” Post, 2011 Version
Like someone else in a similar position recently posted, I’ve decided to suspend A Season Underneath indefinitely. The reasons are legion, but the biggest is that I am on my fourth rewrite and it doesn’t seem to be getting a whole lot better. The chapters are just sort of there, with no real story to … I Used To Write Her
Writers love to hi-five each other with permalinks instead of dollar bills in our hands, then we return to our dens and badmouth others’ sentence structures and word choice into half-empty coffee mugs. This post is different because I’m referencing a comment that I made and liked, posted on someone else’s site. Mike Duran’s blog … A Post Where I Feature a Comment I Made About Car Accidents
I posted about the problem of evil about a month ago, and I had some further ideas related to it. God created at least one physical universe with moral agency (axiomatic). God created the angels with moral agency (2 Peter 2:4, Jude 6). God would be omniscient enough to know when his preference for moral … Further Thoughts on God and Trans-World Moral Agency
An interesting image of dubious accuracy that has popped up many times in my facebook feed the last week. The origin might be here, but a website with a domain name like that might not be the best source for statistics. Some may cluck their tongues at America’s unfettered capitalism but it’s really a result … Something To Get Mad About For A Few Minutes
I posted before about the kinda-sorta-in-a-way superiority of physical books as opposed to e-books. It felt like a conflict of interest as I’ve released an e-book of my own, but since a physical book(let) of a short story has been actualized (more on that later) I won’t feel the cognitive dissonance as harshly. The emergence … Another Case for Physical Books
After reveling in spirits the night before, come to Discovery in Cranberry Township/Pittsburgh this Sunday. We begin the new series, God the Artist, featuring a story I wrote plus some other fun writey type of things. You’ll be able to buy a book designed by Kevin Rupert and notecards designed by Alanna James. The money … Drag Your Hangover to My Church This Sunday Morning
»Seth W recently released a little zine of sketches of broken robots, called Broken Robots. You can get it for free if he has any more of them. It makes a nice addition to the decor for any of my fellow cubicle jockeys’ working quarters (see photo, where it is nicely coupled with a full … Broken Robots and Memoirs
I will get to the falling anvils later. But first, here’s the problem of evil set in deductive logic form. My church’s small group dealt with this idea a few weeks ago, and I think it’s the best argument against the Christian God there is. God is omnibenevolent. God is omnipotent. God is omniscient. Evil … The Problem of Anvils
Tobias Buckell posted on and about his blog a few days ago, with a interesting chart on his blog’s traffic. He turned off comments some time ago but his traffic increased. This is counterintuitive to a lot of chatty blog marketeers, who overstress the community aspect. If your blog doesn’t have comments, then it’s just … On Blogging Too Much About Writing and Armadillos
I had the thought to reboot Jesus’ message of the Good Samaritan into more modern terms after last Sunday’s sermon. Doubtlessly this has been done before, but the point of this was to use people I would expect to be good or bad neighbors in a role reversal, which I think is part of the … The Good Godless Humanist
» My church is doing a series on art and Christianity and they asked me to be a part of it, which I am honored to be doing*. I’ll have a short story (not flash fiction) to be included in a nicely-designed short story book for sale in the near future. I don’t know the subject … A Blog Post of Small Bits of Information of Possible Interest
I saw this video over a month ago via Bill’s site. Movie cliches are more noticeable because of their easy access and immediacy. Literary cliches, not so much, but they definitely exist and they can be just as horrid. Consider the meta-cliche, “It was a dark and stormy night.” A night was dark, you say? … Avoid This Post Like the Plague
To add to my image of long-suffering but borderline dorkdom, I had the thought to add the text of incantations I’ve seen in Bleach episodes somewheres online (probably Facebook), not because I think fictional magic is cool, as I have no strong affections either way for it, but because those particular ones are nicely written. … Necromancer? I Barely Know Her!
Cathy posted the interview she did with me about flash fiction right here. There’s a flash fiction autobiography of me and a six word story I agonized over for a few days. You can even write your own six-worder in the comments. Not that you couldn’t do that anyways but writing a six word story … My First Interview Will Make You Question the Internet, Life
It’s been recently pointed out to me by the astute Ms. Apokedak that one of my RSS feeds is the old, pre-Feedburner one. If you stick https://jaydinitto.com into Google Reader’s “Add a Subscription” function you will get this old one, as opposed to the new one linked on the right column there or right here. … An Update on My RSS Feed That I Don’t Want to Publish
I got some great responses on my post wondering how pastors write and/or deliver sermons. Bill LaMorey from Calvary Fellowship West Hartford provided links to his personal site on how he does it, and linked to a Mark Driscoll interview where he reveals his method. How pastors do this interested me because it involves writing … On Getting Schooled by Church Leaders