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Response to Uncle Skeptic on DawkinsPosted by Brian Trapp - October 11, 2008 on 4:24 pm | In ChristianThinker.net | No Comments In the comments section of my last post on a typical silly argument by Richard Dawkins against religious belief, Uncle Skeptic said:Allowing for some literary license with regard to generality and geography, the Dawkins quote is right on. If we can’t, in general, “judge an individual’s justification for her beliefs by the cultural soup from which those beliefs arise”, then how do you explain the overwhelming correlation between religion and geography? If you look at the geographical distribution of religions, it’s obvious that the vast majority of religious people do, in fact, acquire their religion based on the prevailing cultural soup.A few points here. First, you are confusing sociological questions with epistemological questions. There are simple sociological reasons why we find high levels of religious uniformity among entire cultures, nations, and races: such uniformity allows for social cohesion, national identity, and a shared set of values. That people often adopt the beliefs of those around them is not new or surprising. Suppose 99% of the people of a culture believe the same thing on a particular religious subject - say, that humans are made in the image of God - and they believe simply because that's what their parents or their culture told them. This fact has exactly zero bearing on whether people actually are made in the image of God or not. As for me, if I'm trying to determine for myself what my view on human nature is, sociological facts about how and why this belief is widely held in my culture are entirely irrelevant. What only matters is whether I have good reasons for accepting it or not, and that is an epistemological question that is independent of sociological ones. If I have a suspicion that I have been duped or "indoctrinated" either for or against this belief, I need only to investigate the matter for myself. Just because a belief is held widely in one particular culture does not automatically make it wrong. Continue reading "Response to Uncle Skeptic on Dawkins"
Dawkins on “childhood indoctrination”Posted by Brian Trapp - September 12, 2008 on 8:45 am | In ChristianThinker.net | No Comments Here is Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion:If you were born in Arkansas and you think Christianity is true and Islam is false, knowing full well that you would think the opposite if you had been born in Afghanistan, you are the victim of childhood indoctrination.Before we take this quote too seriously, we should consider the fact that this is the same Richard Dawkins who claimed that raising a child Catholic is worse than sexually abusing him. Credibility issues aside, what can we make of statements like the one above? This sort of reasoning is very prevalent in the writings of the new atheism of Dawkins, Harris, et al. But this is a typical Dawkinsian non-argument. There is no there there. What is the point of such statements other than to offer intellectual kudos to those who already disbelieve in any particular religion? Consider the following variation on the above quote: If you were born in Arkansas and you think representative democracy is the best form of government and that Islamic theocracy is the worst, knowing full well that you would think the opposite if you had been born in Afghanistan, you are the victim of childhood indoctrination.Or how about this one: If you were born in 1980 and you think the world is round instead of flat, knowing full well that you would think the opposite if you had been born in 1089, you are the victim of childhood indoctrination.If you can understand the silliness of the two latter statements, you should be able to understand the silliness of the first. You don't necessarily judge an individual's justification for her beliefs by the cultural soup from which those beliefs arise. Consider the following three facts: (1) I live in a culture where a majority of the people believe Christianity is true.And these: (4) Aziz lives in a culture where a majority of the people believe that Islam is true.Now, it's obvious that facts (1)-(3) have no bearing on whether Christianity is true or not, just as (4)-(6) have no bearing on whether Islam is true or not (if you think this is false then you have fallen victim to the genetic fallacy, and that's an entirely different discussion). Let's add one more fact to our list: (7) If I had been born in Aziz' family, I would have believed that Islam was true instead of Christianity.Dawkins' contention is that if I am aware that facts (1)-(7) are true, then I should conclude that I am a victim of "childhood indoctrination." But why? The circumstances under which I form a belief are different animals from the reasons I have for holding that belief. I suppose that by Dawkins using this sort of reasoning he means to hold up a simple truism: we shouldn't believe something just because it is widely believed in our own culture. This is obvious, but trivial. Dawkins is attempting to twist this simple truism into some sort of cudgel against religious belief. But just because it is true that some religious people hold their beliefs because they were raised in a religious culture, and because they themselves have not done enough reflection to have good reasons for their beliefs, does not mean that all of them do. And just because some parents indoctrinate and propagandize their children into religious belief does not mean that all of them do. I think most religious parents attempt, to the best of their ability, to give their children good reasons for why they think their religious views are right and others are wrong. That some parents fail miserably at this task is probably a contributor to the apostasy rate of children of religious believers, but that too is a different discussion altogether. Consider again my above variations on Dawkins' statement. Suppose someone were to use my first hypothetical statement to mock Dawkins for believing that representative democracy is superior to Islamic theocracy. What would his response be? I think he would simply point out that representative democracy is the best form of government for Reason A, Reason B, Reason C, and so forth. If he is justified in doing this, why is the religious believer not justified in doing the same thing? Facts about what someone would believe in a possible world in which they were raised in a different culture are irrelevant to the justification for the beliefs they hold in this, the real world. If we were to adopt this sort of skepticism, then it wouldn't just be religious beliefs that we would have to be skeptical about, but our moral beliefs, our political beliefs, and any other beliefs that fall short of being justified by naked logic or direct experience. Once again, for all his blustering and cuteness, the darling of the new atheists poses no convincing argument against the justification of religious belief. Dawkins always disappoints.
The Falling Man: Humanizing the Horrors of 9/11Posted by Brian Trapp - September 11, 2008 on 7:13 am | In ChristianThinker.net | No Comments Today markes the seventh anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Here is one of the most tragic and revealing videos about the horrors of that day. It is not graphic, but I do not advise you to watch it if seeing real-life tragedies upsets you.For more on the identity of one of the jumpers, see here.
Chesterton on worship of the “Inner Light”Posted by Brian Trapp - July 27, 2008 on 4:00 pm | In ChristianThinker.net | No Comments While rearranging books today, I opened my copy of G. K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy to a passage where he discusses what we would associate today with New Age thought. There I found this remarkable quote:Of all conceivable forms of enlightenment the worst is what these people call the Inner Light. Of all horrible religions the most horrible is the worship of the god within. Any one who knows any body knows how it would work; any one who knows any one from the Higher Thought Centre knows how it does work. That Jones shall worship the god within him turns out ultimately to mean that Jones shall worship Jones. Let Jones worship the sun or moon, anything rather than the Inner Light; let Jones worship cats or crocodiles, if he can find any in his street, but not the god within. Christianity came into the world firstly in order to assert with violence that a man had not only to look inwards, but to look outwards, to behold with astonishment and enthusiasm a divine company and a divine captain. The only fun of being a Christian was that a man was not left alone with the Inner Light, but definitely recognized an outer light, fair as the sun, clear as the moon, terrible as an army with banners.Is there a Christian writer alive today who writes with such clarity and common sense? If there is, I am not aware of him.
We are men of faith; lies do not become us. (Or, a defense of Southern Seminary from its uninformed detractors)Posted by Brian Trapp - July 6, 2008 on 12:13 pm | In ChristianThinker.net | No Comments Rodney Dunning of Very Important Stuff has been on an anti-Southern Baptist crusade recently, and I've been reading what he's had to say with an interested but cynical eye. One of his recent posts demands more than a mere reading, however. Unfortunately, exaggerations, misrepresentations, and slanderous caricatures of one's theological opponents are nothing new to the "debate" between theological liberals and conservatives, but this attack on Southern Seminary, an institution with which I have been affiliated for the last seven years, surpasses the normal liberal-conservative sniping that goes on in the theological blogosphere. It borders on, for lack of a better term, institutional defamation. Dunning links to an article in Ethics Daily, a theologically liberal cultural journal that generally speaks of conservative Southern Baptists as if they were the hand-picked agents of Satan on earth. The article, by one Pastor Keith Herron, throws some remarkable and strongly-worded accusations at Southern Seminary. The interesting thing is that Herron offers virtually no evidence in support of these accusations and, as someone intimately associated with the institution, its faculty, and its students, I can safely say that Herron's accusations are nakedly false. They are not only false and unfounded, but Herron (and Dunning, by proxy) turns them into weapons designed to damage the seminary's reputation among Christians, and that I cannot tolerate. The seminary and its officials have publicly taken positions in the past with which I have strongly disagreed, but I love Southern for its gospel-centeredness, its theological convictions, its unyielding pursuit of academic integrity, and for the ridiculously high quality of people that work and attend there. Continue reading "We are men of faith; lies do not become us. (Or, a defense of Southern Seminary from its uninformed detractors)"
Free philosophy books from GooglePosted by Brian Trapp - May 31, 2008 on 11:15 am | In ChristianThinker.net | No Comments No, I'm not dead. Neither am I incapacitated, unmotivated, or otherwise incapable of blogging. The simple reason for my absence is this: I used to blog during downtime at work. I was promoted in February, and now I have no downtime at work. I want to keep blogging on a regular basis, but I just haven't quite figured out how to do it. To prove my sincerity in this matter, I offer this, an actual post.Most of you are aware that the unsettling web hegemon known as Google has a Books section wherein the Google masters want to digitize as many books known to man as possible. For practical purposes many of these books are largely worthless, since most are copyrighted and you can only view a few pages. But many of the books have copyrights that have expired (I assume), so Google offers them for free viewing and as downloadable PDFs. The majority of these are older books from previous centuries, and this means that many classic philosophical and theological works are there for the taking. Here I offer downloadable links to some of these that I recently found while browsing through Google Books. Just click and save:
E. V. Hill: Sunday’s Comin’Posted by Brian Trapp - March 23, 2008 on 6:03 pm | In ChristianThinker.net | No Comments On the day we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord, the words of the late E. V. Hill are truly inspiring:
Arthur C. Clarke: 1917-2008Posted by Brian Trapp - March 18, 2008 on 7:47 pm | In ChristianThinker.net | Comments Off It greatly saddens me tonight to hear that Sir Arthur C. Clarke has passed away at age 90. If you, like me, have a robust notion of the Reformed doctrine of common grace, then I think it is safe to say that the cup of such grace was overflowing in Clarke's life. He was a prophet of the imagination, a man whose sole joy in life was to drink the wine of the beauty and mystery of the cosmos, and to share that draught with the rest of humanity. I have not read the majority of his over 100 books, but his major works affected me with a strange force that I can still feel to this day. Books like Rendezvous with Rama and Childhood's End are examples of Clarke's most visionary and inspiring work, and those who are not too uppity to read paperback science fiction will tell you that Clarke raised the medium to new heights. Some might even call it art. Unlike more "literary" authors, Clarke was not obsessed with the human condition, but with the vast universe with which the human condition must contend. I do not know much about his religious views, but in my mind he was always a naturalist, albeit a naturalist who, like Carl Sagan, looked to the stars for mankind's salvation. He held a lifelong awe at the universe that could almost be called religious. Clarke found a deep and abiding beauty in the mysteries of creation, and when reading him I always got the sense that he regretted being born in what he considered the infancy of human progress. He envisioned futures where men stretched out across the stars, found wonders and terrors there, and ultimately realized that they were at the mercy of greater powers than themselves. But, unlike Sagan, I do not know that Clarke was ever overtly hostile to Christianity. It's true that in some of his books one can detect subtle arguments for atheism, but Clarke was also friends with C. S. Lewis and wrote stories with religious themes. At any rate, he is one of the few members of the human race worthy to bear the overused title of "visionary." He determined how orbital satellites could work decades before they actually did. The most recent novel of Clarke's that I had the pleasure of reading was The Fountains of Paradise, which tells the story of the world's first space elevator. Clarke later wrote an interesting article detailing the challenges and possibilities of building a real space elevator. The idea sounds silly when you first think of it, but contemporary scientists take the idea very seriously and, just as it was with satellites, one day the strange possibility that Clarke envisioned could become a reality. Clarke will be missed. He was a giant of the human imagination. For Christians interested in how Clarke interacted with Christianity and theism, you might want to pick up the recent volume of his collected short stories and read "The Star" and "The Nine Billion Names of God."
Hermeneutics assessmentPosted by Brian Trapp - February 29, 2008 on 9:51 pm | In ChristianThinker.net | Comments Off How do you interpret Scripture? Take Scot McKnight's Hermeneutics Quiz here. I scored a 57, which is in the "moderate" range.[HT: Nihil Fit]
Hats off to HarryPosted by Brian Trapp - February 28, 2008 on 6:42 pm | In ChristianThinker.net | Comments Off I think there is a natural tendency in most people to let affluence and privilege weaken their character. Hence I have to say that I am greatly impressed with the news today that Prince Harry has been on duty in Afghanistan since late December. Harry's status in life represents the pinnacle of human privilege: not only are all his material needs met, he has the additional advantage of being a member of the near-mythological British royal family. He has the adulation of the British masses (despite some of his youthful faux pas), and he could literally pick from a thousand wonderful futures for himself.Yet he volunteers for the military, and apparently jockeys heavily for a position on the front lines of combat. Contrast this selfless and courageous behavior with the vapid wanderings of that other child of privilege whose worthless doings are plastered all over the media for no apparent reason. I salute you, Harry. This decision shows there is potential greatness in you, and I for one hope that potential is fulfilled. Also, for those interested in that sort of thing, in most of the images that have been released Harry is using an SA-80 assault rifle, an old 5.56 mm standby for British forces. But there are some who say the Brits need an update. [HT: Drudge. Again.]
Geldof on BushPosted by Brian Trapp - February 28, 2008 on 3:17 pm | In ChristianThinker.net | Comments Off Here is a fascinating article by Bob Geldof about his time spent with President Bush in Africa. Geldof is a reasonable liberal: he is strongly opposed to the Iraq War but he does not think Bush is evil. He recognizes the good the president has done in the world, even if he holds a fierce opposition to the war. Here is a lesson in wisdom: be charitable to those with whom you disagree, even if you believe they are doing great harm to the world. Do not turn them into a villain in your eyes unless you have no other option. This is a simple principle of prudence that seems impossible for millions of ideologically-blinded Americans to recognize.
The legacy of George W. BushPosted by Brian Trapp - February 18, 2008 on 6:00 am | In ChristianThinker.net | Comments Off Since my last post was (somewhat) about politics, I thought I'd keep the political train moving along here at ChristianThinker.net. Reuters has a story about how much adulation George W. Bush has received on his recent trip to Africa:Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete poured praise on Bush in Dar es Salaam on Sunday, the second day of his five-nation African tour, each compliment applauded warmly by members of the east African country's cabinet ...Now wait just a minute! Whenever I read the geniuses at The Huffington Post or Daily Kos, all I hear is that conservatives are selfish, warmongering, fascist, theocratic capitalists who oppress the poor, hate non-whites, and don't give a flip about third world countries. Oh, and by the way, the rest of the world hates us because of George W. Bush! Apparently not. I've had my problems with the presidency of Bush 43. I voted for him twice, but I've become a bit disillusioned with some of his decisions. Mismanagement of the war, bad choices in leadership, and a balloon in federal spending during his tenure have contributed to this disillusionment. But my biggest beef with ol' W is the starting of an extremely expensive and deadly conflict that, in hindsight, seems entirely unnecessary. Still, I am willing to let history judge the merits of the Iraq War. And there are things about Bush that I admire. Whatever his vociferous and rabid detractors may say about him, he is not evil. Neither is he Hitler, a fascist, a theocrat, a liar, or an unthinking ignoramus. He is, by many accounts, a man who has a singular moral vision for the world, a man who - although making mistakes along the way - has set his gaze toward the achievement of that vision in the face of a monstrous and well-organized opposition. It should be clear by now that Bush takes his responsibility as the most powerful man in the world very seriously. His decision to invade Iraq was not due to some geopolitical ambition to expand America's "empire," and neither was it to bolster the bottom line of the oil companies. I think that he firmly believed then (and now) that it was the best thing for the world that the regime of Saddam Hussein be dismantled. We are now in the last year of the Bush presidency. I can only hope that history will judge him more kindly than the American mob is now judging him. I also hope that, when he lies on his death bed considering the merits of his life, he will not see the angry faces of those uncharitable fools who suffer from the worst cases of Bush Derangement Syndrome. I hope rather that he sees the smiling faces of the Tanzanian people, thanking him for making their world a better place.
French Press Agency: Evangelical beliefs might turn soldiers into murderersPosted by Brian Trapp - February 14, 2008 on 6:25 pm | In ChristianThinker.net | Comments Off I generally refrain from posting on issues relating to politics or the media on this blog, but some stories are just too odious to ignore. Breitbart ran this piece from the Agence France-Presse. The story portrays itself as an objective report about the U. S. military, but in reality it is little more than a cleverly-constructed theological hit piece. The premise is that there are individuals in the U. S. Armed Forces who feel they have suffered religious discrimination from some overzealous evangelical officers:Since his last combat deployment in Iraq, Jeremy Hall has had a rough time, getting shoved and threatened by his fellow soldiers. The trouble started there when he would not pray in the mess hall.I have no doubt that there are instances of this sort of bad behavior on the part of Christians. Every socio-political-religious group has its fools. The Christian church has them, so do the Muslims, as well as the atheists. Heck, I'd be willing to bet that you could even find a few Unitarians who like to bust heads every now and then. No group is comprised of flawless members, and hence this is not controversial. In an organization as large as the United States Armed Forces (about 2.9 million strong), it is not surprising to find all sorts of unacceptable behavior, even among Christians. The story portrays this to be a widespread phenomenon. For example, the head of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation claims to have 6,800 accounts of this sort of abuse at the hands of Christians in the military. But a Pentagon spokesperson quoted says that there have been only 100 formal complaints filed over the past two years. Let's crunch the numbers here. If the higher number is correct (and I do not concede for a moment that it is), then of the 2.88 million members of the U. S. military, less than a quarter of 1 percent of them have suffered abuse at the hands of these dastardly fundamentalists. If the lower number is correct, then it's about .0035 percent. You will forgive me if I find the offended specialist's remarks about those who want to "create a fundamentalist Christian theocracy" in the military a bit over-dramatic. But the story holds its cards until the very last sentence. The unnamed journalist interviews a former chaplain who says he was harassed for not towing a certain theological line. The final quote belongs to the anonymous chaplain: "As a soldier, many times you want to believe you're fighting on the right side. It's easy to kill someone if you believe that they're going to hell and that they are religiously opposed to you."Of course! If you hold to the exclusivity of salvation through Christ, you may become a murderer! I'm sure all the evangelicals in the military are constantly engaged in a vicious internal battle, struggling to will themselves not to cut the throats of their unbelieving comrades in their sleep. I do not give the AFP a pass on this issue simply because the quote comes from a source that was interviewed, just as I would not give them a pass if they were to give the final word to someone who said that holding Jewish beliefs might cause someone to want to drink human blood. That this statement would even be quoted is unconscionable, and it only serves as an illustration of the schizophrenia that surrounds the notion of "tolerance" in contemporary western culture. To the anonymous former chaplain (and to the AFP) I would say: you do not show the dangers of religious intolerance by making equally egregious and inflammatory statements about the beliefs of evangelicals. That's like trying to spread the virtues of pacifism by randomly kicking people in the groin.
Socrates on partyingPosted by Brian Trapp - February 7, 2008 on 1:40 pm | In ChristianThinker.net | Comments OffTherefore, those who have no experience of reason or virtue, but are always occupied with feasts and the like, are brought down and then back up to the middle, as it seems, and wander in this way throughout their lives, never reaching beyond this to what is truly higher up, never looking up at it or being brought up to it, and so they aren't filled with that which really is and never taste any stable or pure pleasure. Instead, they always look down at the ground like cattle, and, with their heads bent over the dinner table, they feed, fatten, and fornicate. To outdo others in these things, they kick and butt them with iron horns and hooves, killing each other, because their desires are insatiable. For the part that they're trying to fill is like a vessel full of holes, and neither it nor the things they are trying to fill it with are among the things that are.So, in other words:- Socrates, in Plato, The Republic, Book IX, translated by G. M. A. Grube  Any questions?
A minor updatePosted by Brian Trapp - February 1, 2008 on 2:54 pm | In ChristianThinker.net | Comments Off I've updated the "Reading List" section on the right with some of the books I'm reading this semester. When will I get back to blogging? It's hard to say, since the amount of free time I can devote to the blogosphere seems to be less and less. Hopefully soon, however, since I have quite a few topics I'd like to discuss. Heck, the Lost Season 4 premiere was last night and I'm not even sure I'll be able to post on that. Times are hectic.
Nike “Leave Nothing” adPosted by Brian Trapp - January 15, 2008 on 6:29 pm | In ChristianThinker.net | Comments Off Michael Mann is one of my favorite directors. The musical score from his The Last of the Mohicans is one of my all-time favorite film scores. Football is my favorite sport. As I was watching a recent NFL game I saw this Nike ad, which combines all three of these things. Needless to say, it very much warmed my heart.
An inter-blogosphere inquiryPosted by Brian Trapp - January 7, 2008 on 4:59 pm | In ChristianThinker.net | Comments Off Regular posting is to resume shortly here at ChristianThinker.net, but in the meantime, does anyone know what happened to Prosthesis? I liked that guy.
The Tiniest DancerPosted by Brian Trapp - December 27, 2007 on 12:52 am | In ChristianThinker.net | Comments Off Here's one of the Christmas presents I gave to my wife and child:
Preaching SundayPosted by Brian Trapp - December 20, 2007 on 11:05 pm | In ChristianThinker.net | Comments Off Just a note for anyone who might be interested: I'll be preaching in the morning service this Sunday at First Baptist Church of Sheffield, Alabama. My text is Isaiah 8:1-9:7 and the title of my message is, "Incarnation and Indignation: A Happy Little Christmas Story About God's Wrath and Messianic Deliverance."
Lost Season 4 trailerPosted by Brian Trapp - December 20, 2007 on 10:38 pm | In ChristianThinker.net | Comments OffI have only one comment here: if there were a Wikipedia entry for Awesomeness, it would certainly contain nothing but a direct link to this trailer. For version far superior to the pixelated YouTube trash above, go here. [HT: Ain't It Cool News]
A few links while life marches onPosted by Brian Trapp - December 13, 2007 on 10:10 am | In ChristianThinker.net | Comments Off I apologize for the dearth of new posts here in the past month. Since the semester finished up I've been enjoying some (or, perhaps, too much) relaxation time. I hope to dive back into some meaty topics in the New Year. In the interim, I offer a few links of interest:
The sewage of modern political discoursePosted by Brian Trapp - November 7, 2007 on 10:08 am | In ChristianThinker.net | Comments Off Pat Robertson to endorse Giuliani. This news is interesting in itself, but I link to the Washington Post blog above just to highlight the stinking, squalid sewer that makes up contemporary political discourse. Here are a few of the comments aimed at Christian conservatives from their compassionate progressive opponents:
UPDATE: Of course it isn't just faceless web trolls who like to splash in the sewer. Newspaper columnists do it too, as John at Verum Serum points out this morning.
Audio of Plantinga’s Norton Lectures now availablePosted by Brian Trapp - November 6, 2007 on 4:24 pm | In ChristianThinker.net | Comments Off The Southern Seminary website has been updated with MP3 links to Alvin Plantinga's lectures on science and religion that he gave on campus a few weeks back. I attended the lectures but haven't posted about them yet, simply because I had already heard or read virtually all of the material he covered. Much of the content in his lectures at Southern was identical to what he said in his Gifford Lectures a few years ago. I did get to ask Professor Plantinga a question during one of the question-and-answer sessions, and I may post about that in the near future. Unfortunately the audio files do not include the questions that were posed during these sessions. Nevertheless, since Plantinga is one of my heroes it was a great thrill for me to get to hear him in person and to (briefly) interact with him. My work/school/church schedule prevents me from going to any APA or SCP meetings where I might otherwise get to hear him, so I'm grateful that he chose to spend a few days with us at Southern. Here are links to the lectures:
Al Plantinga and one of his hopeless fanboysPosted by Brian Trapp - October 25, 2007 on 12:18 pm | In ChristianThinker.net | Comments Off
The best acknowledgment you may ever readPosted by Brian Trapp - October 23, 2007 on 8:29 pm | In ChristianThinker.net | Comments Off Almost all non-fiction books nowadays have an opening "Acknowledgments" section, wherein the author thanks his dog, his neighbor, his priest, his colleagues, his editor, and perhaps even his family or the Almighty Himself. It is not often that one finds a line of prose in one of these sections that is worth quoting, but these words by J. Budziszewski are surely worthy of some kind of acknowledgment award, if such things existed:Above all others I thank the triune God, Father of Lights, Kindler of Wisdom, without whom all thought is darkness and all knowledge dusk. Now my mind is smoke; on that Day, O Lord, will it be fire.The line is from his Written on the Heart: The Case for Natural Law, a fine book in its own right. It's just a shame no one knows how to pronounce the author's name.
Two great menPosted by Brian Trapp - October 22, 2007 on 1:45 pm | In ChristianThinker.net | Comments Off "Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them."[HT: Justin Taylor]- Malvolio, in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night
The Maverick Philosopher knocks ‘em downPosted by Brian Trapp - October 21, 2007 on 6:40 pm | In ChristianThinker.net | Comments Off Here is a must-read post by Bill Vallicella: Does the Atheist Deny What the Theist Affirms?. I have no time to comment now. Perhaps later. Perhaps not.
What kind of a nerd am I?Posted by Brian Trapp - October 19, 2007 on 11:57 pm | In ChristianThinker.net | Comments Off I don't know what to say. I thought I would score much higher in the "Technology/Computer" category.
Sean Gould avoids a treePosted by Brian Trapp - October 18, 2007 on 8:56 pm | In ChristianThinker.net | Comments Off I'd like to offer a quick shout-out to fellow seminary student, co-worker, and co-blogger Sean Gould, who I just saw on the local ABC affiliate here in Louisville giving glory to God for keeping him safe through the spate of bad weather we had here tonight. The TV station's website quotes him (and spells his name wrong) here.
A lesson in atheistic hyperbolePosted by Brian Trapp - October 12, 2007 on 12:45 pm | In ChristianThinker.net | Comments Off If the unlikely scenario ever arises that I am commissioned to write an encyclopedia entry on "hyperbole", I think I might include the following words of this atheist blogger as an illustration:Over the last decade or so, the religious right has exercised virtually untrammeled power in America. They've commanded the allegiance of a majority of the population and have enjoyed tremendous influence and near-unchallenged power in popular culture, in the media, and especially in government. They have had abundant opportunity to make it clear to everyone what they most care about and what principles they advocate, and they have done so. And as their electoral fortunes waned, they have only become louder and more vehement.Maybe such a statement would better fit in an encyclopedia entry on "howler" or, perhaps, "inscrutable poppycock." But enough of my jibes: let's analyse the above statement for accuracy. Continue reading "A lesson in atheistic hyperbole"
My wife’s new blogPosted by Brian Trapp - October 8, 2007 on 3:33 pm | In ChristianThinker.net | Comments Off I have great news for all humanity: the wisest, most charming and most beautiful woman in the world is now blogging. Drink ye deeply of her insights and enjoy.
Random links for your perusalPosted by Brian Trapp - October 8, 2007 on 9:14 am | In ChristianThinker.net | Comments Off No time for thinking, thus only for linking. Here are a few things I've found interesting today:
EW on The HobbitPosted by Brian Trapp - October 5, 2007 on 11:00 am | In ChristianThinker.net | Comments Off For those of you hoping that Tolkien's The Hobbit will make it to the big screen under the all-seeing eye of Peter Jackson, the project may be inching closer. Entertainment Weekly has a good story on all the controversy and hoopla that have held up the film so far.
Details on Plantinga at SBTSPosted by Brian Trapp - October 4, 2007 on 10:56 pm | In ChristianThinker.net | Comments Off From the Southern Seminary newswire, here are the details on Plantinga's lectures on campus later this month:Dr. Alvin Plantinga, John A. O'Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, will be the Fall 2007 Norton Lecturer, October 23-25. The Norton Lecture Series is as follows:
SEP Metaphysics articlePosted by Brian Trapp - October 2, 2007 on 2:34 pm | In ChristianThinker.net | Comments Off I was just browsing the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and saw that the fine Christian philosopher Peter van Inwagen has a new entry on Metaphysics.
Dobson helps elect HillaryPosted by Brian Trapp - October 1, 2007 on 12:16 am | In ChristianThinker.net | Comments Off Groan.
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