A definition is the obituary of an idea. (2003/11/06)
One of my father’s favorite sayings was “a definition is the obituary of an idea”. For all that our culture, and our very survival, depend on rationality, it has its limits. There are things we cannot usefully encapsulate in our nice, rational, minds. Some things don’t survive dissection; you can take a clock apart to find out how it works, or at least how it used to work, but you can’t take a kitten apart to find out why it’s cute. There are things which no definition can fully capture. I can describe them, and you can recognize them if you’ve experienced them, or possibly just if you’ve experienced something similar. I’ve “recognized” what people were talking about when they spoke of “being in love” more than once. I think I’m right this time, but that’s what I thought last time, too.
[read more...]Understanding agnosticism (2003/10/25)
Thomas Henry Huxley coined the word “agnostic”, describing it as follows:
[read more...]Formal debate! (2003/10/16)
The big lie (2003/09/22)
Deep in the core of mainstream religious thought is a lie so deep, so pervasive, that it often seems to have corrupted everything. This lie is the belief that to have faith, you must be totally free of doubts. It’s wrong.
[read more...]Of course it'll work. It always works. (2003/09/13)
For eternal beings, they are strangely impatient. “Will it work? Will it happen?” “Of course it’ll work. It always works.”
[read more...]What if Eve tempted the serpent? (2003/09/07)
One of the things that people often wrestle with in Christian theology is the question of where, exactly, evil came from. Why was there anyone around to tempt Eve? What purpose had this evil thing in being?
[read more...]Bible II: Electric Boogaloo (2003/06/05)
I have always wondered if other people have a different Bible than I do; perhaps it’s called “Bigger, Longer, and Uncut”.
[read more...]WinAce, Annabel Lee, and hypocrisy. (2003/05/27)
This entry is sort of an expansion on this thread over at ChristianForums, but also a bit of thinking about some other issues that came up one day. The thread it was based on was lost in the Great Crash of 2003; sorry.
[read more...]Thoughts on being an honorary Catholic. (2003/05/26)
When I first started hanging out at ChristianForums, I made a few friends fairly early on. One day, they informed me that they’d declared me an honorary Catholic.
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