I'm reading Nnewts!

Check out the new web comic Nnewts by Doug TenNapel

http://nnewts.com/page-18/

And be sure to check out the commentary by the author at the bottom of each page.

Quote of the week: C.S. Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism

“In reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in the Greek poem, I see with a myriad of eyes, but it is still I who see. Here, as in worship, as in love, I transcend myself; and am never more myself than when I do.”

~C.S. Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism

Annotating Texts: Some Suggestions (with Pictures!)

Helpful tips for intelligent reading:

http://forsclavigera.blogspot.com/2012/08/annotating-texts-some-suggestions-with.html

No Shades of Gray

Nellie Gray 1924 - 2012

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/314271/no-shades-gray-nro-symposium?pg=1

Form$Function

I'm trying to find room for all my books, which have been boxed up since my last move, but don't want a lot of clutter or to spend much money. Last week I checked online and went to a few furniture stores to check prices. I could find nothing made of solid wood for a reasonable price or quality appearance. Furniture store pieces were all made of laminate and nothing the proper size for less than $170. Too much. I ended up buying three pieces of 1x10x8 rough-cut pine--which is nice because rough-cut is full size and won't sag--from the local lumberyard for less than $5 per board. The hardware and finish materials were left overs collecting dust in my dad's garage. I was able to keep my business local and build a better, longer lasting and more ecologically friendly product in only a few hours (spaced over three days) for less than $15 dollars. Here is the end result; you might recognize the horse motif from a banner hanging in King Theoden's hall in the LOTR movies. Besides adding a little character the horse heads saved some waste material and function as permanent book ends for loading up the top of the case making six full shelves at a total height of 80" and width 34" OD. I thought of adding a celtic braid down the sides as well but didn't have the time and prefer to keep things simple as possible.

The Literary Response to Radical Atheism

"Fiction, at its best, not only suggests but insists upon the possibility of some order in the world, even if we create or impose that order. Likewise, it insists that human experience has meaning, and that in that meaning lies a form of solace. Rosenberg’s response to all this, I’m sure, would be: more power to you. At the same time, he would urge me not to make the mistake of believing that the solace I find in art is any more real or meaningful than the solace others find from shopping or from altering the chemicals in their brains. To which I want to say, why not?"

 http://harpers.org/archive/2012/07/hbc-90008707

Quote of the Week: C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce

   ‘I don’t know about all, Sir,’ said I. ‘Am I right in thinking the Lizard really turned into the Horse?’

   ‘Aye. But it was killed first. Ye’ll not forget that part of the story?’

   ‘I’ll try not to, Sir. But does it mean that everything—everything—that is in us can go on to the Mountains?’

   ‘Nothing, not even the best and noblest, can go on as it now is. Nothing, not even what is lowest and most bestial, will not be raised again if it submits to death. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. Flesh and blood cannot come to the Mountains. Not because they are too rank, but because they are too weak. What is a lizard compared with a stallion? Lust is a poor, weak, whimpering, whispering thing compared with that richness and energy of desire which will arise when lust has been killed.’

Lewis, C. S. (2009-05-28). The Great Divorce (Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis) (p. 114). Harper Collins, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

Alvin Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstorff on Christian Conduct in the Academic World

HT: Evangelical Philosophical Society Blog

An Interview with Craig Blomberg on Jesus and the Reliability of the Gospels

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/2012/07/08/an-interview-with-craig-blomberg-on-jesus-and-the-reliability-of-the-gospels/

Beyond Atheism: Postmodernity and the Future of God

violent http://vimeo.com/17928669


This video came up in my FB feed yesterday and I really enjoyed listening to what James K.A. Smith had to say. I attempted to share this same idea with some of my university classmates who believed themselves to be postmodernists but were really closet modernists. Interestingly, our professor for that class, while not a friend of the incarnation, was in agreement.

Sodomy, Christianity, and atheism

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2012/07/sodomy-christianity-and-atheism.html

Quote of the Week: Makoto Fujimura

Deeply engaged reading leads to perceptual awakening, stimulation of the core of the intuitive and experiential...What reading and writing can teach us is a deeper empathy that leads us to desire the best for others who are entirely different from us, and to long to communicate with them.

-Makoto Fujimura, Refractions #26: The Epistle of Van Gogh

Yearning

The beauty and power of logic and poetry penetrates to our very core.
An ancient burning, immanent and transcendent.
Kindled from the beginning by the eternal personal source to whom it calls us home.

Quote of the week: James Orr, Christian View of God and the World

If apologetic is to be spoken of, this surely is the truest and best form of Christian apology—to show that in Christianity, as nowhere else, the severed portions of truth found in all other systems are organically united, while it completes the body of truth by discoveries peculiar to itself.

Orr, James (2010-07-30). Christian View of God and the World - Enhanced Version (Kindle Locations 536-538). Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Kindle Edition.

Hello Sweetie

A man with logic is never at the mercy of a woman with intuition.

Viewing the river from the bridge

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2012/06/viewing-river-from-bridge.html

Quote of the Week: Blaise Pascal, Pensées

[T]here are two kinds of people one can call reasonable; those who serve God with all their heart because they know Him, and those who seek Him with all their heart because they do not know Him.

Pascal, Blaise (2006-04-27). Pascal's Pensées (p. 59). Public Domain Books. Kindle Edition.

Leftist Hate Crimes

http://keithburgess-jackson.typepad.com/blog/2012/05/abortion.html

HT: Triablogue

Quote of the Week: Thomas Traherne, Centuries of Meditations

Love can forbear, and Love can forgive, though it can never be reconciled to an unlovely object. And, hence it is that though you have so little considered the Works of God, and prized His Love; yet you are permitted to live: and live at ease, and enjoy your pleasure. But Love can never be reconciled to  an unlovely object, and you are infinitely unlovely by despising God and His Love so long. Yea, one act only of despite done to the smallest creature made you infinitely deformed. What shall become of you therefore since God cannot be reconciled to an ugly object? Verily you are in danger of perishing eternally. He cannot indeed be reconciled to an ugly object as it is ugly, but as it is capable of being otherwise He may. He can never therefore be reconciled to your sin, because sin itself is incapable of being altered: but He may be reconciled to your person, because that maybe restored and, which is an infinite wonder, to greater beauty and splendour than before.

Traherne, Thomas (2009-07-15). Centuries of Meditations - Enhanced Version (Kindle Locations 1090-1096). Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Kindle Edition.

On the Origin of Articles

http://jasonlisle.com/2012/05/17/on-the-origin-of-articles/#comment-234

Setting captives free

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/finding-freedom-in-prison/2012/04/22/gIQANabcaT_story.html

"It is the central paradox of Christianity that fulfillment starts in emptiness, that streams emerge in the desert, that freedom can be found in a prison cell. Chuck’s swift journey from the White House to a penitentiary ended a life of accomplishment — only to begin a life of significance."

Song of the Plains

I'm thirty-one now and learnin' to play the guitar.

I want you to know I'm determined to find
Some kind of good in this heartache of mine.

I bid goodbye to my facebook friends,
And turned my soul to meditations of Zen.
But it turns out ol' Buddha was wrong,
Another blind king with no clothes on.

Can there be an answer? Is there a way?
To free this heavy heart and keep my mind?

Collision

It appears the "Collision" documentary featuring Doug Wilson and Christopher Hitchens is on YouTube. Watching now.







Doug Wilson reflects on Christopher Hitchens , and atheistic justice.

Legacy

“Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it.” ~Christopher Hitchens

"Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it in the personal Triune God." ~me