FYI – I’m going to take this opportunity to do some things on my own blog.
Posted in General Conversation | Comments OffAfter today, we’re taking a break from posting new posts until the New Year. I hope you all enjoy whatever you have going on in the next week-and-a-half!
I’ll leave you with a link to a story I heard this morning. I love how it depicts why God would choose to become a human being (‘the incarnation’):
Posted in General Conversation | 3 Comments »Free will. I keep reading about it whenever “the problem of suffering” comes up. (That problem being, “If God is beneficent, omnipotent, and/or omniscient, why is there suffering?”) It has come up briefly twice in my class, which didn’t meet last week due to the big windstorm we had. I thought I would get more out of bringing it up here for discussion than trying to probe it further in class, so here are my thoughts on free will. I’m very interested in your thoughts, comments, and explanations about this topic. (Speaking of suffering, 1.1 million “customers” lost power in the windstorm; over 100,000 are still without power a week later; ~100 people, mostly immigrants, have been treated for carbon monoxide poisoning at local hospitals; and 14 people have died from various storm-related events. Still, we are far, far better off than many places in the world.)
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I ran across the poem Not cut out for religion by Jude Simpson on Jason Clark’s blog Monday. Here’s how it begins:
I ask you, what’s the answer, and you just ask me questions,
and I’m like, “hello, I thought you were God?”
Can’t I just download you, pay-as-I-go to decode you -
a quick fix listen on my i-pod?I ask you, what’s the answer, and you say, “where does the wind blow?”
Well, if Dylan couldn’t find it, then I won’t get too far.
What’s with all this mystery? How can you say, “follow me”
when I don’t even know where you are?
You can also listen to Jude reading her poem.
Posted in General Conversation | 21 Comments »Please note: this post contains the story Barrington Bunny, excerpted from: The Way of the Wolf by Martin Bell, copyright 1970, published by Ballantine Books, New York, N.Y. It is reproduced here with the written permission of the author. Martin Bell’s official website is here: Barrington Bunny.
Gregg Lamm posted a story on here the other day with the following introduction:
Eliza,
I’m fairly new to this site and to this interesting conversation — but I’m glad my friend Dave pointed me your way.
While reading your words and the words of others, my mind keeps being drawn back to a story by Martin Bell, an Episcopalian priest and a DJ (a creative bi-vocational gig to be sure). The story is called “Barrington Bunny” … and given that Christmas is almost here, it seems like a good time to share Bell’s story, which in its own simple way speaks to much of what is being talked-through here.
Here’s the story:
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Note: the sidebar poll is related to this
Jim sent this to me as a suggested Friday video.
I found out something interesting (to me, anyway) as I was looking this up.
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The topic of this class was justification. For me, the topic was mostly boring (sorry, but it’s true), and the way it was presented was sometimes annoying. I sighed out loud several times, despite efforts not to. It was hard to listen to a person telling a group of other people what awful sinners they are, and to see the group of people sit there and take it. It seemed demeaning, from my (admittedly non-Christian) point of view.
But there was an interesting twist in my experience of this lecture. (I suspect it was designed to have this effect; there’s the skeptic talking!) Near the end of class, the pastor turned it into an upbeat pitch for salvation…and I was surprised that I responded by internally nodding and mentally saying “yeah!” for a few minutes. (No, I haven’t converted.) More about that whole part of it later. Read the rest of this news item »
I’ve had a personal website called “Love is the most excellent way” since 1997. I added a blog to it 10 days ago for personal/family updates, photos, etc.
The name of it comes from two Bible verses: when I set up the site that was important to me. It has articles I’ve written going back to 1996. To the extent my beliefs were relevant, the ones written more than about five and a half years ago reflect the Christian beliefs I held at the time.
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