After watching the video, I checked out Mr T’s Wikipedia page and noticed something that I’d heard before but never investigated: That Mr T (real name Laurence Tureaud) is a dedicated Christian. At the bottom of the Wikipedia entry there’s a link to an interview Mr T did with Beliefnet.com entitled Words of Wisdom from Mr T. I’m not sure if the article title is intended to be sarcastic, but he actually comes across as quite wise in the article and deeply dedicated in his faith. He talks about why he no longer wears the gold chains (though he’s wearing ‘em in the commercial, I guess people might not recognize him without them??), his battle with cancer, and how he attempts to live our his faith in his life. It’s a good read, so check it out.

And there you have it … can’t say the results are too surprising, really.

[Shout outs to John DePoe for his original post about this]

Nice job Target employee, whoever you are.

I’m reading through Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion and hopefully will be able to make comments here soon on each of its chapters. I’m making notes as I read, and being careful to note the things I agree with and the points where I disagree. It bothers me when I read a review of a book where the reviewer feels the need to try to refute every single thing the author says. Did they really not say anything of value? It’s somewhat disconcerting to say that I disagree with a guy who teaches at Oxford and has a PhD and everything, but as Sideshow Mel said, “My opinion is as valid as the next man’s!” And of course Alister McGrath, holder of two PhDs from Oxford (one in molecular biophysics, the other in theology) who also teaches at Oxford, has already written a book in reply: The Dawkins Delusion?

In the meantime, if you’re interested in a short review of Dawkins’ book check out Skeptical Christian’s review of The God Delusion.

One of the reasons that radical relativism (the idea that all “truth” is always relative) is false is that it is self refuting. All truth is relative … except, of course, the truth statement that all truth is relative! If all truth were relative, the sentence “There is no truth.” could equally mean “I like cabbage.” or “Excuse me sir, do you know the way to Timbuktu?” The comic above is humorous because the boy blatantly changes the rules of the game after the fact. But if radical relativism is true, concepts like fairness, guilt, tolerance, altruism, and shame become meaningless.

Although Greg Koukl and others do a fine job of refuting radical relativism, I don’t see this as being a popular philosophy. It’s just so ridiculous (on both philosophical and intuitive levels) that it seems unlikely that anyone would seriously hold this view (outside of insane asylums and graduate philosophy departments) and even if they did, that after careful scrutiny they would be forced to admit that they do not live consistently with their view.

Am I wrong? Is this a serious view of truth?

It seems to me the real problem is not relativism, or even postmodernism per se, but instead a particular type of intellectual laziness that can sometimes masquerade as “postmodernism”. IMHO people don’t gravitate towards relativism because they honestly think it’s a valid way of looking at the world; they gravitate toward it because it absolves them of the responsibility to have to think about difficult issues. It’s the equivalent of clasping your hands over your ears and going “lah-lah-lah-lah-lah”. Of course, Christians can sometimes be guilty of the very same thing, but at least one thing that the atheist and Christian worldviews share is that one or the other, not both, of these worldviews is true, really true.

We really should spend more time thinking about this. If there is “more” … wouldn’t you want to find it? Y’know, before it’s too late.

Related links:

• Paris Hilton and What We Want – Sad but true: Paris Hilton, superstar tramp, was the #1 search term in Google last year. Isn’t there more than this?
• Where do we go from here? – “It’s hard to get what you want if you don’t know what you want. “

Expert art historian Teabing Saunière^* commented that “This novel new vision of Leonardo’s art easily equals Dan Brown’s novel in terms of historical accuracy. When you look closely at the Mona Lisa, you can clearly see a mostly dry looking, airy landscape, perfectly suited for toads. And what of Mona Lisa’s enigmatic smirk? Leonardo even mentions toads in his own notebooks! Based on this evidence, I think we can conclude that the Mona Lisa was really based on a toad.”

Further reading on The Da Vinci Code:

• TheLife.com’s Da Vinci Code site – Many useful articles
• CBN.com’s Da Vinci Code Response – Features an easy to read comparison of the novel versus reality
• Discuss Da Vinci – Blog covering many issues arising from The Da Vinci Code book & film

(This post gave me a chance to do something I’ve never done before: Draw an angry face on a loaf of bread. Huzzah! I deem it a success.)

Sinfest, Dec 12 2001

Well, since I wrote about demons last week, I guess I’ll talk briefly about angels today. The popular images of angels with wings and halos began sometime in the 4th century, whereas angels are (biblically speaking) essentially spiritual in nature, not physical. They have no particular physical characteristics, although they may take on human form to better communicate with us. Angels are also not ‘good people who died’, like Clarence in It’s a Wonderful Life; instead, they are a seperate class of created, spiritual beings. Recently there seems to be a resurgence in interest in angels in the media and popular consciousness, although usually they are depicted in a caricatured way, like in the cartoon above. Like demons, I think (this part is my opinion) it’s good to recognize angels exist, but foolish to dwell upon their existence or put too much emphasis on them.

Faith Isn’t Quite Brain Surgery
Guy: How can you believe in God? You’ve never seen him.
Girl: Well, I believe you have a brain, though I’ve never seen it!
–F train via Overheard in New York, Feb 28, 2006

Oh snap! Sorry, thought it was funny so I had to post it. Seriously though, that’s one of the worst arguments I’ve heard for not believing in God.