There is a new Barbie doll being released. She is called Hello Barbie, produced by ToyTalk, a Mattel partner. She is a doll that can hook up to your Wi-Fi, and like Siri, Google Now, etc., can hook up, connect to their servers, and use that to come up with answers to your children’s questions. […]
Archives for September 2015
The Woman Caught in Adultery and Pope Francis
The story of the Woman Caught in Adultery is a short story in the Gospel of John. It actually matches up rather well, in some ways, with the woman at the well, Saint Photini. In both stories, Jesus has a clear opportunity to condemn both women, and instead of condemning them, he speaks in circumlocutions. […]
The Cross and the Language of Duty
Before the Cross was Gethsemane. Before the Cross was a moment that we all face in a much lesser way in every day of our life when we face choices about what we should do. But, more than that, Gethsemane reminds us that theosis, our journey to grow into the likeness of God, is not […]
The Pope has landed
Who is Pope Francis? Ultimately, he is a pastor who is concerned that his sheep are called to the fullness of the Christian life. He does not spend a lot of time on culture war politics, because he has the deeper calling to ensure that the sheep make it to the fold. And, he has […]
Christians need to be consequent
Consequent and consistent are terms that are related, and have specific meanings in terms of philosophy. But, it would be easier to say that our conclusions must logically follow from our premises. There are many examples of how this works. More important, there are also many examples of making a mistake in this area. It […]
The Crusades and reality
It is accepted modern orthodoxy to deride the Crusades and to claim that somehow Christians violated some type of moral or ethical code by engaging in the Crusade. Those who read this blog also know that I am progressive with regard to social causes, while being conservative with regard to moral causes. But, even that […]
Islam and Christian conquests
For the last couple of years, since the rise of ISIS, the social media have been filled with accusations about how Islam has always been violent, and has killed incredible numbers of people and caused mass migrations, etc. The main argument has been that Islam has only been quiescent, and that any apparent peaceful interlude […]
The darkness of being a LEO
One of my favorite authors is Michael Connelly of “Dirty Harry” fame. Actually, the real name of Dirty Harry is Hieronymus Bosch. Yes, he is named after the painter from the Netherlands. It does not surprise me that Mr. Connelly used the European painter, Bosch, as the namesake of Dirty Harry. Many of Dirty Harry’s […]
Adjunct Professors and the loss of educational integrity
If you cannot see the comic at the top of this paragraph (for instance, if you are on Facebook), click the link to the original blog post, or my commentary below will not make sense. I am an Adjunct Professor. Well, that is a bit of a stretch. I used to teach more often, but […]
Sometimes we look at the wrong end of the telescope
Philosophers and theologians enjoy debating the fine points of various issues. After all, it is important that we have neither invalid, nor illogical, nor inconsequent thinking in our formulations. In other words, we are trying to make sure that we are believing the right things for the right reasons. As a result, both philosophers […]
