10 posts tagged “good reads”

Dissent is Patriotic

The Andrew Meyer case has disturbed me greatly.  What disturbs me is the lack of perspective through which most people seem to be viewing what took place.  People who only saw an obnoxious person being disruptive and getting what he deserved have missed the point entirely.  Whatever Meyer's motives were, his actions were classic dissent. 

Dissent--the stuff that built the United States of America. 
Dissent--the quintessential act of patriotism. 
Dissent--freedom spreading its wings and demanding to fly. 

There was a time when people understood that dissent is the American way.  Unfortunately, now it's considered obnoxious, unpatriotic, and even treasonous in some quarters.  History has shown us that when government/authority turns a blind eye and a deaf ear to the will of the people that dissent is how Americans demand change.  One only has to look as far back as the events leading up to the War for Independence to find the facts that bear this out.  Our culture is now conditioned to hold dissent in disdain and that will the undoing of our freedom. 

Oscar Wilde said "Discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or a nation."  When the voice of dissent is silenced because the speaker is deemed to be a disruption, we are sacrificing progress in exchange for the status quo.  We have become a nation of sheep.

In 2006, Timothy Sexton of Associated Content wrote Dissent Built America; Why is it Considered Un-American Now?  It was relevant then and is even more so today.  I strongly recommend it as a good read.

There's a nice piece by J.P. Moreland over at the Scriptorium discussing logic, God, and Jesus as a logician.  I really respect Dr. Moreland's appreciation of logic.  If I'd been raised around believers who had a similar appreciation, perhaps I wouldn't be struggling as much with matters of faith and belief as I am.

I value logic highly as a truth finding tool.  If God exists, logic is such, in my opinion, that I must agree with Moreland when he writes that it "comes from the very nature of God Himself."  I might even go one step further and assert that logic is God which can be biblically supported by John 1:1.

Moreland refers to an article called Jesus the Logician by Dr. Dallas Willard, a professor of philosophy at Southern Cal.  Another related article, also written from a biblical perspective, is God and Logic by Dr. Gordon H. Clark.

Good reads for believers and non-believers alike--for believers because most traditional Christians don't take logic seriously and they should and for non-believers because it is refreshing to discover some Christians out there that understand and embrace the value of logic as a mechanism of truth.

I've accumulated several articles I wanted to post on over the past few days and never got around to doing so.  Rather than posting each one, I'm just going to group them as Good Reads--which they are.

• Trampled And Twisted By Conservatives, 'L-Word' Should Be Revived: Clarence Page bemoans that the 'greatest triumph that conservatives ever achieved is to make liberals embarrassed to call themselves "liberal."'
  
  
• In Freedom Isn't Free, Frank asks some frank questions such as "In relation to the community we occupy - how do we negotiate our individual freedoms?"
  
  
• 7 Clever Google Tricks Worth Knowing:  Self explanatory.  Check them out.
  
  
• Oh those devilish Normans!  Were the Normans responsible for the upsurge in demon possessions that swept England after the 1066 AD invation?  One study suggests so.

• There's some interesting discussion at Dangerous Idea of the question: "Are moral atheists borrowing their moral capital from Christianity?"  Talk centers around a quote from Gary DeMar's essay Why Atheists are Theocrats (Biblical Worldview Magazine).
• The inquiring minds at Fides Quaerens Intellectum want to know:  Can you have faith in something you know?
• At Talking Philosophy Magazine's blog, Jullian  Baggini's satirical digest of Ayer's Language Truth and Logic is both amusing and thought provoking. While there, take a look at Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature, Descartes’ Meditations, Aristotle’s Ethics, and Plato’s Republic.

• Discover the healing power to be found in your cupboards at KitchenMedicineBook.com.  Check out The Truth About Salt for a good example of the sort of information you'll find on this very interesting website.
• Is someone telling you lies?  How to Spot a Liar reveals how to read a person's eyes to determine whether or not s/he is being truthful.
• For those who enjoy a good debate but never seem to come out on top, How to Win Informal Arguments and Debates offers a few helpful pointers on logic, psychology, and effective communication.
• When you love you should not say, "God is in my heart," but rather, "I am in the heart of God."  From Kahlil Gibran on Love
• The Moldy Thomists of Tu Quoque ask:  Is God Beyond Logic? 
• If you want to see debate at it's finest, don't miss this transcript of the 1948 Debate on The Existence of God between Father Frederick C. Copleston and Bertrand Russell.  After some of the more recent debates transcripts I've read, the dialog between Russell and Copleston is remarkably refreshing.  It's too bad that many of the people debating these same issues in our day appear to sorely lack the same integrity these two gentleman demonstrated.  

Steve Pavlina offers 33 Rules to Boost Your Productivity.  If you like these, there's 33 more in volume two.

Extremism:  From the archives of The Raving Atheist, an exploration of the the importance of "what a person believes" vs "how that person believes".

Roger Scruton asks are we "Better off without religion?"

Where Do Rights Come From?  Steve Kanga questions whether rights are "natural, inalienable, God-given and self-evident" or man-made "social constructs".

101 Games Fundies Play - "Points out the games played by those bigots who try to wrap their bigotry in religious robes in an attempt to hide the true ugliness of what they preach."

Fundamentalist Tactics - Brief exposé of fundamentalism written by a Christian theologian and professor of Biblical Studies.

Outlawing Unbelief - Some American states legally render "atheists, secular humanists, and other freethinkers as second-class citizens."

Is There A God - This thought provoking essay by Bertrand Russell is a classic.

A Puzzle about Hypotheses

Atheism: A Life without faith?

Serving Whose Interests?

Butt Sex

A Call for Christian Rationality

Process Theism

You Can't Prove A Negative

God & Logic

Is 'Freethinker' Synonymous with Nontheist?

What the Bible Says - And Doesn't Say - About Homosexuality