May 31, 2005

Blind Mind's Eye on Christian Libertarianism

Christian blog Blind Mind's Eye has a great post on the compatibility of Christianity and libertarianism. Worth a read....
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May 29, 2005

Evangelical Outpost: Dead Wrong on "Hyperbolic Doubt," Modernism, and Christianity

Joe Carter of Evangelical Outpost has posted a pair of articles on the subject of "doubt, certainty, and epistemic humility" in which he blasts Rene Descartes for giving place to doubt in his quest to utlimately provide the epistemic groundwork for a Christian worldview. Descartes' method in his Mediations on First Philosophy (and Discourse on Method) is to practice doubt with great effort, and discover the limits of doubtability. I am of the opinion that Descartes' arguments ultimately fail to prove the existence of God, or anything else beyond the existence of the meditator himself, as the limits of doubtability give us information not about the ultimate truth of the universe, but about our own psychology (and, despite my idealist/phenomenalist metaphyics, I absolutely insist that the two are not interchangeable). However, Mr. Carter goes on to criticize the entire enterprise of the Christian philosophers of the early modern era (he speaks positively of Pascal, but from what little I know of Pascal I would say that he fits better in the tradition of medieval philosophy than that of the modernists). I cannot overemphasize how greatly misplaced his criticisms are, and I wish to argue here that it is not modernism but post-modernism that is the enemy of Christianity; the tradition of modern philosophy has much to contribute to the Christian worldview and quest for truth. It in no way contradicts Scripture, nor does it undermine faith.
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Topic(s): Philosophy
Posted by Kenny at 1:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

May 24, 2005

This Just In: Some Creationists are Stupid!

It seems that the other day an article by Richard Dawkins, the vice-president of the British Humanist Association was published arguing that creationism is based on a rejection of "scientific logic." I would like to go on record stating that I agree with most of his points. It is absolutely necessary for scientists to be able to admit that they are still unsure about certain points of their theory without being pounced upon by the rhetoric of ignorant laymen. This hampers inquiry. Science thrives on ignorance by seeking to destroy it. Legitimate Christianity is not a religion that thrives on...
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Topic(s): Philosophy
Posted by Kenny at 9:30 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

Christine Gregoire, Legal Challenges, and I-601

Kevin Hamilton, the attorney for Democratic Governor (maybe) of Washington Christine Gregoire in the ongoing election battle, is quoted in today's New York Times stating that "imperfection is not enough to overturn an election." An astute observation. After all, every election is imperfect. But is Mr. Hamilton not aware that the "imperfection" in the election amounts, at the very least, to thousands of votes, and Ms. Gregoire's alleged victory (after losing the first two counts) was by a margin of precisely 129 ballots?! ...
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Topic(s): Politics
Posted by Kenny at 7:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1)

May 14, 2005

How Old Bible Translations Affect New Ones

I'm a fan of the New King James Version. It's a solid, accurate, literal translation of the original languages into standard English as written by today's educated native speakers. It flows well, and it accurately represents the original. But it has a problem. The problem is that, as the name suggests, the NKJV is heavily influenced by the history of English language Bible translation. This doesn't sound so bad, but there are a couple of serious problems with it. The first is that the King James Version of the Bible (aka the Authorized Version of 1611) was one of the...
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Topic(s): Bible
Posted by Kenny at 1:30 AM | Comments (10) | TrackBack (2)

May 8, 2005

Spokane Mayor Sex Scandal Makes New York Times

The Times has picked up a long-running story from the Spokesman Review on a sex scandal involving the mayor of Spokane, Washington (close to home). It seems this is all the Spokesman has been writing about for a week or two. There is a summary here. The Times interviewed a Gonzaga political science professor, Blaine Garvin, who said he was uneasy with the ethical implications of the investigation. Apparently the Spokesman has been tracking this story for years and finally hired a forensic computer expert who had worked with the feds on child pornography cases who posed as a 17...
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Topic(s): Politics
Posted by Kenny at 2:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

May 7, 2005

The Future of This Blog

In case you hadn't noticed, this blog has been awefully sparse for the past few months. I had an extremely busy semester and not much time for blogging. It is now summer (that is, the spring semester of school is over), and working 40 hours a week and having Saturdays and Sundays off and not taking work home in the evenings is sounding restful. So, in this post I'd like to give some idea on what sorts of things will be influencing my topics over the course of the summer, and then comment briefly on a few issues I missed.
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