It’s Dave’s family Christmas this weekend. And so begins the happy, happy madness. (Yes. It is actually a tremendous amount like this video.) And with that, Scienda’s going on winter vacation, to return February 1st–I have a novel and some renovations to finish. See you all then–don’t doubt it.
HT: Sambo, KimberWitch
As a tangent to the idea of blind appeal to Scriptural authority, addressed here, Dave and I had a really cool (if short) conversation the other night. We were talking about a discussion over at TWIM, which not too surprisingly involved Quixote, whose ideas we take an interest in from time to time.
The conversers were tossing around the relevance of rules of induction (how and whether to form conclusions about the general state of things from the particular state of things) to how we doubt, and Quixote said,
I don’t think you can doubt without them. Your doubts are formed or engaged by rules of inference, and in that manner they undergird your doubt. Perhaps we could say they’re more fundamental than doubt.
I said to Dave, “Really, he’s saying in a way that truth is more fundamental than doubt.”
Dave: “Hm, yeah. Doubt has to be based on something.” Continue reading
Ed Stetzer at LifeWay posted a study discussing the effects of pornography on individuals and communities. Couldn’t resist jumping in on the comments; it’s a subject close to the heart of anyone who desires to nurture a good marriage in spite of everything the world throws at us.
Dave and I discussed it briefly, and he said, “Everyone’s ‘addicted’ to sexual sin. It’s just that some are okay with that, and others aren’t.” Continue reading
I thought this would be a rant. As it turns out, my head hurts too much, and I have been cowed into such a numb state of submission that there is in fact very little rant left in me.
We all but completed our Christmas shopping yesterday, and I managed to survive the Emporium of International Corporate Clone Doom. I would have preferred going down Rosser Avenue into the old district and supporting some of the little shops there — always struggling, closing down more and more often. There’s a bookstore I’d like to get into before it disappears, as so many other places have, in fact it’s located in my favourite piece of Brandon architecture, one I’ve scooped up and relocated into a fictional small-town storyworld. There’s also a fair-trade international shop, and I do love that sort of thing.
Even the “old” mall is somewhat better, in my view. It’s not completely the bottom of the disposable junk barrel the way the new Corral Center is. However, we didn’t get there. Instead, four elves–oops, I mean imps–dodged each other, secrets in hand, through the aisles of WalMart. Continue reading
