Logic Times
Theology
Summary: Capital punishment is not hypocritical. In the words of intellectual lightweights like Mike Farrell, capital punishment does not "perpetuate a cycle of violence," hypocritically condemning killing by killing. This is the same twisted logic that does not differentiate between killing and murder, between innocence and guilt. If that rationale held true, then what hypocrisy that we punish kidnappers – criminals who have taken away someone's freedom – by incarcerating the criminal. Does this not perpetuate a cycle of bondage? And how can we levy fines on those that steal? This certainly perpetuates the idea of taking wealth by force. Executing a murderer no more promotes murder than fining a thief promotes thievery. The criminal act is in defiance of law and social order; the punishment upholds law and social order. The criminal act is malicious and harmful to the innocent; the punishment is dispassionate and harmful to the guilty.
Commentary by Aslan, 1/15/06, 10:06pm. Comments (8)
Part One Summary: The most common objection to the idea of a benevolent God is the existence of evil. And while many accept the necessity of moral evil – a necessary by-product of free will – what is commonly called "Natural Evil" is a bit more problematic.
Commentary by Aslan, 05/29/05. Comments (4)
Part Two Summary: A heart attack at age 37 exists because people deteriorate and die, and the rate of deterioration is as variable as the snowflake patterns. Cancer exists because people deteriorate by many mechanisms, cellular abnormality being one of them, and to arrest deterioration is to arrest time.
Commentary by Aslan, 06/24/05. Comments (0)
Part Three Summary: With certainty, there is no knowledge, only information; there is no depth of experience, just instructions. If God, as C.S. Lewis would say, chose to "ravish" instead of "woo," where is there room for anything but compliance? Mankind would neatly separate itself into two groups; a small number of nihilists choosing death, and the vast numbers of sane lining up to choose life, with as much depth as second-graders lining up for a fire drill. In such acts of robotic compliance, there is no need for courage, duty, compassion, honor and fidelity, just an orderly line.
Commentary by Aslan, 3/21/06, 11:46pm. Comments (0)
Darwinism v. Intelligent Design
Part One Summary: The evolution debate has intensified in recent years. This debate – which sees those espousing intelligent design opposed by scientists who are aghast that anyone could question the "proven" theory of Charles Darwin – appears to have only two sides, one of which must be correct.
Not so. Both are wholly inadequate.
Commentary by Aslan, 04/11/05. Comments (13)
Part Two Summary: In classic scientific manner, what if one takes from each theory what logic, experience and observation validates?
Commentary by Aslan, 04/23/05. Comments (2)
Part Three Summary: God created the universe with the Big Bang, and His initial creative effort was entirely sufficient to begin time and produce all the entropic majesty of a lifeless universe of planets and galaxies, organization on a relatively low scale with local increases in order easily explained (by the overall decrease in heat). Unattended, such a creation is a lifeless dead-end, doomed to slowly cool and drift apart.
Commentary by Aslan, 05/05/05. Comments (7)
Summary: Objective observation of the Law of Cause and Effect supports a belief in God.
Commentary by Aslan, 1/18/05. Comments (7)
Summary: Consider then the logical cohesion of a God who has, as a characteristic of His creation, started something, placed himself concurrent with that beginning (by the very act of creation) and is watching it unfold. Now the whole process is that much more sensible and dynamic. Future events cannot be said to exist because the future does not exist - God and man both are within time.
Commentary by Aslan, 12/13/04. Comments (6)
Summary: What are the apologetic implications of human "awareness"? Unlike most other traits and abilities shared by various species, the human capacity for abstract thought and reason is unique. More importantly, the gap between human awareness and what passes as emerging awareness in animals is massively wide and of a distinctly different quality than between any other set of abilities.
Commentary by Aslan, 10/11/04. Comments (1)
Summary: The intersection of hardship/evil and free will gives rise to most characteristics of the divine, of a "theological sentient." A world without moral and natural evil would be as counterproductive to the shaping of God's children, to the inheritors of God's kingdom, as a football training camp without physical activity would be counter- productive to creating football players.
Commentary by Aslan, 10/04/04. Comments (1)