tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post106944314297000735..comments2024-03-27T17:15:37.606-04:00Comments on Triablogue: Ship in a BottleRyanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17809283662428917799noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-73327626647605746632015-01-11T14:56:06.042-05:002015-01-11T14:56:06.042-05:00Great article Kent, thanks for sharing the link! ...Great article Kent, thanks for sharing the link! Edwards remains a towering redwood among the forest of theologians.CRhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03231394164372721485noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-68574535149447113372015-01-11T10:25:36.493-05:002015-01-11T10:25:36.493-05:00I recently read a fascinating essay on this very t...I recently read a fascinating essay on this very topic over at Desiring God Blog.<br />Here is the link on why Heaven will not be boring.<br /><br />http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/heaven-will-never-be-boringAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00729029248815671902noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-34511615896932626452015-01-11T05:47:05.936-05:002015-01-11T05:47:05.936-05:00Steve: Because he was forgetful at that age, he ne...Steve: <i>Because he was forgetful at that age, he never quite caught onto the fact that he had done this before.</i><br /><br />In his memoir “The Spooky Art: Thoughts on Writing” (New York: Random House, 2003), Norman Mailer writes about this sort of thing:<br /><br /><i>There’s nothing glorious about being a professional. You become more dogged. You probably relinquish the upper reaches of mind in order to be able to do your work each day. That means you are ready to endure a certain amount of drudgery. But your mind is, obviously, not enthralled by such dull conditions. Professionalism probably comes down to being able to work on a bad day …<br /><br />I wrote longhand with a pencil and I gave it to my assistant, Judith McNally. She would type it for me and next day I would go over it. Since at my age you begin to forget all too much, I would hardly remember what I had written the day before. I read it, therefore, as if someone else had done it. The critic in me was delighted. I could now proceed to fix the prose. The sole virtue of losing your short-term memory is that it does free you to be your own editor (pp. 102-103).</i> <br />John Bugayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17728044301053738095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-21324378261961142092015-01-10T19:00:49.557-05:002015-01-10T19:00:49.557-05:00It's common for atheists to say what Williams ...It's common for atheists to say what Williams said. I suspect they do so for various reasons:<br /><br />- To justify their rejection of theism or Christianity in particular. <br /><br />- To console themselves by thinking that even if a theistic afterlife exists, they aren't missing anything worthy of longing for.<br /><br />- To console themselves of the envy they have toward "deluded theists" who in their fantasy (as atheists perceive theists) can have peaceful deaths. They don't want to admit it, but from their perspective the old saying is very true, "ignorance is bliss." Believers in an afterlife have a hope which no atheist can have. For the atheist, every passing second is closer and closer to their personal extinction and disintegration. The older they get, the closer they are to their deaths; and the more fearful it is for them. That's why they often busy themselves with distractions, or commit suicide, or try to secure a comfortable death, or drown their despair in alcohol or drugs. <br /><br />- Because of their lack of imagination. And (more importantly) their <b>sinful suppression of their imagination</b> because they don't want to contemplate the possibilities so long as it requires a god or the Christian God to enjoy an afterlife. <b>Yet, inconsistently they charge theists of a lack of imagination when theists claim that the fine-tuning of the universe strongly suggests intelligent design</b>. They will say theists don't know all the possible ways in a multiverse universes can develop to produce conscious observing agents. It's a lack of imagination on the part of theists. That might be so, since God might be able to to create other kinds physical universes. <b>The point is, they appeal to unimagined possibilities and/or charge theists with a lack of imagination to justify their atheism and to attack the evidence for theism. Yet contradictorily suppress their imaginations when contemplating a theistic afterlife. Interestingly, they employ their imaginations in enjoying or creating science fiction. It's a way of trying to have the pleasures of theism without God.</b><br /><br />This reminds me of a quote from Luther's Bondage of the Will:<br /><br /><i>These things, I say, being temporal, may be endured with less harm than inveterate evil ways, which will inevitably ruin all souls that are not changed by the Word of God. If the Word were removed, eternal good, God, Christ, and the Spirit, would be removed with it. <b>How much better, then, is it to lose the world than to lose God, the world's Creator, who can create countless worlds afresh, and is better than infinite worlds! For what are temporal things beside eternal?</b></i>ANNOYED PINOYhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00714774340084597206noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-80740053876055474712015-01-10T13:44:49.183-05:002015-01-10T13:44:49.183-05:00I like Spurgeon's picturesque language describ...I like Spurgeon's picturesque language describing diving into the bottomless, shoreless ocean of God's Being and never getting tired of bathing in His infinite mercy, grace and love.<br /><br />This is not to be confused with the Eastern mysticism of "all is one" and "becoming a single drop of water in the infinite ocean of being" drivel.CRhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03231394164372721485noreply@blogger.com