Well, I’m too occupied to compose a full blog post, but I don’t want to not post anything, so I’m going to start a new trend here on THE AGORA called Miscellanies. It will be a random collection of short thoughts on various subjects that are circulating around in the recesses of my mind. So here goes…
The Chicago Bears play this coming Sunday against the St. Louis Rams. Not sure which Bears’ team will show up — the one that clobbered the Indianapolis Colts or the one that got spanked by the Green Bay Packers. It makes you wonder if it’s going to be one of those Bears’ seasons; one in which they clobber the lousy teams, but get spanked by the good teams. Oh well, as they say…one game at a time. GO BEARS!!!
While we’re on the topic of sports, let’s talk a little baseball. I was a huge baseball fan growing up, and I loved, absolutely loved, the Chicago Cubs. However, after having my heart broken one too many times by the Cubs, I’ve switched my sports allegiance to the Bears. That being said, it appears that the White Sox are making a serious run for some post-season baseball. Whereas the Cubs are flirting with a franchise record for losses in a season. If they manage to lose 100 games, it will be for first time they’ve done that in over 50 years. GO CUBBIES!!!
The Avengers movie is being released on blu-ray and digital download next Tuesday. I can’t wait! I’ll probably watch it a good dozen times or so before I get sick of it. And let’s not forget the having to watch all of the Marvel movies leading up to it in a long Marvel film festival. Great time to be a comic book geek!
While we’re on the topic of comic books and movies, The Walking Dead season 3 begins in October. This should be an exciting season as the group moves from the countryside to the ‘safe’ confines of the prison. And who was that bad-ass chick with the sword??? Between season 2 and season 3, I read all 102 issues of The Walking Dead comic book series. I spent a small fortune on the digital comics and read them in about a week. Of course knowing how the comics go doesn’t mean one will know how the TV series will go as there have already been significant derivations so far. Anyway, season 3 should be good!
Switching topics completely…I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the bible and biblical inerrancy. The doctrine of the bible being the verbally inspired, inerrant and infallible word of God is a bedrock to fundamental, conservative Christianity. However, after reading two books by New Testament scholar, Bart D. Ehrman (I know…to even mention his name is to court the anti-Christ), I’ve begun to modify my views on biblical inerrancy. Those books were, Misquoting Jesus and Jesus Interrupted. While I don’t buy every single argument Ehrman puts forth, he does make a strong case for being skeptical regarding the doctrine of biblical inerrancy. There are just too many cases of variant textual readings in the early history of the NT text to contend for biblical inerrancy. Furthermore, while there is some coherence in the NT text, there are also some discrepancies as well. Here’s the thing. If one is already committed to the doctrine of biblical inerrancy, then one will be able to harmonize the discrepancies and apparent contradictions. But if one is skeptical on the doctrine of biblical inerrancy, then not only do these attempts to harmonize the discrepancies and contradictions appear unwarranted (why harmonize literary works that weren’t meant to be harmonized), but they also strain credulity at times. It really all boils down to a presuppositional stance on the nature of the bible because, bottom line, there is no definitive way to prove one way or the other that the bible is indeed the inspired word of God.
Last thought on the miscellanies bandwagon. Over the past year or so, I’ve gone through an ideological revolution of sorts. For the past ten years, I was thoroughly conservative — both politically and theologically. However, beginning last year, I evolved from a political conservative to a political libertarian. That evolution has now begun in my theological thinking as well. I find myself drifting away from my conservative Christianity toward a more philosophical Deism — a belief in a Creator God, but not in all of the dogmatic trappings of Christianity. This is, of course, related to the previous point regarding the bible. That being said, I seem to be having a hard time finding a good theological home. Most of the traditions of Christianity that are theological liberal also tend to be politically liberal. Whereas, the traditions that are theologically conservative tend to also be politically conservative. These are, of course, not hard and fast rules, but nonetheless, what is a libertarian to do? There don’t see to be any theologically ‘libertarian’ traditions to my knowledge. Maybe that has something to do with the nature of libertarians being more individualistic? Of course it could also be that it doesn’t seem to matter which side of the theological spectrum one lands on, the church in America always tends to seek political solutions to social issues. Too bad…
Anyway, in the words of the late Irish comedian, Dave Allen…
“Goodnight, thank you, and may your God go with you.”
Have a great weekend!
Libertas Aut Mors!
Recently I’ve decided to expand my podcast listening tastes and began listening to the daily NPR podcast Talk of the Nation. Last Friday, they had a segment that was discussing the New York City cap on sodas over 16 oz. As a libertarian, I lost track of how many times I rolled my eyes or vocally expressed my disbelief at what I was hearing. The host of the show had two ‘experts’ on: One was Marion Nestle of New York University and the other was Brian Wansink of Cornell University. Both were people involved in the debate over the public health issues surrounding the debate. What troubled me was the fact that everyone on the show just tacitly assumed that some sort of government intervention in the name of public health was perfectly justified. In fact, Ms. Nestle would frequently suggest the government do more.
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