Search Results for: papers/490937

Victor Hugo on Deep Waters, Dark Shadows, and the Hiddenness of God

Les Miserables (Signet Classic: 1987) pp. 95-6.

Go Mar 25, 2014 Night falls; he has been swimming for hours, his strength almost gone; the ship, a distant far-off thing, where there were men, is gone; he is alone in the terrible gloom of the abyss; he sinks, he strains, he struggles, feels beneath himself invisible shadowy monsters; he screams. ¶ Men are gone. Where is God? ¶ He screams. Help! Someone! Help! He screams over and over. ¶ Nothing on the horizon. Nothing in the sky. ¶ He implores the lofty sky, the endless waves, the reefs; all are deaf. He begs the storms; but impassive, they obey only the infinite. ¶ Around him, darkness, storm, solitude, wild, unconscious tumult, the ceaseless churning of fierce waters. Within him, horror and exhaustion. Beneath him the devouring abyss. No resting place. He thinks of the shadowy adventures of his limp body in the limitless gloom. The biting cold paralyzes him. His hands cramp shut and grasp at ... nothing.

The Raconteurs on Knowing Absolutely Nothing

Go Mar 20, 2014

“Old Enough”

You look pretty in your fancy dress
But I detect unhappiness
You never speak so I have to guess
You’re not free.There, maybe when you’re old enough
You’ll realize you’re not so tough
And some days the seas get rough
And you’ll seeYou’re too young to have it figured out
You think you know what you’re talking about
You think it will all work itself out
But we’ll see

When I was young I thought I knew
You probably think you know too
Do you? Well do you?
I was naive just like you
I thought I knew exactly what I wanted to do
Well, what’s you gonna do?

And how have you gotten by so far
Without having a visible scar?
No one knows who you really are
They can’t see

What’s you gonna do (what’s you gonna do)
What’s you gonna do now
What’s you gonna do (what’s you gonna do)
What’s you gonna do now
What’s you gonna do (what’s you gonna do)
What’s you gonna do now
What’s you gonna do (what’s you gonna do)
What’s you gonna do now
What’s you gonna do now

The only way you’ll ever learn a thing
Is to admit that you know absolutely nothing
Oh nothing
Think about this carefully
You might not get another chance to speak freely
Oh freely

Maybe when you’re old enough
Maybe when you’re old enough
Maybe when you’re old enough
You’re not free
You’re not free

James Sire’s Seven Basic Worldview Questions

James W. Sire, "Camel, Kangaroo and Elephant" in Naming the Elephant (December 15, 2014), pp. 20-1.

Go Mar 16, 2014

Another way to get at what a worldview is is to see it as our essential, rock-bottom answers to the following seven questions:

What is prime reality-the really real? To this we might answer God, or the gods, or the material cosmos.
What is the nature of external reality, that is, the world around us?
Here our answers point to whether we see the world as created or autonomous, as chaotic or orderly, as matter or spirit, or whether we emphasize our subjective, personal relationship to the world or its objectivity apart from us.
What is a human being? To this we might answer a highly complex machine, a sleeping god, a person made in the image of God, a “naked ape.”
What happens to persons at death? Here we might reply personal extinction, or transformation to a higher state, or reincarnation, or departure to a shadowy existence on “the other side.”
Why is it possible to know anything at all? Sample answers include the idea that we are made in the image of an all-knowing God or that consciousness and rationality developed under the contingencies of survival in a long process of evolution.
How do we know what is right and wrong? Again, perhaps we are made in the image of a God whose character is good; or right and wrong are determined by human choice alone or what feels good; or the notions simply developed under an impetus toward cultural or physical survival.
What is the meaning of human history? To this we might answer, to realize the purposes of God or the gods, to make a paradise on earth, to prepare a people for a life in community with a loving and holy God, and so forth.

James Sire on Worldviews and the Really Real

James Sire, Naming the Elephant (December 31, 2014), p. 14.

Go Mar 16, 2014

Four important revisions to my own definition of worldview were in order. First was a recognition that a worldview is not just a set of basic concepts but a fundamental orientation of the heart. Second was an explicit insistence that at the deepest root of a worldview is its commitment to and understanding of the “really real.” Third was a consideration of behavior in the determination of what one’s own or another’s worldview really is. Fourth was a broader understanding of how worldviews are grasped as story, not just as abstract propositions.

The Raconteurs on Knowing Absolutely Nothing

"Old Enough" by The Raconteurs ().

Go Feb 24, 2014

“Old Enough”

You’re too young to have it figured out
You think you know what you’re talking about
You think it will all work itself out
But we’ll see

When I was young I thought I knew
You probably think you know too
Do you? Well do you?
I was naive just like you
I thought I knew exactly what I wanted to do
Well, what’s you gonna do?

And how have you gotten by so far
Without having a visible scar?
No one knows who you really are
They can’t see

The only way you’ll ever learn a thing
Is to admit that you know absolutely nothing
Oh nothing
Think about this carefully
You might not get another chance to speak freely
Oh freely

Maybe when you’re old enough
Maybe when you’re old enough
Maybe when you’re old enough
You’re not free
You’re not free

Mark Sandling on Loving Sinners without Hating Sin

”

10 Things You Can't SAY While Following Jesus” at Sojourners

Go Feb 21, 2014

Love the sinner, hate the sin.

The problem I have with this one is the comma. It should be a period.

After further thought, I have a problem with the comma, everything that comes after it and “the sinner.”

Who am I (and who are you) to be deciding for someone else what is getting between them and God? I’m all for doing it in regard to our own lives but in someone else’s life? Hands off. Who do we think we are? God?

Now that I think about it, the problem I have with this one is that there’s not a period after love.

Love. Period.