tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-52502152011-04-21T19:47:46.889-07:00A source for reflections on the issues of life, society and world events.Roderick of TMinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07481622604560945536noreply@blogger.comBlogger221100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5250215.post-42271025823642339622006-12-07T10:07:00.000-08:002008-12-10T21:54:34.210-08:00

Photo by Kaaren Graciano, Arlington, VA, September 2006You have carpeted beaches with your bodies so your fellows could wrest island hills from the imperialist aggressor. You have liberated death camps so skeletal survivors could be "born again." You have fought unpopular wars against fanatical foes, but have always done your duty and never decided that the price of honor was too high. You have

Roderick of TMinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07481622604560945536noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5250215.post-1161050946443116832006-10-16T19:00:00.000-07:002006-10-16T19:09:06.443-07:00

I've been trying to diagnose a sick washing machine. Something is dreadfully wrong with its circulatory system. I'm not sure whether the cost of a service call is warranted on a 10-year old machine, so I've been talking to Amana and looking up do-it-yourself washer repair web sites.Something is dreadfully wrong with printed and online trouble-shooting instructions. They say things like, "If your

Roderick of TMinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07481622604560945536noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5250215.post-1161050359767454542006-10-15T18:57:00.000-07:002006-10-16T18:59:19.780-07:00

I did something fun yesterday.I built a ruin.A basilica ruin.A ruin so you can see inside where the columns are, and altar, and throne in the apse. And you don’t have the roof blocking your view. It’s more authentic as a ruin, anyway, since so many of the classic basilicas are in exactly that state.But here’s the fun part. I built it on the computer and then ordered it from LEGO! Yeah, you can go

Roderick of TMinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07481622604560945536noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5250215.post-1125541602294534862005-08-23T19:24:00.000-07:002006-01-01T08:03:00.776-08:00

I had a great experience today. I went to Sports Authority, and once inside the store I cut through the women's department. As I was walking through the bathing suits I saw myself in a mirror that made me look slim and tall! On my way back out of the store, I paused at the mirror again to see if I had been imagining things. Sure enough, it made me look slim and tall! I've decided there is a

Roderick of TMinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07481622604560945536noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5250215.post-1088986524833611002004-07-04T17:06:00.000-07:002005-06-11T09:51:22.003-07:00

In spite of the disheartening coverage of our media, returning vets continue to report to their friends and families that the Iraqi people are very glad to have us in their country. Some soldiers here in Tacoma are even discouraging their families from watching the news coverage, insisting that it is fatally biased. I'm in no position to judge, but I take note that there is a different viewpoint

Roderick of TMinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07481622604560945536noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5250215.post-1072925105670652422003-12-31T18:45:00.000-08:002004-07-04T17:17:41.336-07:00

In The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Matt Damon as the disadvantaged title character, steals the identity of a rich playboy and then proceeds to murder each person who comes close to exposing his ruse and ending his lavish lifestyle. With increasing urgency, the Ripley character fulfills the George Bernard Shaw observation, “Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.” Damon's Tom Ripley

Roderick of TMinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07481622604560945536noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5250215.post-1070299574835180992003-12-01T09:26:00.000-08:002003-12-31T18:29:52.826-08:00

Theodicies Speaking of death as "philosophy's only problem," Camus was pointing, at least indirectly, to the enduring "Problem of Evil": If there is a Good and Almighty God, why is there evil in the world? Attempts to answer this problem are called theodicies, i.e., attempts to justify or exonerate God from guilt (or from weakness) for the evil He apparently allows. Gnosticism was (and is) a

Roderick of TMinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07481622604560945536noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5250215.post-1061951259325245052003-08-26T19:27:00.000-07:002006-01-01T08:07:36.436-08:00

“Albert Camus once said that death was philosophy's only problem, and anyone who has watched a loved one die understands that philosophical problem well.” —Ravi Zacharias, Can Man Live Without God, p. 158.

Roderick of TMinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07481622604560945536noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5250215.post-1061872720917925322003-08-25T21:38:00.000-07:002003-08-25T21:47:49.566-07:00

Some years back, a pro-life (anti-abortion) group protested outside an abortion clinic in Eugene, OR. Passersby cursed and shook their fists at the protesters. One protester held a sign that read simply: "ABORTION: If it's not wrong, why are you angry." A man rode past on a bicycle, cursing and gesturing...but he stopped a block away. After five or ten minutes, he returned to the protesters and

Roderick of TMinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07481622604560945536noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5250215.post-1061512984096664352003-08-21T17:43:00.000-07:002003-08-23T09:14:17.566-07:00

The mind-body problem, so debated between reductionists and dualists, continues to intrigue me. As Jaegwon Kim asks in The Oxford Companion To Philosophy, "...how, and why, does conscious experience emerge out of the electrochemical processes occurring in a grey mass of neural fibres?" Reductionists tell us that there is no such thing as an immaterial mind, but if thought is only another

Roderick of TMinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07481622604560945536noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5250215.post-1060322352008375512003-08-07T22:59:00.000-07:002003-08-07T22:59:11.820-07:00

My friend from Iraq, who holds a PhD in architecture, is preparing to return from America to his homeland. For him, the fall of Saddam's regime is a dream come true. He hopes the US stays in Iraq for a long time (a different Iraqi perspective than that emphasized in our American media). I asked him how Saddam and Saddam’s sons had become so profoundly evil, in contrast to the general Iraqi

Roderick of TMinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07481622604560945536noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5250215.post-1059186746054943162003-07-25T19:32:00.000-07:002003-07-25T19:36:59.580-07:00

Here's a great quote by Sydney J. Harris: "All our efforts to attain immortality — by statesmanship, by conquest, by science or the arts — are equally vain in the long run, because the long run is longer than any of us imagine." (Quoted by Tom Morris in Philosophy For Dummies, p. 207) Then here's Morris' follow up: "Even if it were reasonable to expect a form of cultural immortality, most of us

Roderick of TMinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07481622604560945536noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5250215.post-937721152003-05-04T18:21:00.000-07:002003-05-04T18:34:39.000-07:00

THE LOCATION OF ULTIMACY I'm intrigued by the sociological idea of "the location of ultimacy." The "location of ultimacy" is where one finds his or her ultimate standard or source of philosophical truth. Every thinking person must decide his or her "location of ultimacy," and then based on that presupposition endeavor to answer four questions: The question of ontology: What is the nature of

Roderick of TMinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07481622604560945536noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5250215.post-930977792003-04-22T23:49:00.000-07:002003-12-02T11:09:44.890-08:00

BODY COUNTS As of today, the war in Iraq has resulted in 125 American military casualties, an estimated 3,000 Iraqi soldiers killed, and perhaps 1,500 Iraqi civilians killed. Total: 4,625. Here in the United States _secondary smoke from cigarettes_ kills 53,000 Americans every year. Why aren't activists demonstrating in our streets against smoking in public?

Roderick of TMinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07481622604560945536noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5250215.post-928981222003-04-19T11:44:00.000-07:002003-08-14T20:20:31.686-07:00

Tomorrow Christians worldwide celebrate the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. What intrigues me today are the opposing interpretations made by the first witnesses, regarding the empty tomb of Jesus. According to the Christian scriptures (Gospel of Matthew), the soldiers guarding Christ’s body were terrified by the appearance of an angel who descended from heaven and opened the tomb, showing it

Roderick of TMinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07481622604560945536noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5250215.post-928151062003-04-17T19:58:00.000-07:002003-08-14T20:20:03.420-07:00

A final thought on the matter of personal identity: We discovered in our recent thought experiment that personal identity depends upon having a relationship with another person; no relationship, no identity. However, in our thought experiment we are human and mortal, just as we are in reality, and therefore we have a problem. If death terminates our relationships, and our identity depends upon

Roderick of TMinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07481622604560945536noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5250215.post-927517412003-04-16T19:09:00.000-07:002003-08-14T20:23:27.606-07:00

I have a friend who believes in God; he just doesn't believe that he believes in God. Though he rejects a theistic worldview, he thinks and acts in ways that imply a deity as the ultimate reference point.

Roderick of TMinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07481622604560945536noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5250215.post-923234132003-04-09T16:52:00.000-07:002003-04-09T17:01:47.000-07:00

Back to the matter of personal identity. Join me in a little thought experiment. Imagine for a moment that you are the only person in the universe. You are human and mortal, but there is no one else, no God, no angels, no other human beings. Now try to answer the question, “Who am I?” In a truly empty universe the question is unanswerable; it doesn’t even have meaning. In an empty universe you

Roderick of TMinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07481622604560945536noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5250215.post-923218842003-04-09T16:21:00.000-07:002003-04-09T16:23:02.000-07:00

My brother Lynn phoned this morning from the Viet Nam Memorial in Washington, D.C. He choked up on the phone and said, “I’m glad I’m not lookin’ for your name. I love you so much.” That meant a lot to me today. I remember the draft lottery in late 1971 or early 1972 when I was listening for the number that would be assigned to my birthday, April 26th. It was a relief when my birthday was given a

Roderick of TMinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07481622604560945536noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5250215.post-921062302003-04-06T14:11:00.000-07:002003-04-06T14:11:58.310-07:00

Personal identity distinguishes each of us from the rest of the human race, and is the framework within which we are individually able to discover a sense of purpose and meaning. If we had no personal identity, there would be no "me," and whatever I was or did would have little or no meaning for there would be no "me" to take responsibility or credit for it. Though we usually take our personal

Roderick of TMinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07481622604560945536noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5250215.post-920777452003-04-05T22:55:00.000-08:002003-04-05T22:57:04.000-08:00

Terry, my tennis mentor, lets me serve till I get the ball in the box. Lately our tennis workouts are very spiritual experiences. For me they're all about service and love.

Roderick of TMinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07481622604560945536noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5250215.post-920694392003-04-05T19:22:00.000-08:002003-04-05T19:53:07.000-08:00

"We have to believe in free-will. We've got no choice." — Isaac Bashevis Singer. Quoted Times Diary, 21 Jun. 1982. I'm intrigued by the way we humans worship free will. It seems to come down to the fact that we judge life to be meaningless without it. Like for Frank Sinatra, life ultimately has meaning because "I did it my way." However, is the binding of meaning to free will anything more

Roderick of TMinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07481622604560945536noreply@blogger.com0