“Hell Bent” was a nice season finale for what has been, I would say, the best season of the Peter Capaldi era thus far, with some episodes that will surely remain all-time classics. The way the episode begins is mysterious, and makes sense only at the end. The Doctor is in Nevada, and stops by at a diner – it looks like the diner he visited with Amy and Rory. Clara works there as a waitress, and the Doctor tells... Read more
Hemant Mehta is among several who have noted the above video, which features a couple of pranksters in the Netherlands putting a “Holy Qur’an” cover on a Bible and then stopping people in the street, reading parts of it, and asking them what they think. The passages were classic examples of difference between our values and Ancient Near Eastern ones – cutting off a woman’s hand, people being forced to eat their own children, women being submissive, etc. What is... Read more
The quote above comes from a post by Richard Beck. Here’s what follows immediately after: Protestantism was created when Martin Luther was asked to recant his teachings at the Diet of Worms, asked to submit to the magisterium (teaching authority) of the church. There Luther famously declared: “To go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand I can do no other.”That’s Protestantism. The elevation of the individual’s conscience over the magisterium (teaching authority) of the church. Click through for... Read more
While it could be argued that anyone will sound like Yoda if you rearrange their sentences in the characteristic way, Tim Suttle still seems to be onto something when he singles out these quotes as having a Yoda-like quality to them: “The mark of spiritual insecurity, anxiety is.” “The most heroic labor and the most difficult sacrifice, peace demands.” “The path to faith reason is; when reason can say no more, takes over faith does.” “More about ourselves than about Him, our... Read more
The quote comes from a recent post by Sarah Bessey, “Blessed are the Ones With Questions.” Click through to read the whole thing. I don’t think we give enough credit to the ones with questions. Oftentimes they are simply saying out loud what the rest of us are thinking and wondering. The questions aren’t the threat — it’s the alternative to growing numb and complacent, the specter of a stalled-out journey, the encroaching “lives of quiet desperation” that so terrified... Read more
The Mike Luckovich cartoon above should help explain (to the deliberately obtuse who claim not to understand) why people who say “stop praying and do something” are not opposed to prayer per se, but are saying yet again that prayer without action is meaningless, much as the Letter of James says faith without works is dead. If you still don’t get it, read what Bob Cornwall, or Zack Hunt, or Thomas Whitley, or the Daily News has had to say.... Read more
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I must confess that I didn’t even notice the little tag at the bottom of the image above when I shared it. I was treating it as an anonymous internet statement, and thought it made a point worth sharing. But having been asked about it, I feel the need to comment on the subject. The only other place I found an image with a similar tag was on an image which was created to poke fun at fears in the United States... Read more
This cartoon from PHD Comics will help you tell the difference, while also noticing the similarities. Read more
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