Jordan Peterson is deep. I came across a fascinating dialogue between him and Sam Harris on Harris’ podcast. It was a very interesting and respectful exchange of ideas. Harris’ background is in neuroscience and he’s a very prominent New Atheist author. Peterson is a particularly progressive Christian, and has an interesting perspective as a clinical psychologist and professor of psychology – he’s specifically interested in underlying archetypes of behavior and belief. Both Harris and Peterson are realists and feel there are mind independent truths,... Read more

Blood Diamond is a powerful and moving film. One scene in particular, I vividly remember. The backdrop is that an innocent young child, the apple of his father’s eye, was taken captive by warlords, and forced into labor to harvest diamonds. Like all forms of slavery and human trafficking, the goal is to break the captive’s identity and self-worth, and turn them (via drugs, forced labor, prostitution, etc.) into an entirely new person. The theological parallels are striking. The film depicts the shattering of innocence... Read more

Robert Jastrow is one of my favorite agnostic authors on the big questions. As founding director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and a popular author, I’ve very much appreciated his insights on the intersection of science (specifically cosmology), philosophy, and theology. The combination of his knowledge and humility are rare, especially among today’s skeptical scientists who write on these topics (like Lawrence Krauss who wrote A Universe from Nothing). To Aristotle and Liebniz’s timeless question, “Why is There Something... Read more

My written exchange (turned philosophical road show) with Adam Lee on the nonreligious channel has culminated into a book! The working title is Meta: On God, the Big Questions, and the Just City (An Uncommon Exchange). It’s being published by Cascade Books, an imprint of the Oregon publishing house Wipf & Stock, devoted to “books that combine academic rigor with broad appeal and readability”. The goal of our book (and live events) is to raise the bar on the how the... Read more

In my reading, I was reminded again how profound James 1 is with some timeless metaphysical and religious themes. The nature of God, the problem of evil, free will, and true religion; look no further. I. Metaphysics (The nature of God, problem of evil, free will) A key topic in philosophical theology, the logical problem of evil asks how it is possible that God and evil both exist. It becomes apparent fairly quick that the definition of “God” and “evil” are both key underlying... Read more

What does it mean to be “religious”? Not in the generic sense, “spirituality” for example, but a religion that God accepts. I’m always taken back be the fact the genuine Christianity cannot conform to a religious “system”. Only through loving action can one call themselves religious. By way of James 1:27, Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and keep keep oneself from being polluted by the... Read more

Imagine you are young man in high school. Excellent grades, aspiring young basketball star – the world is your oyster. Enter the back pain, the initial medical consults, and the first cancer diagnosis. Surgery and redo surgery. Basketball career over, in and out of hospitals, a new reality takes form. Repeated spine surgeries not only have the pleasure of extended hospital stays, but an unspeakable pain of which most of us could only imagine. High school goes from the best of times... Read more