thinktoomuch.net

This post is nearly 9000 words, my apologies. Writing for many world-views at once takes words. I wrote it for myself firstly, but if you have the time and patience, I believe you will find it to be of interest, no matter your persuasion. I can try to distill it into shorter pieces later, but [...]

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People don’t realise the extent of human irrationality. We are emotional creatures. Our emotions are a part of us. Our emotions shape us. Yes, we also have rationality, but emotion and subjective experience is not controlled by rationality. The interplay between the two is complex.
Much of human fighting and disconnectedness results from a lack of [...]

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Wikipedia’s definition of theology is as follows:
Theology is the study of religion from a religious perspective. It has been defined as reasoned discourse about God or the gods, or more generally about religion or spirituality.
Now in a recent conversation about “Creation vs Evolution” on the Shofar Facebook group, this sentiment was raised (by a creationist):
I [...]

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There are various uses of the word “evolution”. Some talk about “Stellar Evolution” when referring to the development of stars. (Carl Sagan does this.) Others complain the word is too widely used, and is losing its meaning, suggesting we should only use it to refer to biological evolution. (I’m under the impression that Stephen Jay [...]

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There is a very long blog post coming up, probably tomorrow. I started writing it on Sunday, and I’ve just “finished” it. Out of respect for my readers (or maybe just out of a selfish desire to increase the quality of my writing), I have not yet hit publish. I want to give it another [...]

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This is the post that I was busy writing when I decided I need to first write On “Richard Dawkins is a Fundamentalist” and “Shofar is a Cult”. That post was mostly about label agnosticism and how I care about what people mean by the labels they use, rather than whether it is the “correct” [...]

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A friend just invited me to a talk organised by an academically-inclined study group at his church tomorrow afternoon. Details as follows:
Subject: Charles Darwin and Human Nature - should Christian Theology care?
Speaker: Prof Wentzel van Huyssteen (Princeton Theological seminar, USA)
Time: 17:00, 10 Junie
Place: Kerksentrum, Uniepark (Stellenbosch, South Africa)
The talk will be in English. From Wentzel [...]

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There has been much debate about whether or not Shofar is a cult. I prefer not to take part in such debates, being someone that doesn’t care much for labels. I’m too fluid in my definitions. And besides, those already debating this point are providing more than enough entertainment for the observer. (And more [...]

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In the future, when I share stories about interesting conversations, I want to protect the anonymity of the person I was talking to. If I were to write a number of posts involving the same conversation, I may mix it up a little so that readers can’t build up too much of a profile. It [...]

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As I was trying to finish my thesis last year, a number of things came together in a tumultuous mess. Trying to point to one particular cause would be incorrect. It was a concoction of, amongst other things, intense anxiety and stress (the thesis serving as catalyst to dig up material for an early mid-life [...]

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