Dallas Willard on Nietzsche versus Jesus Christi

Dallas Willard's hour and a half speech at the Veritas forum at Stanford University in 2002.


Nietzsche v. Jesus Christ from The Veritas Forum on Vimeo.

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Os Guiness on the Thinking Man's Quest for Meaning

Os Guiness gave a great talk at the Veritas Forum. The Journey: A Thinking Person's Quest for Meaning
Os Guinness
University of California, Los Angeles
7 April 2010

Movie Review: Inception

Inception is a complicated movie. It involves multiple layers of complexities, dreams, realities and levels of darkness of our subconscious. On one level it asks the eternal question of whether reality is a person dreaming he or she is a butterfly or whether it is the butterfly dreaming it is a human being. On another level, it asks the question of whether it is possible for subliminal or subconscious manipulation by others for their own agenda. On a third level, if one has a choice to choose to live in less than ideal reality or in an ideal dream reality, where will one choose to live? Reminds me of the dilemma facing Kirk and Picard in the nexus in the movie Star Trek: Generations.

Leonardo DeCapri fresh from his recent excellent psychological thriller Stutter Island stars in this science fiction thriller of the manipulation of dreams. For the plot (spoilers) read the Wiki here. The movie is at times slow paced and sometimes confusing as the viewers have to keep track of the layers of dreams involved. Thus it is not like most science fiction movies which are fast paced with lots of CGs. Still it is surprising for me to see a few cinema patrons leaving in the middle of the movie. I, for my own part, have enjoyed it immensely.

Thomas Aquinas on the Five Ways

An interesting clip of Thomas Aquinas. I also found a fascinating website Thomistic Philosophy, Great stuff here.

Expanded text of 'The Five Ways in Context'

BosMutusCatholic — July 12, 2009 — The historical and literary context for the Five Ways of proving the existence of God found in the Summa Theologiae of Saint Thomas Aquinas. The video describes his life, his joining the Dominican Order of Preachers and the discovery of Aristotle in 12 th century Europe after the crusades, along with Islamic philosophers' commentaries. It outlines Aquinas' resolution of the tension between faith and reason, and explains why he offers proofs for God's existence in a work of theology.

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If the World is so Dangerous Why Have Children?

THEOLOGY IN THE NEWS Peter Singer's Swan Song Bioethicist asks: 'Why don't we make ourselves the last generation on earth?' By Collin Hansen

Peter Singer is a bioethicist I love to argue with. Even though we do not agree in many areas, I find his provocative thinking challenging. His latest is that since we all agree that the world is so bad and destructive, why have children? Why bring them into such a dangerous world?

Writing June 6 for The New York Times, Singer asks a characteristically provocative question: "How good does life have to be, to make it reasonable to bring a child into the world?" He wonders whether even the comparatively high Western standard of living is suitable for a fulfilling time on earth...

Singer offers climate change as one threat to the Western way of life. And he pulls no punches while offering one possible response to this potential crisis that he says threatens future generations. "[W]hy don't we make ourselves the last generation on earth? If we would all agree to have ourselves sterilized then no sacrifices would be required—we could party our way into extinction!" Whether he realizes it or not, Singer cites an ethic attested and condemned in Scripture (Isaiah 39:8; 1 Corinthians 15:32). If there is no hope for tomorrow, this dystopian ethic says, at least we don't have to worry about tomorrow. We can live it up today...

Still, Singer prompts us to reflect on why Christians nevertheless enthusiastically bring children into this world. We harbor no false hope about eradicating suffering through evolution. We understand these children to be stained with sin from the beginning. We groan along with a creation subjected to futility, currently awaiting redemption (Rom. 8:19-23). What reason do we have, then, to bring new children into this world?

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