After news of Stephen Hawking's death began to circulate around the internet, I must confess that I was appalled to read comments from some alleged Christians, who were rather gleefully speculating that Professor Hawking was roasting in hell at that moment, due to his atheism. The first two thoughts that came to my mind were a Bible verse and a parable. The verse was Matthew 7:1, which reads: Judge not, lest you be judged. My next thought was to remember the parable about the workers in the field who were all paid the same, no matter how many hours they worked. I interpreted these connected thoughts in this way: even if it was with his dying breath, if Hawking said, "Jesus, forgive me!" we should expect to see him in heaven one day. By acknowledging that Jesus has the power to forgive sins, he would have implicitly been saying that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah and also God, the Son, and according to Romans 10:9, that would have been all that was necessary. It doesn't really matter when he saw the light, as long as he saw it before his last breath. And if Professor Hawking didn't repent, well, that's between him and God. Judging whether or not a man I never met was worthy of heaven is way above my pay grade. It's certainly no cause for celebration, nor a reason for Christians to gloat. If there's any question about my opinion on this subject, see how our atheist friends have also noticed some Christians are behaving badly. Though from what I saw, the only truly reprehensible comment was from the Westboro Baptist Church, which should hardly be a surprise to … [Read more...]
Losing with dignity
As a Georgia Bulldog fan, I don't feel like I have to wear clothes with UGA logos on them every day to establish my credibility--anyone who has any doubts whatsoever about my allegiance to my school only has to read this blog, or peruse my curriculum vitae. Or, they could simply glance at my diploma and note that I graduated from UGA in 1983. I went to school (and rode the campus bus) with Herschel Walker. In 1980, I was in the stands in Jacksonville when Lindsey Scott snatched a pass from Buck Belue and somehow outran Florida's defensive backs for a 93-yard miracle that did not involve divine intervention. I was also in the stands at the Sugar Bowl when Penn State upset the Dawgs in 1982. No matter whether we won or lost, I have never been embarrassed by the team to call myself a Georgia fan. Other so-called "fans" are another story, entirely. Some of our fans have made me cringe on occasion. Nobody is perfect. We all make mistakes. I'd be lying if I said that during the national championship game, it never occurred to me that the officiating was so bad that it might have been deliberate, and that UGA was being cheated out of victory by the referee. However, once "the heat of the moment" had passed and the opportunity came to evaluate the 2nd half (and overtime), three things became clear: the officials had missed a number of calls that hurt Georgia and helped Alabama, but Alabama started playing much better football after halftime, and it seemed that the Dawgs became much more conservative with play-calling in the second half. Placing all the blame for … [Read more...]
A lesson on morality from Guardians of the Galaxy
Morality, of course, is a general sense of right versus wrong. By human nature, our personal sense of morality is relative, because otherwise there would be no criminal behavior, and no one would ever get upset or offended by the actions of another person. But what about objective morality? Does it even exist? An objective moral truth is always true. Even though do people commit murders, the act of deliberately murdering another human being is universally understood to be wrong, by virtually everyone on earth, which even includes the perpetrator. Many of the most important objective moral truths were codified into law from the earliest days of civilization: stealing, murder, and giving false testimony are only a few examples. The thief and the murderer may try to rationalize that under certain circumstances, their criminal behavior may be the only appropriate solution to their perceived problem, but the independent observer with absolute knowledge of right versus wrong and good versus evil, but the arbiter of objective moral values has decreed that the end result never justifies the means. So, whoever would have guessed that that a simple but extraordinary lesson on morality could be learned by watching Guardians of the Galaxy? Certainly not me. In fact, I've watched the movie several times without the thought ever occurring to me, that the scriptwriters had managed to work a very clever moral lesson into their plot. In this scene, Rocket the Raccoon and Drax the Destroyer perfectly represent humankind's "natural" approach to the problem of morality. Peter … [Read more...]
An open letter to Dr. Abbie Youkilis
Dear Dr. Youkilis, With my deepest sympathies, I would like to offer my sincere condolences for the horrific, cold-blooded murder of your niece, even though you wrote that you aren't really interested in hearing them. As a free society, we have failed both our children and grandchildren, by neglecting to take action after tragic massacres at Columbine and Sandy Hook. Unfortunately, long after it has become necessary to take action, we continue to disagree about the solution, and what actually needs to be done. Your letter said: My family does not want your hopes and prayers. We want your action. Join us in fighting the NRA. Join us in deposing any politician who cares more about campaign contributions than my beautiful Jaime. Join us in supporting leaders who will bravely fight for our children's lives. It hasn't always been this way. During my childhood, I can only remember one mass shooting on a school campus: "Texas Tower Sniper" Charles Whitman. The media attributed his rampage on a brain tumor. Dr. Youkilis, I can certainly understand your heartfelt desire to see action taken so that tragedies like this should never happen again. However, the assumption on which your demand for action is based is not only impossible, it is also terribly misguided. You seem to have assumed that any scenario involving a civilian with a gun never has a positive outcome. Video evidence clearly demonstrates the opposite is true. The video below illustrates the importance of private gun ownership, when a civilian uses his personal firearm to save the life of a downed police … [Read more...]
Pre-birth memories
Karl Jung once wrote, "Religious experience is absolute. It is indisputable. You can only say that you have not had such an experience, and your opponent will say, "Sorry, I have." And there your discussion will come to an end." Therein lies the problem of dealing with any personal experience. Some people claim that they have seen a genuine extra-terrestrial creature; I have not. We might assume that person was simply mistaken, fooled by some sort of optical illusion. Or we might even assume intentional dishonesty. Perhaps mental illness best explains why this person believes he or she has seen an extraterrestrial. But what we absolutely cannot do is to claim with any conviction that this other person's experience was imaginary or a lie, unless we can prove it. Literally, if we weren't there to see for ourselves, how can we possibly claim to possess this knowledge? Some people might argue that it's logical to assume, or common sense to believe that there are no aliens in outer space because there is no evidence they exist. If behavior in the physical world was always logical and common sensical, computer programmers would never have to write code to handle exceptions. Fortunately, I can understand this phenomena all too well, because I have publicly confessed that I believe that I have personally experienced supernatural phenomena. I specifically referred to paranormal entities that one might describe as a ghost or a demon, depending on one's personal beliefs as to whether or not ghosts actually exist. Whatever "it" was, this invisible entity was intelligent … [Read more...]
