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Modern art, or more specifically, postmodern art characterized by abstract expressionist artists like Jackson Pollock, Pablo Picasso, and Franz Kline, has been decried by art critics (of a less refined taste as we are commonly told by the self-proclaimed elite art critics) as being trash and not “true art”. However such a distinction begs the question, what is true art and how do we go about judge it in an objective fashion? The first question will determine the latter since, if we cannot find an objective definition on which to stand for what constitutes art, the second question regarding how we should go about judging it will only be an exercise in expressing our subjective opinions. ...

Like most people in my profession, I used to love to sleep in. I made a habit of staying up late and subsequently getting up late. However, once I decided to made deliberate changes in my life, to be more productive and responsible for example, somehow I knew that one of the things I needed to change along with everything else was my sleep schedule. A post from the Art of Manliness blog eloquently captures the reasons for rising early as well as a clear strategy to accomplish that goal. ...

Last year my daughter helped shed some insights into Thanksgiving. And since she reminded me of her insights again this year, I thought I would share them with everyone. Enjoy! My daughter’s recently had a week where the emphasis was on “being thankful” before Thanksgiving this year. Curiously, or typically rather in our politically correct society, she and her classmates weren’t told who they were supposed to be thankful to. Just to have a general attitude of thankfulness. But that raises an interesting question: ...

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. -Ephesians 2:8-9 Faith is not the gift, Jesus is. Faith is what everyone operates on at some level as we are not omniscient beings who can possess knowledge with 100% certainty. Faith is trust and trust must have an object. It is on the object of our faith that the strength of our faith may be built. If that object is weak, so will be our faith. ...

The gay and lesbian movement has been slowly gathering steam every since the sexual revolution of the 60s and 70s. As such, many have been tempted to look at this movement as a culprit to the breakdown of the institution of marriage. The gay and lesbian movement, however, is more like a vulture than it is like a hawk. Where hawks actively seek out prey they can swoop in and kill. Vultures are content to feed off of the dead flesh of animals that have already died, either at the hands/claws of others, from disease, or simply from old age. ...

God would not command us to do what we cannot do. Or ‘God would not command us to do what we cannot do.’ God gave the Law to Moses, The Ten Commandments, to reveal what man cannot do, not what he can do. A. This premise is unscriptural. God gave the Law for two reasons: To expose sin and to increase it so man would have no excuse for declaring his own righteousness. Why? Because in the context, he does NO righteousness. As Martin Luther said to Erasmus, when you are finished with all your commands and exhortations from the Old Testament, I’ll write Ro.3:20 over the top of it all. Why use commands and exhortations from the O.T. to show free will when they were given to prove man’s sinfulness? They exist to show what we cannot do rather than what we can do. Yes, God gave commands to man which man cannot do. Therefore commandments and exhortations do not prove free will. Nowhere in scripture is there any hint that God gives commands to men to prove they are able to perform them. ...

Here is a 3 part video set that shows what naturalists think the fate of philosophy will be in the “age of neuroscience” Our biological similarities with animals should serve as evidence that our real cognitive differences do not lie in our biological/physical make-up. However, neuroscientists like the ones above are quite happy to paint humans as mere machines responding to stimulus around them (aka, naturalism). The problem they face (and have yet to address) is that human’s regularly display patterns of mental activity in the absence of any stimulus. It’s called dreaming and it is the experimental Achilles heel of neuroscientists who think their field will supplant fields dealing with metaphysics like philosophy and theology. ...

The most popular argument from the left regarding marriage seems to be that we should just “get the government out of any marriage decision between two (or more) consenting adults. This, they argue, is more in keeping with a limited view of government that many aspire to (but precious few actually vote for). Well here’s my take on the matter. It is unrealistic to expect the government to not be involved in the institution of marriage. It would be great if we lived in a perfect society where no one ever cheated on their spouse, abused them, ran off leaving one to fend for themselves, etc. ...

Tonight I’ll have the privilege of seeing Alvin Plantinga deliver a lecture on the incompatibility between science and naturalism at this year’s Evangelical Philosophical Conference. Dr Plantinga is widely recognized as one of the foremost philosophers in the world today. He is best known for his groundbreaking work in the area of epistemology (the study of how we know what we know). His crowning works are his Warrant series of books which include: ...

We’ve been trained to react to certain words, like Pavlov’s dog. So we hear “diversity” and we are supposed to automatically think it is a universal good. So says Thomas Sowell in this interview where he also outlines the other problems with the popular stance on diversity. In a longer interview from the Fixed Point Foundation, we are given a more detailed presentation of How Cultural Diversity is Destroying America. Here are the combined highlights from both Thomas Sowell and the Fixed Point podcast. ...