Christopher's Meanderings

Nancy Ellen Abrams' latest book provides insight on how a naturalist and life-long skeptic could make spiritual sense out of world which she believes is necessarily closed to any supernatural entity. From the start, assumptions are made about the character of the universe.  In the introduction, she makes two points which dominated the book: 1. "All the old views of God are demonstrably inadequate to our times (xxx)." 2. God can only be real if it is found within the natural explanations available in the universe (xxviii). I found the book to be filled with similar assumptions that took for granted a naturalist view of the universe. For example, the Abram's assumes God could never communicate faster than the speed of light and could therefore never know everything. Why? Because she knows of no physical and scientific explanation of how this could be possible.  So, from the beginning everything is assumed, which for me makes a rather droll reading. Where does h...

Life is always full of unexpected challenges and opportunities.  During the past couple of years, I have been surprised over and over again as I take time to review, contemplate, and assess my experiences.  The surprises usually come when I take a look at the times which I thought of as unproductive or even counterproductive. One of the things that I have consistently noted is how I have become a much more detailed oriented person than I used to be as an early twenty something.  It is not that I am some master of organization now- that will probably never happen.  Instead, I am very aware of my own faults and I'm o.k. with them.  Being o.k. with my faults doesn't mean that I encourage bad behaviors; it just means that I am aware of them and I know how to deal with them much better. For example, I recently realized I was not taking an accurate view of myself and the way I spent my time.  There were times when I was far too optimistic and rosy, and there ...