The Enlightenment, a movement in Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, promoted reason and reason alone as the method of obtaining truth. Nietzsche, a man famous for saying God is dead said, “The exemplary human being must craft his or her identity through self-realization and do so without relying on anything transcending that life such as God.” These ideas became embedded in society. We craft our identity through self-realization. Many of our social issues need to be evaluated … [Read more...] about The Collapse of Justice
Satan
Prophecy: Knowing the Future in Advance
When Paul began to address problems in the Church in Corinth, he clearly explained that the wisdom of God is a mystery, but that the things of God are revealed through His Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ addressed this stating that the Holy Spirit will guide us into all truth and will tell us of things to come (John 16:13). So we have a combination of truth and "things to come" as an aspect of the Holy Spirit. And Peter said that those who were given the Holy Spirit now have minds that … [Read more...] about Prophecy: Knowing the Future in Advance
Valentine’s Day
The observance of Valentine’s Day is recognized as sort of a joyous celebration of love and romance, an opportunity to make somebody that is special to you feel special. It’s sort of a very nice idea and it’s become, as many of the hallmark holidays, sort of a very widely accepted ubiquitous global tradition. Endorsed by Christianity, endorsed by commerce and certainly by schoolteachers, it’s one of those holidays that everyone seems to participate in and there is a lot of social pressure to be … [Read more...] about Valentine’s Day
Where is AI Leading Us?
Artificial Intelligence is advancing at an exponential pace. AI’s processing power and programming algorithms are advancing incredibly rapidly and largely out of the sight of the general population. The limitations of power intensive hardware are being solved faster than alternative power sources can be developed. And AI is exhausting the supply of internet text used by programmers to teach it and is now training itself. In some functions, it is already better than human beings, and soon it … [Read more...] about Where is AI Leading Us?
Christmas: Does It Matter?
In a popular 1965 Broadway musical set in tsarist Russia, the main character insisted that tradition provided balance in the villagers’ lives and that, without traditions, their lives would be “as shaky as a fiddler on the roof.” Traditions are indeed comfortable and somehow reassuring. If we leave the security of the customs we have grown up with, we feel shaken and a bit unstable, as Tevye so eloquently said. Tradition plays a powerful role in the customs that various cultures embrace. … [Read more...] about Christmas: Does It Matter?
What Filtration System are We Using?
I was recently given the opportunity to visit some data centers which house computer equipment capable of generating a lot of information. These newest generation of data centers will house AI, artificial intelligence. Server based computer equipment is pretty smart. The amount of information that they will generate dwarfs today's traditional data centers by leaps and bounds, and companies are looking to be a part of this rather large trend that's developing around the world. It's really … [Read more...] about What Filtration System are We Using?
Christmas Trees: Authentic Worship?
I would like you to think through the question in the title of this message because I think it will lead us to a place of agreement. My first question is really, Are you authentic? Do you value authenticity in other people? Honesty, integrity, consistency? I think we’d all agree that we value those characteristics in others, and I think we probably generally think of ourselves as that sort of person. Truth matters even in popular culture such as the phrase “keep it real”. The idea … [Read more...] about Christmas Trees: Authentic Worship?