Christian Fathers and Their Impact on Children
Reading Time: 2 minutesIs choosing Christian mates important in child rearing?
“Faith is One of the World’s Great Evils,” Declares Man Who Does Not Believe in Evil
Reading Time: 3 minutesFinally some good news in this world! In a stunning rebuke of all faiths everywhere, but especially of the really stupid ones, like Christianity, Professor Richard Dawkins has delivered a killing blow.
Are You an Effective Team?
Reading Time: < 1 minute“Mission says we have done well. That we are an effective team.” Oblivion might be my favorite movie. That might be my favorite sequence of script. When people turn and burn through relationships, time and again failing and being miserable, a couple of options are exceedingly likely: they are drawn to chaos, or they are not being effective team members. Sometimes both. I’ve been that person. Not an effective team member. Drawn…
My Friends Are Like Southwest Airlines
Reading Time: < 1 minute“Southwest Airlines is successful because the company understands it’s a customer service company. It also happens to be an airline.”
—Harvey Mackay
The Pornography of Butterflies and Terry Crews
Reading Time: 3 minutesTwo researchers, Dr. Nikolaas Tinbergen and Dr. D. Magnus, played a trick on butterflies. After figuring out which marks on female butterfly wings were most eye-catching to their mates, they created their own cardboard butterflies and painted them to look like super-females. Their wing patterns were based on the wings of normal butterflies, but with more exciting marks than would ever be found in nature. And the butterflies fell for…
You Can’t Awaken Someone Who Is Pretending to Be Asleep.
Reading Time: 3 minutesYou can’t awaken someone who is pretending to be asleep. You also cannot have reciprocated love with someone who is only pretending to feel. Throughout my life, I’ve often found myself wishing that I were a robot, so that I wouldn’t have emotions—I was always impressed by Data in the regard. That wasn’t possible, but I created a facsimile of it, wherein I blocked off letting myself feel connected to…
Good to Great: James Bond, Goethe, and Self-Slavery
Reading Time: 2 minutes“This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”
Can You Take a Critique: Seeing Beyond the Ingroup Horizon
Reading Time: 3 minutes “How to Have Impossible Conversations: A Very Practical Guide” is a great book.* The authors have noted that academia (including the most prominent medical journals) is subject to an increasing assault whereby science is replaced by social justice. (They famously had a number of bogus studies, including one which won an award, published in academic journals to highlight this insidious trend.) The authors are also concerned about so-called “virtue-signaling” and…
(Podcast) The Land of Steadfast Habits: Confronting the Facts
Reading Time: < 1 minuteLucas gives a talk on how he used nature to dwell on God and himself, and improved his mental and spiritual health…and how that convinced him to change his “stinkin’ thinkin.” How is cognitive behavioral therapy tied to repentance? Note: the audio is damaged starting a couple of minutes in due to the failure of the lavalier mic.
The Land of Steadfast Habits
Reading Time: 4 minutesThe outdoors are incredibly important to your mental health. Here’s why.
My Life: A Story of Failure; A Hope of Success
Reading Time: 14 minutesNote: This is an older post with valuable information. I now am developing a happy familia. ⇢ Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Your Pandora’s Box In a previous article, I noted that much of my failure in communication has ultimately come down to effort. Because I have not put in the time and effort required to build relationships, my overall success in conveying information and having successful relationships has been very…
A Failure to Communicate: The Story of My Life?
Reading Time: 4 minutes“Simplifying important but complex messages can be a necessary and valuable approach for increasing the reach of those messages. But when simplification renders the message inaccurate, the mission is harmed.” —Dr. Heather E. Heying While I was on a quick, 24-mile hike with an acquaintance, she commented that I would talk about things which “made no sense.” While they made plenty of sense to me, and I was conveying correct…
Global Warming Alarmists & Climate Change Deniers: How to Have Impossible Conversations with Terrible People
Reading Time: 6 minutes“There is a delight in the hardy life of the open. There are no words that can tell the hidden spirit of the wilderness that can reveal its mystery, its melancholy and its charm. The nation behaves well if it treats the natural resources as assets which it must turn over to the next generation increased and not impaired in value. Conservation means development as much as it does protection.”…
Searching for Peace, and Working to Maintain It: An Instagram Story
Reading Time: 2 minutes“My eyes! Agh my eyes. Maybe learn to take good photos, buddy.” “People like you are why America is being destroyed.” Those are a couple of comments that I’ve gotten randomly from people I don’t know. It’s shocking, though, that my first instinct is to take a written scimitar at the people who left them, and it reveals something about my inner man: I like a fight. You see, I…
Thinking about Suicide (Though Not Considering It)
Reading Time: 4 minutesSuicide among young folks in America has been on the rise. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently found that from 2007 to 2017, the rate of Americans ages 10 to 24 who died by suicide rose by 56 percent, from 6.8 deaths per 100,000 persons to 10.6. (For all ages, see their overview here.) Why is this? What causes a person in a first-world country to kill themselves?…
Climate Change Models Are Not Designed
Reading Time: 4 minutes“There is at bottom no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pointless indifference…We are machines for propagating DNA…It is every living object’s sole reason for being.” Dr. Richard Dawkins, a famous biologist said that, and on atheism, it seems to me that while it’s sad, it’s also true. One weird aspect that atheism commits one to is the denial of design—design of any sort, not just of…
Exchanges with a Former Commander (And Have You Found Zeus?)
Reading Time: 14 minutesThis post covers a wide range of important topics. It details discussions that I had with a man who was once my commander. Enjoy. Introduction: They Called Us Nerds, Gary. Nerds. Every so often, a fellow nerd pops up and wants to discuss science and philosophy with me and my heavens am I thirsty for such discussion. Once, a former commander exchanged invigorating emails with me about God, science, free…
Listening? (Paranoia, instagram, and learning.)
Reading Time: 2 minutes“You have to listen very carefully and tell the truth if you are going to get a paranoid person to open up to you.” —Jordan Peterson Paranoid people exist, and it’s not just Psycho Sam (Hunt for the Wilderpeople…see it!). People are paranoid about so many things these days—the news (fake?), the medical industry (killers?), Russians, instagram, and the list goes on. In addition, technology itself has changed us. In…
Podcast: The Honest Truth About Dishonesty Part 3
Reading Time: < 1 minuteLucas presents a lesson with some interactive polls about dishonesty. Do we think about what makes us cheat? Thanks to the marvel of modern technology, the assembly was able to answer questions in real time, and see everyone’s results. Briefly, we covered: —The cheating bug. (And is it contagious?)—How to avoid getting ethically ill.—Do we cheat more when we’re together? —Remember your mortality. —Conflicts of interest.—Prioritizing values, and would you…
Competent Communication
Reading Time: 2 minutesWhen communicating with someone else, style and tone affect information delivery. As the saying goes, “You can be right, but wrong at the top of your voice.” In essence, when communicating with someone else, the person doing the talking/writing needs to construct their wording in such a way that the receiver accurately processes the information. Failure to do this is known in business English as incompetent communication, because valuable information was…
Being Honest in Our Arguments and Avoiding Snowjobs
Reading Time: 4 minutesThis meme demonstrates the importance of critically examining our own beliefs; of being willing to put forth both the support and flaws that our beliefs might have—in this case, the statements in the picture are deeply flawed to the point of possibly seeming deceitful upon deeper examination. We need to be honest about our convictions and reasons for them. I’ve seen (and have done this myself in the past, to…
Free Will and Science
Reading Time: 3 minutesI once pointed out that most, scientifically minded atheists don’t believe in free will, and noted what one had said in a book. A few people remarked that I was just “quote mining,” which wasn’t really true—I just like to take notes while I’m reading, so I typically have them on hand. Regardless, this picture is pretty amusing, and I hope you’ll find the following quotes of some value in…
Podcast: Intellectual Honesty: Avoiding Overstating Your Case (And Especially Snow Jobs)
Reading Time: < 1 minuteAn old study keeps floating around the internet, claiming that children who grow up in religious households are less altruistic than those raised in a secular environment. The study, upon peer-review, was found to have incredible flaws. A recent meme—below—from my faith heritage shares some flaws. We utilize this meme during the class to look at the importance of presenting the strengths and weaknesses of any position you hold. With…
Podcast: The Honest Truth About Dishonesty—Part 2
Reading Time: < 1 minuteWhat causes us to lie? If money’s on the line, do we lie more? What if we can make a lot of money? How can we enhance our own honesty? Lucas leads a lesson using Dr. Dan Ariely’s book “The Honest Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone—Especially Ourselves.” You can find the slideshow’s download link hosted at slideshare here. The class starts at slide 34 and ends at…
Podcast: God’s Foreknowledge (Class)
Reading Time: 5 minutesHow can God know the outcome of the world? How is it that we are predestined? Do we have free will? Above, I go over the three, big theories on this. The class notes follow: What are the three views commonly called? 1.______________, 2._______________, 3.______________ ________ JC, early-mid 1500s Often summed by “TULIP.” Total depravity—we are totally depraved and unable to choose good. Unconditional election—we are unconditionally elected to salvation…