“This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere…” –John Muir In August of 2019, my dad and I undertook our annual trip from our Wisconsin home to the western United States. I’ve previously written about my experience of the 2017 solar eclipse, which happened on one of these trips, and I want to …
Tag Archives: christianity
The Pleasing Aroma of Ash Wednesday
A year ago on this day of the week, I attended an Ash Wednesday service for the first time. The sweeping Gothic architecture, resonating organ, and liturgical worship of Luther Memorial Church in Madison, WI presented a sharp contrast with the services of my charismatic heritage. But I certainly sensed the personal presence of God …
Video Game Speedrunning: Beyond eSports
In the past decade or so, much attention has fallen on the burgeoning popularity of eSports, multiplayer video games played competitively in a sport-like context. The most popular titles are largely real-time strategy, fighting, or first-person shooter games, such as League of Legends, Defense of the Ancients, Counter-Strike, Fortnite, and Super Smash Bros, and the …
Soteriology and Logical Possibility
Underlying Christian discussions about the nature of salvation are philosophical assumptions about possibility and the nature of God. We often are trying to square Christian doctrines with philosophical consistency when we discuss how individuals are saved, and this is a worthwhile goal. Therefore, evaluating the philosophical worldviews we each bring to both the biblical text …
Swimming and Confronting Chaos
Ten years of my childhood and adolescence were spent participating in competitive swimming. It was by far my strongest extracurricular commitment, extending year-round in both club and high school programs. Through it I learned priceless life lessons and cultivated a habit of applying focused, determined effort to tasks. It also became a central part of …
Abortion: A Brief Philosophical Investigation
I wrote the following essay for a philosophy class titled “Contemporary Moral Issues”. One of the main units was about the morality of abortion. Though one might think that a class at a major campus (UW Madison) in one of the most progressive cities in America would be anything but balanced, the arguments presented were …
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Shapiro, Schaeffer, and the Story of the West
Among the most popular political pundits today is Ben Shapiro. Commanding the attention of tech-savvy millennial and Gen-Z conservatives, he is at the forefront of the burgeoning Internet-based conservative movement currently succeeding the Rush Limbaughs and Sean Hannitys of talk radio and cable TV.* In Shapiro’s most recent book, The Right Side of History, he …
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Video Games as Art: Introspection
What follows is a paper I wrote for a class I took my first semester of college in the fall of 2017, titled “Philosophical Reflections on Science and Technology”. The class itself was my first formal introduction to the philosophical mode of thought and dialogue–we read writers such as Martin Heidegger, Jacques Ellul, and Neil …
Calvinism, Arminianism and the Problem of Proof-Texting
In Christian discussions about soteriology (the doctrine of salvation), the greatest impasse between Calvinists and Arminians* is what’s known as proof-texting. With respect to the Bible, this is the practice of cherry-picking isolated, often out-of-context verses and eisegeting one’s view on to them. Using proof-texting, one can claim that practically anything, however outlandish, is supported …
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A Study of the Solar Eclipse
The “Great American Eclipse” was an event unlike any other in American history. Crossing the Lower 48 states on August 21, 2017, over the course of a few hours the moon’s hulking shadow bisected the country in a path from Oregon to South Carolina. This eclipse, striking a well-populated and technologically connected continent, became far …
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