Gene Edward Veith Jr.'s Blog, page 265
February 27, 2015
Net neutrality or Obamanet?
The FCC voted to regulate the internet so that service providers cannot charge different kinds of users or content providers (e.g., streaming a Netflix movie) more than any others. Some are hailing this ruling as “net neutrality,” making it possible for the internet to remain free and open. Others are condemning these rules as government [Read More...]
ISIS plans to sack Rome
ISIS has put out an e-book detailing its plans to sack Rome. In doing so, it explains how it will ally with leftists. It also gives the ISIS geo-political analysis, including the role of American weakness in its rise, its plans to temporarily take advantage of Russia’s antagonism with the West, and how Muslims can [Read More...]
February 26, 2015
The comfort of Baptism
Dr. Benjamin Mayes is working with Concordia Publishing House on the new translations of Luther’s Works. He was researching what Luther wrote about where Christians can find comfort. Dr. Mayes writes, “Baptism is one of the comforting things, alongside various Bible passages, that console us regarding God’s particular love for us, giving peace of conscience [Read More...]
D. C. legalizes marijuana, sort of
As of 12:01 a.m. today, the possession of marijuana is legal in our nation’s capital. But it’s still illegal to sell it. So you can have it, but you can’t buy it. The tangled new law, with its bureaucratic twists and turns, illustrates the dilemma of a state legalizing a substance (though the District of [Read More...]
ISIS comes to America
New York City police arrested three men in connection with a plot to join ISIS and commit acts of terrorism in the United States, including assassinating the president. From Brooklyn man planned to kill police, soldiers, if they couldn’t join Islamic State – LA Times: Two men were arrested Wednesday in New York as they [Read More...]
February 25, 2015
Justification by faith and the physical world
More from Living by Faith by Oswald Bayer. (For earlier posts on the subject, see this and this.) When we no longer have to justify ourselves, observes Bayer, but know the “passive righteousness” of faith that comes from being justified by Christ, we are reconciled to ourselves (no longer having to justify ourselves); we are [Read More...]
The LGBTTQQFAGPBDSM community
Wesleyan University in Connecticut has a residence hall devoted to a whole alphabet of sexual diversity: Open House is a safe space for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Transsexual, Queer, Questioning, Flexual, Asexual, Genderfuck, Polyamourous, Bondage/Disciple, Dominance/Submission, Sadism/Masochism LGBTTQQFAGPBDSM communities and for people of sexually or gender dissident communities. The goals of Open House include generating [Read More...]
ISIS abducts 150 Assyrian Christians
The Assyrian Church, which is neither Catholic nor Eastern Orthodox, traces its history to the first century, all the way to the Apostles Thomas, Thaddeus, and Bartholomew. Now, these Syrian Christians, as in those early days, are experiencing brutal persecution and martyrdom. ISIS has rounded up 150 Assyrian Christians from Syrian villages. Their fate is [Read More...]
February 24, 2015
From justifying God to justifying existence
More (see my last post on the subject) from Living by Faith by Oswald Bayer. . . Not only are we always judging, condemning/justifying ourselves and each other, we also judge, condemn/justify God. Bayer has some interesting reflections on “theodicy,” the question of how or why God allows evil, drawing on sources that I wasn’t [Read More...]
The digital generation prefers print on paper
I really enjoy my Kindle. But when it comes to reading scholarly works, I need to flip back and forth, mark pages, study illustrations, and generally read more carefully. I kind of need hard-copy printed books to do that. Now it turns out that the Millennial generation, computer-literate and screen-oriented as they are, are the [Read More...]
