NaClhv

Theology, philosophy, math, science, and random other things
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

On martyrdom - a parable (Part 2)

There was once a man who loved his family very much. He had a lovely wife, two adorable children, and a big, friendly dog. He always brought a portrait of his family where ever he went: of course, there was an enlarged copy of it hanging in the living room of his home. There was […]

Christians, read your Bibles

Now is a good time to think about new year's resolutions. It's an often maligned tradition, given how often they're broken or forgotten. But I do think that it's helpful to plan ahead on the time scale of about a year, and New Year's Day is as good a time as any to do that. […]
2015-12-21

Christmas and time

I've previously discussed how long ago the universe began. Now, if the universe were purely physical, then this would be an one-dimensional question with a simple answer. But because of the depth and purpose expressed in the universe, multiple answers are possible, some more meaningful than others. To see what I mean, let's look at […]

Two year anniversary for the blog!

The first post in this blog was made on December 12, 2013 - just over two years ago. Since then, this site has accumulated over 200,000 page views. I am not dissatisfied with this result. At this point, one may be expected to say something like "I had no idea what this blog would become", […]

On becoming a good person

I don't care much about the recent terrorist attacks in Paris. I mean, it's hard to care, given some perspective. It happened half a world away. The death count at the moment stands at 136, according to Wikipedia. That's nothing. The world's mortality rate is about 0.8% per year - or about 100 persons per […]
2015-10-19

On martyrdom (Part 1)

We're going over the book of Acts in my Bible study group. We recently went over the stoning of Stephen in Acts 7, and did a related study looking at the concept of martyrdom. Here are some relevant quotes on that topic, from various persons: If a man has not discovered something that he will […]

Come visit my church

I attend a church called Tribe, in Berkeley, California. You can find our website at tribesites.org. I obviously think that my church is pretty great - I've been going there for about a decade now. I'd like to invite anyone who reads this post to come by for a Sunday service. Everyone is welcome, and […]

The principle of least awesomeness

"Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine..." - Ephesians 3:20. I have this tool that guides my thinking, which I privately call the principle of least awesomeness. It simply says that God is at least as awesome as anything we can imagine. Straightforward idea, right? Let's […]

The intellect trap

I have another math brainteaser for this week. It's easier than last week's problem. You're taking a long drive, and you want your average speed for the trip to be 50 miles per hour (mph). But you run into some traffic, and when you've traveled half the distance to the destination you notice that your […]
2015-08-03

The two envelopes problem and its solution

A job I was looking at had a requirement that read: "Inability to stop thinking about the two envelopes problem unless you’ve truly come to peace with an explanation you can communicate to us". So I thought I'd post my explanation for the problem. The setup to the problem goes like this: You have two […]
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