Disqus - Latest Comments for mattofcalifornia

Re: Looking for a Childhood Book? Here's How.

mattofcalifornia — Tue, 17 Jul 2018 21:59:10 -0000

I am looking for a childrens picture book publish sometime between 2000 and 2008. I do not know the author, illustrator, or publisher.

Plot: A young man in the 1800s set out on his own. He walked to the next valley with his ax, felled trees, built a farm and a farm house. Then a woman married him. SO he had to make a larger house. Every time you turn the page there is another addition to the family (e.g. children, poverty stricken sister, aged parents) and on each page the wife tells the man that he needs to build another room onto the house. Finally, when he is old, and after a lifetime of building a bigger and bigger house for other people he retires and his children build a house for him.

The only illustration I remember is of the 18 year old man standing on the top of a hill with an axe resting on his shoulder, gazing out over the valley where he will build his house.

Re: What C.S. Lewis’ Marriage Can Tell Us About the Gay Marriage Controversy

mattofcalifornia — Thu, 24 Apr 2014 13:05:51 -0000

The article has some errors, for example:

A. Roman Catholicism and evangelicalism (however that is defined) are not the most conservative expressions of Christianity. (Here I am assuming by conservative the author means most true to apostolic teaching and practice.)

B. Roman Catholics do "blink" at re-marriage after a divorce. In fact, it is prohibited, and people who remarry after a civil divorce are automatically ex-communicated from the Roman Church. This is why, in part, J.R.R. Tolkein, a Roman Catholic objected so strenuously Lewis' marriage to Davidman.

C. The article uses the fallacy of "petitio principii" when it says "no one speaks of loving remarried people but hating the sin" and "most evangelical churches..." The author is asking us to concede very disputable facts in order to support the conclusion. If it is the case that "no one..." and "most evangelical..." is true, the author should give evidence of it.

D. The author falsely opposes "love the sinner, hate the sin" with "open and affirming". The correct poles are "hate the sinner and the sin" and "affirm the sinner and the sin". The testimony of the Scripture is that the right way is the way of Jesus: Love the sinner, hate the sin. Therefore, he said to the woman caught in adultery, "Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more." He did not hate her. He did not affirm her sin. Because he loved her he pointed her to a better way.

E. The author suggests that homosexual behavior is similar to the disputable things in Romans 14 & 15. The disputes in those chapters were, as the author of the article says, about diet and calendar. They were not about sexual behavior. To see the Apostolic teaching on homosexual we only have to look at the first page of the Letter to the Romans: Chapter 1, verses 18 through 32, which is kind of a description of a descent into greater and greater depravity. In that passage there is no ambiguity; no room for dispute: people who engage in homosexual behavior (vv. 26,27, and, possibly, 31.) are deserving of death. But that is not the lowest level of deparavity. The first step, according to verses 21-23 is having a wrong conception of God. And that leads to all kinds of wicked behavior, and along that road are many sins, homosexual behavior being just one of them, and not the worst one. The worst one, the one at the very end of the road is not doing, per se, the evil acts listed in the previous verses but is taking pleasure in the fact that other people are doing them.

So, those are some of the errors I see in the article.

Re: How Is The American Military University Reputation With Employers?

mattofcalifornia — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 00:15:35 -0000

All schools are "for profit". Someone is making money at all of them. Ever been to Stanford and seen the faculty housing? If they operate at a loss they goout of business.

Re: Urban[ism] Legend: Traffic Planning

mattofcalifornia — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 00:53:14 -0000

Where can the game be found?