Why We Fight

Blair Talks

I like to talk... Well really I like to think and if someone else happens to be around me when I am thinking I will think out-loud with them or to them. 

When I am around the same people for very long, they sometimes get tried or hearing me "talk." This happened a few days ago. I was going on and on about how it was not right for the world to be run by the oil and car companies today or the railroads yesterday. Then the person I was talking to said I needed a cause to actually do something about it. Well I don't want a "cause" my ideas are bigger than a "cause" but I do need to do and not just talk about the world's problems. 

That is when I saw a film about The Technology, Entertainment, and Design Conference (TED). They have four days, each year, of talks (which I love) but then they give three TED prizes to ideas that could change the world. As part of the prize, they grant the person with the idea one wish that everyone at the conference will help grant. (It is sort of like a prayer request but one that is not a waste of my time because people actually answer it-- they don't just sit around waiting for "God" to do all the work). Bono was one of the first people to make a wish. His wish led to the one campaign. 

TED is a place for us to talk and think and share our ideas (and by "our" I mean humanities) and also to turn the best of those ideas into reality. 

Check it out at www.ted.com  

    

Who Killed the Electric Car?

I so want to get an electric car now. 

“Bad” theology v. “Good” theology

Bad theology comes from blaming God for everything. Example: My house won’t sell. Why God? It must be God’s will. Thanks God for making my life just a little bit harder.

 

Good theology comes from understanding that we can’t know what, if anything God does. Example: My house won’t sell, maybe because of the sub-prime mortgage fallout and subsequent housing bust, probably not because God hates me or wants to teach me a lesson out of love. 

 

Bad theology comes from saying, “The Bible is literally the words of God. I will not listen to you unless you have scripture to back it up. If you say, ‘I was thinking,’ stop right there. You were thinking. Don’t think, just read the Bible.”

 

Good theology says, “Maybe it is not the best idea to discourage people from developing critical thinking skills. Simply following orders from the Bible or other holy scripture historically leads to the suffering and death of many of our fellow humans and ultimately us too.”

 

Bad theology says, “It is God’s world, He can do what He wants, and you have to be ok with that.”

 

Good theology says, “First of all God is not a “He,” second of all it good and well is our world and we had better start taking responsibility for our actions in it and too it.”

 

Bad theology says, “I am thankful for the cross because when I die I will spend forever in heaven, consequently you, who have never been saved like me, will spend eternity in hell.”

 

Good theology says,” The cross is not about you or I going to heaven when we die, the cross is the culmination of the self-giving life of Jesus and an invitation to enter into a self-giving life that exposes the powerful civil and religious institutions of this world for the arrogant perpetrators of oppression that they are. Thus the cross would be the gospel or good news to everyone even if they have never heard it or been saved.”