Author: FromtheBasket

  • This is a post I should have written days earlier to commemorate the Doolittle Raid that occurred on April 18, 1942. You would think this was forever burned in the American memory, but I was surprised to find so many not knowing the story, even in the Baby Boom generation. The Doolittle Raid was America’s…

  • I’ve finished reading the book How to Be Perfect by Michael Schur, the creator of the television show The Good Place. It could be titled Secular Ethics Philosophy for Dummies. It is an easy read and I’ve read about a third of it. But as the alternate title I gave suggest, it doesn’t touch the…

  • In all honesty I have to admit that I’m not Pro-Life, I’m Anti-Abortion. I think it’s important that we stop hiding behind euphemisms that we think will be more acceptable to the public. I think those who say they’re Pro-Choice should admit they are not Pro-Choice. Many of them don’t believe a law-abiding citizen should…

  • Peter Singer

    This is my second post on thoughts of abortion. The Pro-Life movement owes a debt of gratitude, surprisingly enough, to the philosopher Peter Singer. You might recognize him as the ethicist (and I use that term loosely) who gave the case for infanticide. My saying this will cause a lot of castigation from most of…

  • This is the first of a series of three thoughts on abortion. A modern-day philosopher named Judith Javis Thompson has the reputation of giving scenarios of ethical dilemmas. She’s the one credited with the infamous trolly scenario. Here’s another one for you to consider. It’s known as the violinist scenario. You wake up in the…

  • Kidron Valley

    I have not been to Jerusalem, but I do hope to visit there some day. However, in a recent Bible class the teacher showed a photo he took from the top of the Mount of Olives with the Kidron Valley between it and the Temple Mound. He was showing this to explain how Jesus wept…

  • Non-Christian Nonsense

    A question Christians often hear from non-Christians is, “Why do I have to go through Jesus to reach God?” More often than not this question come for a universalist who sees all religions as being the same. But anyone who has taken even a cursory look at different religions know this is not the case.…

  • I’ve been finding myself watching more and more classic shows. Be it television or movies. The main reason for doing so is because of the extremely poor quality of writing that is coming out of Hollywood these days. Anyways I found myself rewatching Rope the 1948 Alfred Hitchcock movie. The way he filmed it was…

  • Test Spirits

    I just recently watched the mini-series Under the Banner of Heaven. It wasn’t very complementary to the Mormon church. But it did get me to thinking, mainly about Joseph Smith. I’m not going to take this time to deconstruct the man or speculate his sanity and morality. Instead, I’m going to give him the benefit…

  • The Carl Sagan quote, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,” is the biggest load of bull I’ve ever heard. It is almost always given by atheists to the religious with a smug grin as if proves something. However, they never define “extraordinary evidence.” Atheists will often say they can’t accept a miracle because it can be…

  • We Beat the Odds

    Most Americans when asked if they believe there’s intelligent life somewhere else in the universe will give an enthusiastic yes. They will site that with all the billions of stars in the Milky Way and with the trillion of galaxies in the universe the odds prove there has to be life out there and intelligent…

  • Meekness

    Lately I’ve been reading the Bible with a Greek Interlinear. (That’s the wonder of the internet. You have easy access to so many study aids.) And I was reading the Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount. There were several that struck me reading it as a word for word translation. The first was “Blessed…