Micah Tillman

(Don’t you think?)
You may recall my recent discussions of the “Bizarre Ontology” that makes individuals responsible for things other people in their “group” do — even when they disagree with what those other people are doing — because it treats groups as the primary reality of which individuals are mere appendages or manifestations.
You also may [...]

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This is something I keep thinking about as the health care debate continues to drag on.  This is what I’ve got so far.
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Table of Contents
I. Quintads
II. Active and Passive, Fore and Aft
A. Active and Passive Rights
B. Fore and Aft Quintads
C. Active and Passive Duties
III. Transferable Duties
IV. The Coherence of Quintads
A. Two Kinds of Coherence
B. Digression [...]

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While I’m on the topic of terrorism, The Wife sent me a link to this article, called “Moderate Muslims? We’re Everywhere.”
It’s by Dr. Eboo Patel, director of Interfaith Youth Core, blogger for the Washington Post, and “member of President Barack Obama Administration’s new Faith Advisory Council” (Wikipedia).
In it, Dr. Patel expresses his frustration with the [...]

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[ Romans 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6: Intro, 1-5, 6-11, 12-14, 15-18 ]
Romans 6:12-14 (NRSV)
12 Therefore, do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. 13 No longer present your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to [...]

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I’m listening now to Dr. John D. Currid’s lectures on “Judges through Poets” from RTS.
To set the background for Judges, he’s discussing Joshua, and the Israelite invasion of the Promised Land.
This, naturally, leads to the problem of what appears to be not only God-sanctioned, but God-instructed genocide. 
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Moses, claiming to be speaking for God — [...]

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So, I had to take the car in to get one of her rims replaced.  (Her name is Kimono, and yes, she’s a she.)
The dealer’s waiting room had Dr. Phil on.
Dr. Phil was doing a show called “Inside Infidelity.”
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While Dr. Phil is, from what I’ve seen, on a level of discourse above most other daytime [...]

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[ Pt. 1 | Pt. 2 | Pt. 3 | Pt. 4 | Pt. 5 | Pt. 6 | Pt. 7 ]
This one is entirely too long to be read in one sitting.  Don’t even try — it’s essentially nine posts in one.
So, take it one section at a time, if you want to read [...]

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(I don’t know if that means anything or not, but it sounds good.)
A couple posts back, Adam commented that it seemed wrong to identify homosexuality, an “intrinsic orientation” (his words), as a sin.
If sexuality comes “built in,” we might say, how can you blame anyone for it, gay or straight?
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With such ideas we come to [...]

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Saw a t-shirt.
The t-shirt said:
Honor the Warrior, Not the War
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You’ll remember this kind of thinking from such popular anti-gay t-shirts as:
Love the Sinner, Not the Sin
and
Hate the Sin, Not the Sinner
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The problem with all such lines of reasoning is that you cannot draw so sharp a distinction between a person and her or his actions.
In [...]

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Today is World Coming Out Day, or something like that.
This led to some interesting discussions in church.  And those discussions lead me to this question:
Whom did Jesus “welcome,” and how did He do it?
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That is, did Jesus welcome people who were “sick” — and therefore excluded from society — and then “heal” them?
Or did Jesus [...]

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