bierkergaard

Acts 17:16 Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry. "The one positive statement that Socrates seems to have made is a definition of virtue (areté): "virtue is knowledge." If one knows the good, one will always do the good. It follows, then, that anyone who does anything wrong doesn't really know what the good is." (Richard Hooker) If there is a philosophical idol today that parallels the philosophical idol of ancient Athens, it is this: With the acquisition of knowledge, humanity can be good. That is, our evil is a result of ignorance. What a contrast to Paul's statement in Romans 7 that although he knows the good, he does not do it. Like all philosophical musings, there are pragmatic consequences to what we believe. What starts out in the Ivory Tower doesn't stay there...the Ivory Tower--the human mind--is an idol factory...John Calvin wrote, “the human mind is, so to speak,...

If you watch TV at all, you have seen the ad for Cymbalta (the depression medication--see http://www.bierkergaard.blogspot.com/ "Happy are the Sad" title for Cymbalta info). The commercial shows people looking really down, laying around, with sorrow writ large all over their faces. There is even one scene where a person and the dog both are really down. Maybe there will be a canine Cymbalta brought to market. I would not be surprised. Friends of ours are getting a divorce and I saw their dog out in the yard the other day and the dog did look down in the dumps. I think dogs have emotional intelligence, they can sense the prevailing mood in a household and be affected by it--and express it. Happy dogs are like mood rings with fur. Happy dog, happy household. Sad dogs, sad household. Bad dogs, bad household. I just don't see dogs as dogs being able to manufacture moods. They are conduits of feelings instead. In Matthew 5:4, Jesus basically says "Happy are the Sad....