"We are travellers…not yet in our native land" – St. Augustine
A few months ago, John and Greta from The Tolkien Road podcast did a series of episodes on religion in Tolkien’s Legendarium. David invited him onto the show to talk about those episodes and to encourage the Pints With Jack listeners to listen to them.
Continuing “Tolkien Month”, in today’s episode I spoke with John and Greta Carswell from “The Tolkien Road” podcast, focussing on Tolkien’s work, The Silmarillion.
S3E43: “After Hours” with The Tolkien Road (Download)
If you enjoy this episode, you can subscribe manually, or any place where good podcasts can be found (iTunes, Google Play, Podbean, Stitcher, TuneIn and Overcast), as well as on YouTube.
More information about us can be found on our website, PintsWithJack.com. If you’d like to support us and get fantastic gifts, please join us on Patreon.
The roadmap for Season 3 is available here.
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We’re back discussing The Great Divorce this week. In today’s chapter “The Intelligent Ghost” attempts to take some apples back to the grey town…
S2E9: “The Apple Thief” (Download)
If you enjoy this episode, you can subscribe manually, or any place where good podcasts can be found (iTunes, Google Play, Podbean, Stitcher, TuneIn and Overcast).
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This month in the United States we celebrate Thanksgiving, so I thought it was a good time to do a post where I celebrate the top five things Americans say (or don’t say) which make me me raise my eyebrows, tut slightly and set about making myself a comforting a cup of tea 🙂
Continuing the series of posts on the subject of abortion, I would like to discuss a strategy which you might consider adopting when talking about abortion with those who are pro-choice.
I would suggest that, when we’re talking about abortion, the discussion really needs to focus on the unborn themselves. What actually are they? In the process of having an abortion, what exactly is being killed?
You see, when pro-choice advocates object to the pro-life position, their objections fall into one of two categories:
1. On-topic Objections
These objections are fetus-focussed. For example, if someone says “It’s just a clump of cells”, their objection is on-topic and allows us to discuss the central issue: the unborn child.
2. Off-topic Objections
These objections relate to some peripheral issue and don’t concern the unborn themselves. For example, these following arguments are sometimes given in favour of abortion:
(a) “The world is overpopulated”
(b) “Raising a child is extremely expensive”
(c) “Not all children will have a stable home life”
(d) …
All of these objections are off-topic.
With regards to the off-topic objections, pro-lifers and pro-choicers will, by and large, agree that the problem being raised does need to be addressed by society. For example, both groups want to see poverty eradicated, vulnerable women protected, children born into stable, nurturing homes. However, the difference is those who are pro-life don’t think that the problem raised is sufficient justification for the killing of a defenseless, innocent life.
We end Narnia Month by going “Beyond Narnia” with Dr. Ray Baker, discussing his book, Beyond Narnia: The Theology and Apologetics of C.S. Lewis.
S4E85: “After Hours” with Dr. Ray Baker (Download)
If you enjoy this episode, you can subscribe manually, or any place where good podcasts can be found (iTunes, Google Play, Amazon, Podbean, Stitcher, TuneIn and Overcast), as well as on YouTube. The roadmap for Season 4 is available here.
More information about us can be found on our website, PintsWithJack.com. If you’d like to support us and get fantastic gifts, please join us on Patreon.
Read more
Another day, another meme… Here’s a picture which a friend posted last week:
As with all memes, before clicking “Share”, it’s worth taking a moment to fully-articulate the argument which is being made. So, what does this meme claim?
The meme draws an equivalency between pregnancy and impotence. We are told that if pregnancy is God’s will, then so is impotence. It implies that Christians are inconsistent if they’re okay with tax dollars being available for the purchase of viagra, but not for contraceptives or abortions.
So…does this argument hold water? There are three points which I think are worth making.
1. Ordained or “ordered towards”
Is it true that “pregnancy is God’s will”? My suspicion is that what we have here is a misunderstanding (or, at worst a caricature) of the Christian understanding of sex. Sex has two ultimate purposes: the union of the spouses and the the siring of children. We would say that the sexual act is ordered towards procreation. By this, we mean that a natural consequence of the sexual act is the conceiving of children.
So, we can say “pregnancy is God’s will” insofar as God invented sex and children are the natural result of sex. However, the very fact that women have periods of infertility during the month shows that God does not will that every sexual union result in the conception of a child.
2. Both diseases?
Now that we’re spoken a little bit about sex in the natural order, it can hopefully be seen how ridiculous it is to compare pregnancy and impotence. Pregnancy is not a disease! If a couple has sex and the fruit of this union is a child then everything is working as it should! It is a natural consequence of the sexual act.
Impotence, in contrast, is a malfunction, a disruption of the intended sexual union. A better parallel would be to compare impotence with ovarian cysts, since the presence of these cysts prevents a woman’s body from functioning properly.
3. Different consequences
Finally, if this meme is being used as an argument in favour of abortion, it is hopefully clear to see the massive disparity between the moral consequences of paying for medication to allow a couple to have a heathy sex life and paying for medication which causes an unborn life to be snuffed out.