Click on link to view Gathering video:

http://www.megavideo.com/v/X7X69ESH78cfe66d664b0f40277e1928f0f27051

One by one the bones break beneath his expert hands. He’s done this many times before. They don’t call him the BoneMan for nothing. It’s not that he wants to kill them necessarily, they just don’t meet up with the standards he’s set for the perfect daughter. And that’s all he wants. Someone to love him like he loves himself.
But in his pursuit for perfection, the BoneMan faces a formidable foe. Ryan Evans, father of the BoneMan’s latest victim, is not just going to let his daughter go. Having been subjected to seeing the same sort of torture as a POW in the War on Terror, Ryan can only imagine his daughter placed in that situation. He hasn’t been a perfect father by any means; he’d barely been a part of his daughter’s life. But that experience had brought him closer, made him want to reconcile with his daughter. And now that he was back, this monster had taken her from him, trying to make her his own daughter.
With the FBI thinking that Ryan himself is the BoneMan, he lashes out and goes vigilante. The battle between the Ryan and the BoneMan becomes personal. A war of two fathers in which one must fall.
Boneman’s Daughter’s exhibits a depth and a breadth that is both heart-pounding and heart-stopping. It is page-turning and riveting. Be prepared for an intricately woven story that examines the depth of one father’s love. Prepare for 4.14.09, clear your schedule because you’ll not want to put this book down, calm yourself, keep the lights on, and enjoy…for behold, the BoneMan cometh.

Read the rest at The Christian Critic!

God forbid that I ever be placed in this situation. My objective thoughts lie at war with my subjective feelings. While subjectively, I do not feel that I could ever harm an innocent girl in such a way, never have I imagined such dire consequences for not doing so. Torture is not something that should be legalized or institutionalized. But I do believe, in extraordinary situations, it can be morally justifiable.

Regarding this current situation, we are given the absolutes that torture is the only method that will work, and that this method is guaranteed to work. There is no other option to gain this information and if this option is followed there is no chance that this information will not be gained. Shall the pain of one innocent spare the lives of many more?

The answer lies in considering a graded form of absolutism. Moral conflicts are unavoidable. The basis of Christianity—the death of Christ—is itself a moral conflict! The innocent should not be punished for sins they did not commit, yet this is the very basis of Christ’s substitutionary atonement.

Therefore whenever we are forced to choose in a moral conflict, we are to obey the higher law. Examples in Scripture include obeying God over government, such as in Daniel 3, life-saving over truth-telling such as the story of Rahab in Joshua 6. Christ himself spoke of the weightier matters of the law (Mat. 23:23).

Moving from the general back into the specific, it is very obvious that slightly burning a child in no way compares with the evil done by the deaths of millions and radiation poisoning of millions more. The physical effects of a burn are merely temporary, whereas the effect of a nuclear bomb is much more pervasive and irreversible. Therefore, I believe I would be justified in torturing the child. Would I? That is a different question altogether. One to which I am not willing to know the answer.

I would like everyone to consider the following scenario and honestly answer what they would do if in this situation. I have already prepared my answer, but I shall wait to post it at a later time.

You are a federal agent working for the Department of Homeland Security’s Counter-Terrorist Team (CTT). Part of your duties involves the investigation of terrorist activities and the interrogation of suspected terrorists. In recent weeks, the CTT has been investigating evidence that a large-scale terrorist attack is imminent in a major metropolitan area of the United States. The threat level is very high and sources have confirmed that a major disaster is certain. Until recently, CTT has not been able to discover the details of the attack including the city that is going to be targeted.

You just had a major breakthrough, however. In a raid on a suspected terrorist cell group, a number of high level terrorist leaders have been arrested. During their arrests, you have uncovered important details about the attack. You discover that a thermo-nuclear weapon has been smuggled into the country and is planted in a major US city. Though you don’t know the precise day or time of its detonation, the evidence indicates that it will be soon.

In an effort to get more information, you are assigned to interrogate the leader of the terrorist cell. You have been authorized to use whatever means necessary to achieve your goal. After hours of interrogation you have learned little. He has confirmed that there is a nuclear bomb and that it will go off very soon. In fact, he has boasted about it, but he has refused to tell you where it is located. You can tell he is resolved not to reveal its location and no amount of pain you inflict on him will get him to change his mind.

However, along with capturing the terrorist, you have also captured his family, including his seven-year-old daughter. While you are convinced he can withstand torture himself, you are also convinced that if you torture his daughter in front of him he will break down in time to tell you the location of the nuclear device. Because of your experience in interrogation you are virtually certain of these two facts. However, you cannot fake the torture of the girl – he will not be convinced unless he actually sees you torture her and hears her screams.

You bring the daughter into the room and strap her into a chair. You light a cigarette lighter and prepare to hold the flame against her skin.

Two important points: (1) We know that this will work and (2) It is the only thing that will work. Should you torture her? You are not allowed to alter this scenario in any manner.

I decided to open a separate blog to house all my review-type stuff. You can check it out at

http://christian-critic.blogspot.com

The following is a response paper to an epistemological issue called the Gettier problem. Basically, knowledge has traditionally been defined as justified true belief (JTB), but Gettier was able to give examples of situations where an individual had justified true belief but did not have knowledge.

—

The Gettier problem is marvelous in its simplicity and clarity. In three pages, Gettier revolutionized epistemology by providing a significant challenge to the JTB theory of knowledge. Since then, there has been a continuous cycle of counter-example followed by counter-counter-example, and so on. The method I have followed seeks to avoid this by clarifying our method of justification.

Hopefully the following Gettier counterexample can contextualize that following proposition:

Farmer Bob has a prize cow. He looks out from his porch into the field to ensure that his cow is still grazing in the field. Seeing what he perceives to be the cow grazing in field, Bob formulates the belief that his prize cow is still grazing in the field. However, what Bob does not know is that what he perceived as his cow was in fact a large rock. His belief is still correct though, because in reality, his cow is actually grazing in his field.

The Gettier problem states that one has justified true belief in something that is true; however, the reasons that warrant justification are false. A false perception of reality provides a false sense of justification. The belief, therefore, is true belief, but it does not seem to be justified. The true belief is accidental. I think that a case could be made to end the argument here by proposing that accidental belief could lead to knowledge, albeit accidental knowledge. I believe, however, that it can be taken further.

I would continue that though Bob has accidental belief that his cow is in the field, he has justified belief from the perspective of his subjective experience of reality. The reality he perceived just happened to not be actual reality. However, for the reader of Bob’s story to even realize that Bob’s belief is accidental and not justified, he must be able to transcend Bob’s perception of reality and perceive reality objectively. The only reason we even know that Bob’s knowledge is accidental is because we, the readers, have been granted omniscience within the story. But Bob has no other way to experience reality except through the perspective of his own experience. His true belief is justified, and that justified true belief is knowledge, but that knowledge is sometimes wrong due to the subjective way in which we encounter reality.

The best way I can think of to solve Gettier’s problem is by claiming that a justified true belief results in knowledge within the individual’s subjective perspective of reality and accidental knowledge when placed in perspective of actual objective reality. All the Gettier problem really does is falsify the reasons for justification, thus by qualifying knowledge as either perceptional or accidental, it would seem as though we have removed the problem, although I am not arrogant enough to believe this argument to be without its criticisms.

There are times when you get an idea in your head. One that just won’t stop, just won’t quit. It eats at your brain, begging to be let out into the world. The longer you let it stew around in your brain, the bigger and more grand the idea gets. This one’s been stewing for a long time and I’ve finally decided to let it out. I’ve been pouring my thoughts onto paper, spending free time I don’t have in order to make it a reality. So it’s coming. No doubt about that. It’s beginning to take shape on paper. The form of it is coming together. It won’t be done for a while. No. Not by a long stretch. But I want you to anticipate with me. I want you to let the tension build. I want you to be as excited about this as I am. I want to realize that Superman is a symbol for Jesus Christ.

There is a battle of monumental proportions raging just beyond the skin of this world. Inevitably, this battle seeps into what we can see in this physical realm and confronts us, confounds us, and disturbs us. While we must deal with the consequences of this supernatural battle, the reasons, nature, and occasionally the existence of this battle remain dark to mortal eyes. Earth’s tension between heaven and hell. Marsh Addison is discovering what exactly that means.

Dark to Mortal Eyes is a plot-twisting, page-turning, intense thriller that could be or could not be labeled Christian fiction. The themes of spiritual warfare, redemption, the power of prayer, grace, forgiveness, and sin are play a large part of this book. But Wilson manages to avoid some of the blatant preachiness that seems to define what is called “Christian fiction”. And I think that’s a good thing. This is not to say that “preachy” fiction with blatant Christianity are bad, but I think Wilson intended his debut novel to appeal to a much wider audience, and thus let the reader choose whether or not to treat the story as one of natural or supernatural warfare.

Wilson’s use of metaphor and imagery to capture the spiritual themes force the reader to think…something which is evidently frowned upon in most of today’s “Christian” circles. Perhaps we would do well to remember that Christ himself spoke in metaphor and imagery.

Having a philosophical mindset helps us define and clarify our beliefs and the beliefs of others. If we do not develop this mindset we will not be able to identify our own beliefs, communicate them clearly, look at them comparatively, or defend them rationally. All of these are necessary to the Christian tasks of evangelism and apologetics.

Firstly, identifying our beliefs is important because otherwise we have no foundation with which to start. We cannot even begin to give an apologetic when we do not understand what we are defending.

Secondly, it is important to communicate our beliefs clearly, lest they become misinterpreted to mean something that is not intended. Christians should strive for clarity lest by our vagueness misrepresent the Gospel.

Thirdly, being able to compare our beliefs with the beliefs of others is important, for it helps us to find a common perspective while highlighting the points of contention and distinguishing the Christian belief from other beliefs.

Lastly, rationally defending our beliefs naturally builds upon the three previous points. Believing in Christianity and not being able to defend it is insulting to the God we claim to follow. What does it say about our priorities when we can speak eloquently about the superiority of one football player over another, but fall silent when it comes to defending Christianity?

In conclusion, we must have a philosophical mindset in order to obey the Scriptures to “always be ready to give an answer to everyone asking you a reason concerning the hope in [us]” (1 Pet. 3:15 LITV).