2019-04-05: A Lutheran Perspective on Demonic Activity
Spending time at home still but things are finally moving forward with the job stuff. If everything goes well I’ll be in an office in a week or two.
The Norton Introduction to Philosophy
I found this book by looking through a few top school’s introduction to philosophy syllabuses and saw this recommended a few times.
This is the kind of philosophy book I’m looking for: Made for undergrads, showing how philosophers answer questions like “Does God Exist?” “What is Knowledge” or “Is Morality Objective?” This is accomplished by giving primary sources in the form of original texts from influential philosophers, and secondary sources where the authors explain who the philosopher is, explaining the philosopher’s ontological argument, and most importantly providing questions and prompts to answer based on the text.
Here’s what I want to get out of this:
- Learning about what Epistemology is, what the discussions about it have been over history, and what it’s important to.
- Learning what the difference between Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle and being able to know why each of them in particular are important to philosophy.
- In general, understanding philosophical topics by the philosophers that discussed them, the period of time they were discussed, and how other philosophers used those ideas.
Luckily for me this time, there are answers in the back of the book. So I should have a good opportunity to know where I’m going wrong.
Things I’m Liking
- Intentional Pre-Membership Assimilation in Mid-Sized Congregations in the Midst of a Declining Church: I grew up in the WELS and just found the website where they publish papers. This paper, published last month, focuses on pre-membership assimilation methods. It’s interesting to read about other tidbits like what would cause someone to switch churches (majority said changing doctrine), why people would leave WELS (40% said disagreement with doctrine), and what the obligations of the churchgoers are to people that leave or commit sins. Other interesting papers are The Roles of Men and Women: Equipping God’s People to Keep Communication Scriptural Truths About Male Headship or Possessed Places: A Lutheran Perspective on Demonic Activity Within the Home.
Misc
Just realized I had the past three journals set to “draft” so they weren’t publicly visible.