Category: philosophy

Gone but not forgotten…

I only checked his blogs every one to two months – last time I read, everything was going fine – if only I had been using RSS back then.


Today I found out that Robert Jordan passed away over two months ago. I’m deeply saddened.


He is by far, to me, one of the best Sci Fi writers I have ever read (in fact, I have read his 12 books in his series so far two times over), with his intricate, detailed, masterful weaving of the wheel of time, I have always been amazed.


I didn’t know him personally, but by reading his blogs, and reading his books, I felt that I knew quite a lot about him; seeing someones creative nature really gives you an insight of what they are capable of – a reflection into the creator who created them with their gifts.


Our loss is his gain. Not even knowing him, but being so enthralled with his books, I sit here feeling like I have also lost a part of me – strange I know.



http://www.dragonmount.com/

Quid Est Veritas

Why did the Greeks Analyze and Critique their religion?


Philosophy from its inception has always tried to answer the quintessential question “Why is there something, rather than nothing” as well as the famous question of the Roman governor Pontius Pilate “Quid est Veritas?” (What is truth?). Our reading also describes what it feels to be the ultimate philosophical question: “What is the nature of the cosmos” (Bishop, p. 45)


The Greek Philosophers like Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle had within themselves what Philosopher’s many years later referred to as “our need to know God”. I think one of our strongest desires to know God, is to thus know ourselves. We want to understand God, because, as our creator, we are made in his image (so we are told in the book of Genesis) and the more we know about that image, the more we can understand about ourselves.


As Augustine of Hippo stated, our hearts are restless until they find their rest in God (Augustine), and Blaise Pascal referenced what is often referred to as a “God shaped vacuum”, a space within ourselves that cannot be filled with anything other than an infinite and immutable object – namely God (Groothius, 2006).


Greek Philosophers had this insatiable desire to be filled with knowledge and understanding, but had at their disposal only a general revelation of the origins of humanity. They were, however, given this strong desire to seek out and study the nature of knowledge and the world around them.


It is interesting to me, to see many years later, the Apostle Paul walking into the Areopagus in Athens and using words from their own Philosophers, Epimenides and Aratus, to explain to them that they have this idea of God that has been placed in their minds through general revelation, and that if they truly want to know God, he is not far from any of them.


This is, as C.S. Lewis puts it in his book “Mere Christianity”,


God sent the human race what I call good dreams: I mean those queer stories scattered all through the heathen religions about a god who dies and comes to life again and, by his death, has somehow given new life to men.


The Greek Philosophers, therefore, I believe were analyzing and critiquing their religion to continue the ever relentless quest to answer the question “Quid Est Veritas?” which in bitter irony was the question asked of the man called Jesus of Nazareth, of which, he himself was the answer.


Works Cited


Augustine. (2002, 07 13). Confessions of St. Augustine Bishop of Hippo. Retrieved 12 07, 2007, from Leadership University: http://www.leaderu.com/cyber/books/augconfessions/bk1.html


Bishop, P. (2007). Adventures in the Human Spirit. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.


Groothius, D. (2006, 05 15). Incorrect Pascal Quotes. Retrieved 12 07, 2007, from The Constructive Curmudgeon: http://theconstructivecurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2006/05/incorrect-pascal-quotes.html

Yesterday… a time forgotten before tomorrow even starts

I was young, I was 16. Apart from writing poetry and books, writing and performing music is another integrated part of my life. I have played (and still play) the Accordion, the Piano, the Clarinet, the Saxophone, and the guitar, as well as signing professionally.

There is so much music that touches me, touches my soul, sometimes in a good way, sometimes in a bad way. When I was growing up being born in the ’70’s, I was a child of the 80’s, so I listened to music of the 70’s and 80’s. I still find that music enjoyable, and love to laugh at how my taste in music has become to the younger generation what my parents taste in music was to so many of my contemporaries (although I love Zeppelin, The Moody Blues, The 4 Seasons, and many other groups that pre-date me).


I grew up in a Evangelical Christian family, and when we were very little, we started listening to A Cappella hymn tapes every night when going to sleep, every night of my childhood life – and so was instilled in me a love for the human voice.



When I grew into my teenage years, and I abandoned all that I knew to be good and wholesome, I moved to rap – and not just any rap, but hardcore, gangster rap. The kind that elevates death and violence towards human beings; it’s no wonder I then got into drugs, and started hanging out with shifty people and doing dangerous things.

When I got married, my wife (very quickly) put an end to listening to that type of music, although I have to say that even to this day a good rap beat and lyrical rhyme will catch my ear and take me back, to long ago days that can’t be forgotten.

As I grew older, I began to fall in love with classical music (In fact I started playing different classical piano pieces around 16), Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, Debussy, and many others. The music is so relaxing, and yet, invigorating. You can float and slide over the notes and the intricate way in which they weave in and out to tell a story.

I’ve even written and recorded songs, and of course, my songs, unlike other people’s songs, have a special meaning to me; and yet, I’m not going to comment on one of my own songs this time (how narcissistic do I really want to seem? :-))

So here I am, one of the first nights of one of my first vocal performances that would set me into years of limelight and competitions. I was singing “In the still of the night”, I can remember it like it was yesterday.

It was very bright, it was a bit cold (it was late in the year, and we were in a big open gym). There were hundreds of people. As typically happens to me when I perform, or speak in public, I get totally lost in the moment, I forget where I am, I forget who I am; there is just me, and my audience, there is just me and my task at hand.

It was an A Cappella song, no instruments; boys singing only. I was standing in the front of a half circle, surrounded by my classmates. The song started up, and I was whisked away. I was singing to that special someone, I was singing like it was my first chance to make an impression and my last chance to ever sing again. I don’t remember the song (although I have a recording of it somewhere [this is how I hooked my wife *grin*], so I can listen to it still).

But when it was all over with, there was cheering, and a standing ovation. It was deafening in my own ears, it was a start of a beautiful thing.

But, in truth, none of this is what captures me back to that moment and time. In fact, when I recall that time, now, none of that happiness and being proud of my performance really shines through that much. When I think about that night, I can’t help but break down into uncontrollable shaky tears. It was right before I went on stage that night that we received a call at my parent’s house telling my parents that my nephew had passed away in his sleep that afternoon.

Even now, I can hear them say to me “You have a big performance tonight, you have to focus on that”, and I can only barely remember how upset they were. I blocked it from my mind. And what impresses itself the most on me from that evening, is that I did just that. It didn’t really bother me at the time, in fact, for years afterwards, I never quite came to a realization (and even now can’t fully grasp) of a parent’s worst nightmare of losing one of their children to the enemy of death.

How I could go on, as if nothing happened, when the world of someone who was close to me was completely destroyed and torn down, I still can’t even fathom to this day.

Sometimes it’s not even what a song says to you that creates that arresting moment, it’s not what you were doing, but what you weren’t doing that is forever emblazed on your mind. I can mourn now, but I didn’t mourn with them then.

And it is, so many times in our life, that we don’t realize the day to day monotonous things that we do aren’t really what’s important; it’s who we do them with, it’s who we share time with, and who we are there for when they need us most.

Running from an Addiction

This poem identified within me, a rebirth. I was 18 and I was trying hard to break free from an overuse of marijuana. I was, the night that I penned this, standing in the parking lot of an Irving all night diner. I was alone, my head was foggy, but was slowly clearing up. I was remembering nights when I had been so drugged up that I could barely even breathe, I couldn’t think, I was ecstatic with fake joy, colors and sounds all swirling together, hallucinations, as I sat and watched my life literally flash before my eyes . The silence was deafening.

I was running from life, I was running from pain, I was trying to cover all the hurt that I had, but no matter where I went, even if I went into a house, and closed and locked the doors behind me, the pain always seemed to find me. And in the end, when the morning sun came up, as my head began to clear, as I climbed outside of my wooden box of death, I would drive back to my house, to once again live another day as if I was just a typical, normal person, on the outside….

So, here is the poem…

Run Run Run away!

Where ya gonna go?

Find a rock as big as sea

And cover life from woe.

Silence roams upon the earth

Knocking door to door,

Bringing deadly winter chills

Oozing through the floor.

Fleeing life and French-kissed pain

Driving out into the night

Placing mellow in your heart

Holding on for infernal flight.

Screaming, soaring,

Ecstatic moon

Covering your sorrow

Climbing free from mildew waste –

Cringing in sun’s ‘morrow.

Sinking freely in the water

Rising from the stone –

Open eyes, and blinding light,

Marching on towards home.

©1996 Jediah Logiodice

Reflection on the Road Not Taken

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.





I love The Road not Taken…. however, here is the question, did he believe he took the right road?

Herein lies the enigma of human existence, the game of “What If”. I had a young lady that I was in love with, to the point that I felt like I would die living without here (even now, almost 15 years later, it still pains my heart to think of). She quoted this, the last day I remember spending time with her. She was a year older than I, and going off to college, she felt that it was time for her to step out into the world, and try the road less taken. She had one road, that seemed safe, it was the road that seemed more traveled, but she wanted to take the road less taken.

And here, Robert says “I kept the first for another day, yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back” – he made a choice, and regretfully knew that he would never be able to come back to that point in his life where he could make this same choice again.

And he continues on, “I shall be telling this with a sigh” – and I believe the heart of this sigh is, he still wonders, what would have happened if he took the road more taken. He never really tells if he regretted it or not, he just says that his decision made all the difference – which is the beauty of this poem – he leaves it to each and every reader, to look into their own heart, and their own experience, and answer this question for themselves… “Do I regret the road I have taken”.

Notice the title of the poem – it’s not The Road I Took, it’s the Road Not Taken – I think that in our lives, we will all be plagued by the road we didn’t take as we wonder “What If” – but that’s a question we’ll never have answered.

I wish I had written this poem, it’s so full of heart, and pain and hope!

The little Christ…

I’m dressing up like Christ today


I’m walking out the door


I don’t quite fit inside his skin


I’m lacking so much more




Outside you see this humble soul


That cares and gives and loves


Inside, alas, so much is bad


It’s stained, it takes and shoves




Each day I put this costume on


To do the things He’d do


I walk the walk, I talk the talk


Yet, things still show right through




But every day I put him on,


I feel a bit more sure,


As passes time, the thing I find


His being covers more




I wonder if I shrink to fit


The skin he let me wear


Or if it grows to cover those


Places that I’m so bare




But what I’ve found, as time winds down


My image shines so bright


For by his power, in my last hour


He seals me with his might.




Less of me, and more of Christ!



©2007 Jediah Logiodice

What does a biblical Christian look like?

So many people are afraid to say that the bible is open to interpretations, I believe it is. It also seems clear to me that there is only one ‘right’ interpretation, but equally clear, that no one has that one interpretation in its entirety. I might be right about one point, but just as wrong about another point.


To me, I believe the bible makes it clear that it’s not about being perfect, it’s about learning, and growing from each other, changing and maturing to be more like Christ would ask us to be (The law and the prophets are summed up in two things, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and Soul, and Love your neighbor as yourself). Lewis, in his book “Mere Christianity” makes the statement that if there are those that have chosen a different ‘denomination’ then you, and you believe they are wrong, then you are to pray for them, and love them, for even our enemy we are told to pray and love all the more!



With all that being said though, I think it’s important to have a set of rules for interpreting it, a correct Hermeneutics as it’s called. If we don’t agree on the rules for interpreting English, how then can we agree on what an English passage says – the same with the bible, unless there is a scholarly agreement on how to interpret the bible, then how can we know for sure, what the passage says, either in the context of when it was written, or in the context of today’s day and age.



And I disagree with some who say that the rules for biblical interpretation are “How it sounds to me”. I think the Spirit’s working is definitely part of it – but God never worked in one individual. Even Christ found himself a party of believers to surround himself with and preach the word. Christ says “Where two or more gather in my name, there I will be”. When Paul talks about the gifts of the Spirit he makes it plain that the gifts were spread out to many believers, so that together, they may work together to display and proclaim the word of God and encourage each other for more noble things.



I think the solo scriptura view is false [That is much different than the Reformed view of Sola Scriptura] (that is, solo scriptura is the view that the bible is the only authority (me the bible and God), solA scriptura is the view that the bible holds the final authority, but that God has revealed himself in many different fashions throughout all of history) – God gave us history, he gave us great thinkers, he gave us revelation about himself spread throughout history, more than just in the bible (Romans said what may be known about God is plain, because God has made it plain).




C.S. Lewis calls it, in his book “Mere Christianity” – “Good Dreams”, that God throughout history has spread himself and the knowledge of himself throughout the entire world, so that those who seek him will find him, although he is not far from them. In Athens on Mars Hill, Paul says, that they are serving the idea of God, but they do not even know the real God, that the Greeks call him Zeus (His reference to the poets citing “In him we move and breath and have our being” is a reference to a poem written to Zeus), but he says that he will declare to them the real God that they are speaking of.



God clearly wants us to rely on his Spirit not just in the here and now (which is another false pretence that many Christians think that our generation is better, smarter and more informed than previous generations) – but he wants us to rely on his workings throughout history. To read, and learn, and understand the decisions and disagreements throughout history, and use them to help build and understand what it is that God wants us to learn.



One thing that Lewis said is that belief is Jesus’ death and resurrection is the pivotal thing of Christianity. That understanding Christianity (more specifically Jesus’ death), is like understanding Vitamins and minerals when we eat. We ate before we understood vitamins and minerals, we eat even now with our understanding of Vitamins and minerals, and if someday we find that our whole view of vitamins and minerals was wrong – we will continue to eat. We can still be nourished by the vitamins and minerals in our food, without understanding exactly how it nourishes us. We can be saved as Christians, without understanding the in-depth technical details of what actually happened when Christ died and was resurrected.



I think this vitamin view can be applied to so many other things in Christianity. True, we don’t intentionally disregard God’s word, if we don’t like it, or want to do something different, but there is no reason that we should fear that if we get something wrong, because we couldn’t understand it that he is going to condemn us to an eternity in hell.



I’m finishing up a book right now, a book by C.S. Lewis called “Mere Christianity” – I would HIGHLY recommend getting a copy and reading it. Lewis was not a theologian, and he speaks in such plain terms about what “mere Christianity” is, apart from all the things that people have tried to make it into. It’s AMAZING!

Confusion in the world

Today, I read a blog from someone, who until recently was unknown to me; although, my interest has definitely been piqued. Their post, I believe, may show some confusion in understanding the Christian God of the bible. I will paste my response first; and then follow up with a paste of their post.




————— My Response ————————–


Hello, I’m a visitor, but wanted to comment. I’m basing this comment on an understanding of a common Christian Orthodoxy, which, I admit, as a visitor, I may be out of step with the general consensus in the various discussions, or may miss the context of the conversation all together.



While the bible agrees with the view of a loving and compassionate God, we have to be careful not to sacrifice one of his qualities for any other (for example the justice of God). Will there be justice on the Day of Judgment for those who never accepted the work of redemption done on their behalf? Will there be justice for those whom, through Christ’s work of redemption, are thus rewarded, not based on something they have done, but on a work that was completed despite (and in spite) of their own desires?




If God is truly God, then he is omnipotent. As an all powerful God, there is nothing that happens outside of his control, he knows beforehand all things that are to happen. Whether there is a disagreement on the semantics of whether God is the primary or secondary cause, at the very least, he knows that bad things are going to happen, has the power to stop them, and yet, still chooses not to. Why? There are many reasons we could speculate, in fact many have.



This is one major paradox: if God is all powerful and loving, how can there be evil in the world. But in our quest to explain this, let’s be careful not to sacrifice one quality for another (the love of God for the sovereignty of God or omnipotence) to fulfill our desire to answer that question in a satisfactory way. In trying to understand this, it may be like trying to explain to a rock what it’s like to be a dove, when we ourselves are only fish. It may, in fact, be a futile endeavor; but our inability to describe a dove does not indeed make the idea of a Dove nonsense.



What father, that loves his child, would not allow them to face adversity [Not beyond what they are capable of handling], or permit or exact punishment, to refine them. Gold is purer when refined by fire, iron is stronger. Adversity brings character.


I don’t view the Christian God of the bible as being sadistic or schizophrenic, although I confess that the New Testament clearly portrays him as a loving father who disciplines and allows hardships to come under all of his Children. If he did not allow this, then we could be assured of one thing: That we are illegitimate children and not sons of God.





(Heb 12:7) Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father?



(Heb 12:8) If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons.



(Heb 12:9) Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live!



(Heb 12:10) Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness.



(Heb 12:11) No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.









—————Original Post —————————-



It’s so sad to hear and know that there are actually people out there who believe that God literally controls and “ordains” everything that happens in their lives. How depressing it must be to serve such a sadistic, cruel and tyrannical being. I honestly can’t imagine serving someone who uses his adversary to torment his own children!

If God is ultimately responsible for and controlling everything that happens, then that would mean Jesus and God worked against each other quite often while Jesus walked this earth. That would mean that God caused storms and then Jesus reversed God’s work by calming them. God made people sick and then Jesus destroyed His work by healing them. God gave people demons and then Jesus cast them out. You’d think that Jesus would have eventually been annoyed by such ridiculous behavior on God’s part. Then again, since Jesus is God, I guess God was actually working against Himself! Wow… what a great way to make God look like a complete idiot!

The Bible says that Jesus went about doing good and healing everyone who was sick. It also says that He was sent [by God] to destroy [and undo] the works of the devil (1 John 3:8; Acts 10:38). The works of who? So God and the devil were actually working together to make people sick and bring pain into their lives? Hmm… how comforting and edifying to believe that God is actually the tormentor!

If God “ordained” that satan bring sin, sickness, and problems into peoples’ lives (as religion claims), then what was Jesus doing destroying those works?? If God “controls everything”, then all of those works of the devil were ultimately works of God, right? How can we ever resist (actively fight against) the devil (James 4:7) if we believe that God is using him to “develop our faith” and teach us a lesson??? Hmm… what amazing theology religion has introduced to us! The sad part is that people actually believe this stuff!

It’s amazing how people can make God out to be so schizophrenic. It’s no wonder why so many millions of people are rejecting God on a daily basis. They probably believe that following Him will make them as confused as the religious people who have described God in such a confusing, unscriptural way.

I’ve got an outstanding idea…. Let’s consider presenting the same Father God to people that Jesus did. People have heard enough false doctrine about God controlling their problems and “ordaining” the hell in their lives as a part of His “sovereign plan”. Isn’t the Gospel supposed to be GOOD News? I don’t think telling someone that God is the one behind the garbage in their lives is Good News.


That is not at all what people are needing to hear from us. We need to allow Jesus to reverse the works of the devil in peoples’ lives. We don’t need to teach them that the devil’s work in their lives is actually God’s work and God’s desire for them!

All I ask is that everyone please consider their beliefs and doctrines about God. Do they line up with what the New Testament proclaims and do they line up with the God that Jesus presented to us? Jesus told us that He was an exact representation of the Father. Did Jesus ever do the things that religion has blamed God for and claimed that God is responsible for?

Have you presented a confusing image of God to other people?
If so, please consider what you’re doing. You’re not helping people, you’re hurting them. People need to know and experience a loving and compassionate God who’s willing to help them… and religion has presented to them a sadistic, all-controlling “God” who is actually the one hurting them and “sovereignly ordaining” their pain!

Would even one linger?

If I withered like a flower, would you miss me when I’m gone,

If you woke to find me missing, how would that impact your dawn?

If I dried up like a stream bed, would I ever leave a mark,

If I melted like a snow drop, if my candle lost its spark?

As a shooting star will disappear, I’ve often wondered how,

The way they would have treated me, if they knew then, what’s now

The moment that I fly away, I wonder if they’d care.

Or when they lower me below, would one memory linger there?

© 2007 Jediah Logiodice