Category: parables

• May 15, 2014

  The two interesting philosophical questions for our time

  Another excursus… Over the past couple of weeks, I have been trying to understand what I have been calling our ‘modern moral metaphysic.’ So far, I have examined arguments 4 and 3 (in that order). This worldview is comprised of all or most of the following: 1.) Because the world is lost and fallen, it needs to be…
• February 9, 2014

  A secular version of the Parable of the Talents

  Our time on earth is finite; we know that we shall perish. How are we to best spend our days? How to use our gifts? On the one hand, we could believe that all our words and deeds do not amount to much since these will be erased with the passing of time. Hence, we…
• February 3, 2014

  The salamander and the black-and-white bird

  Up to me came a  salamander to be warmed by the sun. The wind was cool and I felt chilled, so I sat down and began to climb. When I returned to be warmed by the sun, along came a little black-and-white bird hopping closer and closer to me. He was hopping along the low-lying…
• April 18, 2013

  Hurry up: A parable

  Two men spend exactly two minutes looking at the cross section of a cutdown tree. Both men have the same sensory equipment (eyes, ears, tongues, etc.). Both have the same cognitive equipment (capacity for concentrating, attending,  inferring, etc.). Both are walking at the same rate and that rate is such as not to prove laborious…
• April 13, 2013

  The magical coat room

  You hand the man your ticket but either the ticket, which looks pretty ratty, coincides with some other performance, or else its matching partner to this performance is nowhere to be found. Either way, your coat is gone and the coat check man has no recollection of having seen the coat you describe. Try as…