By Joel Bowman, on June 22nd, 2019% When I was young, many of the adults I knew would praise good deeds by saying that those who did them would receive “stars in their crowns.” The basic concept is that, although good deeds may not be rewarded in this life, they would be rewarded in the next. For a very long time now, most cultures have presupposed a life after death that would provide rewards or punishments depending on the way we lived our current life: the wicked will be punished, and the righteous will be rewarded.
The belief is understandable. Very few people are content with the . . . → Read More: Stars in Your Crown
By Joel Bowman, on April 13th, 2014% Those of you who have been regular readers of this blog know that we’ve recently been through a winter of discontent and spent some time south of the border. Now that spring has arrived in Michigan I thought it was time to give my blog a facelift with new header images, a new title, and new overarching theme: Embracing Reality. The theme is a result of my having been influenced by a saying from Byron Katie’s book, Loving What Is, in which she says that When you argue with reality, you lose—but only 100 percent of the time. If you’ve . . . → Read More: New Directions
By Joel Bowman, on April 23rd, 2011% If you’ve been paying attention for the past 20 or 30 years, you’ve probably noticed that “Science” keeps changing its mind about a lot of things. Also, if you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you’ve probably noticed that Galileo’s “problems” with the Catholic Church have been a recurring theme. It seems to me that the conflict between “science” and “faith” is at the center of a number of what might be called “modern problems.” Problems of the sort that Galileo had with the Church have, of course, occurred in a variety of ways over the years. In general, . . . → Read More: What’s the Deal with Science?
By Joel Bowman, on January 31st, 2011% Perception is a strange thing. We can’t always see what is “right before our eyes,” and because perception is fraught with deletion, distortion, and unwarranted generalization, what we “see” may not be what is actually “there.” Self-perception may be among the most distorted of our perceptions. The classic question, “Does this dress make me look fat,” is a variation of the question asked by the Queen in Snow White: “Mirror, mirror on the wall / Who in the land is fairest of all?” The Queen doesn’t like it when the mirror proclaims Snow White the fairest in the land. The . . . → Read More: Does This Mirror Make Me Look Fat?
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