Slaying Dragons

Where To Find Me

2009-07-02T11:03:00.004-05:00

I owe you folks an explanation as to where I've been these past few months. I announced a while back that I was starting another blog and wrote:I've been busy getting together a second blog, and there is usually a large initial time investment in setting things up. I'll be back to posting about every other day here....or so I thought! The blog really took off like a rocket and has been a driving

Anti- Shallow Christian Fads

2009-01-12T09:40:00.002-06:00

I found this last week and had some good laughs:

Pro Life Merchandise

2009-01-10T20:54:00.004-06:00

I was reading Tim Kurek's blog, The Evolution of God, and in the sidebar, I saw an image that made quite an impression on me. It was a picture of a fetus bearing a crown of thorns and the same wounds that Christ suffered on the cross. A rough paraphrase of Matthew 25: 40 came to mind, "As you have done it unto one of the least of these, you have done it unto me."I immediately opened up

2009 New Year's Resolutions

2009-01-08T22:09:00.006-06:00

Photo from RepublicDomainHere is a list of common New Year's resolutions with links to tips and strategies to help you achieve them. I've also mentioned friends on the blogosphere who are personally resolving to do some of the following:1. Get fit. Lose weight. One of the most common New Year's resolutions is to get in better shape physically, to eat better, to exercise more, and to live

The Meaning of Christmas, The Nativity and Incarnation of Christ

2009-01-04T13:01:00.005-06:00

Photo from RepublicDomainAs the Nativity or Christmas Season comes to a close, it is important for us to reflect on the significance and meaning of the Incarnation of Christ as a human being, including the implications it necessarily has for how we view everything else. The Creator's birth of a virgin woman is a great light that illuminates everything. There are many truths that are revealed in

The Conflict in Israel, One American Christian's Perspective

2008-12-29T15:02:00.004-06:00

Photo from RepublicDomainOver at SimplyEcclesia, I have published a short editorial piece with the aim of examining a few of the common claims made about the modern nation state of Israel and the United States' alleged obligation to pursue an active, interventionist policy in the political and military affairs of the Middle East in order to defend Israel's interests. You can read my editorial

December 2006 Movie Review of The Nativity Story

2008-12-21T21:31:00.004-06:00

An icon of the Orthodox Church (Source: Fr. Stephen's Glory To God For All Things)As Christmas, the Feast of the Nativity of Christ approaches, I have some writing in the works to share my reflections on the significance of this holy day. Today I just want to refer you to a review I wrote in 2006 of The Nativity Story, a film that chronicles Mary's betrothal to Joseph, conception by the Holy

Dad Beats Up His Kids (Just For Pretend)

2008-12-20T00:12:00.004-06:00

Someone from my church e-mailed this to me a little while back and it is one of the funniest YouTube videos I've seen in a long time. I wonder why it hasn't had more views:

The Prodigal, the Prig, and the Prostitute

2008-12-18T16:16:00.004-06:00

Photo from RepublicDomain.comBack in the summer I made a short observation about a C. S. Lewis quotation, the one that goes, "A cold self-righteous prig who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute." I wrote that it seemed odd to me that when I see this quoted, it seldom includes the brief qualification that appeared in the original text so that the full quotation

Yawn

2008-12-16T20:44:00.004-06:00

Yawn. Yawn. Yawn.Okay, now tell me in the comment box if you yawned after reading the title and first line of this post. I'm curious about the phenomenon of people yawning when they see other people yawn or even from just hearing the word "yawn" (and I yawned typing this out, btw).I suppose I could work the "yawns" into the theme of this post. I hope you haven't been bored without regular

The Importance of Forgiveness

2008-10-24T17:07:00.000-05:00

Forgiveness is a central theme and virtue in the Christian faith and Christians are expected by the Church to forgive others, harboring no personal grudges against anyone, before they are allowed to commune with their brothers and sisters in taking the Lord's Supper. It also plays a central role in the Lord's Prayer "...forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." In

Christian Blog Review: The Evolution of God

2008-10-20T21:59:00.007-05:00

Photo from RepublicDomainThis week's featured website is a new Christian blog (to which David directed my attention) entitled: The Evolution of God. Is its author, Tim Kurek, claiming that God "evolves" or changes? No! He writes:No, God does not change, but He evolves in the hearts of his followers. With every day that passes we change, and our faith brilliantly adapts. Faith is fluid, a

What's Right With Your Life?

2008-10-18T13:23:00.002-05:00

Jonathan Mead over at the Illuminated Mind asks the question: "What's right with your life?"Photo by GeckoHe prefaces his query with the observation that many of us are struggling to fix all the things that are wrong with our life and to overcome our problems, and that it can bring a lot of contentment to contemplate the things that are right with our life- to look back and see how far we've come

The Octagram and Christian Symbolism/Numerology

2008-10-16T22:55:00.000-05:00

An updated version of an old post:Firstly, I am very nearly obsessed with symbolism, so you can bet that anything which looks symbolic on my blog probably is and has probably been thought through very thoroughly. Symbolism is so powerful because it can pack so much meaning into such a simple thing. Maybe it should be called "simplism" (cheesy, I know... sorry).Now as for the Octagram, it happens

The Humble Libertarian

2008-10-14T19:56:00.002-05:00

If you've noticed that post frequency here dropped noticeably over the past week and a half, don't panic ;)I've been busy getting together a second blog, and there is usually a large initial time investment in setting things up. I'll be back to posting about every other day here. If you used to mostly read Slaying Dragons for its political content or at least enjoyed that as much as you did the

The Meaning of Noah's Drunken Nakedness and Ham's/Canaan's Curse

2008-10-12T13:31:00.007-05:00

Print by Gustave DoreThis is a follow-up to the preceding post entitled "Learning Christian Humility." Now you may have objected to the first point in that post that we can't possibly go around ignoring everybody's flaws because they are a part of reality and we ought not to ignore reality. Besides, how on earth are we supposed to help them to get better? May it never be said of me that I

Learning Christian Humility

2008-10-08T21:18:00.003-05:00

Painting of St. Seraphim of Sarov"Humility is a funny thing- once you think you've got it, you've lost it." Isn't that the truth? It's an amusing proverb that I've heard now and then and it always brings a smile to my face, but the truth is that humility can be really, really hard to attain for the very reason given in the proverb. That may be one of the reasons that it's a virtue which seems

A Website Review of GospelScoop.com

2008-10-04T09:24:00.005-05:00

Photo by Do'Neil, published under the terms of GFDLThis week's featured website is GospelScoop.com. It's patterned after social media sites like Digg.com or StumbleUpon.com, but it's oriented toward Christian users. On their About Page, Digg says about their website:Digg is a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web... Everything on Digg — from news to videos to

A Life Hack For Less Stress and Increased Productivity... That We Can Learn From Smokers

2008-10-02T20:46:00.007-05:00

Photo by Anna Cervova"What?! You mean that I can actually learn something from that filthy, cancer-causing habit?" Well, yeah... but don't worry, I'm not going to encourage you to start smoking. Just hear me out on this: minus the part where they suck carcinogen-laden smoke out of a cancer stick, smokers have actually developed a really effective tool for dealing with stress and relaxing.

Achieving Your Goals and Living the Life of Your Dreams Part II

2008-09-30T21:41:00.005-05:00

Photo by GeckoThis article is Part II of a series of posts entitled "Achieving Your Goals and Living the Life of Your Dreams." It will make more sense if you've already read Part I. As I related earlier, achieving your goals requires you to plan your future "from the top down," starting with your highest goals and aspirations, instead of planning for your lower needs first. Let the necessities

Why Wait Until Marriage? The Advantages of Sexual Abstinence

2008-09-28T20:35:00.006-05:00

Photo by Republic DomainWhile I agree with them, it is admittedly true that Christian exhortations to abstinence before marriage often come off as sanctimonious and prudish-sounding to me, so I can imagine how they sound to those who don't share my Christian conception of the world. Unhealthy notions about sex can definitely run to extremes in both directions, on the one hand overly-casual to

Achieving Your Goals and Living the Life of Your Dreams Part I

2008-09-27T13:02:00.005-05:00

To begin with, you have to know what your goals are. You have to determine the very purpose for your life. If you're not sure about that, then I recommend that before reading the rest of this article, you read another article I wrote entitled "A Thought Exercise For Finding Your Life's Purpose." After you're there and you know what it is that you were made to do here in your time on earth,

God's Existence, Creation Ex Nihilo, and The Cosmological Argument for the Existence of God from Contingency and Efficient Causality

2008-09-26T19:10:00.006-05:00

Graphic by GnixonMr. C. E. Clark, an atheist and (I'm guessing from looking over his blog- he may correct me if I am mistaken) a Randian Objectivist has responded to my guest contribution at St. Johnny regarding the Big Bang and Large Hadron Collider. I will address my responses to him in the second person, leaving a comment on his post so that he is aware of my response, and I am posting this

Intelligent Design/Creationism T-shirts

2008-09-25T23:27:00.004-05:00

Given the topic of this blog over the past couple days, I decided to move forward with a t-shirt design espousing Creationism- the belief that the Uncreated God is the Source and Ultimate Cause of the Universe and all things in it (click the image to browse selections and make a purchase):I also want to announce that I'm in the process of a really big, really cool project. I am putting together

The Religious Implications of the Large Hadron Collider

2008-09-24T20:48:00.004-05:00

Photo from NASAMy guest contribution is up over at St. Johnny. Enjoy!