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Check out how stoked Dave and his homies were after the Ark of God was brought back into Jerusalem: “David and the whole house of Israel were celebrating with all their might before the LORD, with songs and with harps, lyres, tambourines, sistrums and cymbals.” (2 Sam 6:5)
2 Questions:
Stuvac: OT1. NT1. CH1. PHIL1. MF1. DOC1. Warm fuzzy if you know what these mean…
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…when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly (Romans 5:6). A big thing going on in this verse is the death of Jesus for us when we were sinners. We often miss the “at just the right time” bit. Jesus died in accordance with God’s purposes and plans AND at a time historically that was ripe for the rapid spreading of the gospel of Jesus’ death and resurrection.
The Roman Empire was enjoying widespread peace (pax romana) meaning that there was safe road travel. The Greek language was in widespread usage and the Old Testament had already been translated into Greek (LXX). And the Jewish synagogues throughout the Mediterranean provided a platform for proclaiming Jesus.
“Over against Greek philosophy, Augustine staunchly defended the biblical concept of creation. God’s work of creation, said Augustine, is voluntary and purposive. Creation is not of necessity (as in Greek thought), nor is the material world eternal. The universe had a beginning. There was a “time” when the universe was not. […]
According to Augustine, God created all things ex nihilo, “out of nothing.” Augustine was not violating the maxim Ex nihilo nihil fit, “Out of nothing, nothing comes.” He did not argue that once there was nothing and suddenly there was something. This notion of self-creation is irrational, and only the credulous affirm it. For something to create itself, it must exist before it existed, a manifest violation of the law of noncontradiction, as the thing must be and not be at the same time and in the same relationship. Before creating the world, the eternal God existed, so creation ex nihilo does not mean creation by nothing. […] Since God is good, all that he originally created was good.”
R.C. Sproul – The Consequence of Ideas. p61-62
The Übermensch (or Superman) was a creation of Friedrich Nietzsche. The Übermensch is “the person who has conquered himself. The more-human-than-human person who will freely define himself by inventing his own values and so is beyond good and evil” (Flew & Priest). “What does not kill me, makes me stronger” is a famous quote from Nietzsche’s Twilight of the Idols. The opening lyric from Kanye West’s song Stronger is “that that that that that don’t kill me can only make me stronger”.
Some might say he can’t be an Übermensch because of his race, but the more I think about the way that Kanye portrays himself, I think he is deliberately trying to claim some type of Übermenschiness. Nietzsche had delusions such that he identitfied himself with Jesus Christ (ironic considering he’d claimed ‘God is Dead‘), and the January 2006 Rolling Stone reminds us that Kanye likewise identifies himself with Jesus. What do you think… Übermensch? Or just Über-annoying?
What makes for the Good life for Kanye West? Check this video:
I’ve spent most of the day doing Philosophy 1 study: Plato, Augustine and Nietzsche. For each subject, I’m listening to just 1 album while I study and wearing one t-shirt. The plan is to listen to that album on the way to the exam and wear that t-shirt. Is that weird? Let’s call it multi-sensory-engagement. My Philosophy album is Free Running from the Richard Maegraith Band. The following song, Whisper, is from the opening sequence at his album launch at The Basement back in June.
