I’m provincial and not well read (and have senior memory to boot) and don’t know Jamie Smith, but pretty much the first hit I saw was this, and just the title is encouraging:
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My reading is pretty horrible. I do better with audiobooks. And even then I can’t listen to everything I like, or remember the main outlines of the ones I do. Definitely looking forward to that upgrade Elon has been talking about.
As far as pithy quotes, this article has ten of them from Smith’s book You are What You Love:
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A budding transhumanist! Wouldn’t have thunk it. ; - )
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Thank you for this. If only …
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You were number one : )
Sorry to pop Klax’s bubble. ; - ) I read it last week, and you can right-click or touch-hold links and have them open in a new tab without Discourse tallying it.
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There. I was number four. ; - )
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I think you’re mistaking what would really just be more comfortable for you for what would actually do you some good. The novelty of my professing to believe what you do would soon wear off leaving you in exactly the same condition. Too bad your faith isn’t sufficient without everyone in the room agreeing with you. 
Unless you meant it would be better for me in which case no, me professing lies would not be good for me and the only piece of the eternal that interests me is the part I can contribute to in my lifespan. 
Or Maybe you were aiming to be humorous by making God sound like a mob boss who has made me a deal I shouldn’t refuse. I like humor! 
I was talking about being family. Do you decry that?
Yeah, right.
Sorry, it falls pretty flat, as in way flat.
I was talking about true faith and recognizing reality, as Maggie did – objectively.
To have Jamie Smith and Craig Keener’s books… Kant… ANE languages… the entire Very Short Introduction series… Ravenhill… Packer… Coppleston… Augustine… I’d be sorely tempted.
When I came to the realization I could not possibly read Kant’s CPR, I settled in the hope that I could read it in the new creation.
I mostly know Smith through his book Letters to a Young Calvinist. Recently I picked up his book The Nicene Option, and was impressed with his ability as a philosopher. The book feels like a real mile marker, and I’d like to get back to it.
“It is important to emphasize that the logic of determination and the logic of incarnation are two different stories about difference and particularity, two different construals of finitude, both of which have the epistemic status of faith commitments.”
Excerpt From: “The Nicene Option: An Incarnational Phenomenology” by James K. A . Smith
Read this book on Scribd: The Nicene Option by James K.A. Smith (Ebook) - Read free for 30 days
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No surprise then, that Mako Fujimura attends the church Keller pastors. : ) Kindred spirits, I think.
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I wondered what that number was for.
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Precisely, all of it. Thanks, Martin. I do wonder, if we don’t lay more blame than is warranted on SM (S&M?), but Haidt certainly makes his case. I do wonder what we are leaving our kids to deal with as we scorch the Earth as well as everything that was on it, physical and conceptual.
We cannot expect Congress and the tech companies to save us. We must change ourselves and our communities.
Hope/wish this is possible.
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I often wonder what type of science fiction will be written when atheism is found to be as impossible as an infinite number of planets in space.
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I read parts of it and it’s a good history lesson. Not so sure I share the nostalgia for the way things were before.
There was a point in the article where I had to grin thinking about 2005 when I began having uncaused causality discussions on Facebook. It was in some group there, in a thread, at a 1000 or 2000 comments when me and the other person kind of sat there and stared at each other, in a manner of text, and were totally caught off guard by the unexpected notion of an uncaused cause that is unaware of its action. There wasn’t much that either of us could say after that so I took a break.
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Yes, absolutely . Also, I like your cogency and precision.
We mean, little humans who do hold to ideas like a single centralized being comprised of 3 persons possessing all the “omnis”, as well that of Image of God spend far too little time grasping the psalmist’s words “What is man that you are mindful of him?” and contemplating God’s works and doings outside of ourselves. We do not know the mind of God, but we satisfy our desire for fulfillment by learning doctrines without bothering always to consider the unfathomable behind them, and then feel like we have deep knowledge. We barge into holy places, as if we belong, with no sense that something beyond our comprehension has been going on for a very, very long time – perfectly well without us.
If we rude, mean, little humans spent more time thinking out to the vastness and wonder that pays us no mind, and needs us not, how much more would we value the condescension our God makes to us?
If we really practiced understanding “unmerited favor” and the greatness of the one who gives it in spite of our inability to merit anything, we would learn a better kinship with what surrounds us.
This kind of love can only be savored through humility.
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Dale, I haven’t read that one, although Fujimura has talked a lot about it and Scorsese’s film, “Silence,” (and its source novel), to which the book refers. I think its’ a good choice, though.
I’ve read a few other books by him, and I think Art and Faith pulls together the ideas he is beginning to develop in the others. So, I’d say start with it, and Silence and Beauty.
Some day, I hope to see his paintings in person. Wouldn’t that be something!
I thought of you the other day. If you don’t know it, or have it, I think you would like the book Valley of Vision from Banner of Truth Trust. They also have a website version of it now, which is neat: The Valley of Vision Archives - Banner of Truth USA
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