TTF Staff
James Lileks
“The internet is a giant distributed information storage and retrieval system, and the most powerful tools are the meat-and-water units attached at the end by their fingertips. But ... there’s a difference between knowing a thing and knowing how it find it. Does the distinction matter? Well, yes. For obvious reasons, it helps to know how to make a fire, as opposed to knowing where you can get PDFs online of the Boy Scout Handbook. But knowing things lets you make connections in your head you can’t get with the web; the internet leads you from point A to point 85, and while it’s usually an interesting anabasis, all you remember at the end is how one damn thing leads to another, not connects to another. It’s as if we dump out a jigsaw puzzle on the table and compliment ourselves on seeing 500 pieces, instead of the picture they’re supposed to form.”
Science and Technology, Fri 20 Mar 2009
our link to this entry • go to the article
External links are provided for information and reflection and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Trinity Forum or its affiliates.
“Theology is a ghetto activity as insulated and uninteresting as the Saturday religion pages of the local paper. God knows it’s hard to make God boring, but American Christians, aided and abetted by theologians, have accomplished that feat.”
Stanley Hauerwas, Dispatches from the Front, 1994
Working: Its Meaning and Its Limits by Gilbert Meilaender, ed..
A useful anthology on themes relating to work, rest, and calling.
President Obama’s Proposals for a Second Fiscal Stimulus: Senior Fellow Prabhu Guptara: “Is there anything short of divine miracles which will be good for job creation, good for the small business sector, good for the economy as a whole, and good for President Obama?” (Renaissance: Insights for Action in Today’s World • 2010 02 09)
How the Victoria and Albert Museum dealt with the dying of Christianity: “This situation is unprecedented in western civilisation: even 50 years ago, when these galleries of one of the richest collections in the world were last displayed in the V&A, they could assume that everyone was familiar with the rudiments of Christianity. Now, in a twinkling of an eye, 2,000 years of culture in the profoundest meaning of the word have been largely forgotten.” (Anna Somers Cocks, The Art Newspaper, December 2009 • 2010 01 05)
The God that Fails: David Brooks: “Many people seem to be in the middle of a religious crisis of faith. All the gods they believe in — technology, technocracy, centralized government control — have failed them in this instance.” (New York Times, December 31, 2009 • 2010 01 05)
From Winchester to Westminster: Jonathan Aitken discusses Sir John Templeton recently in the American Spectator; here’s a quote from the late philanthropist on gratitude: “Thanksgiving opens the door to spiritual growth. If there is any day in our life which is not thanksgiving day, then we are not fully alive. Counting our blessing attracts blessings. Counting our blessings each morning starts a day full of blessings. Thanksgiving brings God’s bounty. From gratitude comes riches—from complaints, poverty. Thankfulness opens the door to happiness. Thanksgiving causes giving. Thanksgiving puts our mind in tune with the Infinite. Continual gratitude dissolves our worries.” (The American Spectator • 2009 09 11)
• Welcome, National Affairs (2009 09 08)
• Looking for an Honest Man (2009 09 08)
• Why AI is a dangerous dream (2009 09 08)
• Restoring the Fresco of Progress (2009 08 28)
• The Case for Working With Your Hands (2009 06 04)
Gentle Regrets: Thoughts from a Life by Roger Scruton.
