All posts by Wintery Knight

https://winteryknight.com/

William Lane Craig explains how to have a great marriage

I just noticed that Bill’s latest question of the week is on “Marriage Advice”!

Here are the main pieces of advice:

  1. Resolve that there will be no divorce
  2. Delay having children
  3. Confront problems honestly
  4. Seek marital counseling
  5. Take steps to build intimacy in your relationship

Well, I recommend clicking through to read this! It’s answer #120.

I command all you married readers to give me your honest assessment of his advice!

Is he as good at advice as he is at Christian scholarship and debate?

Further study

Woman offended by seeing-eye dog ejects blind man from bus

Note: My opinion is that the woman in the story is probably a Muslim because Muslims have an aversion to dogs, but the news article is not conclusive on this point.

ECM likes dogs, while I like birds. He sent me this story from the Reading Post in the UK.

Excerpt:

A driver told a blind cancer sufferer to get off his bus when a woman and her children became hysterical at the sight of his guide dog.

George Herridge, 71, told how the mum flew into a rage and shouted at him in a foreign language. A passenger explained she wanted him to get off the bus during the incident on May 20.

ECM also sent me this story from the UK Telegraph, linked by David Thompson, about the death of initiative and outrage.

Excerpt:

Few people now dare to challenge just simple, inconsiderate behaviour in others – behaviour which flies well under the criminality radar but which manages to alienate and intimidate. It’s this which is the most worrying, though understandable, aspect to it all. There is a section of our society that remains awfully polite about such issues, and prefers to see such non-reaction as part of a British desire not to make a fuss or cause embarrassment. It’s a nice, quaint idea but it no longer plays: they simply don’t get the fact that now, it’s all about fear.

And alongside this fear is the sense that the order of things has become so inverted that one will be on shaky ground if one does indeed speak up. Most people now register some degree of outrage at being asked to desist, no matter how politely you do it. You are the rude troublemaker in their eyes. For some kind of order to be restored, back-up is crucial. And formal authority has more or less left the scene. You are on your own.

I actually blame secularism for eroding the objective morality that was, until recently, dominant in the West. The moral relativism that emerged as objective morality declined does not allow people to rationally oppose injustice. Instead, people just keep quiet. If moral relativism is true, you can’t make moral judgments against anyone.

Deutsche Bank says 48% of mortgage balances will exceed home values in 2011

Story from Yahoo News. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The percentage of U.S. homeowners who owe more than their house is worth will nearly double to 48 percent in 2011 from 26 percent at the end of March, portending another blow to the housing market, Deutsche Bank said on Wednesday.

[…]Covering 100 U.S. metropolitan areas, Deutsche Bank in June forecast home prices would fall 14 percent through the first quarter of 2011, for a total drop of 41.7 percent.

[…]Homeowners with the riskiest mortgages taken out during the housing boom have seen the greatest erosion in equity, in part because they were “affordability products” originated at the housing peak, Deutsche said. They include subprime loans, of which 69 percent will be underwater in 2011, up from 50 percent in March, Deutsche said,

Of option adjustable-rate mortgages — which cut payments by allowing principal balances to rise — 89 percent will be underwater in 2011, up from 77 percent, the report said.

Regions suffering the worst negative equity are areas in California, Florida, Arizona, Nevada, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Massachusetts and West Virginia. Las Vegas and parts of Florida and California will see 90 percent or more of their loans underwater by 2011, it added.

Socialism destroys economic growth. There is no way around it.