Points of Interest, #41

And now, the moment you have been waiting for all week.  No– not that moment.  It is the moment when yours truly presents the best, the brightest, the most informative, interesting, and entertaining of my sojourn on the internet.  Today I have gratitude, no worries, losing recognition of our own face, the God of the future, marrying biblical sisters, Scrubs and the end of life, and a football team without a home field, and eloping six year olds, amongst a lot of other really, really good stuff.  So dig in and enjoy the best of the internet (I could find)-

From the Archives: Fearing Fear Itself

First Published on March 10, 2008

He who fears he shall suffer, already suffers what he fears. ~Montaigne, Essays, 1512

Fear is a very primitive emotion, setting off a chain reaction of events that pumps our blood full of adrenaline, raises our heartbeat, tenses our muscles, expends our energy, and quickens our thoughts. This is the essence of the so called “fight or flight mode.” It is very necessary for our physical survival that we recognize danger and react to it. Its result is a complete shutting off of higher centers in the brain, in order to focus all our faculties on a threat.

While fear is good for survival, the behavior that results has lead to some of the ugliest, most savage, animalistic atrocities that our race is capable of.

Points of Interest #28

Welcome, one and all to my wrap up of all the best posts to be found on-line in my adventures in cyberspace.  This time we have no worries, the importance of intelligences, the fine line between creativity and madness, wet bugs and so much more, so dig in.

Pure motives

C.S. Lewis once wrote that “Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it  than the next man.” I think one glance a popular culture can give us an idea of how saturated we are with this. It’s everywhere.

     There is not a sport in existence where people don’t make lists of the “greatest players.” It goes beyond statistics as the greatest players are the ones with championships.  In other words, they are the ones playing on the greatest teams. This is somewhat confusing because the whole idea of a team is to be a single unit, greater than the sum of its parts.   It is difficult to even conceive of greatest in a manner that doesn’t mean beating everyone else?

Fearing fear itself

He who fears he shall suffer, already suffers what he fears. ~Montaigne, Essays, 1512     

  Fear is a very primitive emotion, setting off a chain reaction of events that pumps our blood full of adrenaline, raises our heartbeat, tenses our muscles, expends our energy, and quickens our thoughts. This is the essence of the so called “fight or flight mode.” It is very necessary for our physical survival that we recognize danger and react to it. Its result is a complete shutting off of higher centers in the brain, in order to focus all our faculties on a threat.

     While fear is good for survival, the behavior that results has lead to some of the ugliest, most savage, animalistic atrocities that our race is capable of.

Points of Interest, 3/8

Well, another week come and gone with plenty of gems amongst the chaff if you will excuse the mixed metaphor. Here are my favorite stops surfing this week.

Religion and Anxiety

“The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours.”

Jonathan Edwards, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

From the dawn of history, religion and anxiety have been intertwined.