400-408 – Scott Lamb, co-author with Tim Ellsworth of a new Pujols biography entitled Pujols: More Than The Game, which I've endorsed (pujolsbio.com). Scott is a Baptist pastor in Louisville, and Director of Research for Al Mohler at Southern Baptist Seminary.
• CBS News (12/8/2011) Pujols agrees to 10-year, $254M deal with Angels.
Three-time NL MVP Albert Pujols has agreed to a 10-year, $254 million contract with the Los Angeles Angels, CBSSports.com's Scott Miller confirmed Thursday. Pujols' contract, which is subject to a physical, is the second-highest in baseball history and only the third to break the $200 million barrier, following Alex Rodriguez's $252 million, 10-year deal with Texas before the 2001 season and A-Rod's $275 million, 10-year contract with the Yankees before the 2008 season.
• USA Today (2/24/2011) Baseball star's contract a matter of heavenly debate. Albert Pujols is in the midst of negotiating probably the biggest contract in the history of baseball with the St. Louis Cardinals, and people – especially Christians – are accusing him of being greedy – primarily because he's an active and outspoken Christian!! He and his wife Dee Dee are wonderfully philanthropic and generous, not only with the Pujols Foundation (pujolsfamilyfoundation.org), which spent $800,000 last year in the Dominican Republic, but in many other endeavors. Personally, Albert doesn't like to draw attention to his generosity (the left hand right hand thing), so we don't know all that he's done. And, Albert adopted Dee Dee's daughter with Down's Syndrome when they got married.
413-423 – Calls – Do you struggle with envy when you find out how much other people make? (I do! Like every former baseball player, I too, struggle with "BTSD – Born Too Soon Disease." A .500 pitcher with a 4.00 ERA pulls down about 5 million a year now.) Do you think less of Pujols because he accepted the biggest offer? What if he said he took the biggest offer because that additional 10 or 20 million dollars beyond what the other clubs were offering means he can help thousands and thousands more people in his native DR? What would you think then?
Besides, aren't Christians entitled to their free-market value? Aren't people, even Christians, right to negotiate contracts that make them a lot of money for being among the best in the world at something? Isn't the real key, not how much you make, and not even how much you keep, but what you give away and how you spend it? Don't we all know lots of greedy poor people and generous rich people? What would Albert have to do to persuade you that he made the morally acceptable decision?
428-438 – Calls –
443-452 – Calls –
458-508 – Edward Feser is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Pasadena City College, and author of Philosophy of Mind: A Beginner's Guide (2006, Amazon), Aquinas: A Beginner's Guide (2009, Amazon), and The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism (2010, Amazon). Access his blog at edwardfeser.com. He and his wife Rachel have six children under the age of 9!
512-523 – Edward Feser
Lord Jesus Christ,
Let me seek you by desiring you, and desire you by seeking you;
Let me find you in loving you, and love you in finding you.
I confess, Lord, with thanksgiving, that you have made me in your image,
so that I can remember you, think of you, and love you.
But this image is so worn and blotted out by faults
and darkened by the smoke of sin,
that it cannot do that for which it was made
unless You renew and refashion it.
Lord, I am not trying to make my way up to your height,
for my understanding is in no way equal to that;
but I do desire to understand a little of your truth
which my heart already believes and loves.
I do not seek to understand so that I can believe,
but I believe in order that I may understand; and what is more,
I believe that unless I believe, I shall not understand.
– Saint Anselm (1033-1109)
TH 523 – Don Rohde @ Galpin Ford (818) 262-2092 (galpin.com) For the past 39 years, Don's been sales manager at Galpin, the #1 volume Ford dealer in the world for the past 21 years.
528-539 – Edward Feser
Aquinas's Five Ways (MCNGD) – Thomistic arguments assert that finite contingent beings owe their existence to either (a) a vicious infinite regress of other dependent finite beings, or (b) a necessary Being with causal powers (Summa Theologica, I.2.3)
1. Argument from Change or Motion – Aristotle's argument that motion implies a First Mover. God is pure actuality, there is no potentiality in the Divine Nature. God is not in the process of becoming, He is Pure Being.
2. Argument from Causality – Avicenna's argument that if every effect requires a cause, then there must be a First Cause for the existence of the world.
3. Argument from Necessity – Maimonides' argument that if contingent beings exist, then there must exist a Necessary Being.
4. Argument from Goodness – Plato's argument that if there are various degrees of perfection in the world, there must be a source of all perfection, the Perfect Being.
5. Argument from Design – Damascenes' argument that if there is design in the world, there must be a Designer.
544-554 – Edward Feser
558-608 – • USA Today (12/7/2011) Why do we spend money on happiness we can't afford? 70% of Americans live paycheck-to-paycheck, and baby boomers are retiring with only $50,000 in savings. Yet, we fight to not just to "keep up with the Joneses," but to "keep up with the Gateses." We no longer compare ourselves with the Joneses next door, but with the richest people in the world and celebrities on the Internet. If you play "compare," you'll always lose.
Calls: Wives, would you rather your husband spend $200 at Nordstrom's buying you a Christmas gift, or spend the $200 on a romantic weekend away for just the two of you? Kids, would you rather have had your dad spend the Christmas money on a "together time" family vacation, or would you still have preferred the Christmas gifts that you can't remember – or can you remember? Isn't it about experiences and events that you'll remember the rest of your life rather than things you can quickly forget?
612-623 – Calls –
628-639 – Calls –
644-654 – Calls –
• Washington Post (12/6/2011) When an adult took standardized tests forced on kids.
• Dennis Prager (NRO, 12/6/2011) Adultery and Politics: Religious conservatives often go wrong by focusing on candidates' sexual sins.
// And what is adultery? Women have called my radio show to tell me that a man who gets a lap dance has committed adultery. Others go further — saying that merely attending a strip show, or looking at Playboy, is adultery. To my mind this is emotion, not reason, morality, or religion. Yes, many Christians cite Jesus as saying that a man who lusts after a woman other than his wife has committed adultery with his heart. But Jesus made it clear that this is adultery with the heart. Jesus, a practicing and knowledgeable Jewish rabbi, would never equate actual adultery with adultery with one's heart. And if someone believes the two are morally identical, why not start asking candidates if they have ever lusted for any woman other than their wife? //
