Anti-Climacus

LINKS:

* Stuff Christians Like on invoking God to end a relationship. See also here. I'm less fond of the 'remix' because it's more shtick-y. However, there's a troubling tendency in evangelical circles to outsource personal responsibility to God when taking personal responsibility becomes difficult. Nothing causes quite so much consternation as causality, and thus responsibility (I believe this is a problem amongst other Christian traditions, just one they don't tend to focus on), but it's no excuse to give up just because the situation becomes difficult.

* Albert Camus would not approve, for one.

* Carrie Brownstein on summer songs and lazy descriptions of new bands.

* Vulture: "If Hancock is really as bad as it sounds, could it spell doom not only for Will Smith's sure-thing status, but also the superhero film as a genre?" I can hope. I liked, somewhat cautiously, the first of the new sci-fi/comic book movies, but I have no interest in any of them now (see also: surprisingly better-than-you-thought Pixar movies, though if I ever see Cars again, I'll scream).

* This is heinously bad, but I haven't been able to stop watching it.

* Lest anyone ever ask, "why teach philosophy?" read on here:

For Bell, 21, the right thing would include putting a past behind him that includes legal and academic problems from the nearly two years he played at Penn State. In April, Bell was dismissed from the football team after police said he threatened a teammate with a knife in a campus dining hall. He was released from the university.

Academic issues had also led to a suspension from the Nittany Lions last February.

Bell says he's ready to make a fresh start.

"I was sitting in history class the other day going over Socrates and Plato, reading, 'No human intentionally tries to do wrong,' " the junior said as he prepared for 7-on-7 drills. "I rebelled and I acted out there, but I also learned a lot.

Now, that position of Plato's (or the longer, more complicated version of it) is one that has some less-desirable implications, but the kid's getting his life back on track, and he read something that struck him and has stayed with him. Score one for philosophy. (h/t Run Up the Score)