R.H. blog

The essential question regarding the issue of abortion is this: can the unborn be properly considered human and are we therefore under an obligation to protect them? If this can be answered, we can begin to consider the social and political issues surrounding abortion. The Nature and Rights of the Unborn Human rights are contingent on being human—something that has always been implicit, but never fully defined except in the sphere of philosophy or in a strictly biological sense. In the past, a clear definition wasn’t necessary, because no one was thinking about existence before birth or what makes us different from machines and so forth. As science has progressed, however, we’ve been forced to consider our own humanity because of how deeply we understand our biology, including our development from a fertilized egg, and of how frequently in science the lines between material and abstract existence are blurred. Ethics in science aside, abortion is probably the most notable scenario...

My name is Ruth (R.H. Verrinder). I am an independent writer from the California Central Valley. This blog serves as an outlet for various nonfiction pieces on religion, philosophy, the arts, and current events. I have a self-published book on Amazon entitled Sketches of a Small Life, which draws from my childhood and adolescent experiences to depict life in rural California, and I am currently working on my first science fiction novel. Throughout my writing, I draw from my experiences in science and engineering to attempt to bridge the gap between science and the arts.  R.H.'s Substack

  To analyze our own existence, to draw out ourselves and the people around us, and to begin to understand, slowly and carefully, the meaning of life and how it ought to be lived—that is the common goal of work and art. In a million different ways, through a million different media, we are all seeking answers to our questions. Questions of self, questions of others, questions of the world around us; in every walk of life, there are questions to be answered. And with each question we answer, we gain a stronger sense of self and of security of our position within the world. By continuing to wonder and to seek out answers, we are insisting on living, and not simply existing. The only measure of success, then, is not your existence to yourself, but how you have lived. If you are a kinder person than you were before, if you are more patient, more loving, more ready to forgive—then you have asked the right questions and you have found the right answers.

Galatians 1: Paul’s letter to the Galatians addresses the delineation between the teaching of Christ and the teaching of man—a delineation that the Galatians had apparently blurred. Paul begins by reminding them that “the gospel they have received” is not from him or from any man but the Man Christ Jesus. With this knowledge, he asks them, why do they seek a different gospel? Why do they seek what is man’s, which can profit nothing, when they have already received what is God’s, which is everything? How are we to know the difference between what is man’s and what is God’s? Know what you have received by revelation, not by the teaching of man (v. 11-12). Paul goes on to explain how for many years what he was taught by man defined him and inspired all his actions, but in a single moment, through the revelation of Christ in him on the road to Damascus, the teachings of all those years crumbled to the ground and only one fact remained: Christ and Christ crucified. Nor was it necessary fo...

Isaiah 57:8 “Also behind the doors and their posts you have set up your remembrance; for you have uncovered yourself to those other than Me, and have gone up to them; you have enlarged your bed and made a covenant with them; you have loved their bed, where you saw their nudity.” In comparing Israel’s worship of false gods and allegiance to worldly practices to adultery, God is saying that worship—of God or of the world—is as intimate an act as sexual intercourse. Indeed, more so, because worship deals with the soul and not the body only. Worship is a submission of self—soul and body—to a greater force, real or perceived. Mere existence requires the submission of your soul to an external force. In the simplest interactions of life with life, there are concessions to be made, choices of one thing over another, forces of will and thought behind every action. If the driving force behind these things is the law of God, we are in submission to God. If it is the law of the world, we are i...

"For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ. But I make known to you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ," Gal.1:10-12, NKJV. It is a truth too often forgotten that, in embracing Christ, we give up the world. Our aim, in preaching the Word, is not to please man with some new and comforting philosophy, but to inform a dying world of an eternal truth. Truth is not relative, as philosophers of this age would have us believe, but absolute. Truth does not apply exclusively to those who believe it, but simply is. It is our duty, then, as Christians, to inform those deluded by the Great Lie of the Great Truth which governs their eternal destiny and the destiny of the universe. Truth is not pleasant to man because it is not of his making. Neither is t...

“Do you look at things according to the outward appearance? If anyone is convinced in himself that he is Christ’s, let him again consider this in himself, that just as he is Christ’s, even so we are Christ’s,” 2 Cor. 10:7, NKJV. “…But they, measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise. We, however, will not boast beyond measure, but within the limits of the sphere which God appointed us….” 2 Cor.10:12-13, NKJV. The danger among Christians is the tendency to glorify one’s faith as an individual as a mark of superiority. We know that our core belief is absolutely true—that is, the gospel of Christ—but are wont to extend that sense of absolute truth into all areas of our life, so that we become more or less convinced that because we are correct in our belief of Christ, we are correct in all things. Are our political beliefs guided by our belief in Christ? Certainly. Are our domestic habits guided by our belief in Christ? Absol...