When the scientific and theological communities attempt to avoid hermeneutics (interpretation) they are liable to make a mess of things. Specialists in both disciplines face the obligation to admit that they are interpreters of data and not merely assessing the bare facts. In spite of their incessant antagonism towards each other, these two communities are interdependent, and therefore need to be in dialogue in order to better understand God, the world, self, and other.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
There are a myriad of tantalizing temptations in the human enterprise of culture; money, possessions, and sexual infidelity, to mention a few. While culture is a valid informer to some degree, we can be carried away in imagining it to have an authority superior to what it merits. Two other informers have to be taken into consideration when deciding how to be and live: Scripture and the natural world. Combined with culture, these two will give us a more stable and far ranging vision and illumine the path towards responsible action.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Trying harder is not a viable solution for self-hate. Those who hate themselves are operating with high levels of invalid trust and insufficient knowledge about who they are. They assume that their self-assessment is both true and accurate. Such a view is not only epistemologically faulty, but it embraces a convenient suspicion of all except oneself. Self-haters will have difficulty maintaining the status quo when they are challenged to begin to recognize what it means to be human.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery