Lines for the new iPhone?
With long lines and campouts going on in anticipation of the iPhone, I have only one question – where is Triumph the Insult Dog? This begs for a Star-Wars-like interview. Nerds waiting (ridiculously) in line for such things are just fun to mess with.
Christian Theology Meme
Inspired by the largely free-for-all Theological Confessions meme, I thought to write one up that actually has questions. Enjoy.
How to add a progress bar to your PPT presentations
Go to http://www.indezine.com/addin/thermometer/ and follow the instructions. Nice.
The Fool’s Heart
American Vision, one of my favorite book publishers and Biblical world view sources, has just created a new site dedicated to confronting and debating the falsehoods of the militant atheist movement (Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris), also known as the New Atheism. The site? FoolsHeart.com, taken from the scripture below. Don’t miss their short TV spot, soon to be on air near you (or at least on the web).
“The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.” (Psalm 14:1)
Innovative New Bible Format
A project called The Books of the Bible Project is about to release a new layout for the bible that encourages reading of the books as literature. Endorsed by a few heavy hitters like Gordon Fee, this Bible makes some interesting and thoughtful changes to increase comprehension. But the most interesting and radical change made is that they are re-ordering the books of both testaments – wow!
Some Christian Music Freebies
I’m on the Creation Northwest mailing list, and as part of promoting this year’s festival, they sent me a link to download five free songs from up and coming Christian artists. One of the tracks I enjoyed was from KJ-52, who is basically a Christian Eminem (CT interview). In fact, he actually has a couple of songs dedicated to Eminem entitled Dear Slim (parts I and II). He’s pretty funny, and a decent artist.
But the free track they gave out was Wake Up featuring Toby Morrell of Emery, a heavier Christian band. Wake up is a nice heavy hip hop song, sort of like Linkin Park. Check em out, see if you can dowload the tracks from itunes. And btw, if you think heavy music can’t be Christian, you might like to read my post What is Christian Music?
A Progressive look at learning from other faiths – Part I
One of my favorite pastimes is to regularly cull through the latest ultra bargains at Christian Book Distributors and order a bunch of books for an average price of $2 each. About 50% of them are usually gems, and one particular gem I picked up for $1 (regularly $7) was John Cobb’s Christian Faith and Religious Diversity.
Although Cobb is a Christian Progressive (not my camp, as you know ;), his book was filled with insights which I found illuminating and helpful in my own desire to learn from and appreciate other faith traditions, without having to be a syncretist.
My Two Cents #97 – Creation and Evolution
Dual-coding Genes – Creationists have long argued that evolution is statistically impossible. Now, with the discovery of dual-coding genes in humans, which are even more incredibly unlikely to have occurred by chance, will evolutionists doubt their faith? Will they give ID any credit? Probably not, because they are already in denial about the statistical impossibility of their theory. So even as they admit that “dual coding is nearly impossible by chance,” they continue in denial, responding merely that such designs are “hallmarks of fascinating biology.”
Interestingly, one of the things that convinced me of the dubiousness of evolution was studying overlapping coding regions of the bacteriophage x174 in my advanced biochem class back in college. This phage has one of the smallest genomes, yet can crank out enough proteins to live because it has overlapping coding regions. I asked my professor what the likelihood of that arising by chance was, and even though he was not a believer, he sighed “nearly impossible.” If such a simple and small creature had a genome that was incredibly unlikely, I look at the human, then at the evolutionists, and can not believe the great faith that they have in their unlikely tale.
The Four Historic Models for Church/State Interaction
In a shamefully short interview (two questions?), Brian McLaren released a nice overview of how the church has historically interacted with the state, and blithely recommended the fourth model.  And while I agree with him, the embarrassing lack of detail in the article leaves much in ambiguity.
Lesbian gangs
A while back, one of our commenters mentioned that her child’s school had a problem with lesbians taking over a bathroom and beating up and harassing kids who tried to use it. Others resisted the idea that such violent behavior was really associated with lesbianism. However, recent report from Philadelphia indicates that this is a real trend on the rise.
Girls at the Turner Middle School allege that the lesbian students are harassing them with gay remarks. The straight students say lesbians are bullying, groping and harassing them in gym and in the girl’s bathrooms.
A little less talk
This coming week I will be away from the computer and blogging will probably not cross my mind. So often I get caught up in talking about issues, but not actually doing something about them. It’s one thing to talk about evangelism, missions and helping people come to know Christ. It’s something else to go be about it.
Next week I will spend my mornings in the inner city of Memphis ministering to some kids. The afternoons will be filled up with service projects in the ghetto. The nights are for fellowship and Bible study with youth from my church and other churches. I can’t wait.
My new favorite Bible
…and it hasn’t even come out yet. In October, B&H Publishing will be releasing The Apologetics Study Bible.
Evolutionary Trees – In Flux or Broken and Bogus?
The June 2007 issue of New Scientist had a really interesting article on how genetics is totally upsetting the ancestral trees that we’ve come to believe somehow accurately represent common descent and origins. Read the quotes below (which I tried not to take out of context), and ask yourself this question. Are evolutionary scientists merely improving on a good model, or are they floundering around and not seeing the elephant in the room – the one that says “maybe common descent between the major types of plants and animals never happened at all.”
Evaluating God’s Righteousness, Part I – Underestimating Sin
A recent commenter documented an impressive list of biblical "absurdities" which, in his or her mind, make the Biblical account of God seem foolish, primitive, and in some cases, immoral. And while each proposed "bible difficulty" has an associated biblical apology to match, such apologies might not seem convincing to our mindset. So before jumping into "answers," I thought that I might outline some of the principles which Christians, and perhaps others who are considering putting "God on trial" ought to consider. Modern humanists might not agree with these principles, but they are part of the foundational assumptions underlying the biblical approach to judging the righteousness of the Biblical God and his people.
Before we decide whether or not, for example, God’s killing of the
firstborn in Pharoh’s Egypt was just, we should consider the biblical
viewpoints on sin, righteousness, and justice. The first reason why we may not yet be equipped to judge God’s actions, instructions, or inaction is because WE OFTEN UNDERESTIMATE THE EGREGIOUSNESS OF HUMAN EVILS.
Lesson from Jesus
Jesus taught us many things about how to live our lives: love God first, love others more than yourself, be holy as God is holy and nationalize your health care.
Best (and worst) college football uniforms
Sports Illustrated has selected “College Football’s Best Uniforms.”
Our Travail with Immigration
My mother-in-law could not come to our wedding because she could not get a VISA to come here. In fact, after four years of marriage, I met her for the first time this past summer on a visit to Mexico. We have gone through the machinations of the Byzantine immigration system, and still, we can’t get her here legally. We’re pretty much down to writing our senators and governor. Here is our letter to the governor.
Faith and Politics in a Post-Falwell World – Part III
In previous essays, I discussed Brian McLaren’s claims that the religious right has left a bad taste in the mouths of many, and that they need to change to stay relevant. Now, I address a really interesting claim that Brian made – his concern that, after the collapse of the religious right there isn’t a mature and responsible Christian response that will fill the gap in a constructive way.
Majority of atheists have lost their mind
Well you may disagree, but I can’t help but think that when 56% of atheists believe that the Christian living next door who believes the Bible is God’s word is just as dangerous as the terrorists living in the Middle East who believes that Allah commands him to kill all the infidels.
Palestinian persuasion
For years the Palestinian people have been taught by the rest of the world that violence is an acceptable form of political discourse. Every grievance they have with Israel results in attacks toward the Jewish people and world condemnation of Israel for retaliation.
Why is it any surprise that what has been so successful for them in foreign policy will now be applied in domestic policy? Until world leaders hold Palestinian terrorist leaders accountable for their actions, they will continue to use bloodshed as political currency.
