Princeton Physicist testifies before the Senate – CO2 has little effect on warming
Wintery Knight Blog has an exclusive 11 page transcript of the official testimony of William Happer, the Cyrus Fogg Bracket Professor of Physics at Princeton University. This testimony was given on February 25, 2009 to the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, chaired by Democrat Barbara Boxer.
This is for you types who are certain that spending money and harming the economy is warranted because of the 'inconvenient truth' of man-made global warming via CO2. Your panic is unwarranted, anti-intellectual, and hurts society.
Quote of the Day #024: Christianity and the Mystery Religions
I came across this while reading today (yes, it was pleasure reading ;):
The NT, moreover, was written almost esclusively by Jews, whose "strict monotheism and traditional intolerance of syncretism" would have militated strongly against any wholesale borrowing from pagain cults.
But the fundamental difference is the historical basis of the Christian faith over against the mythological character of the mystery religions. The deities they proclaimed were no more than "nebulous figures of an imagineary past," whereas the Jesus of the apostolic kerygma has a historical person who had lived and died only a very few years before the first NT documents were written.
The mystery religions essentially celebrate a dying nature god who then, like the coming of spring, is revived or reborn. There is all the difference in the world between this and the resurrection "on the third day" of a historical figure to whose resurrection appearances many could testify from personal experience.
It is significant, moreover, that the references to a three-day gap between death and revival that we find in regard to Attis (possibly Adonis according to one account) and Osiris cannot be dated earlier than the second century A.D., while the tradition about the resurrection of Christ on the third day, as recorded in 1 Corinthians 15, can be traced back to well before the middle of the first century.
So, if borrowings were made from one religion to another, it is tolerably clear which way they went.
See also Did Christianity Borrow from the Mystery Religions?
God and Caesar: Rendering Problems
The relationship between Christians and politics has been and is a difficult one. For several decades, we have not demonstrated a correct understanding of the relationship and our faith, the matter of utmost importance has suffered. We have problems deciding when to render and to whom.
This is a hard post for me to write in a great many ways. For starters, my own ignorance and indecisiveness is there to trip me up. To put it another way, I am passionately committed to a solution to the relationship between faith and politics. I just don't always think and write in a way consistent to that solution. This disjointed position often results in paradoxical, even contradictory statements and posts.
Also, I have a great respect for those who started and are involved in what has been dubbed "The Religious Right." Until somewhat recently, I would have used that label to describe myself. I believe they diagnosed many of the symptoms of our fallen culture correctly, but they prescribed the wrong cure, which made both the patient (our nation) and the doctor (our faith) weaker.
Lastly, these type of posts often have a tendency to be misunderstood. People love labels and categories and they love grouping others in them. We have different thresholds for when we will throw someone out of "our group." For some, if there is one disagreement over one issue (or even a disagreement of the way to deal with one issue) then the persons must not belong to the same group. To my shock and sometimes horror, I have been called a liberal and a supporter of so many things that I didn't, simply because I posted thoughts on a differing solution that someone thought veered too far from conservative Christian orthodoxy.
Sexual innuendo and the low quality of modern liberal dialogue
I wish I had taken off of work to attend a TEA Party protest yesterday (TEA = Taxed Enough Already), but I'm glad so many others did. What was really amazing was the liberal reaction:
- The MSM news largely ignored the event, though thousands participated in over 300 events across the country. Yet they covered with zeal (and 'compassion', but no discernment) the Oakland protesters who supported the recent black thug who executed four police in an effort to not go back to prison (he was carrying assault weapons).
- Those MSM news organizations that did cover the TEA parties, like CNN, were hostile and derogatory. It's shameful what passes as news reporting. Fox News looks better every day.
- The predominant liberal reaction was profane and base, calling the participants 'teabaggers,' a reference to a type of oral sex, usually associated with homosexuality (though I suppose that heteros can do it too). Isn't it funny how they denigrate us with the practices they so enjoy and laud?
But what was really noteworthy is that, unlike many liberal protests, there was no shouting, no profanity, no hostility, and no public sexual exploits. The quality of the protesters at the TEA parties was, contrary to the childish rebellion of much liberalism, mature, thoughtful, principled, and founded on principles of true liberty, not statism and moral permissivism. And the cartoon below fits.
Douthat: stem cell hypocrisy
Ross Douthat, of The Atlantic and soon to be of The New York Times, discusses the charge of hypocrisy at pro-lifers in the ESCR debate.
Can Christians protest the government biblically?
As a conservative with federalist tendencies, I tend to appreciate and applaud the sentiment of those engaging in “tea parties,” especially on yesterday on “tax day.” However as a Christian, my political philosophy must come under the teachings of Scripture. Are the protests biblical?
How molecular biology has ‘annihilated the tree of life’
The Center for Science and Culture, the primary Intelligent Design think tank, has published a fantastic article cataloging the latest chaos of the phyolgenetic trees, the basic collapse of the tree of life as DNA data flows in. Below are some excerpted quotes from An Analysis of the Expert Testimony of Prof. David Hillis before the Texas State Board of Education.
I’ve mentioned before that those who pin their hopes of biological origins on Darwinian gradualism or common descent are dreamers who pretend the data exists to verify their origins myth. For them, it’s ‘as sure as gravity,’ no matter what the evidence, or lack of, as we shall see.
When the frailty of their phylogenetic trees are displayed, they retort with ‘that’s how science works – we have a good model, and we are improving it.’Â But as I asked in Evolutionary Trees – In Flux or Broken and Bogus?, when is a model so poor at accommodating existing data and predicting future results that we need to abandon it?
Three perspectives on the Obama economic plan
Fresh from the news:
- Penn Jilette (comedian, magician, commentator) – "Counterintuitive action makes a fellow feel smart. ….Obama tells us that we can spend our way out of debt. He tells us that even though the government had control over the banks
and did nothing to stop the bad that's going on, if we give them more
control over more other bank-like things, then they can make sure bad
stuff doesn't happen ever again. He says we can get out of all those
big wars President Bush caused by sending more troops into Afghanistan.
And I don't know. I really don't know." (in Is Obama skidding or crashing?) - Mark Stein (conservative Canadian political writer) – "Apparently, nothing testifies to the
American virtues of self-reliance, entrepreneurial energy and the
can-do spirit like joining the vast army of robotic extras droning in
unison, “The government needs to do more for me…” For the moment,
Washington is offering Euro-sized government with Euro-sized economic
intervention, Euro-sized social programs and Euro-sized regulation. But
apparently not Euro-sized taxation."(from THE EUROPEANIZATION OF AMERICA) - William K. Black (in an interview w/ Bill Moyers, April 3, 2009):
BILL MOYERS: To hear you say this is unusual because you
supported Barack Obama, during the campaign. But you're seeming
disillusioned now.WILLIAM K. BLACK: Well, certainly in
the financial sphere, I am. I think, first, the policies are
substantively bad. Second, I think they completely lack integrity.
Third, they violate the rule of law. This is being done just like
Secretary Paulson did it. In violation of the law. We adopted a law
after the Savings and Loan crisis, called the Prompt Corrective Action
Law. And it requires them to close these institutions. And they're
refusing to obey the law.
Defense of the Resurrection
Over at HonestUncertainity, there is a challenge of sorts to demonstrate why you believe (or do not believe) in the literal resurrection of Jesus. (Perhaps, some here – on both sides – would like to send in a submission.) As we approach Easter, I thought I would post my response to the challenge here.
Equal rights for all relationships!
Like it or not, think it's pejorative or not, the current logic people are using to justify and legalize gay relationships applies equally to other non-abusive relationships, including polygamy, polyamory and bestiality. Are we saying that homosexuality and beastiality are the same, morally speaking? No, but I'm not sure why bestialists are judged as 'bad' – I mean, it may seem 'gross' to us, but who are we to judge? You can't have it both ways if you want to be logical.
And The People's Cube has a really witty article on this – but if you can't take the humor, and are deeply offended, your misplaced sense of self-righteousness will certainly keep you from seeing the point. Here's the intro:
Greatest headline ever!
Okay, you're a headline writer and someone plops down a funny story about a White House aide giving out the wrong phone number for a conference call, which led reporters to accidentally call a phone sex line. Incidentally, the number was supposed to connect to a conference call with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and National Security Adviser Jim Jones. How would you headline that story?
Agreeing with atheists
Occasionally, I find myself agreeing with atheists in some of their tiffs with Christian culture. More often than not, I do so, as a Christian, because I believe the atheists' request will benefit both sides. This is exactly the case in England as some atheists are working to "de-baptize" people who were baptized as infants but are now unbelievers.
Obama may be the farthest left at the G-20 Economic Summit
President Obama will be one of the top liberal, big government, high tax leaders at the upcoming G-20 Summit. For example, he'll be to the left of:
- The Swedes, who, sometimes called European Economic Socialists, last week announced that they would not rescue Saab because 'they weren't in the business of running the auto industry'
- The French, who also announced this past week that they weren't going to have a big-spending stimulus package because it would be 'fiscally irresponsible"
BTW, that cartoon should say 'bail' not 'ball' ;O
