Durbinization byproduct...

Via Instapundit we have a link to a column by a former North Vietnamese POW describing his five years and five months in a prisoner of war camp. Read it.

Moral Relativists gone wild...

When we view morality as ultimately relative, it is not surprising to find the following moronic nonsense spoken with complete seriousness:

Many Americans woke up to a curious story this morning: several of the former Iran Hostages have decided there is a strong resemblance between Iran's new president and one of their captors more than 25 years ago. The White House and most official branches of government are ducking any substantive comment on this story, and photo analysis is going on at this and other news organizations. It is a story that will be at or near the top of our broadcast and certainly made for a robust debate in our afternoon editorial meeting, when several of us raised the point (I'll leave it to others to decide germaneness) that several U.S. presidents were at minimum revolutionaries, and probably were considered terrorists of their time by the Crown in England. (emphasis added)

The piece is from NBC anchor Brian Williams' blog. Later, on NBC nightly news, he continued with,

What would it all matter if proven true? Someone brought up today the first several U.S. presidents were certainly revolutionaries and might have been called 'terrorists' by the British crown, after all.

It seems that the someone was him (referencing his own blog entry). That's it. One man's ceiling is another man's floor. Hence, we must be honest with ourselves and admit that one country's terrorist is another country's patriot. Lest we impose our own morality on another culture we also should refrain from using the term "terrorist" altogether and, considering our ceiling / floor logic, admit that the term "freedom fighter" is more appropriate. After all, what is important is not whether the person's actions are truly wrong (for there is nothing really wrong), but whether the person is sincere in their belief. A Brian Williams' History lesson: Terrorists, circa 2000 Terrorists, circa 1776 HT: Michelle Malkin

Rusty Nails 6/29/05...

Intellectuelle is launched The 7 woman group blog, Intellectuelle, has been launched, and is hosted over at Evangelical Outpost. This week is mainly reserved for each of the women to introduce themselves. Thanks go to Bonnie for her mention of my influence on her venture into the blogosphere. ### Bush's Speech - Why did we go to Iraq? Hugh Hewitt reminds us, despite the claims of the Left, that they have understood all along why we went to war in Iraq. Classic quote from Nicholas Lemann:

In his State of the Union address, President Bush offered at least four justifications, none of them overlapping: the cruelty of Saddam against his own people; his flouting of treaties and United Nations Security Council resolutions; the military threat that he poses to his neighbors; and his ties to terrorists in general and to Al Qaeda in particular.

### Pinkie Rage From Sports Illustrated, Ragin' Rogers: Rangers pitcher goes off on TV cameramen.

Texas Rangers pitcher Kenny Rogers shoved two cameramen Wednesday, sending one to the hospital in a videotaped tirade that included throwing a camera to the ground and threatening to break more.

It seems that Rogers was hurting from a broken pinkie, which had caused him to miss his last start, and he just couldn't stand having those cameras around. Does the phrase "complete butthead" apply here? Actually, maybe it's not complete butthead because he broke his right pinkie and, if you'll notice in the pic, he's doin' his shovin' with his left hand.

Rusty Nails, 6/24/05...

To Public School or Not to Public School? Jollyblogger has a couple of posts titled, Christians and Public Schooling and, Christians and Public Schooling, II, in which he addresses the PCA's recent resolution (which was voted down) which would have encouraged congregants to remove their children from the public school system. David also lists several related links, including that of Russell Moore (Mere Comments) and Al Mohler. ### A Dangerous Business A history professor is murdered in broad daylight with robbery not the apparent motive. ### Dumbing Down the Bible or Readable Accuracy? ### Nightmare The alarm clock went off and it's time to wake up... The American Dream is over. ### MSM bias? No way. ### A Gitmo primer. ### Election Fraud Are Carter's Election Fraud police investigating this? ### Dave Roberts, the infrequent blogger at Welcome to the Planet, has started a photo blog. Check it out over at 1000 Words.

And yet another Home School energizer...

Again from Instapundit we're linked to Give This 'Attic' A Story To Tell, by Anne Applebaum, and We Are Our History - Don't Forget It, by David Gelernter. Applebaum laments on how the Smithsonian Musuem of American History has become a pop culture stop vs. an education stop for American History. She writes,

When the museum was built in 1964, this sort of thing probably wasn't necessary. But judging from a group of teenagers whom I recently heard lapse into silence when asked if they could identify Lewis and Clark, I suspect it's now very necessary indeed. Opinion polls bear out my suspicions. According to one poll, more U.S. teenagers can name the Three Stooges than the three branches of government. Even fewer can state the first three words of the Constitution. A San Francisco reporter once did an informal survey of teenagers watching Fourth of July fireworks in a park and found that only half could name the country from which the United States had won its independence. ("Japan or something, China," said one seventh-grader. "Somewhere out there on the other side of the world.") We're not talking about ignorance of semi-obscure facts here: We're talking about ignorance of basic information.

Gelernter writes,

To forget your own history is (literally) to forget your identity. By teaching ideology instead of facts, our schools are erasing the nation's collective memory. As a result, some "expert" can go on TV and announce (20 minutes into the fighting) that Afghanistan, Iraq or wherever "is the new Vietnam" — and young people can't tell he is talking drivel.

Indeed. While Home Schooling is not the only avenue in which parents can rightfully inform their children about American History, it certainly provides a wonderful opportunity to steer young minds away from apathetic ignorance and towards responsible knowledge.

Bear it away...

A bit late, but the CNN headline, Former Klansman found guilty of manslaughter, reminded me of this Kate Campbell song.

Bear It Away Four little girls dressed up nice Singing about Jesus, red and yellow, black and white Dreaming of freedom across the land And all God’s children walking hand in hand One deadly blast shattered the peace Making for a dark Sunday morning on Sixteenth Street Who can explain such ignorant hate When the violent bear it away Bear it away, bear it away Merciful Jesus, lift up our sorrow Upon your shoulder and bear it away It hurts my heart to think of them Four little girls and what they could have been But we never know about these things When the violent bear it away

Another Home School Energizer...

From Instapundit, a link to Shooting Down the Breakfast Club, in which the author argues that the reason kids who eat breakfast do better in school is because they're "morning people" by nature. If the kids who skip breakfast, presumably because they're "night owls," would be given the opportunity to sleep longer, then they'd do well in school also. From the article,

Parents often think that children need less sleep as they grow up. The research, on the other hand, shows that adolescents still require a solid nine and a quarter hours of sleep a night—at least as much as their younger counterparts.

It doesn't mention whether or not laziness is also a factor. I've always been suspicious of that all too easy excuse, "Well I'm just not a morning person!". Regardless, Suzanne Venker, in her book, 7 Myths of Working Mothers, also writes about the very real sleep needs of children - needs that are often circumvented through the requirement to arrive at institutionalized daycare by 6 or 7 a.m. One of the beauties of home schooling is that, while you should definitely have a school schedule, you have the freedom to adjust that schedule depending on the particular needs of your children. If they stayed up late the night before, as often happens after mid-week activities at church, then school starts a bit later the next morning.

Gitmo <> Gulag...

Check On a serious note, Guantanamo is No Gulag, by Professor Bainbridge. Also, Michelle Malkin serves up a short history lesson with links to examples of atrocities committed by regimes such as the Nazis. Finally, Ilona has an interesting perspective in, Democrats are the Epitome of Evil. I completely disagree with her... but it's an interesting perspective nonetheless.

Daycare Redux...

In The Trouble with Day Care -- A Surprising Source, by Al Mohler, we read,

Concern about day care now comes from a rather unexpected source. The May-June 2005 issue of Psychology Today features an article entitled, "The Trouble With Day Care,"...

"The raging debates around maternal guilt, work/family balance, money and childrearing often drown out scientific insights into the developmental impactof day care," Lang warns. "But the latest findings, from a huge, long-term government study, are worrisome. They show that kids who spend long hours in day care have behavior problems that persist well into elementary school."

Even more troubling, from the Psychology Today article,

Consider this: "Developmental psychologists are sweeping this information under the rug, hoping studies will churn out better data soon, argues Jay Belsky, a child development researcher at London's Birbeck College and a longtime critic of his fellow scientists. He contends that the field of developmental psychology is monopolized by women with a 'liberal progressive feminist' bias. 'Their concern is to not make mothers feel bad,' he says."

Also reference my post, Mothers and careers, as well as Suzanne Venker's book, 7 Myths of Working Mothers.

Rusty Nails, 6/16/05...

Whale Evolution: Looks are everything Instapundit links to the latest Tangled Bank offerings promoting evolutionary scenarios, and our old friend DarkSyde is included in a post on the so-called evolution of whales. Despite the fact that whales are notoriously prone to going extinct, evolutionists continue to cling on to whale fossils, which span across millions of years, as being the long lost transitional fossils so readily absent from the fossil record. The basis for such a claim rests mainly on how whale fossils apparently look like they transition from one form to another. Despite admissions that the proposed evolutionary lineages are sketchy at best, despite the fact that the proposed time of transition is woefully short to encompass the necessary changes, and despite the lack of any clear despcription of a mechanism that could produce such changes*, we still see blatant examples of Berra's Blunder. The bottom-line is that the examples presented as transitional fossils are nothing more than intermediate forms. Evolutionary "lensing," that is, viewing the data through strictly evolutionary spectacles, results in strictly evolutionary explanations. The notion that, transitional in nature is not the same as intermediate in form, never seems to occur to the evolutionist. For a classic look at how major changes* in proposed whale evolution are glossed over, view the QT video from the PBS series Evolution (especially note the animation towards the end of the clip). #### The Left is Lost Per FoxNews, regarding an FBI report on the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Senator Dick said,

If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags or some mad regime — Pol Pot or others — that had no concern for human beings

Utterly Disgraceful Let him know at dick@durbin.senate.gov #### A New Blog lurking in the shadows Longtime commenter Bonnie, from Off the Top, will be teaming up with Marla Swoffer (who probably owns a few Swiffers), on a new seven-woman blog to be titled Intellectuelle. A seven-woman blog? Sigh. Should I get the ACLUnatics to sue for gender discrimination? #### You won't see this on the boob tube Per Michell Malkin

Comedienne Rosie O'Donnell banned her partner Kelli Carpenter from breastfeeding their daughter Vivienne just a few weeks after she was born--because she was jealous of their bonding sessions. Kelli gave birth to Vivienne in 2002, and the lesbian couple have been raising her along with their three other adopted children. But O'Donnell admits she felt left out of the motherhood process whenever she observed her partner nursing their child.

Sounds like Rosie needs just a bit more Left Leaning Tolerance. #### * There are a variety of changes that must take place for a wolf-like land based mammal to transition first into a fresh-water and then salt-water based whale. In Michael Denton's book, Evolution: a Theory in Crisis, we find that the wolf-like mammal must,

cease using its hind legs for locomotion and to keep them permanently stretched out backwards on either side of the tail and to drag itself about by using its fore-legs. During its excursions in the water, it must have retained the hind legs in their rigid position and swim by moving them and the tail from side to side. As a result of this act of self denial we must assume that the hind legs eventually became pinned to the tail by the growth of membrane. Thus the hind part of the body would have become like that of a seal. Having reached this stage, the creature, in anticipation of a time when it will give birth to its young under water, gradually develop apparatus by means of which the milk is forced into the mouth of the young one, and meanwhile a cap has to be formed round the nipple into which the snout of the young one fits tightly, the epiglottis and laryngeal cartilage become prolonged downwards so as tightly to embrace this tube, in order that the adult will be able to breath while taking water into the mouth and the young while taking in milk. Be it noted that there is no stage intermediate between being born and suckled under water and being born and suckled in the air. At the same time various other anatomical changes have to take place, the most important of which is the complete transformation of the tail region. The hind part of the body must have begun to twist on the fore part, and this twisting must have continued until the sideways movement of the tail developed into an up-and-down movement. While this twisting went on the hind limbs and pelvis must have diminished in size, until the latter ceased to exist as external limbs at all, and completely disappeared in most, whales.

But none of this is a problem as long as you keep repeating to yourself that the fossils look so similar that the only possible explanation is that they must have transitioned into the forms we see through tiny changes over long periods of time.

Homeschool energizers...

Every so often my wife and I get a reminder of why we home school our children. Recently, after a dinner at my parent's house, we sat around the dining table and chatted. I commented on how the same amount of time has passed, since 9/11, as between the attack on Pearl Harbor and the end of WWII. My mother then recalled how, at the end of WWII, her elementary school teacher, the wife of a Baptist preacher, led their class in a prayer. She paused for a moment, and then reiterated, "and this was in school!" Our four year-old looked up and proudly said,

We do that every day in school!

Yeah, that's it. For an idea of what so-called freethinkers think about the issue of prayer in school (or prayer in general), check out Infidels.com, EvolveFish.com, or Americans United for Separation of Church and State. #### At our Home School Open House this week we were treated to a short-sermon by a ninth-grader in our group. It was refreshing to see that he has grasped the basic fundamentals in Biblical understanding what with his comments regarding a certain verse in the Bible. Which verse? You guessed it - Jeremiah 29:11, "For I know what I have planned for you," says the Lord. "I have plans to prosper you, not to harm you. I have plans to give you a future filled with hope." Questioning why this verse seems to be quoted so much by Christians, he wondered why Christians didn't quote other verses of the Bible so vigorously - verses such as Matthew 5:30, "If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away! It is better to lose one of your members than to have your whole body go into hell." If one is to read the Bible, then one should read the entire Bible, and not simply the passages that happen to make one feel good. How wonderful to see that a ninth grader has a better understanding of Biblical interpretation than many adults!

Another Heard song...

All Is Not Lost - by Mark Heard When civilization takes a nasty turn And concepts are hushed when books are burned All is not lost All is not lost When swine are the ones who steal the pearls From the human oysters of the western world All is not lost All is not lost TRUTH LIVES ON TRUTH LIVES ON TRUTH LIVES ON When beauty seems beaten by the callous beasts And it looks like it will be 'cause history repeats All is not lost All is not lost You can still see grace in the children's eyes And this planet's face still gladdens the wise All is not lost All is not lost TRUTH LIVES ON TRUTH LIVES ON TRUTH LIVES ON When the hand of man becomes inept And sketches the truth in silhouette All is not lost All is not lost The hand of God has not worked in vain And this globe is fodder for the feeblest brain All is not lost All is not lost TRUTH LIVES ON TRUTH LIVES ON TRUTH LIVES ON

Stay Tuned...

Well I'm back. It was a hectic week away from home, and tomorrow night (Monday) we have an Open House with our Home School ISP. Thanks for the kind words in the comment section (and for confirming that I've got at least 7 readers). I've got a lot of things I'd like to write about... but I've still only been able to squeeze 24 hours out of a day. In the meantime, to stir up your thinking juices, here are the lyrics from a song by the late great Mark Heard.

The Golden Age They say this is the Golden Age Video millennium Tidings from the self-made media sage Tickings of the bio-bomb Jet-set etiquette consciousness Monosyllabic goodbyes No one cares about no one else We're so used to the capital "I" THE GOLDEN AGE (Electric Neanderthal) THE GOLDEN AGE (With digital morality) THE GOLDEN AGE NOTHING REALLY CHANGES IN THE GOLDEN AGE They say this is the Golden Age In which both virtue and flaw And the entire human element Are effects of the quantum laws Deep in the wells of the centrifuge The spectrum of the soul is mined It seems we know ourselves too well And we don't like what we find THE GOLDEN AGE (Electric Neanderthal) THE GOLDEN AGE (With digital morality) THE GOLDEN AGE NOTHING REALLY CHANGES IN THE GOLDEN AGE They say this is the Golden Age We've got the tapes of the truth in drag We've got thermographs of the fires of hell And renderings of the cosmic bang If this is the Golden Age Are we no longer human beings Are we civilization's afterbirth Some kind of flesh and blood machines THE GOLDEN AGE (Electric Neanderthal) THE GOLDEN AGE (With digital morality) THE GOLDEN AGE NOTHING REALLY CHANGES IN THE GOLDEN AGE

Out of town...

For my 5 readers... I'll be out of town until Friday, June 10th. Happy blogging!

See no evil...

Sometimes we only see what we want to see. In a recent post, Instapundit claims that

there's not much support for the idea that more-available porn (or pro-sex material generally) is doing any harm to America's children.

Only a few posts earlier, though, he praises a new children's book by Buzz Aldrin because, as per the NY Times,

Thanks to video games, TV shows and movies such as ''Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith'' that are loaded with special effects, today's children don't have a realistic impression of space or space travel...

Thus, on the one hand, more-available porn is not adversely affecting America's children; but on the other hand, more-available sci-fi is. How about a re-write? Consider,

there's not much support for the idea that video games, TV shows and movies such as "Star Wars: Episode III --- Revenge of the Sith" are giving today's children an unrealistic impression of space or space travel...

and

Thanks to more-available porn, today's children don't have a realistic impression of sex.

Yeah, that's it.

To Serve Man...

"Why should I follow Christ?" Is the 21st century paraphrase of this question, What's in it for me? Contrast with the first century question, "What must I do to be saved?" (Acts 16:30) I recently heard preaching which included the line, "Jesus looked beyond my faults and saw my needs." Jesus looks beyond my faults? Is this the same Jesus that initially said, after a paralytic was lowered to him through a hole cut in the roof above, "Son, your sins are forgiven" (Mark 2:5)? Or is it the same Jesus who told the sinful woman that anointed him, "Your sins are forgiven" (Luke 7:48)? Perhaps it was the Jesus who told the woman caught in adultery, "Go, and from now on do not sin any more" (John 8:11)? My concern with over-emphasizing the relational and "need-meeting" aspect of encountering Jesus Christ is that we tend towards glossing over the politically incorrect notion that we are sinners in need of redemption. Jesus does not look beyond our faults. He stares right at them and brings them to our attention. Indeed, if it weren't for our faults, there would have been no need for redemption. That He is able to meet our needs is but the downstream result of whether or not we acknowledge our need for redemption.

Jesus, I am so in love with You

There are several good posts at Mere Comments regarding the phenomenon of how we tend to so focus our worship towards Jesus, that we effectively ignore the first and third persons of the Trinity. S. M. Hutchens writes, The Problem with Loving Jesus and More on Loving Jesus, and Russell Moore writes, Where Everybody is Somebody, and Jesus Ignored. What is it about our culture, here in America, that motivates us to emphasize a personal relationship with this Jesus who loves us? Do we tend to overemphasize this aspect and, as a result, the person of Jesus in our worship? Consider the worship song Let My Words Be Few, from which partial lyrics were used as the title for this post.

You are God in heaven And here am I on earth So I'll let my words be few Jesus, I am so in love with You The simplest of all love songs I want to bring to You So I'll let my words be few Jesus, I am so in love with You

Is this a pattern that is modeled in scripture? What are we to make of, say, Psalm 100?

Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth! Serve the Lord with gladness! Come into his presence with singing! Know that the Lord, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name! For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations. - (ESV)

Or how about The Lord's Prayer? Or the doxology? Do we, in our eagerness to experience the closeness that a personal relationship entails, lose sight of proper Biblical Theology in the process? Why, indeed, do we worship God? Stop and listen to the lyrics of most of the worship songs sung at a typical evangelical church. Do the songs primarily echo the fact that God is God, and He is owed worship simply because of who He is (remember the Greatest Commandment)? Or do they more often than not exude experiential fluff, straining for an intimate relationship, in the hopes of satisfying a deep longing? There's a version of Let My Words Be Few that plays on the local Christian Radio station in which the female singer passionately sings,

And I'll stand [heavy breath] in Awe [heavy breath] of You [heavy breath]

Theological heavy breathing, I suppose. Who is the God we sing to in our worship services? For that matter, who is the God we hear preached about? Is it God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit? Or is it a gentle Jesus caricature that we're supposed to be so in love with? As a kid, I remember hearing evangelicals deride Catholics for supposedly leaving Jesus on the cross on the icons in their churches. Have we evangelicals, through our misplaced zeal, confined the Father and the Holy Spirit to a back row in the church, only allowing the Spirit freedom to move about when we desire a life-changing experience? Hutchens, in More on Loving Jesus, states,

This has brought me to reflection on how God is worshipped in churches that do not deny the Trinity, but are obviously most comfortable directing their worship toward the Son, and the question of how true this worship is. (We might also bring in at this point the churches that place a great deal of emphasis on the Holy Spirit.) I am not going to make any judgments on individual cases here, but think an admonition is in order. When we speak of God, we mean the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, the Father being the Source and Origin of the eternally begotten Son and the eternally proceeding Spirit. It is the Father toward whom our worship is to be pre-eminently directed, in and through the Son and the Spirit, with whom he is worshipped and glorified. To the degree this or similar formulations give difficulty or sound offputting, I suggest it is to that degree our worship and theology need to undergo examination and reorientation. In this mind also (I believe) lies the antidote to a great many of the modern heresies with which Dr. Moore is so rightly concerned. I do not wish to by any means slight the fact that we only know the Father, can only come to him, can only worship him, through the Son, and in the power of the Spirit. What I am speaking of here is the difference between the means and the end in which the means is contained. Jesus Christ is the only way to the Father, but it is the Father to whom he is bringing us, and toward whom all true worship, that is, worship by and in the Son and the Spirit, is directed.

Amen.

Bad Theology...

Melinda Penner has a post titled, The Study of God, which addresses the all too prevalent phenomenon in which Christians (in this case, a pastor) seem to think that theological study is relatively unimportant (when compared to more experiential activities, such as ministering to people). Let’s take it one step further, though, Melinda. How about when theology is used, but it is bad theology? For instance, how many times have you heard Jeremiah 29:11 quoted as indicative of the blessings God is just waiting to bestow upon us? I’ve argued before that one must at least read Jeremiah 29:10-14, which is the paragraph that contains verse 11. This is an application of the Never Read a Bible Verse tactic that Greg Koukl, among others, teaches. When this approach is used on the paragraph just mentioned it should become clearly evident that the two sentences which bookend the paragraph, verses 10 and 14, indicate that the blessings mentioned were time, place, and recipient specific. But don’t take my word for it. Read it for yourself:

29:10 "For the Lord says, ‘Only when the seventy years of Babylonian rule are over will I again take up consideration for you. Then I will fulfill my gracious promise to you and restore you to your homeland. 29:11 For I know what I have planned for you,’ says the Lord. ‘I have plans to prosper you, not to harm you. I have plans to give you a future filled with hope. 29:12 When you call out to me and come to me in prayer, I will hear your prayers. 29:13 When you seek me in prayer and worship, you will find me available to you. If you seek me with all your heart and soul, 29:14 I will make myself available to you,’ says the Lord. ‘Then I will reverse your fortunes and will regather you from all the nations and all the places where I have exiled you,’ says the Lord. ‘I will bring you back to the place from which I exiled you.’ - NET

Only when one ignores verses 10 and 14, and reads verse 11 as a standalone passage, does the idea emerge that God has plans of prosperity for us, here and now. In fact, if one really wanted to push their “imminent prosperity” claims, they should go the whole nine yards and butcher the entire paragraph, taking not just verse 11 but verses 12 and 13 as well. That’s exactly what I heard recently; Jeremiah 29:11-13 referenced as a foundation for the blessings God desires for us. Excised were verses 10 and 14 – key verses if one wishes to understand the meaning of the paragraph, let alone chapter 29, and let alone the book of Jeremiah. Now while it is certainly possible that God knows our plans, and has prosperity waiting for us, this passage of text is not telling us that. Melinda states,

…how can you minister to people without doing theology? You need to have a view of man before you can help someone in order to accurately diagnose their spiritual condition. You have to have a view of God and Jesus before you know how God might help the person in need.

I would also argue that, while limited theology could hinder effective ministry, bad theology hijacks it.

Rusty Nails, 5/18/05...

You Decide Russell Moore posts on Evangelical Effeminancy, at Mere Comments. He writes,

Every American evangelical is familiar with the phrases "I just don't have a peace about it" or "Let me pray about it." To many these comments seem deeply pious and spiritual, but they can just as easily mask the sin of a lazy and indecisive Christian. This is particularly a problem among Christian men, who often are paralyzed for months or years about decisions ranging from wedding engagements to career choices because they are still "seeking a word from the Lord."

How did we get to the point where, in seeking a word from the Lord, we ignore the Word from the Lord? ******** They just don't get it Over at The Panda's Thumb, in the post Note to meteorologists: You're next, we get the drivel,

Now, of course, I don’t actually think for a second that naturalistic meteorology actually undermines Christianity. People still pray about the weather, even though they know that weather is caused by natural processes. Belief in natural processes, and belief in God’s action in the world, are simply not in conflict for these people. If God can act through natural processes, then a natural explanation of something is not a threat to the belief system. ...What ID advocates have to explain is why evolution is different from meteorology with respect to theology.

This is nothing more than the tired old end-around run in which any acceptance of the laws of physics is equated with acceptance of naturalism. If you can accept that God works through the laws of physics that produce tomorrow's rain, then there is no reason to not expect Him to use those same laws to turn a wolf-like creature into a whale. There are at least two problems with their argument: 1) the question is not whether or not God can use the laws He created to work out His will and, 2) smoke and mirrors are not required to demonstrate how meteorology works. Also check Steve Wagner's post at STR. ******** Our story was wrong, but the story is true Check The Agent 2, at the Belmont Club, for a glimpse at the nonsensical workings of the inner mind of your typical Washington Press Corp. ******** But it's not science Guillermo Gonzalez, co-author with Jay Richards of The Privileged Planet, has had an article accepted for publication in the journal Origins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres. ******** Tick-Tock Per William Paley,

In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how the stone came to be there; I might possibly answer, that, for anything I knew to the contrary, it lain there for ever: nor would it perhaps be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer. But suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place; I should hardly think of the answer, which I had before given, that for anything I knew, the watch might have always been there.... The watch must have had a maker: that there must have existed, at some time, and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers, who formed it for the purpose which we find it actually to answer; who comprehended its construction, and designed its use.... Every indication of contrivance, every manifestation of design, which existed in the watch, exists in the works of nature; with the difference, on the side of nature, of being greater or more, and that in a degree which exceeds all computation.

"But," as the Darwinists will claim, "biological organisms are not like a watch!" Per the journal Structure, Recent Cyanobacterial Kai Protein Structures Suggest a Rotary Clock. HT: ID the Future ******** Emergent Church update Melinda Penner, over at Stand to Reason, has been posting quite a bit on the Emergent Church. She not only covers the dangers, but she addresses the positive ideas that are emerging from this group. Check: Values of the Ancient Church, I'm an Ancient Christian, and Worship Emergent Style.

Rusty Nails 5/14/05...

Worshipping the mood Check Bonnie's post, Is it time to dance?, at Off the Top. She wonders aloud why our worship songs tend to focus so exclusively on our feelings. Her analysis of I Could Sing of Your Love Forever is quite revealing.

Gratitude does lead to a good feeling, but that isn’t necessarily why someone could sing of the Father’s love forever. One can sing as an expression and as an offering but not necessarily while feeling happy or feeling like dancing. When something traumatic happens, the natural (and appropriate) human reaction is to feel terrible. Feeling terrible does not bring about happiness or dancing, usually. But can someone feel terrible while at the same time being able to sing, honestly, of the Father’s love forever? Of course!

Indeed. Consider the lyrics,

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way When sorrows like sea billows roll Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say It is well, it is well with my soul - It is Well With My Soul, Horatio Spafford

Spafford wrote those lyrics while onboard a ship at the approximate location where another ship had sunk, a few weeks prior, killing his four daughters. Did he feel like dancing? Most assuredly not. But he did feel like worshipping. ******** Oops Macht, over at Prosthesis, has been providing well written blog posts for quite some time now. All the while he's had a link to New Covenant in his Required Reading blogroll. And all this time I thought I had him linked in my Blogs to Check blogroll. Imagine my surprise, and dismay, when I discovered he wasn't on my list! Sorry Macht, I've corrected my error! ******** SAHM Checkout this past Time magazine article on Stay-at-home-mothers. ******** Charitable Chastisement Joe Carter, ex-Marine (c'mon now, you know there's no such thing as an ex-Marine), has an excellent post titled, A Tent Full of Tax Collectors: A Semi-Charitable Rant on Humility and Heresy. Go read the whole thing. ******** Forget Middle-Earth Go check this site for a sneak peek at The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, which is due to be released December 9th. Follow the link to the movie trailer. HT: Prosthesis ******** The Tilde This is good.