John Stossel’s New TV Show Premieres Thursday Night: Click on the Fox Business Network at 8 PM EST. Supposedly, one of the first episodes will be about Atlas Shrugged.
'Tea party' Polls Better Than GOP: "Should the 'Tea Party' movement organize itself to run congressional candidates across the country, it would poll better than the Republican Party, according to a new survey by Rasmussen Reports. In the national telephone poll of 1,000 likely voters released Monday, 23% said they preferred to vote for a candidate from the yet unformed “Tea Party” for Congress in 2010. The Republican Party trailed the non-existent political organization by 5 percentage points, getting the support of 18% of respondents."
The Fiction Of Climate Science: "In 1974, the National Science Board announced: 'During the last 20 to 30 years, world temperature has fallen, irregularly at first but more sharply over the last decade. Judging from the record of the past interglacial ages, the present time of high temperatures should be drawing to an end…leading into the next ice age'…From the witch doctors of old to the elected officials today, scaring the bejesus out of the populace maintains their status.
Vive La Différence! But How Did It Begin?: "If we accept evolutionary theory we are required to imagine that each animal that today reproduces sexually, in the distant past was going about its business of reproducing asexually, dividing and budding away, when all of a sudden it accidentally produced an egg and at the same time, in the same locale, another animal of the same species just happened to make a sperm cell. Also, simultaneously and independently they each accidentally acquired the apparatus to get the egg and sperm together so they could produce offspring with a full set of genes. Are you buying this?… To my mind, the very fact of sexual differentiation necessitates, yes, demands a plan. And a plan demands a planner."
I’ve also updated 2 essays...
Tea Partiers Organize for 2010
Weekly Wrap-Up (9/25/09)
I also discovered a good website worth sharing: God vs. the Bible: How God's Creation Discredits Christian Scripture
Last but not least, the debate over consciousness continues at Luke’s blog. I’ll write a summary once the discussion wraps up.
2 comments:
re: God vs Bible: Fail. His schtick was new like, what, 250 years ago? The idea that people are only Christian because of emotional issues, that Christianity is antithetical to reason, sorry, Major Fail. Willful ignorance, in fact.
Leading intellectual lights throughout history, from St Augustine to, ahem, me, have come to Christianity as adults, after exploring many other intellectual options, both materialistic and spiritual.
I'm not going to launch into an apologia here, but I find it a bit contradictory that you would be battling materialists lower on this very page, who condemn you for being irrational, yet do the same thing to Christians.
Justin: I can understand how people – yourself included - “have come to Christianity as adults, after exploring many other intellectual options, both materialistic and spiritual.”
That sounds legitimate to me; I certainly do not believe that Christianity – by definition – must be “irrational” or “grounded in emotion.” Unfortunately, I do believe that Christianity – from an overarching perspective – is in desperate need of reform. The rise of fundamentalism over the last few decades has put Christianity in a very tenuous position. Quite frankly, while fundamentalism may be tolerable if it was confined to a minority of Americans, I do not think it is healthy to have fundamentalism be the dominant branch of American Christianity, and the most vocal religious group in America.
Why? Because it opposes reason. And by opposing reason, it makes Christianity itself unappealing to the next generation. When the "brand" of Christianity is tarnished, those young men and women are more likely to dismiss any form of spirituality in favor of materialism.
While I consider myself to be a friend of Christianity (a tough friend, at least), I do not consider myself to be a friend of fundamentalism. To the extent that websites like “God vs. the Bible” may make fundamentalist Christians re-think some of the more irrational aspects of their faith, I have to support it. I have no desire to convert Christians away from their faith, but I do have a desire to see fundamentalist Christians adopt a healthier balance between religion and reason. If they do that, I think it would be good for them personally, and dare I say, good for America, as well.
Related Links:
The Church: Does it Have a Future?
http://mustardseednovel.blogspot.com/2009/05/church-does-it-have-future.html
A Few Humble Suggestions to Improve the Church
http://mustardseednovel.blogspot.com/2009/05/few-humble-suggestions-to-improve.html
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