5-year-old Carolyn and I were talking about going to the park last night, though it was still around 95 deg F at that time of the evening. I let her know that it might still be too hot to go outside. So she looked through the window at the backyard and rebutted with “I don’t see any hotness.” 
Regarding movie credits, my 5-year old daughter says this: “Credits is something that you need to wait for it to get over.”
As an experienced vi user, I found this google search method really cool (with sample search term “rattlesnake”). Now that’s just about the coolest thing since sliced bread for me.
I’ve wondered recently why God didn’t give us a clearer view of Himself. That is, why is it that the revelation that we have is a revelation that seems to be clouded at times? Why couldn’t we have a more lucid account of God, and why couldn’t we be given a Bible that has complete uniformity, no matter what manuscripts are used? Why are some passages hard to understand, and why are some passages and some doctrines easy to warp into heresy?
I think that I may still struggle with these ideas for some time, but John Piper’s two sermons entitled “Why God Inspired Hard Texts” provide a plausible explanation. Transcripts and audio are available here and here, or google “Why God Inspired Hard Texts” if the link is broken.
Newsweek published some interesting survey results this week. If I had to summarize the main thrust of the survey, I’d say that it concerned religious belief systems and how it shapes ideas about evolution. Surveys can be colored to support a particular bias, but this particular subject matter is straightforward enough, and I can’t see any motivation for Newsweek to try to skew the results, so I assume that they are credible and representative.
Getting to the point, a few of the results of the survey are as follows:
Apparently just about 40% of Catholic and non-Evangelical Protestants believe that last statement (that is, that God created human in their present form within the last 10,000 years).
This is very interesting to me. I’ve been thinking a lot recently about how we learn and form our thoughts, ideas, and beliefs. On those subjects that have any degree of complexity, or those subjects for which we gain the knowledge indirectly, we very often rely on sources that we believe to be credible. If I am correct, the “credible source” that shaped the thought of Evangelical Protestants is Henry Morris. For a slightly younger generation (perhaps those in their 20’s and 30’s), Ken Ham has been the source.
To the consternation of many Evangelicals, Young Earth Creationism has fallen out of favor with many Christians. I suspect that there are a number of interworking factors behind this trend, but perhaps the most significant factor was the rallying of a particular credentialed community to create a structured argument for Intelligent Design. This community was (and still is, I assume) comprised of individuals from a variety of faiths, but each was/is trying to use scientific principles, logic, and philosophy to build support for a theistic world view. While the impact of the ID argument has been limited outside of Christian circles (and other theistic circles), it did have the impact of opening many eyes within the Christian community. As a general rule, ID accepts the old universe (i.e. 13 to 14 billion years old), though ID’s proponents typically deny that evolution can explain the variety of life that we see on earth.
So here we stand with a seemingly insurmountable gulf between the belief system of Christianity and the theory of evolution (which, as I understand, is nearly universally accepted by those in the bioligical sciences). Where do we go from here? If Francis Collins has his way, we will try to bridge these together. Could we actually believe both in God and evolution without destroying one or the other? Collins believes so. In his book The Language of God, Collins argues for the existence of a personal God, and he also argues that we have, in DNA evidence, compelling and indisputable fingerprints of evolution.
It’s easy enough for a Christian to accept the argument that an atheist only believes in evolution because of his bias against God. It’s not as easy to reject a credible and accomplished Christian physician and geneticist like Dr. Collins. For that reason, I suspect that his book would receive a more than a mention if we were to compare the survey results of a similar Newsweek poll 10 years into the future. My own opinion is that the statistics will slowly change, with fewer Christians viewing evolution as a hostile ideology and more Christians viewing it as pretty good science and the best science that we have to offer.
6/12/07 edit: an updated poll and analysis.
Ever since I heard the complete oral arguments before the US Supreme Court in a case on partial birth abortion (see here, and scroll to November 8, 2006), I’ve thought that it would be very instructive and helpful if the general public could be given easy access to the arguments made before the US Supreme Court. In my case, I wondered why audio recordings weren’t generally available. It looks like www.oyez.org/about gives a good summary of the history and perhaps just a taste of the reasoning behind limiting the access.
When Bill Gates talks, people listen. Not everyone will agree with him, but his ideas on improving American education and competitiveness are good food for thought.
Couchville is the best web-based TV listings guide that I have seen.
The Super Bowl is “the Ultimate”? Not according to Tony Dungy (head coach of the Indianapolis Colts) and Lovie Smith (head coach of the Chicago Bears). This website gives some interesting background behind each man, and it tells of their respective decisions to follow Christ.
Joel Spolsky experiences in the corporate world (especially application development) mirror many of our own experiences, but Joel has a way of describing and analyzing those experiences in a way that is especially clear. In his book “Joel on Software” he defines “hit-and-run management” as “intense periods of micromanagement followed by long periods of complete neglect.” I think that describes the way that a lot of us feel about managers. It’s not that we feel that they shouldn’t exist. It’s that they often combine micromanagement and neglect in just the right proportions as to maximize frustration and distrust.