Not Just "Surrection"

Passover and Easter have brought forth a miracle: Uncle Jay explaining the news without once mentioning Sandra Bullock, 24, the iPad, or trained dragons playing hoops. The rest is the good stuff. Haha, April Fool!



[via UncleJayExplains]

Still Earth-Shattering

Way back when, in 1994 when I was in Elementary school I remember hearing about the 7.0 magnitude earthquake that shook the Northridge area of California. I remember seeing the scenes of overpasses dropped onto traffic below, pavement cracked revelaing deep crevasses in the earth and buidlings turned to rubble. I remember thinking, this was devastation. {continue...}

[via withmyowntwohands, HT: IdeaJoy]

Situationally Idle: Is Summer Vacation too Long for Kids?

[via The Situationist]

Swine Fever: Part of the Deal

[via Kester Brewin, HT: Jordon Cooper]

Squeezed For Joy

What could be more festive during the holiday season than… singing lumps of coal? Yes, courtesy of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) comes a truly bizarre marketing gimmick {continue...}

[via Red Tory 3.0]

Bikini-inspired Impatience

[via the view from her]

Contact by Twyla Toews

the point where the sun and the horizon meets
reverberates with passion
and the water misses the shore
until they touch
it's the contact of the rock and pond
that creates the uniformity of circles
rippling outward
the sweet caress of sonic waves
against the eardrum, bliss
is the embrace of light and the eye, sweet
is the blend of spices that dances with the tongue
in closed position, breath on skin
scent winds through emotion
and the wind and trees unite in this
music of connection

Good For The Environment

You may have heard that religion and science are at war. There are those who say that science has made religion obsolete. There are others, on the other side, of the spectrum, who say that Charles Darwin, and scientists like him, is the devil incarnate. You have to choose. And there’s my problem, I don’t want to choose. In fact, I’ve come to believe that my faith can live in peace with science, including evolutionary science.

Because Evolution Sunday falls this year on the First Sunday of Lent, I thought maybe this year we could combine the two observances. Evolution Sunday challenges us to learn from the witness of science. Yes, it challenges some of our cherished ideas, but the end result is a stronger faith. As they say, Darwin is here to stay, so how are we going to deal with him? Lent, on the other hand, calls us to a time of fasting, prayer, reflection, and sacrifice. Maybe this year, instead of giving up chocolate or Doritos, we could do something more constructive. Perhaps we could take some time and change some light bulbs, turn off some appliances, drive a smaller car, and do something good for the environment.

[via Words of Welcome, HT: Ponderings on a Faith Journey]

Neither Savior Nor Scum...

Stop Your Sobbing

[via Salon.com, HT: Kruse Kronicle]

Consequences of Discovery

Since we had not then nor have we yet adopted a principle of noninterference – ala Star Trek – it’s likely that the first contact between the European world and the Americas was going to go badly. As with any encounter life as it was being lived was going to be changed. Back then the idea of cultural sensitivity while present in the minds of a few wasn’t common practice.

But now that we sit here more than half a millennium after that discovery and the consequences of that discovery – both the good and the bad – it is appropriate to stop on this Columbus Day and consider the cultural and ecological foot print we leave on this world we live in. It is important that we remember that every action has its consequences. They can be good or ill, but the consequences are real. Sometimes those consequences are quite destructive.

We’re here now – we can’t change that fact. But we can consider how we live within our environment. That would be a worthy way of commemorating a bittersweet holiday.

[via Ponderings on a Faith Journey]

Personal Sacrifice, or Cheating Infidelity?



[via Blue Christian on a Red Background, from this post]



[noted via Opinion- USA Today, HT: MUSE MACHINE]

Nuclear Power Makes Individualists See Green

[via The Situationist]

Conserve or Destroy?

Wow! A bomb that Al Gore can love. Isn’t modern technology wonderful? {the rest...}

[via Magic Statistics, HT: Kruse Kronicle]

Not Politics, Not Alarm

I've noticed two patterns in global warming skepticism. Firstly, many reasons for disbelieving in anthroporphic global warming (AGW) seems to be political rather than scientific. Eg - it's all a liberal plot to spread socialism and destroy capitalism (or sometimes just plain dislike for Al Gore). As one person put it, "the cheerleaders for doing something about global warming seem to be largely the cheerleaders for many causes of which I disapprove".

But beneath the politics is a more elemental instinct - an aversion to alarmism. We've been burnt before. The media predicted an ice age in the 70's which never eventuated. Y2K was going to destroy society - it was barely a hiccup. And I won't deny there are alarmists in the global warming camp. Urgent cries that the ice sheets are on the verge of sliding into the sea. Hysteric predictions that Manhattan will soon be underwater. Or emotional pleas to save those cute little polar bears. Sadly, alarmists seem to be the loudest voices in the global warming debate. But that doesn't change the science underneath.

So I avoid the distractions of political agendas, ad hominem arguments and hyperbole about "the new religion". Instead, I concentrate on the science. {more...}

[via Skeptical Science, HT: The Heresy]

No Matter How Carefully You Look...

You can be a specialist or you can be a generalist. There's not enough time to be both.

If you are a generalist, there will be things you will not see no matter how much you travel. If you are a specialist, there will be tiny secrets and truths that will elude you, no matter how carefully you look. {more...}

[via The Christian Century, HT: Real Live Preacher]

Moreover,

My tiny mind and delicate emotions cannot bear even my small thoughts of the universe for more than a few minutes. I relax. Sometimes a shrinking reality can be a comfort. My sins, the things that I have done wrong and the ways that I cannot be what I should be, also shrink. I feel I can forgive myself for them, small man that I am....

Our saintly scientists, single-minded and incredibly committed to the search for truth, draw down amazing pictures from the ancient light in the sky. These pictures help me to know that it is okay to be nothing more or less than what we are.

People. Human beings, strangely warped and trying to understand that. Trying to worship what cannot be known, trying to learn, trying to find our place in the Cosmos.

[via Real Live Preacher]

After A Universal Rapture

Imagine Earth without people

[via New Scientist, HT: Jordon Cooper]

Apocalyptic in the Truest Sense

The new Nine Inch Nails album, Year Zero, comes out on Tuesday. It's a science-fictional concept album (probably the first such thing since David Bowie's Outside, though I may be wrong about that), and the story are of particularly interest for both its critique of conservative religion and its broader eschatological themes.

The nonlinear story has been unfolding in a viral marketing campaign (or "alternate reality game," or "interactive experience") made up of websites, mp3s, and toll-free phone numbers starting earlier this year, establishing the history and atmosphere of the dystopia in which Year Zero takes place. In a nutshell: 15 years from now, the United States has become both a police state and a theocracy. This government has used nuclear weapons on Iran, required all Muslims to register or face execution, and drugged the populace into submission with tranquilizers in the water supply. The Year Zero backstory takes a bleak view of the future of American religion, summed up by the logo of the "Faithful Civil Patrol" organized by the First Evangelical Church of Plano: a crucifix emerging from the barrel of a gun.

This type of dystopia is not the most original—it's reminiscent of the worlds of Katherine Kerr's story "Asylum" and the film Children of Men, just to name two. The medium in which it has been revealed is a novelty, though, and there's a definite thrill to be gained from exploring the sites, a sense of uncovering a mystery. This is especially true in the case of Year Zero's most interesting concept: "The Presence," a mysterious vision/hallucination of an enormous, ghostly hand descending from the sky.....

The Presence is a warning against our tribalism and selfishness. Year Zero is apocalyptic in the truest sense of the word: if we don't get our act together, it warns us, God will end the world for us. In this regard, there's something remarkably traditional about the eschatology of Year Zero. Though its political origins are the opposite of, say, Left Behind, its attitude towards the relation between God and sinful humanity is the same. We have strayed from the path of righteousness, it tells us, and we are blundering into divine retribution.

{the full post}

[via SF Gospel]

Global and Local

The Bargain and The Prize

[via slacktivist]

Seriously? Repentance?

We have tweaked our friend the Rev. James Dobson pretty regularly in the past, particular for his involvement in politics. And when Dr. Dobson called for the resignation of the Rev. Richard Cizik, president for the National Association of Evangelicals, because he believed that Cizik was spending too much time worrying about global warming and not enough time spent on “core” Religious Right issues, such as abortion and same-sex marriages, we gigged him pretty hard then, too.

However, we received this e-mail this morning from Dobson’s Focus on the Family ministry and we think it is a remarkable document. It is probably the most honest, most revealing statement ever made by the normally carefully controlled Dobson.

So, in the spirit of Christian reconciliation, we’re making available Dr. Dobson’s complete statement, without editorial comment.

{read the rest}

[via The Wittenburg Blog]

Why nature films don’t help the environment.

[via The Eagle & Child]