Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • Bible Reading Poll

    I think it’s about time to change polls, so here are the results of the last one:

    What is your most common reason for reading the Bible (i.e. the one that causes you to spend the most time reading)?

    Selection Percentage Votes
    Devotional 23% 8
    Guidance for a specific personal situation 6% 2
    Ethical guidance 3% 1
    Learning correct doctrine 14% 5
    Hearing God speak 40% 14
    Historical or technical interest 9% 3
    I don’t read the Bible 0% 0
    Other (please comment) 6% 2
    35 votes total

    There were three comments left:

    From Gideon on March 17, 2008 at 1:34 am.
    to find out how to do good. Not that I am
    good, but I want to know what is
    “biblically good”.

    Joh 5:29 NETB … the ones who have done what is good to the resurrection resulting in life, and the ones who have done what is evil to the resurrection resulting in condemnation.

    From Mark Thompson on March 4, 2008 at 2:14 am.
    I ticked hearing God speak, but to be more correct I would add ‘as man understood at that time and place’

    From Philo on February 19, 2008 at 11:09 am.
    “What is your most common reason for reading the Bible (i.e. the one that causes you to spend the most time reading)?”

    For its poetry.

    I was interested in how many chose “hearing God speak” and I wonder how many of those would agree with the second comment made by Mark Thompson.

  • Three Reasons Florida’s Academic Chaos Bill is Bad

    Of course, I refer to the misnamed Academic Freedom Bill.

    Yesterday I blogged rather angrily about this bill advancing. Why is it that this bill makes me angry and caused me to call certain legislators liars? I want to be brief, for once in my life.

    1. The bill is deceptive.
      The entire opposition to the Florida science standards was religiously based. The one group which claims not to be religiously motivated is ID supporters, and the sponsors claim this bill is not about ID. So what exactly does the bill accomplish? Its sponsors would have us believe that it prevents persecution, but if you eliminate all these options, then what is left? Science was always permissible!
    2. The bill is cowardly
      By being vague, the sponsors allow themselves to lie about the content, but they also leave teachers and school administrators to interpret. Someone well down the chain of command is going to have to put their neck in the guillotine in order to discover just what this bill means. Will it be a teacher who believes he can teach creationism, yet finds himself fired? Or will it be an administrator who fires a teacher because she reads the bill as limiting the academic freedom to science, yet ends up in court because someone disagrees but nobody knows. The legislators are trying to pass responsibility to the local level.
    3. Even if it was a good bill based on its content, it is micromanagement.
      There is a Board of Education to make decisions about schools. Having decisions made by the people designated to make them ensures responsibility. This bill creates chaos in the classroom, and likely in various school boards around the state. But do the legislators care? No, they just want to pander–or appear to be pandering–to certain voters with a bill they know is no good.

    That’s why this bill makes me angry and why I referred to sponsors as liars. Just because the lies are standard political lies doesn’t make them any more moral.

  • The More in Space the Merrier

    It’s good to see that South Korea has joined those nations who have sent someone into space, in this case the youngest woman to do so. Congratulations! The more the merrier!

  • Hillary Clinton Should not be Blamed for This

    All my readers know by now that I prefer Barack Obama out of the available options. Now we receive the exciting news that Bill Clinton disagrees with her on free trade with Colombia. Huge surprise there, considering he pushed NAFTA through, though it’s mildly surprising that he isn’t trying to cover it all up.

    Personally I’m with Bill Clinton on this one. I favor even the slow progress of free trade, and I am unhappy with both Democratic candidates for their stand on this one. But such is life. There is no candidate I can endorse without a footnote.

    But I think it is terribly unfair if people criticize Hillary Clinton for her husband’s position on this issue. My wife and I can argue a great deal on politics, and I think we’re both better for it. Before each election we sit down together with a sample ballot and debate our intended votes. Occasionally one of us changes the other’s mind. Mostly we clarify. Sometimes we go back and do more research. But I think both our votes are more intelligent because of the process.

    Two people don’t have to agree on everything just because they are married. There may be some basis to question Hillary Clinton’s firmness on free trade, but this isn’t one of them.

  • Book Meme Driving me Insane

    A few days ago Peter Kirk tagged me with a meme. I tend not to like memes, but I thought this one would be interesting, even if it required me to annoy a few friends!

    I must confess, however, that I can’t do it. I can’t name a single book. The whole scenario drives me crazy. I’d either be locked up as insane, or I’d be out fighting the system, or something similar to that. I’m going to back out, in order to save my sanity. Just imagining a world in which I had to select just one book to keep threatens my mental balance!

    Sorry Peter!

  • Does God Hate Sinners?

    Peter Kirk reviews some comments to see if John Piper believes this. It’s a worthwhile, link-rich post. Check it out.

  • Piper: Suffering is Judicial

    This is via a summary by Adrian Warnock, but I doubt Adrian would get a whole section wrong. There are a large number of things in this message that are right on target, and a few also with which I disagree.

    But the reason I’m posting a brief response is this: As has become standard with those who accept penal substitutionary atonement (PSA), metaphor has been promoted to reality. Everything gets placed in the courtroom. If we cannot distinguish spiritual things from the worldly metaphors used to describe them, then we will always be off track.

    Let me quote Piper as summarized by Adrian Warnock:

    Suffering is Judicial
    John PiperThis is most important, most controversial, and most helpful. In verse 20 it is clear that somebody took the universe and disordered it. Someone brought painful disorder to our relationships, workplaces, etc. GOD did it. We know it must have been God because it was done in hope! There can only be two other candidates—Adam and the devil. Did Adam and Eve sin in the hope of a future new heaven and earth? They didn’t have a clue about that when they fell! Was it the devil’s design to do it in hope? No! Only God did this in hope. God judged the universe because of sin. . . .

    Now while there are even some valid points within that selection, there is also a basic error. The courtroom has been imported and made into the reality. If God allows this to happen as a consequence of sin, that is apparently not sufficient for Piper. But God is still doing it, because God is in and behind everything that is. The courtroom metaphor distorts the issue.

    Quoting further (after skipping half of a long paragraph), still from Adrian’s summary:

    The meaning of all misery in the universe is that sin is horrific. All natural evil such as floods, disease, etc. is a statement about the horror of moral evil. God looked upon sin, and he said, “Here is my response to that.” He subjected the entire creation to this. Until you see the moral outrage of sin in proper proportions, and the magnificence of God in proper proportions, that will seem to you like an over-reaction. The world will say, “That’s ridiculous! He saw one sin and he did all that?” The reason for suffering is to teach you about your heart. You don’t even get close to understanding the horror of the way you treat your wife. There is a moral scandal about falling short of God’s glory.

    Here I have to disagree again. The imaginary universe in which no natural disasters occur is just that–imaginary. Again, promotion of a metaphor (the courtroom) to reality distorts our ability to discuss the issue.

    I’m wondering if Piper and those who hold a similar view don’t also have to hold a young earth creationism position. Certainly there were natural disasters before the fall of humanity if one holds that the earth is old. The old earth creationism position would suggest physical death as a natural part of the world, not as a consequence of sin, and much of that death historically was caused by natural disasters.

  • If You Miss Expelled . . .

    … try this idea posted on The Panda’s Thumb. I’ve already declared that I won’t spend money on the film, but it’s a good idea anyhow.

  • Florida Academic Chaos Bill Advances

    The badly misnamed Academic Freedom Bill has advanced through the judiciary committee of the Florida senate. You can find an account of the event on the Florida Citizens for Science blog, and some additional commentary by Pete Dunkelberg on The Panda’s Thumb.

    Pete notes quite correctly that teachers are not prevented from presenting any scientific material in support of meeting the curriculum standards:

    But there is no scientific material that anyone has been inhibited from presenting. There is however a certain view that some people wish to pretend is scientific even while knowing it isn’t. That view is called creationism or intelligent design. If the bill is not to allow teaching creationism, it has no function or purpose.

    And that is indeed the problem. Because they don’t like the curriculum standards that were designed by a very well qualified and representative team, these folks basically want to remove any requirement that Middle and High School teachers follow the curriculum standards. In other words, anything goes. The standards do not present the teachers from teaching science. And what else is there that these people could be wanting to introduce. Could it be religion? Of course they deny this.

    I don’t believe “lying” is too strong a word for what sponsors like Senator Ronda Storms are doing to the citizens of Florida. I believe she and her supporters know full well that this bill will result in chaos and legal action. But for certain people, the hope that they will get some religious teaching into public schools somewhere is a good enough excuse.

    22 Lying lips are abomination to the LORD: but they that deal truly are his delight. — Proverbs 12:22 (KJV)

    (See how nice I am! I even quoted it from the KJV for those know-nothings who think that version is the most accurate.)

  • Of Ossuaries and Toilets

    When the James ossuary was found I initially commented that I thought it looked like a forgery. This was a rather bold statement on my part, probably excessively so. I’m not a paleographer, and I only had a newspaper photograph to work from. Nonetheless, there was enough that I could see that I seriously questioned the item, and I do read both Aramaic and Hebrew, which makes me a little more qualified than the average bear, though not by much. Unfortunately this was in preblogging days, and I don’t have a copy of my remarks from that time, made in the Compuserve Religion Form under its old software.

    Whether I was right for adequate or not at the time, nothing that has occurred since has served to convince me that I was wrong, and a number of things have been written to convince me that I was right. Now 60 minutes has a segment on the collector who brought this ossuary to light and other forgeries in which he has participated. There is no absolute proof that this particular ossuary is a forgery, but combining its own problems with a provenance of “a forger’s house,” it would seem questionable at best to give it any credence.

    A hat tip goes to Jim West for leading me to the 60 minutes article indirectly, but then I also want to link to his picture of the ossuary in situ for your viewing pleasure!