Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • New Florida Science Standards

    New science standards for [tag]Florida[/tag] public schools are now available for review (HT: Florida Citizens for Science. These look very good, but there will inevitably be conflict about the issue of evolution.

    There was also a good article on this process in the Orlando Sentinel (again HT: Florida Citizens for Science.

    Interested parties should read and comment on these standards. Though I would expect that the evolution items will generate more controversy than others, the key issue here is not evolution, but sound science education in all areas.

    Thanks to the dedicated folks who participated in writing these new standards for our state.

  • Just What We Needed: The LOLCat Bible

    Prowlog

    1 In teh land of Uz wuz a man calded Job. Teh man wuz goodz, afraid of teh Ceiling Cat and evilz.2 Teh man hadz seven sunz and tree doters,3 And lots of sheepz and camlez and rinoceruseses and servnts, srsly.4 His sunz tok turns mading cookies, and they all eated them.5 And Job wuz liek “Oh noes! Wut if cookies were sin? Gota prey, just in cased.”

    So goes the LOLCat Bible of Job 1:1-4, which the LOLCat Bible site suggests as a good example of how to translate–for the LOLCat Bible, of course!

    Perhaps someone needs a life. Then again, perhaps not …

    HT: meeyauw.

  • PTSS and Military Discharges

    This is the sort of story that makes me so angry that I want to hope it’s not really true. Fortunately, it appears a couple of senators with some substance are on the case, and hopefully will get to the bottom of this and hold some people’s feet to the fire as appropriate.

    According to an AP Report in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (HT: Thoughts from the Heart on the Left):

    After two combat tours in Iraq on a “quick reaction team” that picked up body parts after suicide bombings, Donald Schmidt began suffering from nightmares and paranoia. Then he had a nervous breakdown.

    The military discharged Schmidt last Oct. 31 for problems they said resulted not from post-traumatic stress disorder but rather from a personality disorder that pre-dated his military service.

    Assuming the facts are correct, I wouldn’t care if he did have a pre-existing condition. After two combat tours the military should be taking care of him.

    Amongst those in congress who are moving to take action, Senators [tag]Barack Obama[/tag], Senator [tag]Christopher Bond[/tag] are investigating this in the Senate, and Rep [tag]Bob Filner[/tag] in the house.

    Please read the whole St. Louis Post-Dispatch article. It has more information and the Pentagon’s response, which thus far doesn’t impress me.

  • MBWR #134

    . . . has been posted by Allan R. Bevere. I appreciate his efforts on this roundup–I regularly find thought provoking posts to read and/or respond to by that means.

  • Retelling and Rethinking the Unjust Judge

    This week’s lectionary readings included Luke 18:1-8, the story of the unjust judge. One of the problems many people have with this story is relating the unjust judge to God, but as I pointed out in a devotional one thing we are supposed to hear from the story is how God is different from the unjust judge.

    One approach I like to reading stories, and this includes historical narrative as well as parables, allegories, and fictional stories, is to retell the story for various purposes. I decided to try this after asking the question, “What happened afterward?” The widow got what she wanted, but what happened afterward. I wrote a short story based in a fantasy background, looking at that question, and posted it on my Jevlir Caravansary blog. But since that one is there for fun, I didn’t really go into any of the thinking that went into the story or how I would use it in teaching.

    I personally haven’t used this or any other stories I have written in teaching, though I’m planning to try it some time. The way I usually approach it is to call for ideas right in class, and help people use their imagination to build other stories around the one we’re studying. I think that imagination is an important element of Bible study.

    Now let me make it clear that I don’t mean that you should imagine what the story might mean and take that as the interpretation. What I suggest is that you imagine how things might be, and then use that to put the story into a context. How much like our imagained story is the original story? How is it different.

    The following questions won’t make sense if you haven’t read my short story related to Luke 18:1-8 or if you are not acquainted with the parable.

    1. Many people have trouble relating the unjust judge to God, while others don’t believe he is related at all, and that God is to be contrasted to the unjust judge. Do you find the character of Sir Frederick in the story easier or harder to relate to God? Why?
    2. Sir Carl in the story could be regarded as a God-figure in some ways. Does having a just judge in the story change your view? Why does Jesus leave the story so brief, with the questions open?
    3. Would you prefer if Jesus told stories that were a little bit longer with more things explained?
    4. How do you think other people would have reacted to the widow’s success, if we heard “the rest of the story”? Would it be similar to my short story in which they basically assume that hers was an isolated success? Can you relate this reaction or any other reaction you imagine to our responses to God and to testimonies about his care?
    5. Might the other people who were treated unjustly by the unjust judge have felt that the widow’s success was unfair?

    Finally, of course, does answering these questions, and or reading my short story change your understanding of the parable in any way? Realize, of course, that if I were actually teaching, the alternate story would be built from questions asked of the class and combined into a story as a group. That process of thinking has value in itself, I think.

  • Honourable Mention for Threads and Stuff to Read

    This from An Evangelical Dialogue on Evolution. Of course I use the honourable spelling for honourable in honour of Canadian connections. He links to my post Theisms, Creationisms, and Evolutionisms: An Exercise in Definition. I appreciate the mention and link.

    Since I have been writing a good bit on Dawkins, and linking to other material about him, I also wanted to mention the post Steve Martin named as Post of the Month, which is actually a two part series titled Sympathy for the Devil’s Chaplain part 1 and part 2. Dr. Matheson has noted what many others have seen–Dawkins is positively brilliant in his scientific writing and falls pretty flat on religion. I mean to experts in the field of theology, the difference is certainly obvious. It’s not a matter of disagreeing, though I do. It’s a matter of the quality of the argumentation.

    Dr. Matheson’s blog is also wonderful, and I have several other articles tagged to read soon. He writes well, and most of it is comprehensible to a non-scientist such as myself. I really love reading his profile: Associate Professor of Biology, Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan | Reformed Christian | developmental cell biologist | evolutionist | NCSE Steve | baseball fan | Bardolator.

    His blog will go on my blogroll and I’ve already subscribed to the RSS.

  • Lawmakers Apologize

    . . . and well they should. MSNBC has the story.

    One interesting paragraph was this one:

    Legal experts say the case shows the United States has violated a 1998 law that specifically prohibits the government from turning a suspect over to a foreign country where the suspect might be tortured. U.S. authorities say they do not turn over suspects to other countries without diplomatic assurances that they will not be tortured.

    He was turned over to Syria. On what basis did someone in our government believe a diplomatic assurance from the Syrians that he wouldn’t be tortured? Is it because Syria has never been known to lie before? They’re on our list of states supporting terrorism! Yet we are, of course, going to continue this practice because it is so valuable–we are assured–in fighting terrorism.

    And here is what one Republican congressman said:

    “Yes, we should be ashamed” of what happened in the Arar case, Rohrabacher said. “That is no excuse to end a program which has protected the lives of hundreds of thousands if not millions of Americans. … We are at war. Mistakes happen. People die.”

    Mistakes happen? Well, yes they do. If we had arrested and questioned him, but studied the situation carefully before we turned him over to Syria, we could presumably have avoided this mistake. The problem is that we are getting calloused about charges of [tag]torture[/tag]. After all, there are those in our own government who will defend the practice. [sarcasm]Perhaps someone sent him to Syria for his own protection.[/sarcasm]

    At least the Canadian government is doing the right thing now by apologizing and compensating the man.

  • God Reducing Machine

    Check it out here. Reduce your God to a manageable size!

    HT: 42.

  • Interesting Response to 5 Lies the Church Tells Women

    Dave Warnock has an interesting response to 5 Lies the Church Tells Women which he titles 5 Lies the Church Tells Women: does not go far enough. Working with some principles derived from Karl Barth’s writings, he responds point by point, except to a couple of them that he says he can’t take seriously.

    I commend his article to those who are trying to think about this in a way that is faithful to the message of scripture, rather than merely to certain words in scripture. It’s thought provoking stuff.

  • Agreement on Spying

    I sometimes wonder precisely what the purpose was of electing a Democrat-led congress, considering their track record. I’ve gotten a couple of notes from the ACLU on this, and also got it from the Washington Post today.

    My problem here is not that [tag]surveillance[/tag] does not need to occur in some cases. Rather, my question is how, even with emergency powers to get surveillance going immediately at need, it should be seen as soft on terrorism to require warrants to spy on U. S. citizens? You have a secret court to oversee this, but they would rather not even have them involved, and they certainly don’t want to go to an ordinary judge.

    If the problem was their ability to respond quickly, then I would have sympathy. They need to be able to respond quickly. But the law provides that they must get approval within a certain period of time. That is a good idea. It’s accountability. The rhetoric of the administration does not sound to me like that of people zealously carrying out their tasks and being held back by the law. Rather, it sounds like people who don’t want accountability no matter when in the process it occurs.

    When we connect this with problems already identified in various agencies using their new powers, the questions become even greater.

    How much freedom do we want to give up in the name of fighting terror, especially when giving up that freedom does not actually help the battle against terror?