By reading the new Methoblog portal, I located an entry The Use and Misuse of the Bible . Most of this is a quote of a sermon by A. Allen Brindisi at Davidson College Presbyterian Church, which you can read here, though there is a substantial quote in the blog entry.
To quote from the sermon:
There is the rub: to distinguish between what the Bible seems to say, and what it really
In a post some time ago titled The Dog DID my Homework I commented on the odd inequity of intelligent design advocates asking for detailed evolutionary histories of each structure, while expecting no more than raw assertions of themselves.
Carl Zimmer on The Loom has written a National Geographic article on the evolution of complex structures (I haven’t read it yet, but will get there soon). Casey Luskin responded (?) to the article, and Zimmer has in turn responded to him.
Zimmer comments:
It’s remarkable that he calls for an absurdly detailed reconstruction of history as evidence for evolution, while expecting nothing of the sort from advocates of intelligent design. Apparently the rules are different at the Discovery Institute. There you need only make vague references to a designer, claim some supposed shortfalls of evolution, and you’re done.
I think this issue of the level of original research required of each side is the most telling point in the ID debate. ID advocates need to get down to doing and publishing original scientific research. Unfortunately, I don’t see any promising lines of such research, and apparently neither do the qualified scientists who should see them if there are some available.
I’ve been intending to mention this since last week’s Christian Blog Carnival came out, but I’ve been distracted. Mark Olson at Pseudo-Polymath has started a series on Genesis from a philosophical perspective. The first entry is Reflections on Gensis: Chapter 1, and he has now posted the second entry, Reflections on Genesis: Chapters 2-3 (part 1).
Right now I only want to make one comment and mention a couple of my own related posts. At the end of the first entry, Mark says:
However, Kass suggests that scientific views evolution may deny the intelligibility and primacy of species (the separation noted in Genesis) and the importance and uniqueness of man. And in that sense it might be in opposition, but I’m not expert enough on evolution to know how notions “kind” and “species” which arise from Genesis are denied by evolutionary theory.
I’d simply like to link to two of my previous posts that may relate; Design, Direction, and Evolution and An Evolutionary View of Kinds.
Laura has another good post on Pursuing Holiness on hearing the voice of God. She says:
It’s very convicting to realize how easily I recognize voices – even of people I’ve never met – from the world, and how I struggle to discern God’s will in my life. So what’s the difference? Exposure.
Just so! If you ask my wife in the evening she will be able to tell you whether I spent the necessary amount of time on my devotional reading, meditation, and prayer that day. And she’ll be right. I’m not talking about how much time I spend reading the Bible academically, as in research for my writing, but devotional reading, but how much time I spend listening to what God has to say to me.
Go and be convicted by Laura’s post. 🙂
OK, I don’t usually post this sort of thing, but it’s just too funny.
This morning while driving I was listening to a morning show, and one of the folks is about to get married and was having trouble picking a groom cake. He has finally decided to have his two cats done in chocolate cake form. Chocolate cat cake.
This is a bit too weird for me! But look at these:
I guess I’m just a boring person, but I think I’d skip this.
I have changed the code here to reflect the new Methodist Blogroll from the new Methodist portal. I understand (and observe, for that matter) that the older blogroll has fallen into disrepair, and this new one is being diligently maintained.
Many features of the portal are also of great interest, and I intend to use it more and more as I try to do my part to keep the conversation going. Head on over and check it out.
Rev-Ed has recovered from election day activities and posted the Christian Carnival CXLVII. Hopefully my schedule this week will allow me to link back to a few of these posts. My post is from my Participatory Bible Study Blog as usual.
Thanks to Rev-Ed for a nice carnival.
I divide my posting between three blogs, this one for posts of general interest, the Participatory Bible Study blog for Bible study posts, and the Jevlir Caravansary for fiction, poetry, literature and related book reviews, including my translations and/or transformations of Biblical material.
I’ve been blogging about the book of Hebrews for some time, and I’ve also read and intended to link to some posts from Chasing the Wind that I found through the Christian Carnival, but as the book of Hebrews would tell you, you’ve got to follow through! 🙂
But this week’s carnival brought us a post from Michael that I think is exceptionally good, and I hope anyone who has been following my series will go read it (and even some who aren’t following mine). It goes point by point into exercising confidence, and is very practical, and well in tune with the overall theme of Hebrews.
Go read and enjoy!
Rev-Ed has recovered from election day activities and posted the Christian Carnival CXLVII. Hopefully my schedule this week will allow me to link back to a few of these posts.
Thanks to Rev-Ed for a nice carnival.
MSNBC reports that voter turnout is slightly higher than the last midterms and was just a tad over 40%.
I have to say that I’m less than overwhelmed. Where are the other 60% of registered voters, not to mention all the ones who don’t bother to register. You can’t tell me that there was nothing to vote on this time. At least here in Florida there were a number of significant issues, and I know there were in several other states.
I believe it is appropriate that those who want to rule do so, but I can’t imagine what the rest of the voters are thinking, if anything.
