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by on 1.17.12 Leave a Comment

CMAJ issues controversial call

The headline: Selective abortions prompt call for ultrasound rules

In a recent issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal, its editor-in-chief issued a call for banning the disclosure of a baby’s gender before 30 weeks of pregnancy in a bid to end the practice of aborting female babies. This practice is especially prevalent among some South Asian cultures (the editor issuing the call is apparently from this culture himself).

The whole article has the pro-abortion side tied up in knots, as you can see from the comments following the article. You can also see the hard-heartedness of many Canadians who insist on their rebellion and sin.

The article is, overall, heartbreaking. The ramifications of the fall of man are constantly on display. May God help us reach some of our fellow citizens with the gospel.

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Filed Under: General Interest, Health, Medicine, Politics
by on 12.23.11 3 Comments

the USCC–a revivalist Civil War ministry

In the New York Times today, there is an interesting article on the United States Christian Commission, an organization dedicated to ministering to the soldiers on both sides of the American Civil War.

Like the Y.M.C.A. movement in North America, the commission drew its force from the Second Great Awakening, a flowering of evangelicalism in the decades before the Civil War. As they offered religious services to soldiers, the commission’s staff also spread its version of Protestant Christianity, grounded in the doctrine of the Trinity, the authority of the Bible, the priesthood of all believers and justification by faith. The commission emphasized conversion, too, and excluded mainline Protestants from serving in its volunteer corps.

D. L. Moody served as a preacher in the work of the USCC.

The comments on revivalism in the article are much more positive than some bloggers offer lately!

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Filed Under: General Interest, History
by on 12.2.11 16 Comments

coach [blank] has my full support

When things aren’t going well with a team and the owner or general manager of the team issues a statement that includes the words, “Coach so-and-so has my full support”, what does that mean?

It means they haven’t found a replacement yet.

So when an institution offers a weakly worded statement of support for one of its adherents, what does that mean? It means that the adherent can see the handwriting on the wall. “No support here”, it says. And that’s the end of it.

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Filed Under: Philosophy
by on 8.30.11 14 Comments

when is a link not a link?

A friend of mine posted an article to which I objected. I objected privately, so I’m not going to post a link. We had a brief and I think courteous exchange of views. But the whole discussion gets me thinking about the whole paradigm shift that the new media is. That is, I think we are still getting used to the internet (or, as one of my hockey bloggers calls it, “the AlGore”).

It is common practice in the blogosphere to link to other blogs or articles online. This is part of the ‘netiquette’ of blogging, especially when you are writing a contrary opinion. The link provides context, your readers can go to your online ‘opponent’ to see what they said in context in order to decide whether they will agree with you or him or neither.

It is also common practice to link to news items of interest with a brief comment suggesting why the link was interesting to you.

I have occasionally linked to Christianity Today when I see articles of interest there, or when I wish to take issue with something said there. Some of my fellow fundamentalists have commented when I have done that without much of a disclaimer. I guess I don’t think a disclaimer is all that necessary when I am critiquing an article. It is pretty clear that I am not agreeing!  (Does anyone think I am ambiguous when I disagree?) And I don’t think a disclaimer is always necessary when I am just passing along a link to say: look at this, it’s interesting.

But what if I was writing an article listing a whole host of sites as “good resources for church planting” or “good resources for spiritual growth” or “good resources for theology”?

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Blogosphere, Evangelicalism, Fundamentalism, Separation
by on 8.16.11 7 Comments

54 hair-width’s of change

In my life time, that’s how much the radius of the earth has changed, according to NASA.

The scientists estimated the average change in Earth’s radius to be 0.004 inches (0.1 millimeters) per year, or about the thickness of a human hair, a rate considered statistically insignificant.

I am sure you were waiting with bated breath for that bit of news!

I’m just wondering if that means 108 hair-widths for the diameter??

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Filed Under: General Interest, Science, Space
by on 7.24.11 Leave a Comment

no such thing as moral relativism

So says Paul Boghossian in the New York Times, “The Maze of Moral Relativism”. He argues instead that attempts to hold to moral relativism only turns into nihilism, surely an unsatisfactory conclusion. In the end, he says, there have to be moral absolutes. He doesn’t appear to derive this from any revelation, but merely from logic. His column is interesting, regardless whether you agree or disagree with is conclusions.

Relativism about morality has come to play an increasingly important role in contemporary culture.  To many thoughtful people, and especially to those who are unwilling to derive their morality from a religion, it appears unavoidable.  Where would absolute facts about right and wrong come from, they reason, if there is no supreme being to decree them? We should reject moral absolutes, even as we keep our moral convictions, allowing that there can be right and wrong relative to this or that moral code, but no right and wrong per se.

And

The argument is significant because it shows that we should not rush to give up on absolute moral facts, mysterious as they can sometimes seem, for the world might seem even more mysterious without any normative vocabulary whatsoever.

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Filed Under: General Interest, Philosophy
by on 7.22.11 2 Comments

typing oot fast

Do you ever find that your typing gets a little garbled, your fingers get ahead of your mind and the result is a mess?

One typo I do all the time is “ot” when I mean “to”. I think this happens because I am frequently typing NT and OT for the Testaments. This used to drive me crazy. I hate lifting my hand from the keyboard to fix this with spell-check so I created a Word macro to fix this on the fly.

Here it is:

Sub FixOT()
‘
‘ FixOT Macro
‘ Macro recorded 1/1/99 by Donald C S Johnson
‘
    Selection.MoveLeft Unit:=wdWord, Count:=1
    Selection.MoveRight Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=1, Extend:=wdExtend
    Selection.Cut
    Selection.MoveRight Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=1
    Selection.Paste
    Selection.MoveRight Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=1
End Sub

I have this Macro attached to the keyboard shortcut “Ctrl-Shift-O”. It only works when you are one space past the typo… “ot “ (just before the second quote in the example.

And… I find that my fingers sometimes zip along and type “si” for “is” and “eb” for “be” and “yb” for “by” and any number of other dumb typing errors. My little macro gets used a lot.

If only it could fix all my typos… I still have plenty in the big words too!

It’s something like the way I talk. One of my friends used to say, “My tongue gets tangled around my eye-teeth and I can’t see what I’m saying.”

I don’t know if this of any interest to anyone, but it’s Friday and I have been making these typos a lot this week!

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Filed Under: Computer, General Interest
by on 7.14.11 1 Comment

commending a new blog

I’d like to introduce a new blog to you. It is written by an on-line friend who is known as “JG” on Sharper Iron. I have long appreciated JG’s contributions in the SI forum and have had some correspondence privately with him over the years that has been a blessing.

JG recently started writing at Mind Renewers. He is not a ranter and raver like me! I think you will find his writing challenging and uplifting.

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Filed Under: Blogosphere, Spiritual Life
by on 7.12.11 4 Comments

the kindle changes many things

I haven’t posted for a while. I think the reason is my new Kindle. I have entered the e-book era with a vengeance, a little late, I suppose, but  I entered it nonetheless.

A whole world of e-books is available, much of it for no charge. Check out Project Gutenberg for many titles, already formatted for the Kindle.

In addition, I have saved many pdf books, booklets, and articles on my hard-drive over the years, meaning to read them later. My Kindle makes this much easier to accomplish. You can copy your pdf files right over to the Kindle, although you may want to edit the font size for best viewing … or convert that pdf to a Kindle format book. I have discovered several free software packages for performing this task and for managing Kindle content.

  • Calibre is a library and conversion program. I think you can convert books from B & N’s Nook format and other e-publishing formats into the Kindle format. (You can also convert from Kindle format to other formats if you use a different sort of reader.) Really an excellent program.
  • MobiPocket Creator is a program that converts pdfs into e-publishing format. I have discovered that it may require some formatting and html coding in some books, but it does get you started on the project. This site also offers books for sale, but I would recommend staying away from that portion of the site.
  • Sigil is a program that edits html and saves it in epub format. This allows you to customize your file to display how you would like it. Some knowledge of html is required.

There are other programs out there, perhaps some better than these. I’ve found these helpful, but my projects take on a life of their own and often consume a good deal of time.

As for reading, I find the Kindle to be quite handy – I seem to read a little faster with it as well. You do need good lighting, the e-ink technology can be read in sunlight, but no backlighting makes my living room somewhat problematic in the evenings.

I also am using the Kindle for preaching. I write my sermons in my ‘normal’ 8.5 by 5.5 templates and then copy and paste into a special template for the Kindle. I have to boost the font to 25 or 30 points, then print to a pdf, then copy over to the Kindle. But from there, the file reads very well in the pulpit and it means I can get away from my compulsive saving of paper notes.

One of these days,  I’d like to get an iPad for the preaching – it wouldn’t require “pumping up the fonts”, at least from having a look at a friend’s iPad. And it might be way more cool. However, for now, the Kindle is an affordable and very adequate solution.

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Filed Under: Computer, General Interest, Preaching
by on 4.2.11 Leave a Comment

as a mad man…

Proverbs 26:18 As a mad man who casteth firebrands, arrows, and death, 19 So is the man that deceiveth his neighbour, and saith, Am not I in sport?

I’ve never liked April 1 and the foolishness that goes on. I especially don’t like it when Christians join the ‘fun’.

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Filed Under: General Interest, Philosophy, Worldliness
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