It’s my day for finding interesting videos. Check out this African Cardinal on ‘liturgical dance’ and secular music:
If he can ‘get it’, why are his points so lost on so many???
HT: ‘danofsteel’, a commenter at Remonstrans
today 99 becomes 50
My American friends might not know what that headline means. I would guess almost all of my Canadian friends would.
recommendation: Disunion, NYT
I’d like to make a recommendation for a fascinating series on the New York Times web site. The series is called Disunion, and is a daily blog about the Civil War, we being now in the 150th anniversary of that conflict. The articles deal with various historical details about the war and the people involved. There is also an excellent Timeline that provides links to the archives from the NYT of the day.
If you are a history buff, I think you will find this fascinating.
I have been following the series on Facebook (I’m thinking on an article about FB sometime soon). I imagine they have an RSS feed also.
in 10 million years, we’re all in trouble
At least, that’s what I think this quote means…
The measurement of river sediment output into the oceans indicates that all of North America would have been eroded flat to sea level in just 10 Ma. However, this does ignore a range of geotectonic factors. Regardless, a maximum erosion time to level North America is probably no more than 40 to 50 Ma.
As you can see, the quote qualifies itself, so maybe we have an extra 30 to 40 million years… That’s a relief!
All kidding aside, an interesting article about the Devil’s Tower, a phenomenon I have thought of visiting on one of my cross-continent treks. It’s a bit off the beaten path, so we haven’t taken the time to visit, but it is a natural wonder in God’s great world.
items of interest
Some very interesting articles over the last few days, impossible to really absorb them all, but thought I’d pass them on for the interest of others:
* An amazing editorial over at CT regarding the Crystal Cathedral bankruptcy – they don’t get everything right, but make this amazing admission:
The lesson is that our attempts to find and exploit a point of cultural contact inevitably end in bankruptcy.
This does not deny the need to talk about the gospel in language and thought forms that a culture understands. In fact, we cannot avoid doing this—we are culturally and linguistically bound, ultimately unable to get out of our own skin and see the world in any other way. But we must repress every fearful thought that suggests that making the gospel relevant and meaningful rests on our shoulders.
* On the subject of music, several articles out about a new study published at McGill University (Montreal) – when a musical piece builds tension, then resolves it, the brain releases dopamine, the ‘pleasure juice’ that is also stimulated by things like food, drugs, and sex.
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Musical pleasure at TheScientist.com
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Emotion and Music at McGill University – links to several pertinent pdfs also.
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Music produces a natural high, McGill study finds at the Montreal Gazette
Some quotes from the Gazette article:
…the feel-good neurotransmitter dopamine is released when people listen to their favourite music, be it rock, jazz or classical.
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"Because it [music] gives us pleasure, we can use it to our advantage to modulate our state of mind."
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The music that generated dopamine release depended on the listeners’ tastes and preferences.
"All types of music activated the same part of the brain," Zatorre says. "It doesn’t matter if it’s punk, classical, tango or even bagpipes."
Very interesting stuff. I sent the links to Scott Aniol. I wonder what he’ll make of all that.
* Don’t miss the audio files and most of the notes for the Preserving the Truth Conference. I’m reading Mike Riley right now. Very interesting.
* And last, for Bibleworks users, a recent announcement tells us of a partnership between WORDsearch and BW. You can now buy some pretty interesting titles to add on to BW. This could be a welcome gift for someone. (No idea who that could be…)
lunar eclipse for christmas
Well, for Dec 21, actually, the Winter Solstice. You can read all about it here. This eclipse will be visible in almost all of North America, starting at 10:33 PM Pacific Time on Dec 20 (1:33 am on Dec 21 Eastern Time).
Just one of those cool astronomy things I love…
what does 2011 mean?
It means the monumental King James Version of the Bible is 400 years old.
My genius son sent me some links of interest on the subject. First is a site marking the anniversary with documentaries, events, and many other bits of information.
And there is a film coming out… you can watch the trailer here and sign up to be notified when the DVD is available.
KJB: the Book that Changed the World
Every believer ought to celebrate this anniversary, regardless of your view of the versions. The King James Version really was the book that changed the world.
CT book review: America’s Four Gods
An interesting book review appeared on the Christianity Today site a few days ago. [This is no endorsement of Christianity Today.]
The book in question is America’s Four Gods: What We Say about God—and What That Says about Us. The key paragraphs from the CT review article follow:
The American religious landscape is admittedly as varied and complex as the geographical landscape. This makes any taxonomy of religious beliefs necessarily artificial, as the authors note. So they start with what American religious believers have in common: namely, the notion that God is loving. This is something some 85 percent of Americans affirm.
Beneath that superficial similarity, though, is a range of conceptions about God’s character. Those conceptions dramatically alter our understanding of the shape his love takes in our world. Froese and Bader examine two questions whose answers, they contend, determine more about a person’s cultural and political worldview than any other sociological factor. First, to what extent does God interact with the world? Second, to what extent does God judge the world? As the authors put it, "The answers to these questions predict the substance of our worldviews much better than the color of our skin, the size of our bank account, the political party we belong to, or whether we wear a white Stetson or faded Birkenstocks."
Respondents’ answers lead the authors to identify four conceptions of God among the American religious public: (1) the authoritative God, who both judges and is closely engaged in the world; (2) the benevolent God, who is "engaged but nonjudgmental"; (3) the critical God, who happens to be judgmental but disengaged; and (4) the distant God, who is neither engaged nor judgmental, and could care less about how humans muck about.
This is probably an oversimplification, but it may still provide a useful categorization to keep in mind when speaking to people about the Lord. The reviews on CBD (see link above) seem to see a similar usefulness to the book.
Alas, another book to add to my list of "I’d like to read that some day."
well blow me down
I have been playing with Logos 4 for about five days now. I was fully prepared to disdain L4 as much as I do L3 and previous versions. Well…
Well blow me down, I actually like Logos 4. They said they rebuilt it from the ground up. They did! And it shows!
now this is cool
I love astronomy. I just noticed on the Jet Propulsion Laboratory that Microsoft has a beta software called “Worldwide Telescope” designed in conjunction with NASA. It provides cool images of the heavens, from any perspective. You can be a stargazer right there on your own computer screen.
Yes, I know Google has something like this too. And I know this is Microsoft, the company most people have serious attitude problems about. Personally, I don’t care. Mostly I like Microsoft. (I hate the Ribbon in the new Office, but…) And space is cool, so try this one out.
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