The UmBlog

Who doesn’t like the underdog? The fans of the overdog I guess. My concentration in UConn's biology program was Ecology and Evolutionary biology. I have been reading creationist stuff, young earth and old earth stuff since elementary school. So this well preserved soft tissue from a T. rex femur sure make the Young Earth creationists look good, and they know it. Pictures. However, not even all Christians can cheer for the Young Earth guys on this one. Rich Deem has an excellent Old Earth Christian site in which he attempts to explain how this isn’t a victory for the Young Earth crew. How old is my earth? I don’t know. It seems pretty young to me today.

You would think something called Justice Sunday coordinated with many churches across the United States would have something to do with prayer for the Darfur genocide or something related to prayer for persecuted Christians . Maybe it would be a rally for pregnancy counseling centers or affordable housing . Sadly it's only to get rules changed on filibusters because the Republicans can't get 10 judges approved. Syndicated columnist Tom Teepen writes, "Senate Democrats, resorting to the filibuster that requires a 60-vote majority, have balked only 10 Bush picks, all for appellate benches." Although abortion is an extremely important issue, rallying churches to the nuclear option is a rally for a method and not the end. Surely, this quick route to judicial salvation that will return us to being God's country has William Wilberforce spinning in his grave. Wilberforce is a political model for today's Pro-life movement. His abolitionist agenda took enarly ...

Voyage of the "St. Louis" I like to read WWII history. I couldn't believe what i was hearing Jim Dobson say last night on his FotF show. He claimed Terri Schaivo's court assisted killing was the greatest tragedy of our country. Maybe he meant in the last couple months, but that statement got me thinking on this event from WWII. We refused entry to 930 Jewish passengers trying to escape from Hitler's Germany. They thought they had valid entry visas into Cuba, a country which took in more Jewish refugees than anywhere else in this hemisphere, article , but were refused. The ship was ordered out of Cuban waters. And even though they could see the lights of Miami, our country refused to help them and sent them back to Europe where they were received by Great Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. Three of those countries were later occupied by Hitler and 250 are known to have died under occupation. Needless to say, I didn't appreciate Dobson's hyper...

A Blind Eye, Even In Death (registration req) This columnist has no sympathy for Christianity, yet he does make a good point. Why did such a "good" Pope turn a blind eye to the Bishop, Bernard Law, who kept shuffling child rapist priests to different parishes? How did Law end up with the privilege of performing the funeral mass? Perhaps the new Pope will make amends. Perhaps the new Pope will downplay Mary unlike J.P. So goodbye J.P. and hello J.R. (Joseph Ratzinger - Germany).

- Mosaic Pastor Urges Christians to Act Like 'Barbarians' That's fine to be a Christian barbarian, I guess. But I'm more intrigued by the claim to fame of having nearly 60 nationalities present and an average age of 27. I don't understand how you can claim success at diversity if you trade all-white, multi-generational for 40% Asian and mostly 20 somthings and their kids. Shouldn't the diverse chruch reach across ethnicity and geneartions? So compare this church in Los Angeles with another Mosaic in Arkansas. They recently were highlighted in the latest issue of Christianity Today, article. The first paragraph indicates to me the range of ages attending and no where is an average age mentioned. This place only has 21 nations represented but the types of ministries offered do not seem youth centered. Nevertheless, I'm glad the gospel is being preached at these places. If you've been to either of these places tell me about it.

This isn't a spiritual thing. I'm a cheapskate and i always buy cheap running shoes that don't last very long anyway. I heard about this guy who is running the Boston Marathon today barefoot. In addition to the health claims I see myself being spared from laying out dollars for shoes. I started this weekend with a couple 3 mile runs on grass. My tender soles are a little worse for the wear but not my joints or muscles. I want to run a marathon this year, maybe the Hartford or the Mystic Places marathon. I participated in a work sponsored sprint triathalon last year and a local nearly-half marathon called the Kelley Race. I will let you know when I'm running on cement and asphalt bare footed and when I am running 50 miles a week.

When to Pull a Feeding Tube - Christianity Today Magazine More refined defense of the ethics of keeping Terri alive.

Seven Things I Wish the Pro-gays Would Admit As I keep saying, if sexual orientation is malleable then we are no longer talking about a civil right issue.

Upon consideration of my last entry I feel it is necessary to clarify something. I have no concord for anything like the God hates f*gs website. No link to that site will be provided here. So, you might ask, how is it consistent to opposed to gay marriage and not be against homosexual people? This is the impasse that makes dialog difficult between the conservative Christian community and the gay community. Whereas the gay person proclaims his of her sexual behavior is inseparable from their identity , the conservative Christian considers a damaging activity that can be repented of, resisted, and overcome, not unlike an addiction to alcohol. It is the dirty secret of the homosexual community that people have succeeded, with and without reparative therapy, at reorienting their sexual preference from homo to hetero. It is also obvious that people have turned from hetero to homo but the homosexual community claims that the person was always in denial. For some reason, someone who rever...

A Zogby poll finds the contrary when the questions are phrased differently. Thanks to Justin Taylor's blog for pointing this out.

Not that I am making any new insights here, but today’s opinions weave a tangled web. I subscribe to my alma mater’s, UConn , daily newspaper The Daily Campus to keep up on the basketball teams and also to stay informed of the opinions of today’s college students. Here is a letter to the editor questioning the value of the institution of marriage. Marriage: a misguided Tradition His arguments against marriage are less sex (necessary for mental health), poverty from the eventual divorce, fidelity (the author is a male), and puts on paper what’s should only be in the heart. I fear this isn’t an April Fool’s article. I don’t think he is gay since this is the normative gay male lifestyle yet they want to have the right to marry like heterosexuals. Nicholas D. Kristof over at the NY Times also has a problem with marriage. In his March 30th article, When Marriage Kills , he blames the Bush administration for emphasizing Abstinence, Being Faithful, Condoms in that order in AIDS aid to Africa...