The UmBlog

I enjoy the work of Intelligent Design folks, but I also appreciate this philosophical tweak of them by analogy... Once again, the proposed material mechanisms of meteorology might be adequate for making extremely short-term predictions. But the inability of atmohsphereic scientists to make accurate long-term predictions based on these mechanisms clearly demonstrates that natural processes alone are incapable of producing complex weather systems. Anything more than about 15 days out has all of the marks of being designed by an intelligent agency. Astronomers don’t seem to have a problem making long-term predictions based on the known laws of nature. In fact, I have a program on my computer called Starry Night that can determine, with absolute precision, the exact location of any heavenly body at any point in time - backwards or forwards! And not just natural objects like planets and moons, but man-made satellites as well. But the long-term behavior of earth’s atmosphere, on the ...

I learned a lot from Tommy Nelson 's ministry for couples based on the Song of Solomon . But the ministry e-mails stopped coming for awhile. My wife and I wondered if he fell into some sin. Eventually we learned that he had stepped down due to health issues. It turns out his health issue was clinical depression/acute anxiety, video . I'm glad that this health issue is being discussed publically without spiritual aspersions being cast on those who might simply need selective seritonin re-uptake inhibitors (SSRIs) once a day.

Often we choose books, but sometimes they choose us. John Steinbeck 's travelogue Travels with Charley: In Search of America emerged from a friend's basement as they packed to move and it ended up on our night-stand. Of course, it is a shame to throw anything of Steinbeck's in the trash. Sometimes we forget how a gifted writer can offer a stream of letters so intoxicating we feel like newly minted legal drinkers. How could we not have imbibed in something so delirious before? Yes Steinbeck is that good. The premise of the book is a mid-life crisis. He has achieved his fame and fortune and has forgotten how real Americans talk and think in 1960. The cultural context for Steinbeck's journey was the nuclear threat from the USSR and the presidential election race between John Kennedy and Richard Nixon. As he journeyed by ferry from the tip of Long Island through the port of my city, New London , up into the Northern tip of Maine he found few who would share their views on ...

An article at the Ooze about a grandma from Virginia who For the past eleven years Sherrie had been riding her bikes (she’s been through quite a few) across the country, from Florida to California and up into Canada, preaching God’s word. Raised a Methodist, she was now Pentecostal by choice and a speaker of tongues by election. Standing on street corners in small towns and big cities she preached a sermon of salvation from damnation through the acceptance of Christ’s love. She rarely slept indoors and tried to coordinate her travels with the seasons, going south in wintertime. Perhaps there is a future ministry for me...

Courtesy of Eugene Cho and Michelle Malkin and the Persecution blog . Pray for the believers, their families and their captors.

On a long 90 minute run this morning I got to thinking about torture, and it wasn't because I was barefoot. I was thinking in terms of slogans. I came up with stuff like: No terror information is worth moral violation. No terrorist information by terrorist methods. Of course it's easy to criticize but hard to offer a replacement. What would Jesus do with captured partisans/guerrillas/terrorists? The principle he taught is to love our neighbors as ourselves. There is not special category for enemies, they are neighbors. Criminals need to expect consequences. Soldiers can expect certain rights when captured too. Somehow partisans though can't get no rights. But if we Christians expect human rights, then we should demand them for captured partisans. Partisan forces are more than an organized crime syndicate but less than an army. They are somewhere between criminals and soldiers. They also have information. Mafia members seem to betray their family without torture and with inc...

Camp Okutta is a charity trying to drive home the point that children are used as cannon fodder around the world and we don't seem to get it without a relateable context. So they provide a parody of a summer adventure camp commercial and an interactive map of the camp. The map has a registration booth which parents needn't bother with because the camp will kidnap at will when other campers/soldiers die. See a previous post on child soldiers here and here .