The Dawn Treader

For those looking for a short break from Tiger Woods, there is a good article on Tim Keller, a PCA pastor, in New York magazine of all places.

$1,800,000,000,000

Climategate

"Yet even a partial review of the emails is highly illuminating. In them, scientists appear to urge each other to present a "unified" view on the theory of man-made climate change while discussing the importance of the "common cause"; to advise each other on how to smooth over data so as not to compromise the favored hypothesis; to discuss ways to keep opposing views out of leading journals; and to give tips on how to "hide the decline" of temperature in certain inconvenient data. " ~ WSJ

Case study on how "settled science" works in the real world.

Global Warming With The Lid Off, WSJ

Climate Emails Stoke Debate, WSJ

Lawmakers Probe Climate Emails

Darwin's Apologist

CNN: You contrast the British 10 pound note, which displays a likeness of Darwin, to the "In God We Trust" on American currency. Why are attitudes in Britain so significantly different on this question?

Dawkins: I think it stems from the far greater popularity of religion in America, but that only pushes the question back a stage. Why is America so much more religious than most other western countries?

CNN: What's your sense of Darwin's influence around the world?

Dawkins: Evolution is almost universally accepted among those who understand it, almost universally rejected by those who don't.

CNN: You maintain that science is corrosive to religion and that religion undermines science. In what practical ways do you see the influence of religion today affecting what science can accomplish?

Dawkins: Since we are talking about practical ways, the obvious example is stem cell research. But there is a more pernicious and pervasive influence, which is an active shutting down of the critical faculties. Religion teaches us to be satisfied with non-explanations, and this is viciously corrosive of science and of the life of the mind generally.

"We have come to a cultural moment in which both skeptics and believers feel their existence is threatened because both secular skepticism and religious faith are on the rise in significant powerful ways." ~ Tim Keller

Sign The Declaration

"Hence the encouragement we have given to all those schemes of thought such as Creative Evolution, Scientific Humanism, or Communism, which fix men's affections on the Future, on the very core of temporality. Hence nearly all vices are rooted in the future. Gratitude looks to the past and love to the present; fear, avarice, lust, and ambition look ahead." ~ C.S. Lewis

"In a word, the Future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity. It is the most completely temporal part of time—for the Past is frozen and no longer flows, and the Present is all lit up with eternal rays." ~ C.S. Lewis

The Danger Of The Mundane

"You will say that these are very small sins; and doubtless, like all young tempters, you are anxious to be able to report spectacular wickedness. But do remember, the only thing that matters is the extent to which you separate the man from the Enemy. It does not matter how small the sins are provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts."

~ Screwtape Letters

I like how C.S. Lewis draws our attention away from the spectacular to the mundane.  "Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick."

The fact is, whatever draws our attention away from the Light into the Nothing (Lewis' expression for hell), is deadly.  Most Christians, including myself, struggle more with drift than anything else.  We get gradually lulled into the trivial, slowly but surely taking our eyes of the Real.  We then begin to develop what Lewis calls a "vague cloud of half-conscious guilt."  In other words, a dim uneasiness within us grows and lets us know that all is not well spiritually, but it is often not powerful enough to awaken us to repentance.  That is what is so deadly about it.  The spectacular sins are the ones which often awaken our spiritual sensibilities and get us back on our knees before God, where we ought to be.  The little sins, often in the form of simple but unhealthy habits, are the ones that can wreak such havoc over a lifetime.

Do you have an dim uneasiness growing within you?

U2

I really appreciate the musical talent as well as the heart of U2. Even more so after trying to learn to play their tunes. The philosophers and I are learning this tune.  I have the joy of playing Adam Clayton's hooky bass line.  Fun ... and hard.