Sunspots 18

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

An article in the July 30, 2005 Kansas City Star states that the Harry Potter books are being accepted as not a threat by some evangelicals. Here's a quote "[Connie] Neal noted that Rowling has said she is a Christian who attends church." I accessed this article by using Google News, searching for "Harry Potter." The Star credits an author from the Dallas Morning News, so that newspaper probably has the same article. Some of the article seems to be based on "What Christians Think About Harry Potter," in the Jan-Feb issue of Faith Today.

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Why we don't notice it when we blink.

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Article in Harper's on how, as a nation, we are supposedly the most Christian, but our behavior is largely un-Christian. (article excerpt only, but there's enough there to make the point)

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Article in The New Atlantis exploring the ins and outs of video games in depth, including the implications of inventing or adopting new identities when playing. The average game-player is not a pimply adolescent, and some thinkers believe that some games are as artistically creative as great literature. (The author is not so positive)

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"New knowledge is never neutral; it is always a way of being in the world, a way of seeing our condition, a way of seeking truth, happiness, and virtue. Genetics is no exception, and genetic knowledge will never eradicate or eliminate those perplexities of life that require the kind of wisdom that no material science can ever offer." From another article in The New Atlantis, "The Real Meaning of Genetics"

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The same issue of The New Atlantis has an obituary appreciation for Star Trek and Star Wars.

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After checking Project Gutenberg almost daily for a few months, I finally realized that, in addition to books in text format, some with pictures, they have a few audio books, a few motion pictures, some data, including contents of human chromosomes and values of square roots, and some still pictures.

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This week's Christian Carnival has not been posted yet. It will appear, God willing, at Dunmoose the Ageless on Wednesday. I am posting this edition of Sunspots before the CC appears, in case a reader is interested in Harry Potter, and in case the news article disappears, or is no longer so easily accessible through Google News. I'll probably post another edition on Wednesday.

Thanks for reading.