Sunspots 839

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to others*:

Environment: (and Politics) Gizmodo reports that the US Chamber of Commerce has been denying climate change for years.

Finance: (or something) According to Politifact, prominent TV preachers Charles Stanley, Pat Robertson, and Joel Osteen are not selling cannabis products.

Food: NPR reports on nut thefts: Organized criminals are stealing pistachios and almonds,

Politics: Florida now has a law that expects universities to keep track of the beliefs of employees and students, according to Relevant.

According to Gizmodo, Florida has also given fossil fuels an advantage in energy sources.

Pornography: With considerable reluctance, I have added this category to my weekly sunspots. It's important, and it keeps coming up. I will not knowingly link directly to any pornographic sites.

Relevant gives us some misconceptions about sex trafficking and pornography.

Science: Astronomers have been thinking about the possibility of intelligent life on other planets detecting earth, according to NPR.

The Scientist reports on cicada holes, which are more permanent than some other animal-produced holes in the ground, and which have important effects on the microbes in the soil, and on the atmosphere. There are lots and lots of such holes.

Gizmodo reports that there are underground (and frozen) lakes on Mars.

Gizmodo reports on the collision of a black hole and a neutron star. 

The graphic used in these posts is from NASA, hence, it is free to use like this.

*I try not to include items that require a password or fee to view.

Thanks for reading. 

With Christ in the school of prayer, by Andrew Murray, 91

This post continues a series of excerpts from With Christ in the School of Prayer, by Andrew Murray. I thank the Christian Classics Ethereal Library for making this public domain work available. To see their post of the book, go here. The previous post is here. As usual in this blog, long quotations are in this color. Murray continues his discussion, based on Mark 11:22-24:

There is a second, more general lesson: our daily life in the world is made the test of our intercourse with God in prayer. How often the Christian, when he comes to pray, does his utmost to cultivate certain frames of mind which he thinks will be pleasing. He does not understand, or forgets, that life does not consist of so many loose pieces, of which now the one, then the other, can be taken up. Life is a whole, and the pious frame of the hour of prayer is judged of by God from the ordinary frame of the daily life of which the hour of prayer is but a small part. Not the feeling I call up, but the tone of my life during the day, is God’s criterion of what I really am and desire. My drawing nigh to God is of one piece with my intercourse with men and earth: failure here will cause failure there. And that not only when there is the distinct consciousness of anything wrong between my neighbour and myself; but the ordinary current of my thinking and judging, the unloving thoughts and words I allow to pass unnoticed, can hinder my prayer. The effectual prayer of faith comes out from a life given up to the will and the love of God. Not according to what I try to be when praying, but what I am when not praying, is my prayer dealt with by God.
 

We may gather these thoughts into a third lesson: In our life with men the one thing on which everything depends is love. The spirit of forgiveness is the spirit of love. Because God is love, He forgives: it is only when we are dwelling in love that we can forgive as God forgives. In love to the brethren we have the evidence of love to the Father, the ground of confidence before God, and the assurance that our prayer will be heard, (1 John iv. 20, iii. 18-21, 23.). ‘Let us love in deed and truth; hereby shall we assure our heart before Him. If our heart condemn us not, we have boldness toward God, and whatever we ask, we receive of Him.’ Neither faith nor work will profit if we have not love; it is love that unites with God, it is love that proves the reality of faith. As essential as in the word that precedes the great prayer-promise in Mark xi. 24, ‘Have faith in God,’ is this one that follows it, ‘Have love to men.’ The right relations to the living God above me, and the living men around me, are the conditions of effectual prayer.

Sunspots 838

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

Computing: Relevant reports that PornHub is being sued for subjecting women and children who are sex-trafficked to non-consensual sex.

Gizmodo discusses the most significant hacking events in history.

Finance: (and Politics) Gizmodo reports that many States are using facial recognition software to verity unemployment claims is prone to error, thus denying legitimate unemployment claims. Gizmodo also says that the company is difficult to contact about an error.

Health: The Scientist reports that antibodies to COVID were present in the US in late 2019.

Politics: FiveThirtyEight on how, in the US, adherents of the two major parties despise each other more than in similar situations in other countries, and how this puts democracy itself in jeopardy.

According to Gizmodo, reporting on testimony to Congress, the upstart social network, Parler, warned the FBI, several times, about the insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6.

Science: Gizmodo reports on snake-like robots that dig into the ground, and under it.

NPR reports that a fossil dinosaur as long as a basketball court has been found in Australia.

NPR also reports that several varieties of apple, thought to have disappeared, still exist.

The Scientist reports on a study indicating that different groups have different "handshakes." These variant behaviors appear to be long-lasting within the group.

Gizmodo reports that ground temperature in Siberia recently hit 48 Celsius, which is way above normal, and not good.

The graphic used in these posts is from NASA, hence, it is free to use like this.

Thanks for looking!

 

With Christ in the school of prayer, 90, by Andrew Murray

This post continues a series of excerpts from With Christ in the School of Prayer, by Andrew Murray. I thank the Christian Classics Ethereal Library for making this public domain work available. To see their post of the book, go here. The previous post is here. As usual in this blog, long quotations are in this color. Murray continues his discussion, based on Mark 11:22-24:

The first lesson taught here is that of a forgiving disposition. We pray, ‘Forgive, even as we have forgiven.’ Scripture says, ‘Forgive one another, even as God also in Christ forgave you.’ God’s full and free forgiveness is to be the rule of ours with men. Otherwise our reluctant, half-hearted forgiveness, which is not forgiveness at all, will be God’s rule with us.
Every prayer rests upon our faith in God’s pardoning grace. If God dealt with us after our sins, not one prayer could be heard. Pardon opens the door to all God’s love and blessing:
because God has pardoned all our sin, our prayer can prevail to obtain all we need. The deep sure ground of answer to prayer is God’s forgiving love. When it has taken possession of the heart, we pray in faith. But also, when it has taken possession of the heart, we live in love. God’s forgiving disposition, revealed in His love to us, becomes a disposition in us; as the power of His forgiving love shed abroad and dwelling within us, we forgive even as He forgives. If there be great and grievous injury or injustice done us, we seek first of all to possess a Godlike disposition; to be kept from a sense of wounded honour, from a desire to maintain our rights, or from rewarding the offender as he has deserved. In the little annoyances of daily life, we are watchful not to excuse the hasty temper, the sharp word, the quick judgment, with the thought that we mean no harm, that we do not keep the anger long, or that it would be too much to expect from feeble human nature, that we should really forgive the way God and Christ do. No, we take the command literally, ‘Even as Christ forgave, so also do ye.’ The blood that cleanses the conscience from dead works, cleanses from selfishness too; the love it reveals is pardoning love, that takes possession of us and flows through us to others. Our forgiving love to men is the evidence of the reality of God’s forgiving love in us, and so the condition of the prayer of faith.

Sunspots 837

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

Health: (and politics) An NPR graphic (with accompanying text) indicates that people living in Red states are considerably less likely to have been vaccinated for COVID than those living in Blue states.

Politics: FiveThirtyEight discusses QAnon beliefs, and points out that some of them have been around for decades, before QAnon was identified.

Science: The Scientist, and other outlets, report that rotifers, frozen in Siberian ice for 24,000 years, are still alive, and even able to reproduce.

NPR reports that a fossil dinosaur as long as a basketball court has been found in Australia.

NPR also reports that several varieties of apple, thought to have disappeared, still exist.

The graphic used in these posts is from NASA, hence, it is free to use like this.

Thanks for looking!

With Christ in the school of prayer, by Andrew Murray, 89

This post continues a series of excerpts from With Christ in the School of Prayer, by Andrew Murray. I thank the Christian Classics Ethereal Library for making this public domain work available. To see their post of the book, go here. The previous post is here. As usual in this blog, long quotations are in this color. Murray continues his discussion, based on Mark 11:22-24: 

‘And whensoever ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have aught against any one; that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.’—Mark xi. 25.

THESE words follow immediately on the great prayer-promise, ‘All things whatsoever ye pray, believe that ye have received them, and ye shall have them.’ We have already seen how the words that preceded that promise, ‘Have faith in God,’ taught us that in prayer all depends upon our relation to God being clear; these words that follow on it remind us that our relation with fellow-men must be clear too. Love to God and love to our neighbour are inseparable: the prayer from a heart, that is either not right with God on the one side, or with men on the other, cannot prevail. Faith and love are essential to each other. We find that this is a thought to which our Lord frequently gave expression. In the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. v. 23, 24), when speaking of the sixth commandment, He taught His disciples how impossible acceptable worship to the Father was if everything were not right with the brother: ‘If thou art offering thy gift at the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.’ And so later, when speaking of prayer to God, after having taught us to pray, ‘Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors,’ He added at the close of the prayer: ‘If you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.’ At the close of the parable of the unmerciful servant He applies His teaching in the words: ‘So shall also my Heavenly Father do unto you, if ye forgive not every one his brother from your hearts.’ And so here, beside the dried-up fig-tree, where He speaks of the wonderful power of faith and the prayer of faith, He all at once, apparently without connection, introduces the thought, ‘Whensoever ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have aught against any one; that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.’ It is as if the Lord had learned during His life at Nazareth and afterwards that disobedience to the law of love to men was the great sin even of praying people, and the great cause of the feebleness of their prayer. And it is as if He wanted to lead us into His own blessed experience that nothing gives such liberty of access and such power in believing as the consciousness that we have given ourselves in love and compassion, for those whom God loves.

Sunspots 836

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

Christianity: Relevant discusses the five most commonly used (and misused) Bible verses.

Computing: Relevant also discusses the harmful effects of pornography on females.

Gizmodo discusses the too-useful iPhone. They more one relies on it, for example to pay for purchases, or to start a car, the worse it is to lose it or have it malfunction.

Health: NPR reports that a new kind of COVID vaccine may be ready for use soon.

The FDA has approved a new drug that is supposed to help Alzheimer's patients. But maybe it really doesn't, and it costs a lot. See also here for Gizmodo's take on this situation.

Politics: NPR reports on how the 2nd Amendment to the US constitution hasn't been friendly to blacks.

Science: Gizmodo reports that scientists have been successful in teaching blind people to echolocate (bats use echos to find things).

The graphic used in these posts is from NASA, hence, it is free to use like this.

Thanks for looking!

With Christ in the school of prayer, by Andrew Murray, 88

This post continues a series of excerpts from With Christ in the School of Prayer, by Andrew Murray. I thank the Christian Classics Ethereal Library for making this public domain work available. To see their post of the book, go here. The previous post is here. As usual in this blog, long quotations are in this color. Murray continues his discussion, based on Mark 11:22-24: 

O Lord Jesus! how continually Thou hast to reprove us for our unbelief! How strange it must appear to Thee, this terrible incapacity of trusting our Father and His promises. Lord! let Thy reproof, with its searching, ‘Because of your unbelief,’ sink into the very depths of our hearts, and reveal to us how much of the sin and suffering around us is our blame.

And then teach us, Blessed Lord, that there is a place where faith can be learned and gained,—even in the prayer and fasting that brings into living and abiding fellowship with Thyself and the Father.

O Saviour! Thou Thyself art the Author and the Perfecter of our faith; teach us what it is to let Thee live in us by Thy Holy Spirit. Lord! our efforts and prayers for grace to believe have been so unavailing. We know why it was: we sought for strength in ourselves to be given from Thee. Holy Jesus! do at length teach us the mystery of Thy life in us, and how Thou, by Thy Spirit, dost undertake to live in us the life of faith, to see to it that our faith shall not fail. O let us see that our faith will just be a part of that wonderful prayer-life which Thou givest in them who expect their training for the ministry of intercession, not in word and thought only, but in the Holy Unction Thou givest, the inflowing of the Spirit of Thine own life. And teach us how, in fasting and prayer, we may grow up to the faith to which nothing shall be impossible. Amen.

Can a fencepost keep the Ten Commandments?

Here are the ten commandments, as given in Deuteronomy (they are also in Exodus 20):

Deuteronomy 5:7 “You shall have no other gods before me.

5:8 “You shall not make an engraved image for yourself, any likeness of what is in heaven above, or what is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: 5:9 you shall not bow down yourself to them, nor serve them; for I, Yahweh, your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, and on the third and on the fourth generation of those who hate me; 5:10 and showing loving kindness to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.

5:11 “You shall not take the name of Yahweh your God in vain: for Yahweh will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.

5:12 “Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as Yahweh your God commanded you. 5:13 You shall labor six days, and do all your work; 5:14 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to Yahweh your God, in which you shall not do any work, you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your ox, nor your donkey, nor any of your livestock, nor your stranger who is within your gates; that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. 5:15 You shall remember that you were a servant in the land of Egypt, and Yahweh your God brought you out of there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm: therefore Yahweh your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.

5:16 “Honor your father and your mother, as Yahweh your God commanded you; that your days may be long, and that it may go well with you, in the land which Yahweh your God gives you.

5:17 “You shall not murder.

5:18 “Neither shall you commit adultery.

5:19 “Neither shall you steal.

5:20 “Neither shall you give false testimony against your neighbor.

5:21 “Neither shall you covet your neighbor’s wife; neither shall you desire your neighbor’s house, his field, or his male servant, or his female servant, his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.” (World English Bible, public domain)

Not to belittle these, in any way, but there's a serious omission, namely that the Ten don't really get to my heart, my attitude. In other words, it seems to me that a fencepost could keep the Ten Commandments, except for the "honor your father and your mother" part. That seems to require some action. The rest could be passively obeyed. They seldom, if ever, are, but it seems possible. The Old, and the New Testaments make up for this with emphasis on the heart, the attitude:

Matthew 22:36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?”

37 Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 A second likewise is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.” Jesus quoted from Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18. If I truly love God, and my neighbor (including my family, my co-workers, and my on-line friends) I will keep the Great Commandments, and, therefore, keep the Ten Commandments. (Except possibly keeping the Sabbath -- that may have been modified by Christ and Paul. Maybe not.) I won't be a fencepost, but will actively love God, and others.

Thanks for reading.

Cicadas and God

Brood X, also known as the Great Eastern Brood, of cicadas has emerged from the ground, in vast numbers, in at least the following parts of North America: Delaware, Indiana, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, the District of Columbia, and other places. See the Wikipedia article on this brood, and a fine article on CBS News. This blog post indicates that the Greek poet, Homer, mentioned them (and indicates that they are found outside of North America.)

There are several species of cicada. In fact, the Great Eastern Brood includes three species.

Cicadas and God?

I'd like to muse briefly about a couple of questions:

Why do cicadas emerge from the ground and become adults, every seventeen years? (Some types emerge every 13 years.)

Why are there so many of these insects?

Why 17 years? 

The correct answer is that we don't know. There are various speculations about the emergence cycle, but we don't. Nor, so far as I'm aware, do we know what timing mechanism triggers emergence and adulthood. I would guess that the insects could be ready for emergence and sexual maturity in a shorter time than 17 years. (Actually, one source says that parts of Brood X emerged 4 years early, in 2017.)

If small numbers of the insects emerged in, say, 15 or 19 years, it would be more difficult for them to find mates, hence there would be expected to be selection pressure on emerging with the vast majority. Some scientists believe that the long time underground means that the insects are protected from unusually cold outdoor temperatures. Perhaps.

Why so many? 

This source indicates that Brood IX, which became adults in 2020, had a population density of 1.5 million adults per acre.

Again, we don't know for sure why there are so many cicadas. Probably the large numbers mean that predators can't catch and eat them all, especially if the predators can't "count on" that same food source every year. So many of the insects escape, and are able to reproduce.

Psalm 104 says "24 Yahweh, how many are your works! In wisdom, you have made them all. The earth is full of your riches. 25 There is the sea, great and wide, in which are innumerable living things, both small and large animals." (World English Bible, public domain) The Psalmist doesn't mention cicadas, or even locusts, which occur in areas near Israel, in vast numbers. But the "full of your riches" and "innumerable living things" could refer to cicadas. Their presence, loud as they are, is one indication that God is bountiful, one of many. Like the stars above, the vast numbers of insects on the surface indicate God's majesty and power.

Cicadas are not dangerous. They do attack young twigs of certain trees -- that's where the females lay their eggs, which develop into nymphs, or larvae, which fall to the ground, where the animals spend their 17 years of larvahood. But they don't bite humans, or carry diseases.

The noise made by males, as part of courtship, is almost overpowering. There are a lot of cicadas, and each male makes a good bit of noise. Currently, it's impossible to go outside in Maryland, whre I live, without hearing that loud hum constantly. They can also be heard inside our dwelling, even with all the windows shut.

Thanks for reading.

Added, June 7, 2021: Thanks to a reader for this link, which is from The Washingtonian, and says that there are so many cicadas in the DC area that they are showing up on weather radar.

Sunspots 835

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

Christianity: (sort of) and Politics: Relevant reports on a recent study of who believes QAnon conspiracy theories. Too many Christians.

Computing: (or something) Relevant reminds us that pornography and sex trafficking are evils that are closely linked, and are all too common.

Politics: FiveThirtyEight on the so-called audit of the 2020 election, in Arizona.

Science: Gizmodo and The Scientist report on research on microbes in subways around the world. Thousands of new organisms were discovered, and different cities have different subway microbe populations.

Science reports that dolphins are able to cooperate, and call others to help them, recognizing other dolphins by their signature calls.

Gizmodo reports that a California bobcat was able to find a nesting spot for her kittens after a devastating fire.

Gizmodo also reports on dropping population sizes of Florida manatees.

The graphic used in these posts is from NASA, hence, it is free to use like this.

Thanks for looking!