Sunspots 803

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

Christianity: Relevant reports that the Chinese government is removing crosses, and other items identifying Christianity, from state-approved churches.

Christianity Today reminds us that devotional books are not to be a substitute for the Bible. Thanks.

(And Politics) Ken Schenck discusses interpretation of the Bible, and considers how the US Constitution is interpreted by the Supreme Court. ("Originalism")

Environment: Relevant reports that September was the hottest September in history.

Ethics: A Gallup poll from June examines the acceptability (or not) of various behaviors. Marital infidelity was the behavior most unacceptable, to 89% of respondents. As FiveThirtyEight put it, it's hard to get 9 out of 10 Americans to agree on anything, but they seem to on this.

Health: (and politics) FiveThirtyEight tells us why we didn't learn much from President Trump's COVID illness.

Gizmodo reports that over 1,000 current and former Centers for Disease Control officials have asked that the CDC be given back its traditional role as leading the fight against COVID. The article closes by doubting that this will happen, at least not soon.

But the CDC has published a new study, documenting how much more serious COVID is, compared to seasonal flu.

Humor: Listverse tells us about 10 wacky names of towns in the US.

Politics: (or something) FiveThirtyEight on how the QAnon conspiracy theory hurts effective efforts to stop child trafficking and sexual abuse.

(And Religion) Relevant reports on a survey, which asked people from 9 different groups (white evangelicals, Hispanic protestants, unaffiliated, non-Christian, and more) about what issues were most important to them. White evangelical protestants were the only group that had abortion and terrorism among their top three issues, and were the only group that didn't list the COVID pandemic among their top three issues.

Science: NPR reports that there are mountains capped by methane frost on Pluto.

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

Thanks for looking!

 

Sunspots 535

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


Christianity: Relevant tells us that private communion shouldn't be a chore, and makes some suggestions to make it more interesting. They suggest communion through food, among other things.

Stephen L. Corey points out that God created, or at least allowed, people who are not exactly male or female.

Computing: Gizmo's Freeware on privacy (or not -- some leaks can be fixed) in Windows 10.

Education: National Public Radio reports on how public schools in the US are neglecting the smartest kids.

Science: National Public Radio reports on research linking our leanness, or lack thereof, to our gut bacteria.

NPR also reports on very low-frequency communication sounds made by elephants.

Wired reports that Pluto's atmosphere seems to be being renewed. Its gravity is too weak to hold it as well as the earth holds ours.

Wired also explains why water gets stale when left out overnight.

Wired also reports on an on-line database of mathematical sequences, and the man who has maintained this database for 50 years. (Examples: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34 . . ., the Fibonacci sequence, or 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29 . . ., the prime numbers.) There are many, many more of these sequences in the database.


Image source (public domain)

Sunspots 530

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


Christianity: Relevant asks whether God really has a special relationship with the USA. Answer: No, and to think that He does is dangerous.
 
Relevant also asks if our bodies make a difference to our spiritual lives.
 
An article in something called Western Journalism, which says that considerably less than 50% of marriages end in divorce, and that the failure rate among churchgoers is significantly less. I can't verify this, but I hope it's true.
 
Ken Schenck believes that the New Testament does not establish any one form of church government, but that there are some features that good church government should have.
 
Computing: The Google URL shortener will shorten URLs for you. (The URL for this is 5 letters and 1 period in length!)
 
Humor: Information on the Clerihew, a humorous poem, named after the first known user of the form, Edmund Clerihew Bentley, where, usually, the first line is someone's name. For example:
    George the Third
    Ought never to have occurred.
    One can only wonder
    At so grotesque a blunder
There are a number of web sites with other examples. I like this one, dedicated to philosophy. Even I know why some of them are funny.

Politics: Cal Thomas, right-wing evangelical, syndicated columnist, and occasional Fox News commentator, argues that evangelical Christians shouldn't have been trying to change the world through politics. It's never worked, and it wasn't the way of Christ or the early church.

Science: Charles Krauthammer, usually a staunchly right-wing commentator, uses his column to explain why the mission to Pluto is important, and inspiring, in some fine writing.

In a 2 minute, 50 second video, a close-up look at some corals.

Some interesting ocean facts. Lots of them.


Image source (public domain)