Sunspots 764

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

Christianity: Christianity Today reports that evangelicals are receptive to prison reform, but that most of them haven't done anything to help prisoners.

Relevant reports on a letter from black church leaders, thanking Christianity Today for publishing a recent letter, calling for the removal of President Trump from office. The article says that his support among African-Americans is very low.

Computing: (and Christianity) A plea to pastors and theologians to be careful of what they say on social media -- check sources, and don't merely repeat what others who share your particular prejudices have posted, for example.

Humor: (and romance) Relevant reports on a dating site that requires agreement with a doctrinal statement. (A Calvinist one)


Politics: FiveThirtyEight has done a survey, which indicates that President Trump is less popular than Mike Pence, and almost as unpopular as Sarah Palin.

Pete Enns says that the word, or the country, America, is not in the Bible.

NPR says that there are a lot of border walls in the world, but Trump's wall is most expensive, and indicates why that is so.

Science: Gizmodo reports that a tiny parasite can affect the behavior of mice that are infected, including making them more likely to be caught by cats.

Gizmodo also reports on a flying robot, with wings from those of dead pigeons.

Listverse discusses 10 conspiracy theories put forth by President Donald Trump.

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

Thanks for looking!

Sunspots 512, part 2

This blog typically posts a selection of links each Wednesday, entitled "Sunspots." That was true yesterday.

Some important web pages have come to my attention, and here is another edition of Sunspots, annotating them.

FiveThirtyEight, which is not a religious site, but examines various statistical matters, considers the question of religion among prisoners in the USA. The professed religion of prisoners has significant differences from that of the population at large, and the article considers possible reasons for such differences.

Relevant interviews a missionary to Muslims, who points out that Christians have reacted strangely to ISIS/ISIL/whatever. The death of Coptic Christians was widely publicized, but the deaths of larger numbers of Muslims, also by ISIS, has not been. The missionary also said that ". . . prior to the breakout of ISIS . . . missions agencies and churches were actively teaching that Coptic Christians, Chaldeans, etc. are not real Christians and needed to be converted by evangelical missionaries in order to become 'real believers'!"

Two articles, here and here, on contraception, in Christianity Today. They get below the surface, for example pointing out that Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, was not in favor of abortion. The articles indicate that it's a complex matter, and some simple answers aren't logical, or don't take the facts into account. One of them refers to an article in Atlantic, by a pro-lifer, on the question of whether the so-called pill is an abortifacient or not. This article, also, avoids pat answers. (If you are interested, I have posted on abortion, sticking mostly to what the Bible says, and not considering the medical and scientific questions, but such matters as whether abortion really is murder, according to the Bible.)

Christianity Today also reports that most evangelical Christians say that the Bible is not the major source of their opinions on immigration to the USA. (Only about 10% said that it is.) The article does not suggest a correct position on the matter, but just considers what is influencing us. Why am I not surprised by the result?

Thanks for reading. You should find any of these articles to be thought-provoking.

Sunspots 459

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

The Arts: Wired has posted a series of stunning photos of the African Savannah, and the creatures that live there.

Buzzfeed reports, with photos and videos, on the amazing art collection of the U. S. Army.

Computing: Gizmo's Freeware discusses some tips and tricks related to four very useful free programs, namely VLC Media Player, Paint.net, Notepad + +, and the NoScript Extension for Firefox.

Humor: (sort of) The Huffington Post tells us more than we knew about differences between redheaded people and the rest of us.

Politics: A fine column by George F. Will, a conservative's conservative, on what the Republicans should really be doing about immigration.

A sobering piece, with thoughts for and against, on whether prisoners who committed serious crimes as children should be granted parole, from Al Jazeera.

(sort of) From Reuters: What French healthcare is like. (Patient-centered, not much waiting, not so many trips to an office, specialists talk to each other, inexpensive.)


Image source (public domain)