Sunspots 806

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

Christianity: Relevant has a tongue-in-cheek piece on Starbuck's cups, which, again, don't include the word, "Christmas," on them.

A Christianity Today article argues that Phoebe (Romans 16:1) had an important role in the church.

Environment: The US has officially withdrawn (finally) from the Paris Climate Accord. Gizmodo also reports that, if Biden wins, we could re-join the Accord in about a month.

Gizmodo reports that the voters of Colorado have voted to have wolves introduced into the state. (They used to live there).

Health: (or something) Relevant reports that the US divorce rate keeps dropping. However, marriage, especially among those not so well off, is also less likely.

The Panda's Thumb is not totally optimistic about Pfizer's vaccine, for more than one reason. I hope that the optimism is correct.

Politics: Neil Cavuto, Fox News anchor, had his program cut away from a White House press conference, because, he said, it was presenting unsubstantiated assertions about ballots, according to Relevant and other sources.

Nate Silver, head of FiveThirtyEight, discusses what recent polls got right.

Science: Relevant reports on an extra-solar planet that has extreme conditions.

Gizmodo reports on recent observations of a little-known kind of squid.

Sports: FiveThirtyEight reports that the number of punts returned, rather than let fall, or fairly caught, is declining.

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

Thanks for looking!

Impressions, by Martin Wells Knapp, 43

In a previous excerpt, Knapp stated that there are four features of "impressions" from God. These are Scriptural; Right (consistent with good morals); Providential (in harmony with God's will); and Reasonable. His discussion of "Impressions from Above" continues:
Marriage. Usefulness and happiness for life may depend upon the rightful settlement of this question. How can people be sure their union is of God? Shall fancy, feeling or infatuation decide the matter, or shall it be submitted to reason, right and God? Let us apply the tests. Two persons are drawn towards each other, and feel that perhaps they should be one.

5. First of all they ask: "Would our union be Scriptural?" They find on general principles that marriage is commended in the Word. God instituted it. He declares that "It is not good for man to be alone," and that "Marriage is honorable to all."

They apply the principles of Scripture to their own peculiar cases. If one proves to be an unconverted person, then the explicit Scripture command: "Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers," makes further testing needless. Many rush blindly over this mandate to regret it when it is too late.

It may be that both are believers, but that one of them is divorced from a former companion for other than the one cause for which Scripture allows divorce, and that, therefore, it would be an adulterous union.

A member of a church, of which I was pastor, once called for me to perform his marriage ceremony. He was a noble Christian man.

I asked him a few questions, and soon learned that his proposed wife had a husband living, and while divorced by the law of the land, he was not sure that the sin on the part of her husband set her free by the law of Christ. I read to him Matt. 5:32 and parallel passages, and explained to him that on account of these Bible truths I was not free to perform the ceremony. "Then," said he, "I am not free to have it performed." He continued, "She is the only woman I ever loved, but I should have thought of this before. I dread to break the news to her, but I must be true to Christ."

He was all broken down, but remained loyal to his Convictions.

It may also be found that one of the persons is breaking sacred betrothal vows. Then the Scriptural rule of "doing as one would be done by" and honesty in paying sacred vows, prohibits the fondling for a moment of a new affection.

When the hearts of a man and woman have been united, and they have acknowledged it to each other, and promised to be one for life, they should hold their union as sacred as if the public ceremony had already been said. They are united in God's sight, and before Him have no more right to allow alienation than if the public seal had been already set. He who tramples upon betrothal vows plays with chain lightning, and will suffer for it.

Excerpted from Impressions, by Martin Wells Knapp. Original publication date, 1892. Public domain. My source is here. The previous post in the series is here.

Sunspots 562

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

The Arts: The History Blog tells us that the score of a cantata, co-written by Mozart and Salieri, has been discovered.
Christianity: Ken Schenck examines what the Bible says about divorce.
He also tells us about spiritual disciplines.
Sojourners warns Christians that history will judge them on the answers to four questions.
Benjamin L. Corey discusses the paradox that "God never changes," but that, really, God is always changing. (He is. Read the article.)
The Environment: (or something) A 6.5 minute drone's-eye video of Table Rock State Park, arguably the most scenic spot in South Carolina. In some ways, as spectacular as Yosemite, and that's saying something.
Health: FiveThirtyEight points out that the Zika virus has not yet been proved to cause birth defects, and that it will be difficult to prove this, if in fact it is true.
Humor: (or something) Gizmo's Freeware reports on Mega Tic Tac Toe, a 1 or 2 or online game, based on tic tac toe, which is available for Android, Windows, and iOS computers.
Politics: A very non-partisan statement on "Who Would Jesus Vote For?" from NewSpring Church.
Science: Listverse reports on 10 "atrocities of natural selection," among which is a cancer which is actually an organism, and more really creepy behaviors.
Listverse also reports on 10 surprising bird mating rituals, with a video of each.
Image source (public domain)

Sunspots 545

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


Christianity: Christianity Today says that churches aren't doing much to prevent divorces in couples who attend.

Christianity Today also has an essay on why complaining hurts us socially.

Computing:  itools is a sort of one-page yellow pages of the Internet, allowing you to find web sites that help you do things.

How to get your WiFi password, if you have forgotten it.

Politics: Republicans are often accused (probably with some justification) for wanting to put barriers to voting in place. But FiveThirtyEight, which is apparently not a right-wing site, argues that Democrats also want to put barriers in place, and that, for them those barriers are having more than one date for the various kinds of elections.

MarketWatch has posted a graphic, showing where US Foreign Aid goes. It's interesting. It does not distinguish between military-type aid, and other kinds, although the accompanying text gives some indication of how much is which, for a few countries.

Science: Wired on the most beautiful caterpillars in the world.

 

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)

Sunspots 395

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

Humor:  The Onion has named Kim Jong-Un, of North Korea, the sexiest man alive. The Chinese People's Daily took them seriously.

(Not exactly humor . . .) The Huffington Post has a slideshow on signs that celebrity marriages were doomed from the start.

Science:  Wired reports that microbes have been found in a body of water in Antarctica, 65 feet under the ice.

Business Line (!) speculates that planets around other stars may be "more habitable than earth."

From Flickr, a photo of a turtle's face, close-up.

 Image source (public domain)

"What Have You Changed Your Mind About?" pt. 2

I continue comments on Edge's "World Question" issue, which question is the same as my title. See here for the first part of this series.

This page contains, as its last entry, an essay on the reality of the soul, by Todd Feinberg. Feinberg believes that there is such a thing as a soul, which is not the same thing as the brain. He indicates why he now believes as he does. Feinberg does not believe this for religious reasons -- he does not believe in the persistence of the soul after death.

On this page, the first entry, by Keith Devlin, considers one of the most fundamental questions underlying mathematics, namely, whether math is invented or discovered. He now believes the former. (Not everyone agrees!)

On the same page, David Dalrymple raises some fundamental questions about how computers are designed, using an analogy with a business.

Tor Nørretranders points out that our body isn't a stable thing. "98 percent of the atoms in the body are replaced every year," he writes.

And Helen Fisher discusses what she calls "the four-year itch" -- that is, more divorces occur after four years of marriage than at any other point. (Her data is from many societies, not just North American.) She speculates about how natural selection might have brought this about.

Thanks for reading!

Sunspots 130

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

Humor:
The terrorists must have followed us home, creating a massive art installation in Chicago.

Science:
A physician, writing in Slate, claims that we shouldn't be so obsessed with cleanliness, and, in fact, should ingest more excrement for our health's sake. (warning -- a common four-letter word for excrement is used several times in the article).

Al Gore has won the Nobel Peace Prize. Although he apparently deserves it, for his work on raising awareness of the coming climate change, a UK judge has ruled that there should be reservations about using An Inconvenient Truth in schools, because he was making a case, not always completely backed by scientific evidence. For example, it is not clear that Hurricane Katrina was directly due to increased global warming.

Politics:
Factcheck assesses claims made by the President, by candidates for President, and probably others. It seems to want the truth from both US political parties, and points out when it wasn't forthcoming. The same seems to be true of PolitiFact.

Henry Neufeld proposes his anti-terrorism policy.

Music:
(Actually, Art, in this case) New discoveries about the Mona Lisa, by da Vinci.


Christianity:
An article in Christianity Today on the reasons that the Bible allows for divorce, based on a study of the original language, and its cultural context.

Bonnie argues that the church must teach about proper sexual relationships, not just about improper ones.

Rebecca argues that KJV-onlyism is not truly compatible with a Bible-based doctrine.

An article, written for the "average Christian," on "The Spiritual Value of Wilderness ."


I normally include a link to the current Christian Carnival, but, so far, I haven't discovered the latest one.

Marriage and divorce at Hogwarts

In an earlier post, I commented briefly that no one at Hogwarts, the school where Harry Potter was trained as a wizard, seemed to be married. All the professors, or teachers, were single. Can anyone think of an exception? True, Hagrid had a courtship with a giantess, but didn't marry her. Also, Remus Lupin married after he was a professor. But no professor was professor while married, as far as I can recall.

It's not that Hogwarts is immune to physical attraction. There is plenty of that among the students.

It's not that J. K. Rowling didn't include married couples in the Harry Potter books. She did. The Dursleys, and Harry Potter's parents, both seemed not only married, but in love. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley are important characters, and they are married, and in love.

One thing that Rowling doesn't seem to have included is divorce. There is no mention of divorce among wizards, nor even among muggles (non-wizards). That's remarkable! Probably Rowling's own status as a single mother influenced this aspect of the book, but I'm not at all sure that it was the determining factor. The Dursleys, and the Weasleys, have some disagreements, but that's realistic. Would that wizardly influence, or good choices, would stamp out divorce in our real society.

On an unrelated topic, why do Rowling's wizards travel over much of the Old World, but they are not mentioned as being in the Western Hemisphere?

Thanks for reading.

I re-analyzed the Harry Potter series, in a post in early 2015, here.