Sunspots 831

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

Computing: Gizmodo reports that a number of entities are calling for a national strategy on fighting ransomware.

Education: A ListVerse writer tells us about 10 subjects that used to be taught in public schools, but aren't any more, and, says the writer, should be.

I am presently a member of a Wesleyan church. The Wesleyan Church has 5 institutions of higher learning in North America. An African-American has been selected as President of one of them, for the first time.

Health: Gizmodo on home smell training to help recover from loss of the sense of smell due to COVID.

And Gizmodo on why our skin itches, sometimes (or, in some of us, all the time).

FiveThirtyEight analyzes the likelihood of getting COVID from un-vaccinated children.

The Scientist reports that the risk of blood clots is higher in those infected by COVID than the risk of such in those who have been vaccinated.

Humor: (and Christianity) A Relevant writer has ranked worship instruments in order of their expense and/or complexity, or something.

Science: Scientists are trying to sequence the DNA of all animals with backbones, according to NPR.

Gizmodo reports on glacier melting, caused by climate change.

The Scientist reports that single-celled organisms, or single cells in higher organisms, may be capable of learning.

Sports: FiveThirtyEight says that you can't really tell how good an NFL team's draft picks were.

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

Thanks for looking!

Sunspots 680

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

The Arts: (Including pornography -- never mind whether it's art or not!) An article in Speculative Faith warns that thinking you are oblivious to pornography and questionable visual stimuli is not a sign of Christian maturity. For part 1 of this series, see here.

Computing: A primer on typography, for those not expert in the selection and use of typefaces.

UnDark debunks the idea of "technology addiction."

Gizmo's Freeware tells us how to delete the conversations we have with digital assistants, such as Alexa.

Gizmodo considers the question of how many social media users are real, and how many are not.


Education: Scientific American debunks the value of so-called "learning styles."

Health: Gizmodo reports on studies of the effect of dietary supplements on heart health, which found that such supplements did not have a positive effect.

Gizmodo also reports that one-fifth of 20-30's deaths in the US are now caused by opioids.

Politics: (or something) Relevant reports that some Liberty University students and staff are working with a producer who is filming something called The Trump Prophecy. It is claimed that this film won't be political, which is hard to imagine.


Sports: FiveThirtyEight analyzed the loss of the Houston Rockets to the Golden State Warriors in the National Basketball Association's western conference final series, seventh game, where the Rockets, usually a good 3-point shooting team, missed 26 3's in a row.

FiveThirtyEight also discusses Kevin Durant's propensity to lose a shoe during an NBA game.

Thanks for looking!

Image source (public domain)

The Art of Divine Contentment: An Exposition of Philippians 4:11 by Thomas Watson. Excerpt 7

There are two pregnant reasons, why there must be so much study and exercitation: 1. Because spiritual things are against nature. Everything in religion is antipodes to nature. There are in religion two things, and both are against nature. (1.) Matters of faith: as, for men to be justified by the righteousness of another, to become a fool that he may be wise, to save all by losing all; this is against nature. (2.) Matters of practice: as, Self-denial; for a man to deny his own wisdom, and see himself blind; his own will, and have it melted into the will of God; plucking out the right eye, beheading and crucifying that sin which is the favourite, and lies nearest to the heart; for a man to be dead to the world, and in the midst of want to abound; for him to take up the cross, and follow Christ, not only in golden, but in bloody paths, to embrace religion, when it is dressed in night-clothes, all the jewels of honour and preferment being pulled of; this is against nature, and therefore must be learned. Self-examination; for a man to take his heart, as a watch, all in pieces; to set up a spiritual inquisition, or court of conscience, and traverse things in his own soul; to take David’s candle and lantern, (Ps. 119. 105) and search for sin; nay, as judge, to pass the sentence upon himself. (2 Sa. 34.17) this is against nature, and will not easily be attained to without learning. Self-reformation; to see a man, as Caleb, or another spirit, walking antipodes to himself, the current of his life altered, and running into the channel of religion: this is wholly against nature. When a stone ascends, it is not a natural motion, but a violent; the motion of the soul heaven-ward is a violent motion, it must be learned; flesh and blood is not skilled in these things; nature can no more cast out nature, than Satan can cast out Satan. 2. Because spiritual things are above nature. There are some things in nature that are hard to find out, as the cause of things, which are not learned without study. Aristotle, a great philosopher, whom some have called an eagle fallen from the clouds, yet could not find out the motion of the river Euripus, and therefore threw himself into it; what then are divine things, which are in sphere above nature, and beyond all human disquisition; as the Trinity, the hypostatical union, the mystery of faith to believe against hope? Only God’s Spirit can light our candle here. The apostle calls these “the deep things of God.” The gospel is full of jewels, but they are locked up from sense and reason. The angels in heaven are searching into these sacred depths. (1 Pe. 22)

Thomas Watson lived from 1620-1686, in England. He wrote several books which survive. This blog, God willing, will post excerpts from his The Art of Divine Contentment: An Exposition of Philippians 4:11, over a number of weeks, on Sundays. My source for the text is here, and I thank the Christian Classics Ethereal Library for making this text (and many others) available. The previous excerpt is here.
Philippians 4:11 Not that I speak because of lack, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content in it. (World English Bible, public domain.)

The Art of Divine Contentment: An Exposition of Philippians 4:11 by Thomas Watson. Excerpt 6

This word, “I have learned,” is a word that imports difficulty; it shows how hardly the apostle came by contentment of mind; it was not bred in nature. St Paul did not come naturally by it, but he had learned it. It cost him many a prayer and tear, it was taught him by the Spirit. Whence our second doctrine: good things are hard to come by. The business of religion is not so facile as most do imagine. “I have learned,” saith St Paul. Indeed you need not learn a man to sin; this is natural, (Ps. 58.3) and therefore facile, it comes as water out of a spring, It is an easy thing to be wicked; hell will be taken without storm; but matters of religion must be learned. To cut the flesh is easy, but to prick a vein, and not to cut an artery is hard. The trade of sin needs not to be learned, but the art of divine contentment is not achieved without holy industry: “I have learned.”

Thomas Watson lived from 1620-1686, in England. He wrote several books which survive. This blog, God willing, will post excerpts from his The Art of Divine Contentment: An Exposition of Philippians 4:11, over a number of weeks, on Sundays. My source for the text is here, and I thank the Christian Classics Ethereal Library for making this text (and many others) available. The previous excerpt is here.

Philippians 4:11 Not that I speak because of lack, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content in it. (World English Bible, public domain.)

The Art of Divine Contentment: An Exposition of Philippians 4:11 by Thomas Watson. Excerpt 3

CHAPTER II
The First Branch of the Text, the Scholar, with the First Proposition.

I begin with the first: The scholar, and his proficiency; “I have learned.” Out of which I shall by the bye, observe two things by way of paraphrase. 1. The apostle doth not say, I have heard, that in every estate I should be content: but, I have learned. Whence our first doctrine, that it is not enough for Christians to hear their duty, but they must learn their duty. It is one thing to hear and another thing to learn; as it is one thing to eat and another thing to concoct. St Paul was a practitioner. Christians hear much, but it is to be feared, learn little.

There were four sorts of grounds in the parable, (Lu. 8. 5) and but one good ground: an emblem of this truth, many hearers, but few learners.

There are two things which keep us from learning. 1. Slighting what we hear. Christ is the pearl of price; when we disesteem this pearl, we shall never learn either its value, or its virtue. The gospel is a rare mystery; in one place, (Ac. 20. 24) it is called “the gospel of grace;” in another, (1 Cor. 4. 4) “the gospel of glory;” because in it, as in a transparent glass, the glory of God is resplendent. But he that hath learned to contemn this mystery, will hardly ever learn to obey it; he that looks upon the things of heaven as things by the bye, and perhaps the driving of a trade, or carrying on some politic design to be of greater importance, this man is in the high road to damnation, and will hardly ever learn the things of his peace.

Who will learn that which he thinks is scarce worth learning?
2. Forgetting what we hear. If a scholar have his rules laid before him, and he forgets them as fast as he reads them, he will never learn. (Ja. 1. 25) Aristotle calls the memory the scribe of the soul; and Bernard calls it the stomach of the soul, because it hath a retentive faculty, and turns heavenly food into blood and spirits; we have great memories in other things, we remember that which is vain. Cyrus could remember the name of every soldier in his huge army. We remember injuries: this is to fill a precious cabinet with dung; but as Hierom saith, how soon do we forget the sacred truths of God? We are apt to forget three things: our faults, our friends, our instructions. Many Christians are like sieves; put a sieve into the water, and it is full; but take it forth of the water, and all runs out: so, while they are hearing a sermon, they remember something: but like the sieve out of the water, as soon as they are gone out of the church, all is forgotten. “Let these sayings, (saith Christ) sink down into your ears;” (Lu. 9. 44) in the original it is, “put these sayings into your ears,” as a man that would hide the jewel from being stolen, locks it up safe in his chest. Let them sink: the word must not fall only as dew that wets the leaf, but as rain which soaks to the root of the tree, and makes it fructify. O, how often doth Satan, that fowl of the air, pick up the good seed that is sown!

Thomas Watson lived from 1620-1686, in England. He wrote several books which survive. This blog, God willing, will post excerpts from his The Art of Divine Contentment: An Exposition of Philippians 4:11, over a number of weeks, on Sundays. My source for the text is here, and I thank the Christian Classics Ethereal Library for making this text (and many others) available. The previous excerpt is here.

Sunspots 615

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

Christianity: A Relevant writer says that we're called to serve immigrants, legal or illegal.


Health: (Sort of) Listverse has 10 descriptions, from people who died, or thought they would, on what it's like to die.

History: A report on the report of the finding and salvaging of the Hunley, the first submarine to bring down an enemy ship in war. The Hunley sunk in the Charleston, SC, harbor.

Listverse on why the Germans voted the Nazis into power.

Politics: Authorities in so-called Red States are working to eliminate the effects of climate change, but they don't call it that, according to Scientific American.

Science: Scientific American reports on the discovery of 7 planets, around a star that's "only" 40 light-years away, which planets may be suitable for life.

Scientific American also explains the mechanism of the poison that apparently was used to assassinate the half-brother of the North Korean leader.

Bees (not honeybees) have been shown to learn how to do a task by watching another bee do it, according to Nature.

Sports: (Not really) A Relevant writer says it's time for Sports Illustrated to stop publishing the annual swimsuit issue.

(And history) Listverse on 10 sporting events that influenced subsequent events strongly.

Image source (public domain)

Salvation acrostic

Sin: separates us from God, and hurts us and others. It is something we have all done, but can’t pay the penalty for. Romans 3:23, 6:23.

Atonement: Christ’s death paid the price for my sin. Romans5:6-15.

Love: God loved us so much that He sacrificed Himself for our sin. Luke 19:10.

Victory: With the help of God the Holy Spirit, it is possible to live a holy life, victorious over temptation, including the temptation to take credit for our own salvation. Psalm 13:5-6; John 17:6-26, Romans 6:1-2, 1Thessalonians 5:5-11.

Attractiveness: A victorious life should be attractive to other people. John 7:37-39, Acts 16:25-34.

Teaching: Jesus told his disciples to teach all nations, and to make disciples of converts. Converts should learn from the Bible on their own, and be part of a teaching church. Matthew 28:18-20, Mark 16:15-16, Luke24:45-49, 2 Peter 3:17-18.

Immortality: Believers, whose sins have been paid for, are promised immortality with Christ. Ephesians 1:11-14, Romans 6:23

Overcoming: The church, and individual Christians, seem to be weak, at times. But Christ has promised that the true church – composed of actual believers, not necessarily church members – will endure. Matthew 16:18, Revelation 2:8-11.

New life, with purpose, and with fruit: Those who have experienced salvation should manifest the Fruit of the Spirit. (Galatians5:22-23) They will also participate, often with others, in attracting new believers, especially by serving, giving, testifying and praying. John 15:8, Acts 6:7, 11:27-29, Romans 12:4-8, Matthew 25:31-46. They will have intimacy with God. Matthew 10:16-20, John 14:16-16:15.

I have probably left out important concepts, and important scripture passages. Let me know if you think of such, in a comment, if you can. Thanks for reading. 

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On September 5, 2016, the links to scripture -- ESV -- were added.

Suggested guidelines on discipling others

In Matthew 28:16-20, Christ commanded His disciples to make disciples, which means to teach others carefully and thoroughly. How are we to do that? Here are some suggestions:

Guidelines on Discipling Others
The most important guideline is to be an example of Christlikeness.
 
Children: 1. read Bible stories to them, from the Bible, or from Bible story books.
2. Pray with them. Teach them that prayer is not just asking for things, but is also confession of sin, and asking for forgiveness, and is also thanking God for who He is and what He has done. Prayer should become a way of life.
3. Answer questions (Why isn’t my grandfather here anymore?) honestly, scripturally, and not so as to overwhelm the child. including “I don’t know, but I’ll try to find out” when appropriate.
4. Learn and live the Golden Rule. (Matthew 7:12)

Adults: Follow guidelines 2 and 3 above.
5. Teach that God loves sinners (John 3:16, Christ’s suffering and death) but hates sin.
6. Teach them to read the Bible regularly. New Christians shouldn’t start with Revelation or Ezekiel. They should become familiar with these passages: Exodus 20:1-17, Psalm 23, Psalm 51, Psalm 119:11, Proverbs 3:5-6, Isaiah 53:3-12, Matthew 7:12, Matt 5-7, 22:34-40, 25:31-46, 28:16-20, John 14:5-15:27, John 17, 1 Corinthians 13 and 15, Galatians 5:22-23, Philippians 2:3-11, Hebrews 11, 1 John 1, 1 John 4:7-9. The rest of the Bible, especially the Gospels and Acts, is also good, and should be read, but probably these passages should be absorbed first. Teach that Christians disagree over the meaning of some Bible passages, but the main message of the Bible is clear. We shouldn’t expect to understand all of scripture. Bible study and teaching will increase our understanding. 
7. Teach that Christ’s death and resurrection is the only remedy for sin. There is nothing we can do to save ourselves, except accept God’s grace by faith. (Ephesians 2:1-10) However, accepting Christ’s sacrifice, and following Him, will lead to good works, such as giving, helping, befriending and discipling others.
8. Teach that God expects us to become part of a Christ-honoring church. Such a group won’t be perfect, but we should be part of it.
9. Teach that Satan will continue to try to discourage and defeat believers, but that there is no temptation that we can’t overcome. (1 Corinthians 10:6-13). If we do sin, there is forgiveness. (1 John 1:9.)
10. Teach that although salvation gives us hope of heaven, that’s not its main purpose. The main purpose is to enable us to live a victorious life – a Christ-like one, full of joy, now. (Ephesians 3:14-21, John 10:10.)
11. Teach that salvation does not guarantee that bad things won’t happen. But God cares for us in those times, whether we feel like He does or not. He cares so much that He died for us, and God the Holy Spirit comforts and guides us.
12. Teach that the Bible does not tell us how, when or why the universe came to be, but that it is here because of a Who – there is a purpose in the universe.
13. Discipling doesn’t mean reproducing our personal convictions, our slant on things that Christians disagree on, or our politics and prejudices. That would be making my disciples, or yours, not Christ’s.
14. See the most important guideline, at the top of the page.

Thanks for reading! Any suggestions would be appreciated. I thank a member of a small group I am part of for a suggestion, which has been incorporated above.

The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

I recently re-read (after a long time) From The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, a Newbery Award winning book. I won't give away the plot. You can look at the link in the first sentence if you want to know more about that.

I will say that the book is about adventure, and establishing relationships. And it is also a message to children, and to everyone, about learning, and processing that learning, and wisdom. Here's a quotation:

I think you should learn, of course, and some days you must learn a great deal. But you should also have days when you allow what is already in you to swell up inside of you until it touches everything. And you can feel it inside you. If you never take time out to let that happen, then you just accumulate facts, and they begin to rattle around inside of you. You can make noise with them, but never really feel anything with them. It’s hollow. - Mrs. Frankweiler to the children.

Thanks for reading.

I'm thankful for ignorance.

I'm thankful for ignorance -- mine, not yours -- because it's fun learning new things, or re-learning things I've forgotten, and I think that doing so is part of the image of God in humans. Babies are learning stuff all the time, so it's normal to want to learn things. We sometimes wonder, "What good is it to accumulate knowledge?" But there is potential good in learning.

I'm also thankful for God's ignorance. He forgets forgiven sin!

It is possible that God has set limits on knowing, in the universe that He has created, such that even He, abiding by those limits, does not know everything. I am referring to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. I don't, if you will excuse the expression, know whether God is able to supersede the limits to human knowledge set by that principle. I also refer to the incompleteness theorems of Kurt Gödel, which say, more or less, that any mathematical system will be based, in part, on ideas, axioms, or statements that can't be proved -- in other words, there will always be doubt as to the rigor and consistency of mathematics. Again, I think it possible that God knows whether any axiom or statement is true or not, but it is also possible that God is Self-limited in this area, too.

It is also possible that God allows real randomness in the universe.

Thanks for reading! I learn things, or re-learn things, in the process of blogging.

What good is accumulating knowledge?

I recently got a message from someone I don't know, who has been reading this blog. The reader had some questions, which were related to dementia, in someone dear to that reader. Here is one of them: "If our knowledge is in the end destroyed with our minds, then is it useful to accumulate it?"

This is my attempt at an answer:

Almost the same argument could be made for other human activities, such as, say, eating and having children. Nothing that most people do will survive much beyond their death, including the knowledge they have picked up. (A few will pass on some poem, or painting, or music, or some idea -- the latter often without anyone knowing where it came from.) Our children, or some succeeding generation, will eventually forget us, except for genealogy addicts, and even they won't really know much about us. But, in spite of that seeming futility, I believe that God has created us in His image, and part of that image causes us to want to learn, to discover.

Why did God do that? I can only guess. There is some potential for some of the knowledge that we have picked up over our life to be passed on to others, as in a book written, a new way of preparing food, an invention, or some other intellectual product. We may also make a living, using our knowledge. We may help to protect our children from danger, or make other people's lives better, because of the knowledge we have acquired. We also ought to glorify God through our knowledge. In my own poor way, that's what I'm trying to do with this blog.

I think we should have purposes for our lives, and collecting and dispensing knowledge can be a worthy goal, even if we know that that won't make a lasting difference.

C. S. Lewis preached a sermon, "Learning in War-time," in 1939, as the second World War was beginning in Europe. (The essay is published in The Weight of Glory.) In that sermon, Lewis said that each Christian "must ask himself how it is right, or even psychologically possible, for creatures who are every moment advancing either to heaven or to hell, to spend any fraction of the little time allowed them in this world on such comparative trivialities as literature or art, mathematics or biology. If human culture can stand up to that, it can stand up to anything."

He also said that "An appetite for these things exists in the human mind, and God makes no appetite in vain. We can therefore pursue knowledge as such, and beauty, as such, in the sure confidence that by so doing we are either advancing to the vision of God ourselves or indirectly helping others to do so."

So, if Lewis was right, and I believe he was, accumulating knowledge, in an unselfish, humble way, is part of what God made us, and wants us, to do, even though most of what we learn won't survive us, and a lot of it won't even last as long as we do, especially if we suffer from dementia.

I thank that reader, and hope that this further response is helpful.

Sunspots 296

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

Humor: Katherine eats out, with her family, in a restaurant where you can't see anything.

Science: Carl Zimmer tells us that, under certain conditions, a body in a grave can turn into soap.

A study shows that students learn better if the handouts they are given are not in a plain font like this one, or this one, but in a "disfluent" font, like Comic Sans. Interesting, for sure.

Computing: David Pogue, of the New York Times, discusses how our obsession with replacing our electronic gadgets frequently impacts the environment, and what, if anything, to do about this. 

Image source (public domain)

Sunspots 229

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

  

Science:
Wired tells us that a 48 pound trout has been caught. Is this fish a record? Well, maybe not. It was from genetically engineered stock.

Carl Zimmer, in Discover, on the neuroanatomy of sexual desire.

Wired reports that the ancestors of Tyrannosaurus rex may have been about your size, or mine.

Christianity:
From Threads from Henry's Web: "God can teach me through my stupidity, my carelessness, or my stubbornness. But if I become convinced that I have nothing to learn, that I have nailed down all the details, learning will stop."

From He Lives: ". . . there is no secular or humanist model of free will." (italics in original)


Image source (public domain)

Play in the Bible

Carl Zimmer, an important science writer, recently wrote about the function and origin of play in animals, in Forbes. Since play is rather widely distributed in vertebrates, it must confer some positive benefits. (The article says that reptiles don't play. It doesn't mention fish, but I am not aware of any play behavior in such animals. Many birds and mammals play.) Zimmer supposes that play helps social animals to bond with each other, enables them to sharpen their skills, and to learn about the environment around them. The same is true of humans. A human child, and probably a human adult, who has no time to play, or lives in an environment that doesn't allow it, is seriously handicapped.

So what is play? Zimmer doesn't define it. The Wikipedia article admits that defining play is difficult. The Free Dictionary has many definitions for play, as both a verb and a noun. Let's say that you and I know what it is, and I won't try to define it carefully, either. Play is something like "an amusing diversion, especially for or by children."

I checked the Bible. Most of the occurrences of the word "play" in the ESV, at any rate, do not match the definition above. Several uses are about performing on a musical instrument, and the most common use is some variation of "play the harlot," in Old Testament prophecies about Israel's disloyalty to God.

There are a few times when the Bible uses play, referring to children, and a couple of the references are to animals playing.

In Job 41, God, speaking to Job, refers to children playing, as if it is natural. In Matthew 11:16-17, Jesus refers to children as having playmates. Isaiah's description of the Peaceable Kingdom includes the idea of children playing. Zechariah's vision of the new, restored Jerusalem also mentions children playing. God seems to think that play is natural, and presumably beneficial. Heaven may include play, depending on what aspect of the future Isaiah and Zechariah were describing.

Here is one of the references to animal play:
Psalm 104:25 Here is the sea, great and wide,
which teems with creatures innumerable,
living things both small and great.
26 There go the ships,
and Leviathan, which you formed to play in it.

(There is an alternate reading of verse 26, but it doesn't change the meaning of play. I don't know what animal Leviathan is, or was, and I don't think anyone else knows for certain, either.)

Here's the other:

Job 40:20, describing the place where Behemoth can be found, says:
20 For the mountains yield food for him
where all the wild beasts play.

(I don't know what Behemoth is, or was, either, but it seems clear that it is some sort of animal.)

I suspect that Zimmer is correct (He isn't the first to have had this idea, of course) that animal play bestows some advantage on the animals. My guess is that God invented the idea of play, as well as inventing laughter, and joy. I can't prove this. C. S. Lewis, among others, supposes, in The Screwtape Letters, that these things are the inventions of God. I think he was right. I think some play is good for us. (Too much isn't, at least for adults.) God must have meant children and animals to play, and, I think, he also meant for adults to amuse themselves and others.

My wife often says of me, even when I am doing something really serious, like writing this blog, that I am "playing at" the computer. Perhaps you are playing at one too, right now. Thanks for playing here. I guess I am bonding, at least a little. Perhaps I'm learning skills, too. Whether or not I am, it can be fun. Thank you, God!

* * * *

Added August 3, 2013: In reading this post, I noted that I didn't refer to the courtship behavior (actual or figurative, or both) described in the Song of Solomon, aka Song of Songs, as a sort of playing. Perhaps it's just as well that I didn't!

Thanks for reading.